dual personalities

Month: April, 2019

April 5, 2019

“Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness”*

by chuckofish

Another busy week (almost) in the books. Phew.

And I have exciting plans for the weekend! Today daughter #2 is flying home for a long weekend! Huzzah! We will celebrate her birthday and also cheer on daughter #1 and the boy as they race in the Go! St. Louis half-marathon on Sunday.

I will also note that daughter #1, who always takes a Xanax before getting on a plane, and had always sworn she would never ever fly on a small craft, flew in a little plane (sans Xanax) with her boss to a work event in Springfield the other day.

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Yay! She did it! (I guess this is jet-setting, mid-MO style.)

Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again. It is the groom who knows the jumping horse well who can safely ride him.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage”

But don’t forget the bottom line: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13, for Pete’s sake)

Have a good weekend! And I couldn’t resist this…

What can happen to an Old-Fashioned?

Isaiah 41:10

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April 4, 2019

Mutual incomprehension

by chuckofish

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Today is our father’s birthday. He would have been 97!

I have forgiven my father for a lot and forgotten even more.

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I am grateful to him for tying the knot with my mother and for going to work all those years and supporting us when he might have been doing something else. We were a boisterous trio of kids and we annoyed him frequently, if not endlessly. That’s the impression he gave anyway. I wish he could have enjoyed us more. I think all fathers should enjoy their children. They grow up pretty fast and move on and have children of their own.

Well, I know for a fact that the boy enjoys his children.

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May it always be so.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; 5 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

–Deuteronomy 6:4-9

(Pssst. A frontlet is a decorative band or ornament worn on the forehead.)

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April 3, 2019

Quietness of heart

by chuckofish

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“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.”
― Andrew Murray

Sixty years of ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, more than 200 books and tracts on Christian spirituality and ministry, extensive social work, and the founding of educational institutions—all these were outward signs of the inward grace that Andrew Murray experienced by continually casting himself on Christ.

“May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love, and joy of God’s presence,” was his prayer. “And not a moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel for him to fill full of his Spirit and his love.”

The woodblock print is by Frances Hammell Gearhart.

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April 2, 2019

“You’re a very fine swan indeed! “*

by chuckofish

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“To be born in a duck’s nest in a farmyard is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan’s egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the newcomer and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome.”

–Hans Christian Andersen, “The Ugly Duckling” (1843)

Some say that Andersen considered this story to be autobiographical. As a child, he was mocked for his big nose and large feet, as well as for his beautiful singing voice and love of theater. There were also rumors that Hans Christian Andersen was the illegitimate son of King Christian VIII of Denmark! It is a story that many children can relate to on some level–at least those who feel excluded in some way from their peers.

Anyway, today is the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875), the great Danish writer, who is the author of many personal favorites. Our mother could not read through “The Little Match Girl” without weeping, which was quite disconcerting to me as a small child.

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I will toast him tonight and perhaps listen to Danny Kaye singing about the Ugly Duckling…

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Man oh man, the things people put on YouTube!

*Frank Loesser, “The Ugly Duckling”

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April 1, 2019

“Run the straight race through God’s good grace”*

by chuckofish

It rained most of Saturday; our front yard is a pond again. But daughter #1 drove in to town on Saturday morning to go to an event that night, so we went out in the rain to a really good estate sale where we made out like bandits, limited only by the size of my car and our puritanical sense of restraint.

She got a really nice chair and a lamp and I got a mirror…

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and a vintage waste basket. It was one of those houses where an Episcopalian has lived for 50 years and it all looks and feels extremely familiar to me right down to the books and records, collections, art and furniture.

Daughter #1 went home to mid-MO on Sunday morning, having led her trivia team to victory (First Place!) at the Mercy Hospital NICU trivia night fundraiser, along with the boy and daughter #3 and some of their friends. I stayed home and watched Move Over, Darling (1963) with Doris Day, which went along nicely with my self-comforting plans.

The wee babes and their parents came over for Sunday night dinner. The OM tried out his new barbecue, which he had spent all weekend putting together.

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The burgers and hotdogs turned out nicely!

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And the Florida room is open for business!

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Another busy week commences and a new month! As usual, I’m taking it one day at a time.

*John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-1875)

Fight the good fight with all thy might!

Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right;

Lay hold on life, and it shall be

Thy joy and crown eternally.

Run the straight race through God’s good grace,

Lift up thine eyes, and seek His face;

Life with its way before us lies,

Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.

Cast care aside, lean on thy Guide;

His boundless mercy will provide;

Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove

Christ is its life, and Christ its love.

Faint not nor fear, His arms are near,

He changeth not, and thou art dear;

Only believe, and thou shalt see

That Christ is all in all to thee.

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