March | 2013 | dual personalities

March 30, 2013

Easter is not just about candy,

by chuckofish

although as my dual personality can corroborate, I’ve never been able to resist an Easter basket for long. Back in the day I tended to finish my basket in a day or two. You can see in this picture

Easter 1964

that I probably had a stomach ache from too much chocolate. By contrast, my sister took weeks to finish her candy and sometimes never did (especially if the dog got it first). That’s why she grew up to look like this:

Katie circa 1974

and, well, why I didn’t. Despite the sweet tooth, as a child I took Easter very seriously. It was my favorite holiday in part because of the movie, “King of Kings,” which I thought was awesome. It was a big shock when in college I discovered how bad it really is, but when I saw the movie for the first time, I was smitten — it was the music that really got to me. I was so afraid I would forget the main theme that I hummed it constantly for days until I was sure I wouldn’t forget. It worked. I know it by heart the way I know old phone numbers or the poems I had to memorize for school. And if the movie itself didn’t stand the test of time, the music still moves. I had trouble finding exactly the right bit, but you’ll get the idea.

I leave you with a beautiful passage from Frederick Buechner, to whose brilliant insights my dual personality introduced my many years ago.

There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody’s voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?
― Frederick Buechner

Happy Easter!!

5 Comments

March 29, 2013

The heart in thee

by chuckofish

“Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence. It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. He has not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears, and adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. In the presence of law to his mind he is overflowed with a reliance so universal that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable projects of mortal condition in its flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Over-Soul”

This is a long quote, but I hope you read the whole thing and did not skim. Dear daughter #2 shared this quote with me yesterday with the suggestion that “it’s nice to fall back on the Transcendentalist ideas if the institution of the church is failing you.” I guess my recent posts had her a little worried. But fear not, my relationship with the Episcopal Church, though a love/hate one, is a long-term one. From time to time I threaten to leave, but I probably won’t. I just continue to lower my expectations!

Thanks also to daughter #2 for sending her old mama some new music!

Josh Ritter and Trampled by Turtles! Great choices for me, especially the TBT–nothing gets me going in the morning like 21st century bluegrass! Here is my favorite song, titled appropriately “Walt Whitman”:

This song gets my Barbara Stanwyck alter ego all charged up and ready to go. Sometimes I think my driving may suffer, but so far so good.

Happy Easter and have a great weekend!

2 Comments

March 28, 2013

Rend your hearts, and not your garments

by chuckofish

I regret to say that as Lent comes to a close I haven’t blogged about or even mentioned my usual Lenten movie watching traditions, because, alas, I haven’t watched any of my favorite Lenten movies! Last year I wrote about them here and here and of course here.

Indeed, it hasn’t been a typical Lent. In fact, the only thing I gave up for Lent was going to church! Sigh. Well, anyway, I will definitely watch Ben Hur on Good Friday.

Earlier in March I did try to watch The Bible, the television miniseries produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett on the History Channel, but I really couldn’t watch more than 15 minutes. Myeh.

Perhaps this weekend I will watch some of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, the miniseries first aired in 1977 which I like very much. It has a wonderful script by Anthony Burgess and I like Robert Powell as the unblinking Jesus.

Also memorable are Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus, my girl Claudia Cardinale as the Adulteress, Ralph Richardson as Simeon, and Ian McShane as Judas. James Farentino (!) as Peter and Ann Bancroft as Mary Magdalene, prove that, although it helps, you don’t have to be British to star in a biblical film. They are both wonderful.

Speaking of favorite biblical miniseries–I love Peter and Paul, a 1981 biblical drama starring Anthony Hopkins as Paul of Tarsus.

Ever since first watching it in 1981, whenever I read the words of Paul, I hear them spoken in Hopkins’ Welsh accent.

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

“For thy sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 31-39

Well, we all worship in our own way.

3 Comments

March 27, 2013

An unfortunate symptom and some good advice

by chuckofish

“I think I’d like to say only that [people] should learn to be alone and try to spend as much time as possible by themselves. I think one of the faults of young people today is that they try to come together around events that are noisy, almost aggressive at times. This desire to be together in order to not feel alone is an unfortunate symptom, in my opinion. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to be spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself because people who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger, from a self-esteem point of view.”

–Russian filmmaker and writer Andrei Tarkovsky

[Found here.]

And P.S. This is our 500th post! Salut!

7 Comments

March 26, 2013

“In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.” *

by chuckofish

In weather news the National Weather Service said 12.4 inches fell here on Sunday, beating the one-day record for St. Louis of 12.1 inches set one hundred years ago on March 24, 1912. Woohoo! The high Monday reached the mid 30s, compared with a high of 76 degrees a year ago on that date and 59 the normal high on March 25.

Yesterday I decided to venture forth into our flyover landscape which was draped in the fluffy white stuff. I decided that such an expedition warranted the wearing of my size 5 1/2 Fabiano hiking boots that I wore everyday when I was a junior at Williams College back in the day. They are one of the few things that still fits from my college days–haha! As you can imagine, I do not have many occasions to wear them anymore.

Tromping about in the snow is one of my favorite things to do, and there was much to see in the winter wonderland that is our yard.

This is a flower pot on the front porch:

I wonder how the birds are who live in this rhododendron bush?

This chair looks like it is upholstered in snow!

I guess these guys will have to wait a little longer to adorn the garden.

“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.”

― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

The dual personalities frolicking in the snow circa 1964

The dual personalities frolicking in the snow with their older brother circa 1964

Let it snow! We’ll be roasting here before you know it.

*Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse

4 Comments

March 25, 2013

This and that

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? After an eventful and busy week at work, I was hoping for a quiet weekend, and due in large part to Mother Nature, I was successful.

On Saturday I went to a couple of estate sales and was able to pick up a few things which I will give as presents to daughters # 1 and 2 this year. I picked up a few Captain Alatriste books for myself.

After estate saling I got my hair cut and my hairdresser gave me spiritual advice about looking for another church after I confessed to her that I was unhappy with my church and, dare I say, my denomination. “Stay and pray,” she said, which I thought was very good advice and I will try to follow it.

All week we were warned by our various flyover weather pundits about a snow storm that was bound to hit on Sunday.

For once, they were spot on and I spent the day puttering around my house. As you know, there is nothing I like better. I also love to sit and watch it snow, so I did a lot of that.

I finished The Age of Doubt, a good mystery by Andrea Camilleri about my favorite Italian detective, Inspector Montalbano. I also received the April issue of Garden & Gun on Friday so I caught up on all things southern-hipster.

I also watched Time Bandits (1981), Terry Gilliam’s charming fantasy about a clever but “untidy” boy (Kevin) who joins a group of dwarves who have stolen a map from the Supreme Being. They jump from time period to time period looking for treasure to steal.

That’s God on the left.

This movie is a wonderful discourse about good and evil wherein we are reminded that “God does not care about technology” and that the existence of evil “has something to do with free will.” And Ralph Richardson in a three piece suit is and always shall be my perfect image of the Supreme Being.

…and more snow!

We ended up with 12.4″–our biggest snow since the huge snow of 1982! No school today.

3 Comments

March 23, 2013

Time for a cup of tea and some oatcakes

by chuckofish

While we’re drinking our tea, let’s fortify our souls with some beautiful pictures of Scotland, which son #2 recently visited

and where I would transport myself instantly if such a thing were possible.

Looking at these pictures brings to mind family history (of course) and also of one of my favorite books, Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, in which he reminds us that his story, like all our own,

is the story of lives which turned out differently than was intended.

And while that truth frequently involves pain and serious trials, it also is worth contemplating from a positive angle. If things always turned out as we imagined, think of what we all would have missed!

I’ll take the surprises — good and bad — thank you very much. How about you?

3 Comments

March 21, 2013

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest

by chuckofish

On this day in 1556 Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake at Oxford. At the very end, he repudiated his final letter of submission, and announced that he died a Protestant. He said, “I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn.” And when the fire was lit around his feet, he leaned forward and held his right hand in the fire until it was charred to a stump. Aside from this, he did not speak or move, except that once he raised his left hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Cranmer is commemorated in the Anglican Communion as a Reformation Martyr on 21 March.

Merciful God, through the work of Thomas Cranmer you renewed the worship of your Church by restoring the language of the people, and through his death you revealed your power in human weakness: Grant that by your grace we may always worship you in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

“Cranmer said to him, when they were talking late one night, St. Augustine says we need not ask where our home is, because in the end we all come home to God.”
–Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

4 Comments

March 20, 2013

At least we amuse ourselves

by chuckofish

Feb. 3, 1859 “The writer must to some extent inspire himself. Most of his sentences may at first lie dead in his essay, but when all are arranged, some life and color will be reflected on them from the mature and successful lines; they will appear to pulsate with fresh life, and he will be enabled to eke out their slumbering sense, and make them worthy of the neighborhood.”

Feb. 20, 1859 “How much the writer lives and endures in coming before the public so often! A few years or books are with him equal to a long life of experience, suffering, etc. It is well if he does not become hardened. He learns how to bear contempt and to despise himself. He makes, as it were, post-mortem examination of himself before he is dead. Such is art.”

–H.D. Thoreau, A Writer’s Journal

I wonder what old Thoreau would have thought of blogging? I think it would have suited him, don’t you? A laptop in a little cabin in the woods.

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March 19, 2013

Here’s to the hearts an’ the hands of the men, that come with the dust and are gone with the wind*

by chuckofish

Today in 1962 Bob Dylan’s self-titled debut album was released by Columbia Records.

That was 51 years ago.

US sales totaled about 2500 copies. Bob Dylan remains Dylan’s only release not to chart at all in the US, though it eventually reached #13 in the UK charts in 1965. Despite the album’s poor performance, financially it was not disastrous because the album was very cheap to record.

Since then he has released something like 35 albums. He has won many awards throughout his career including 11 Grammy Awards, one Academy Award and one Golden Globe Award. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. Last year he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And still he is the same old Bob Dylan driving reporters crazy, refusing to tow the line and give them the answers they want to hear.

Your fans know you and love you, Bob. We know that the Holy Spirit did not tap you on the shoulder. He kicked you in the ass. And you have been praising the Lord ever since.

* Song to Woody

3 Comments

Month: March, 2013

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