Mood. Yesterday my electricity went out shortly after I had finished doing my morning Bible reading. “Great,” I thought. “That’s just great.” Because, you know, when your electricity goes out, that means you can’t:
Get your car out of the garage;
do laundry or vacuum;
use the internet;
watch TV or listen to music;
use the dishwasher and a host of other electric appliances–
in fact, you are stuck.
I Swiffered the first floor and watered my plants. Then I started looking at some of my books in the living room (the room with the most natural light)…
and went through the drawers in the highboy.
I found something I had been looking for for some time–my husband’s family history. So that was fortuitous.
Eventually the electricity came back on in about two hours. Turns out, it was a planned outage–but no one told us about the plan. Thanks. But some good did come out of the annoying situation.
My life is like a watered garden.
The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
As previously noted, the summer has flown by and now it is almost September! Good grief, Charlie Brown!
My weekly Bible Study group has started up again. It is good to be back with these faithful ladies, although the prayer requests at the end of our meeting are a constant reminder of the dark world we live in full of sickness and depravity.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…
(2 Corinthians 4:16-17)
We are reading Even Better Than Eden: Nine ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything About Your Story by Nancy Guthrie, which takes us from Genesis through Revelation. It’s a departure from our usual format of reading one book of the Bible, but it should be interesting (and a lot of work!) I am also enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online course, “The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives.” I am halfway through and so far I am enjoying being “back in the classroom.” There are even quizzes!
This is a good one from Carl Trueman about “the isolated wasteland of modern life” and the opportunities the church has.
And I liked this one from Tim Challies about growing old. “It is in old age that the fruit that began to grow in the younger days finally comes to its ripeness.”
So do not lose heart, keep up with your Bible study and let the breeze mess up your hair!
Nashville sure has changed since we first went in 1996! And even in the five years since we last went in 2018–wow! So many tall glass buildings, so many tourists, so much partying and traffic and noise. You used to be able to walk around in the two square blocks where everything was, but now you really can’t. It is a real scene. Yes, Uber was a real good idea and daughter #1 is a whiz at getting around.
On Friday, after checking in to the very swanky Omni Hotel, we went to dinner at Bakersfield, then Uber’d to the Opry, which has not changed. We saw Ricky Skaggs, Deana Carter, Jeannie Seely, and Vince Gill, along with some up-and-comers.
It was a treat to hear good live music. However the Uber/taxi scene after the show was what I imagine Saturday night in Calcutta is like, but we managed.
On Saturday morning, we walked over to the Diner on 3rd Avenue that is 5 stories high.
We walked around on Broadway…
…and then went back to the hotel and to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum which is actually attached to the Omni. We saw the new Patty Loveless exhibit (and the Whispering Bill Anderson Exhibit) and then walked through the rest of the multi-level museum. It was full of great stuff!
We had tickets for the Patty Loveless sold-out concert/interview and daughter #1 got in line where she stood with Patty’s most devoted fans for good seats when the doors opened at 2:30–about an hour and a half. I came down after taking a quick nap in our room.
I was really surprised by my emotional reaction to seeing Patty.
The tears sprang to my eyes when she walked out (and they played a few notes of “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye”) and I literally did not stop crying as she sang through four songs. It didn’t help when a man yelled “We love you, Patty!”–reminding me of the boy in a similar moment back in the day. Thankfully I had aKleenex in my purse. Why am I never prepared? Why do I bother to wear mascara?
Patty was crying during “Too Many Memories” and there weren’t a lot of dry eyes in the house. She is my age and she still looks great and sounds terrific. Quelle lady. After the mini-concert she was “interviewed” by one of the museum curators and talked for an hour and a half about growing up in Pikeville and her journey to stardom.
We thought about trying to shake her hand at the end, but I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself, so we left.
We went to Husk, which is super hip, for a drink.
Then, exhausted, we went back to the Omni where we got a glass of wine for the room and watched The Fate of the Furious (2017). I really enjoyed it–Vin Diesel, the Rock, Jason Statham, Ludicris, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood, Tyrese Gibson, et al–over-the-top ridiculousness, but fun.
On Sunday we drove home (during a series of fierce rainstorms) and listened to the playlist of the “Western Edge: the Roots and Reverberations of Los Angles Country-Rock”, which was great too.
Love those Kentucky rest stops!
We had a great time in Nashville, but, boy, was Mr. Smith glad to see daughter #1 when we got home!
Thankfully, the OM did not burn the house down but Mr. Smith did chew up my vintage bicentennial rug in the kitchen. C’est la vie.
Well my mother and I are off to Nashville this morning. We have not been since 2018 when we had a hip wedding to attend. After I won the Bill Anderson sweepstakes, which included tickets to the Country Music Hall of Fame, we’ve been trying to commit to a weekend. We felt that the opening of the new Patty Loveless exhibit at the Hall of Fame was a good reason to venture south–especially since Patty will be speaking there on Saturday!
Here she is checking out the new exhibit in her honor. Patty has always been a favorite of ours. Those 90s country music ladies were great–and there’s no one like them now. We are also going to the Grand Ole Opry where we’ll get to see Opry standards like Jeannie Seely (still performing at 83) and The Whites. But Ricky Skaggs will be there and Deana Carter, also. It will be fun just to be there–we haven’t been since 1997!
Anyway, pray for safe travels (we’re driving) and enjoy the Nashville Skyline Rag.
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset Swiftly flow the days Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers Blossoming even as we gaze
(Jerry Bock)
Oy. On that note we remind you of the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1664) who wrote:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
And can it already be the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges? It is!
And yet, and yet… Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny … is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
Bonus: this is an excellent article by Kevin DeYoung about corporate responsibility, repentance and guilt. “The sins of the past are far from irrelevant. And yet we are not meant to live with a sense of corporate guilt for an ethnic, racial, or biological identity we did not choose and from which we cannot be free. Self-flagellation is not a requirement for spiritual maturity.”
So festina lente, keep cool, read some poetry, and note the time–it’s later than you think!
We are in the middle of a flyover heatwave, so there is not much going on! Everyone is keeping cool inside (if they can) and that includes me.
It is good weather for reading poetry–perhaps a poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) whose birthday is today.
You may recall that his famous poem “Invictus” was the favorite of Nelson Mandela who recited it to his fellow prisoners at Robben Prison. Clint Eastwood named his biographical sports movie Invictus (2009) after the poem.
This poem doesn’t really take into consideration God’s providence, but I can see how it resonates with some people. Sadly, I am unable to think of Henley and his most famous poem without remembering Richard Armour’s parody: Out of the night that covers me/ Black as the pit from pole to pole,/ I thank whatever gods may be/ I have not fallen in a hole.
Also, I did not know that the one-legged Henley was the inspiration for the character Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. File that fun fact away.
I see hummingbirds in my garden not infrequently. When I catch a glimpse, I always think it is a very large insect and then I realize, no, it’s a hummingbird! They are amazing creatures indeed.
The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever.
Today we toast screenwriter Julius J. Epstein (1909-2000) on his birthday. After graduating from Penn State where he became an NCAA Bantamweight Champion, he and his twin brother went to Hollywood where they hoped to work in the movies. They were successful, and he is most fondly remembered for having written (along with his brother Philip and Howard Koch) the screenplay to Casablanca (1940) for which the writers won an Academy Award. Indeed, they wrote some very good movies, but it should also be noted that the Epsteins were also responsible for the adaption of the J.D. Salinger’s short story which became My Foolish Heart (1949)–a movie so bad that it turned Salinger off Hollywood forever. After his brother died, Julius continued to write screenplays, including one of my favorites, Send Me No Flowers (1964) starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
Well, you win some, you lose some.
Thinking of Casablanca made me think of a text discussion I had with the boy where we were talking about the best final shots in a movie. The Twitter trail he had been following posited movie endings I could not even identify…
I mean, I saw The Shining once back in like 1983 but…
Here are some much better ones. Can you name these famous final shots?
Ring, ring…
Look, Marguerite–England!
So let’s toast Julius Epstein and watch an old movie with a great ending! (I’ll put the answers in the Comments section later today.)
We are really in the dog days of summer now, but on Friday it was still nice enough to sit outside and enjoy a glass of wine. Mr. Smith sat like a good dog with us and was not too distracted by the flora and fauna. As little Katie would say, “Mr. Smith is growin’ up!”
Earlier on Friday I met the boy down at the Link Auction Galleries and he picked up a glass-front bookcase for me and a large oriental rug for daughter #1 before rushing off to open his store. He came back on Sunday afternoon and moved the bookcase inside from the garage and the rug over to her house.
What would I do without him and his truck?
I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (2023) on my friend’s very large television and I enjoyed it, although it was much too long–2 hours and 30 minutes! It could easily have been edited to an hour and a half, but today’s moviemakers are so self-indulgent, they have no idea how to edit a movie.
It was very good to be back at church after missing for two weeks when I was out of town and then sick. We even sang my new favorite hymn:
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall; if you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all.
And is this baby too cute or what?
Life is full of blessings. Be sure to count yours every day!
Today, I thought I’d go through the photos on my phone and share some of the screengrabs that I’ve taken for inspo slash amusement. I threw in some memes and dog pics as well. Happy Friday!
dual personalities 