dual personalities

Month: April, 2021

Surrexit dominus de sepulchro*

by chuckofish

Well, Good Friday is here. Let’s all take a moment.

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Christina Rosetti

Tonight we will watch Ben Hur (1959) up to the intermission, finishing tomorrow. It’s a good tradition.

On Saturday we are having a wee luncheon for one of daughter #1’s friends from college who has moved to our flyover city. She is expecting twins, so we thought we would introduce her to our twins– a glimpse of Things To Come.

Remember?

Daughter #1 and I are going to church on Sunday–for the first time in a year I am somewhat ashamed to say. I have been worshipping–if you can rightly call it that–by visiting churches online for the past year and by listening to online sermons. It is far from the same thing, however, and we all need to get back on track. We will be visiting a new church, a Presbyterian Church. We’ll see how it goes.

Sunday is also our pater’s birthday. He would be 99! To have been born in 1922 doesn’t seem that long ago, but it is!

ANC III was a lifelong Episcopalian with a Monica-like mother who I’m sure prayed mightily for his salvation. Whether her prayers were answered, I have no idea. But I will lift a toast to him on Sunday and sigh deeply. I hardly knew ye.

In other news, our neighbors across the street were TP’d overnight. (I never heard a thing.) Kind of a lame attempt, really, and such a shocking waste of toilet paper!

And on a week night! Zut alors. I am reminded again that some things never change.

Have a blessed weekend.

Almighty God, who through your only‑begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life‑giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

BCP

*He is risen from the grave

(The window is in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Key West, FL.)

Ever-returning spring*

by chuckofish

It’s Thursday again — and a new month!

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

I am an annoying person who says “April is the cruellest month” about basically anything regarding the academic calendar (fellowship rejections in graduate school, budget season in administrative life) but outside of work we are certainly enjoying spring — even the rain, which is causing all of the trees to burst into bloom and that unreal shade of green to pop up everywhere.

Katie is close to 10 months old, and I am excited to be in the midst of birthday season in our family. We have some big ones coming up!

The news around here is that Katie has been to a playground and sat in the swing a couple of times. There may have been squealing!

“It’s cool, I’m cool.”

In addition to keeping very good balance in a bucket seat while swinging through the air, Katie also shows her strength while practicing standing. She is getting quite close to pulling herself up, though for now she mostly just pulls into a little kickstand position.

I am confident that before we know it, she’ll be climbing up the walls of her “pen” —

Cue the Great Escape whistle theme…

and really getting into trouble.

Speaking of trouble, I had to go to the doctor on Monday about some eye pain — turns out Katie scratched my cornea! You could probably say it’s my own fault for not tending to her nails well enough. She has quite a mean swipe! It isn’t too bad — just a week of eyeball ointment and Zoom meetings with no makeup. Lovely for my vanity, but I forgive her!

“I love my mommy. And the Aquaphor lid.”

*my preferred poem about lilacs, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooyard Bloom’d”