Tally ho!

by chuckofish

It’s Friday and I am very excited because daughter #2 and baby Katie are arriving tomorrow for a quick visit. How great is that? Thankfully we have gotten through all the snow and cold temps and we should be able to enjoy some nice sit-outside weather.

In other news, my DP gave me this book for my birthday and I have been flying through it.

Scary stuff, harrowing stuff, but we knew that about the Comanches already. (I had a hunch that Larry McMurtry wasn’t exaggerating. He must have read Rachel Plummer’s journal.) Read it, if you can take it. There is no sugar-coating and excuse-making for the Comanches’ behavior. There is plenty of context. I am enjoying it a lot.

I watched two Humphrey Bogart movies this week: The African Queen (1951) and The Oklahoma Kid (1939). I enjoyed them both a lot. The African Queen is a classic, of course, and I have seen it many times. I had not seen the latter in 50 or so years–not since the Humphrey Bogart Theater on channel 11 days of my childhood. It also stars James Cagney as the eponymous hero. He is a little weird (and short) in a western, but I have grown to appreciate him in my dotage. He had a style all his own, even in high-heeled cowboy boots.

This was a thought-provoking piece. “How does a person become a saint? By grace alone. To argue otherwise questions what the Bible has to say about people and about saints. A true saint is not someone we strive to imitate, but someone who shows us a clearer picture of what it means to be a sinner saved by God.”

This reminded me that The Selfish Giant was one of the boy’s favorite stories and deeply affected him as a child. “And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

BCP

Enjoy your weekend! Make good choices!