dual personalities

Month: February, 2017

February 16, 2017

A February face

by chuckofish

“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”
–  William Shakespeare,  Much Ado About Nothing

Cheer up. February is not so bad.

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It is a good month to go to the art museum of your choice…

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…or to a flea market…

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…or to watch old movies…

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…or to study scripture…

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…to have a hot toddy before bed like Mark Twain…

And, oh, hey…

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The Cards are back on the field.

Thank you, Instagram, for the pictures. Have a great Thursday! And put a smile on that February face.

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February 15, 2017

“And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast”*

by chuckofish

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Today the Episcopal Church remembers Thomas Bray, Anglican priest and missionary, who died in 1730.

In 1696 Bray, an Oxford professor as well as a priest, was commissioned by the Bishop of London (Henry Compton) to report on the condition of the Church in the colony of Maryland. He spent only ten weeks in the colony, but he radically re-organized and renewed the Church there, providing for the instruction of children and the systematic examination of candidates for pastoral positions. He founded thirty-nine lending libraries and numerous schools. He fought long to get an American bishop consecrated, but failed. He founded two of our church’s most effective missionary organizations, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (now United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), both still in operation after two and a half centuries.

Back in England, he worked for the reform of prison conditions, and for the establishment of preaching missions to prisoners. He persuaded General Oglethorpe to found an American colony (Georgia) for the settlement of debtors as an alternative to debtors’ prison. Both in Maryland and upon his return to England, he wrote and preached in defense of the rights of enslaved Africans, and of Indians deprived of their land.

O God of compassion, you opened the eyes of your servant Thomas Bray to see the needs of the Church in the New World, and led him to found societies to meet those needs: Make the Church in this land diligent at all times to propagate the Gospel among those who have not received it, and to promote the spread of Christian knowledge; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

So hats off and a toast to the good reverend Bray. He was quite a guy.

*”I sing a song of the saints of God” by Lesbia Scott (1898–1986)

6 Comments
February 14, 2017

Love never ends

by chuckofish

Looking for a romantic movie to watch tonight? Good luck.

Here’s a list from Vanity Fair that isn’t terrible. It even includes some old movies, which most lists don’t. I don’t agree with a lot of it, but why quibble–although it’s difficult to validate any list which includes the dreadful An Affair to Remember (1957).

What amazes me is that the most romantic movie ever is not on it. What about The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland?

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I sent this movie to daughter #2 and her fiancé so they could watch it together tonight. Nate is woefully ignorant when it comes to old movies–but think of what he has to look forward to!

Also missing from this list is Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)–I know I sound like a broken record, but c’mon. I saw this movie again recently and Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard are tops in this film.

Another movie which I  re-watched recently that is surprisingly quite romantic is The Best Years of Their Lives (1946). All three of the returning G.I.’s have romantic storylines. There’s  Myrna Loy and Frederick March as the reunited middle aged couple and there’s dreamy Dana Andrews realizing what a big mistake he made in his quickie war marriage, who finds true love with Teresa Wright. And then there’s poor Harold Russell, who has lost both of his hands in the war, discovering that his high school sweetheart Cathy O’Donnell still wants him.

BEST YEARS-16-L.jpg This is powerful stuff.

Well, to each his own. Maybe you will have something better to do than watch a romantic movie on Valentine’s Day! More power to you.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13)

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February 13, 2017

“Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of the hour”*

by chuckofish

Spring seemed on the verge of arriving this weekend with temps in the 70s and new life bursting forth all over.

Screen Shot 2017-02-12 at 2.55.05 PM.pngBut this happens every year and we know not to be fooled–the cold weather will return.

The OM and I went to see the wee babes this weekend according to our new routine.

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The little gal thinks, “My, Pappy, what big glasses you have!”

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As you can see, they are making great strides and are mastering the “suck, swallow, breath” drill. Even the little guy, who is still only 4 lbs, 8 oz., is beginning to have that chubby baby look at last. They are doing fine.

I went to church and there were very few people there. (I wondered whether people thought going to Joe’s funeral on Thursday let them off the hook.) After church, I had lunch with my pals and we marveled at how busy we are. I did find time over the weekend to finish The Transit of Venus. You know, it takes longer to read a book to which you have to pay such close attention. I felt while reading it that I was just barely smart enough to appreciate it.

You might have said, What beauty. Instead Caro introduced herself. Monosyllables were planted like bollards, closing every avenue. The boy had not forgotten what to say: he had chosen a part with no lines. He was cool, and except for the wrists, unruffled. One talked as if to a child. “What’s your name, where do you go to school?” His name was Felix, and he was to go somewhere–no doubt Oxford, or doubtless Cambridge–in the autumn. When someone else came up he disappeared instantly, having somehow stuck it out till then.

Shirley Hazzard, wow.

Now it is Monday again. Take it slow. Savor the moment. Live in the now.

*Hymn #594, Harry Emerson Fosdick

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February 11, 2017

Time, like an ever rolling stream*

by chuckofish

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Nothing endures, all is endless flux,
Each wandering shape a pilgrim passing by.
And time itself glides on the ceaseless flow,
A rolling stream – and streams can never stay.
As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.

Ovid, Metamorphosis (trans. A.D. Melville. Oxford, 1986: p. 28)

The painting is a 1st century AD Roman fresco from Stabiae. It is in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

*Isaac Watts, “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”. It looks like Mr. Watts knew his Ovid.

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February 10, 2017

“Southstreet, give your testimony.”*

by chuckofish

I went to a funeral at our church yesterday. Joe was a real pillar of the church, a former vestryman, junior warden, senior warden, softball coach, scoutmaster–you name it, he did it. He was in church last Sunday, sitting as usual a few pews behind me, so when I heard the news on Monday, I was a little freaked out. He died on Sunday night in his recliner, watching an old movie. (John Wayne was his favorite.)

All three of his sons spoke lovingly of their dad before the service. All three are Eagle Scouts and active churchmen. Impressive. Joe was always there for them, “present” as they said; something that I’m afraid is rare these days.

For 40 years Joe and his wife had a party at their house every Christmas Eve after the children’s service at church for all the misfits at church who didn’t have family in town. We went to this party for over 10 years. Sometimes my children were slightly chagrined to be associated with some of the kids who were there–other misfits like us. But I know that now, from their more mature  perspectives, they look back fondly on those Christmas Eves and on Joe who would talk to anybody–even awkward middle schoolers.

The church, of course, was packed for the memorial service–as one of his sons said, like Christmas or Easter! Of course it was. Joe had friends from high school, his college fraternity, work, volunteer work, scouts, and church. I held out until the last hymn–“Amazing Grace” with bagpipe accompaniment–and then wept openly. The boy was with me and he  patted my shoulder. Joe, after all, had been at his Court of Honor and at his wedding. He knows they broke the mold with Joe.

But thankfully it’s Friday again! I am really looking forward to the weekend, aren’t you?

I get to see the wee babes who have been moved to another section (“the yellow side”) of the NICU and are down to 2% on their oxygen–practically room air! They are sleeping in open cribs and their parents can pick them up and hold them like regular babies now.

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Pretty exciting!

If you are trying to think of something good to watch this weekend, you might pick something written and/or directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) whose birthday is tomorrow. Among his films are The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), All About Eve (1950), Guys and Dolls (1955) and Cleopatra (1963).

guys-and-dolls-27443You can’t go wrong there.

It is also the anniversary of the death of Henry Hathaway (1898-1985) who directed The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Legend of the Lost (1957), North to Alaska (1960), How the West Was Won (1962), Circus World (1964), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), True Grit (1969) and many others.

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Can’t go wrong with Steve, but I may have to watch one of those John Wayne classics and raise a glass to Joe.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Joe. At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem.

*Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls

3 Comments
February 9, 2017

A quiet heart

by chuckofish

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In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. (Isaiah 30:15)

It is always weakness to be fretting and worrying, questioning and mis-trusting. What can we do if we wear ourselves to skin and bone? Can we gain anything by fearing and fuming? Do we not unfit ourselves for action and unhinge our minds for wise decision? We are sinking by our struggles when we might float by faith.

Oh, for grace to be quiet! Why run from house to house to repeat the weary story which makes us more and more heart-sick as we tell it? Why even stay at home to cry out in agony because of wretched forebodings which may never be fulfilled? It would be well to keep a quiet tongue, but it would be far better if we had a quiet heart. Oh, to be still and know that Jehovah is God!

Oh, for grace to be confident in God! The holy One of Israel must defend and deliver His own. He cannot run back from His solemn declarations. We may make sure that every word of His will stand though the mountains should depart. He deserves to be confided in; and if we would display confidence and consequent quietness, we might be as happy as the spirits before the throne.

Come, my soul, return unto thy rest, and lean thy head upon the bosom of the Lord Jesus.

–C.H. Spurgeon, Faith’s Checkbook

One thing I have learned as I get older is that worrying gets us nowhere.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

(Matt 6:25-27)

Not worrying takes work. And  patience. And faith.

Trusting that God is in control is key. And also freeing. Thy will be done.

Blue and White Tea Cups by Laura Lacambra Shubert (Pinterest)

3 Comments
February 8, 2017

“War is hell.”

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of William Tecumseh Sherman (known as “Cump” to his friends and “Uncle Billy” to his men)–famous American general and Episcopalian.

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He was a great friend to our cousin U.S. Grant and had his back in war and in peace. Like Grant, he had a reputation for “hard” warfare, but also, like Grant, was generous in victory.

“You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.”

He had no use for politicians or newspapermen.

“The American press is a shame and a reproach to a civilized people. When a man is too lazy to work and too cowardly to steal, he becomes an editor and manufactures public opinion.”

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Sherman being led by an angel at Grand Army Plaza, NYC, Saint-Gauden’s last major work

I have seen this statue in New York and it is pretty impressive.  INSCRIPTION: TO GENERAL / WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN / BORN FEB. 8, 1820 / DIED FEB. 14, 1891 / ERECTED BY CITIZENS OF NEW YORK / UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE / CHAMBER OF COMMERCE / OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK /

GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN / AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS, SCULPTOR / CHARLES FOLLEN MCKIM, ARCHITECT / 1903 /

He wasn’t perfect; who is? But I would want to be on his team come the apocalypse. I will toast him twice tonight.

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(The quotes are from his memoir, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, which is worth reading. Also worth reading is The March: A Novel by E.L. Doctorow.)

4 Comments
February 7, 2017

“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”

by chuckofish

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Today is the birthday of Charles Dickens (1812 –70) and we will toast the great author tonight. Perhaps when I finish my Shirley Hazzard novel, I will move on to a Dickens classic. I really should. Maybe I will.

You may recall that the great author made two trips to the U.S, touring in order to make some money while trying to deal with American publishers who continually pirated his works. During his first trip in 1842 he even visited my flyover town. Traveling from Cairo, Illinois by boat, he was unimpressed with the Mighty Mississippi, referring to it in his journals as a “foul stream.”

At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld…At the junction of the two rivers lies a breeding place of fever, ague, and death—vaunted in England as a mine of golden hope and speculated in on the faith of monstrous representations, to many people’s ruin. A dismal swamp on which half-built houses rot away, teeming with rank, unwholesome vegetation in whose baleful shade the wretched wanderers who area tempted thither droop and die and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, …a slimy monster, hideous to behold, a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulcher, a grave uncheered by any promise; a placer without a single quality in earth or air or water to commend it; such is the dismal Cairo.

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While visiting St. Louis, he voiced a desire to see the great American prairie, so he was taken by horse and carriage via ferry back to Illinois, by way of Belleville (“a small collection of wooden houses, huddled together in the very heart of the bush and swamp”) to Looking Glass Prairie (near modern day Lebanon). He was not impressed.

“The widely-famed Far West is not to be compared with even the tamest portions of Scotland or Wales. I am exceedingly fond of wild and lonely scenery, and believe that I have the faculty of being as much impressed by it as any man living. But the prairie fell, by far, short of my preconceived idea. I felt no such emotions as I do in crossing Salisbury plain. The excessive flatness of the scene makes it dreary, but tame.”

Well, sorry, we don’t have Stonehenge in southern Illinois. We do have mounds.

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Sorry you missed those, Charles.

He was probably just homesick.

There is a BBC documentary Dickens in America which follows Dickens’ travels across the United States in 1842, during which he penned a travel book, American Notes. This might be worth tracking down.

Quotes from American Notes for General Circulation.

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February 6, 2017

Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see*

by chuckofish

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Got to hold this little nugget this weekend. It felt real good.

I also gabbed on the phone with my dual personality and two daughters. I got my hair cut and put together two Valentine boxes to mail to the aforementioned daughters. I worked in the yard on Sunday when the temperatures soared into the fifties.

The boy came over and helped me take down one twin bed in his old room and haul it and the mattress down to the basement. Then, after carrying the pieces upstairs, he put together the antique double bed I bought at an estate sale last fall (remember?). He is one busy boy and I appreciate his coming over to help his old mother. We didn’t even give him dinner; he was headed somewhere afterwards.

I continued to read The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard–really such a treat.

The cicatrice of stitching on her gloves was an imprint on his brain. Earrings of pearl stared, white-eyed as fish. There was a streak of flowered scarf, inane, and the collar blue. Grief had a painter’s eye, assigning arbitrary meaning at random–like God.

We watched two  movies that are practically antiques–The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) and Captain Blood (1935)–but which, in all the years since they were made, have never been surpassed on so many levels of cinematic effort. We watched a bit of the Super Bowl because the OM wanted to. Truly, I haven’t cared about football since Kurt Warner was traded to Arizona. (Except for Peyton Manning and he retired.)

I felt very happy sitting in church on Sunday. Nothing/no one annoyed me. I will try to hold on to this feeling and carry it into the work week.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

*George Herbert, hymn #592

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