dual personalities

Month: December, 2023

December 29, 2023

Shine your light

by chuckofish

So here we are: it is the last Friday in 2023 and the last weekend. Do you have New Year’s Eve plans? The boy and his family will be back from Florida on Sunday. We plan to get together and have a dance party. Daughter #1 will be spinning 45s from the 1980s. We also are planning something new. Everyone will choose a favorite scene from a favorite movie to present. I will have a hard time choosing one, so being the hostess, I will pull rank and show several. I think that’s fair. Can you guess what they might be?

Also tonight the Cotton Bowl is on TV so we will be watching the Mizzou-Ohio State match-up. Since we actually kind of care, this does not bode well for Mizzou.

Well, although it seems like western civilization is falling to pieces around us, we can take solace in knowing this is not the first time this has happened. I prefer to focus on the many blessings which have poured down on me this year.

  1. Baby Ida was born in January! She is on the verge of walking now…

2. Daughter #1 started a new corporate job and bought a house. Mr. Smith has learned to be a good guard dog.

3. We did a lot of driveway sittin’.

4. I made it through another session of Vacation Bible School.

5. I trekked to Maryland three times, Glens Falls, NY, and Nashville and lived to tell the tale.

6. I rescued various items of great old “brown” furniture at auction and the boy helped me move it all home.

7. I wrote four articles for the Kirkwood Historical Review.

8. I completed my 5x5x5 Bible reading program, plus Pilgrim’s Progress, and two women’s Bible studies: the book of Daniel and Even Better than Eden.

9. My new church community continued to strengthen and enrich me. Weekly worship is a delight and a feast. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4) And old friends stood by me and supported me in all my endeavors.

10. And DN got a job at the University of Illinois! Woohoo!

I am thankful for God’s grace and mercy. As Randy Alcorn says, “Yes, let’s serve Jesus faithfully and seek to preserve Christian liberties, but let’s not whine about things being so dark. Instead, let’s shine the light as faithful children of God. Let’s trust Jesus to return when He is good and ready to do so, whether that is today, or a hundred years from now, or a thousand. Let’s live as people who are indeed going to meet Jesus soon, either by His return or our deaths. And let’s be ready to meet Him, and by His grace, hear those incredible words: ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant; enter into your Master’s joy.’”

…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

Philippians 2:15

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Happy New Year!

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December 28, 2023

Halo my path with gentleness and love*

by chuckofish

I am picking up daughter #2 and DN (and the girls) at the airport this morning. I will see them for about 45 minutes and then they will pile into the OM’s SUV and head to Champaign-Urbana to go house hunting. It is a terrible time to be looking for a house and it will no doubt be raining/snowing…but I know it will work out. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Pray for traveling mercies!

In the meantime here are a few good things to read/watch.

No, we didn’t expect you to come this way.

We didn’t expect you to come this way.

To us, in our need and wounds and darkness. To us, in our apathy and indulgence and pride.

But you did.

Here is Denny Burk’s annual roundup of the year’s best YouTube videos. I especially liked the dude who soundtracks his Mom’s life with his trombone and the Epic Trick Shots.

And who doesn’t love Sinclair Ferguson looking back on the year? “Count your many blessings/Name them one by one/And it will surprise you/What the Lord has done.”

Yes, even though we live in what Anne so accurately terms “a degenerate and fatuous age”, we are daily served up God’s mercy in generous quantities.

And the Babylon Bee is right again:

*Valley of Vision, “Voyage”

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December 27, 2023

Postcards from Christmas

by chuckofish

Christmas in our part of flyover country was warm and rainy, but we ignored that and had a good time. We spent Christmas Eve with the boy’s family and with daughter #1, going to church (twice!) …

…and then coming home to open presents and eat our traditional dollar roll sandwiches and toasted ravioli feast, with charcuterie board and assorted nibblies.

(The boy and his fam headed to sunny Florida the next day.)

Daughter #1 spent the night and we enjoyed our traditional leisurely Christmas morning coffee/stockings/mimosas/cinammon rolls/presents extravaganza.

Mr. Smith made out like a bandit.

(That red ball in the corner kept him occupied for literally hours.)

We had a lovely pork tenderloin for dinner and then watched A Christmas Story (1985) which I had not seen for years.

We missed daughter #2 and her family, but we look forward to the years ahead when they too are residents of flyover country!

Pete the Cat, a ukulele and a new plush bathrobe like Mommy’s–what more could a girl ask for?

Maybe one of these:

Something to keep in mind for a new year!

“He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.”

–John Owen, The Mortification of Sin
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Image | December 25, 2023

by chuckofish

screen-shot-2023-12-24-at-12.45.27-pm
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December 22, 2023

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky

by chuckofish

It is the end of the year, so it is the time when TCM remembers all those movie people who died in the past year:

It’s not, I think, one of their better videos, but it does the job. There were no real surprises except I did not know that Frederic Forrest had died. You remember him as Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove, don’t you? He scared us silly in that one. He also was Captain Jenko in the original 21 Jump Street (1987) tv series, which I have been watching recently. He had quite a range. There was also David McCallum, my DP’s first crush in elementary school. And we’ll all miss Tina Turner and Jim Brown and Gina Lollobrigida.

All these people knew their glory days, but like everyone else,

“Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

–Ecclesiastes 12:7

Denny Burk discusses this here. “Our lives go by us in a flash. Our time is so short. And yet, still our hearts long for a fading glory—a glory that will be forgotten and unknown infinitely longer than it was known or acknowledged by anyone.” 

Well, on that note, I wish all our readers a Merry Christmas!

And here’s a blast from the past which I found on ye olde internet, much to my delight:

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December 21, 2023

Joli yeux, sourire de pirate*

by chuckofish

It’s the shortest day of the year and this will be a short post.

I went to Lottie’s holiday dance recital and she did great.

You go, girl!

*Elton John, “pretty eyed, pirate smile”

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December 20, 2023

This and that, here and there

by chuckofish

There were even bigger trucks and excavators by our house yesterday.

They are making good progress and hopefully will be movin’ on down the road by Christmas.

Today we toast Charles Ellsworth Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956)–American supporting actor, best known for portraying Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Charley also played Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941) and my personal favorite, Gramp Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936) with Leslie Howard.

Born in Xenia, Ohio, he ran away from home to be a circus acrobat which led to work as an aerialist and trapeze artist in a traveling circus before turning to acting. He traveled all over the world with the P.T. Barnum circus. Grapewin also appeared in the original 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz, 36 years before he was featured in the famous MGM film version. From the stage he moved to silent movies at the turn of the 20th century.

He was great–always recognizable, but true to his character.

The Bible, as you know, is full of angels. They are God’s servants. They are not pretty androgynous beings with blond hair, but mighty warriors who will protect you when needed. Here is a helpful primer about angels and how Christians should view them.

I am winding up my Bible-reading plan for 2023 with the book of Revelation. Wonderful. I was just reading about the grapes of wrath. Again I say, make the Bible part of your daily routine. John Piper agrees.

And here’s a shot of Bob Dylan for your Wednesday:

You can laugh at salvation, you can play Olympic games
You think that when you rest at last you’ll go back from where you came
But you’ve picked up quite a story and you’ve changed since the womb
What happened to the real you, you’ve been captured but by whom?

He’s the property of Jesus
Resent him to the bone
You got something better
You’ve got a heart of stone

“Property of Jesus”, Bob Dylan
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December 19, 2023

From our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in thee*

by chuckofish

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through our neighborhood…city workmen are starting a new street project which involves numerous large earth-moving vehicles and trucks moving earth in our own side yard.

Last week a row of mature trees was removed. Also very noisy and disruptive. We knew this project was coming, but, you have to admit, the timing is really special. C’est la vie.

I am not going to let this disrupt my happy Christmas mood and you shouldn’t either. Don’t let whatever is going on in your life that is annoying and causing you to sleep badly take your focus from what it is we are celebrating–the incarnation of our Lord and Savior!

Here’s an old reminder from Frederick Buechner to hang in there and trust God:

I REMEMBER SITTING parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter’s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I’d suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.   

–originally published in Telling Secrets

And this made me laugh. Now I want to go see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop. (Who knew that was a thing?)

*Charles Wesley

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December 18, 2023

“O Daughter of Zion, shout aloud”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Ours was dark and gloomy and rainy, but full of festive seasonal fun nevertheless.

We went to the Christmas concert Friday night–a packed house of Presbyterians, plus a few random Episcopalians I recognized and even a few Jewish Messiah lovers. I enjoyed it very much, but didn’t get home until 10 p.m.–way past my usual bedtime!

On Saturday I went to the funeral of an old 99-year-old friend at my old church. Shirley was quite the gal–a lifelong Episcopalian, Republican and Cardinals fan who went to spring training in Florida every year. She was also a professional woman who had enjoyed quite a long and successful career. The former rector came from Florida to speak along with the former President Pro Tem of the Missouri State Senate. He told the story of how Shirley was sad when she gave up her season tickets to the Cardinals at age 97, but that she had to admit that watching the games on her daughter’s big screen tv had its benefits–namely being able to see Nolan Arenado, “the most beautiful man ever,” up close and personal.

The service was 100% Rite I, but the interim rector kept lapsing into Rite II. C’est la vie. The lay readers were good, which would have pleased Shirley. She had been one herself for decades. I always felt so validated when she gave me a thumbs up after I read. The church was almost full–which said quite a lot about 99-year-old Shirley–but the singing was weak. Shirley, I daresay, is well out of the Episcopal Church and in heaven now.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.

–Job 19:25-27

After Mr. Smith went to the spa for his shampoo, daughter #1 came over and helped me decorate the tree.

We also watched the 1951 A Christmas Carol–the best version in my not so humble opinion.

This scene always makes me cry: “You’ve made Fred so happy!”

The boy was in Kansas City with his family all weekend, so it was just the OM and I at church and a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Also, I did want to wish a happy birthday to my dual personality. Happy Birthday, sweet sister of mine!

I hope someone is cooking you a nice dinner and that my present arrived in time for you to open it today. I hope you watch a good movie, maybe Captain Blood (1935) or How to Steal a Million (1966). I will be toasting Fizzy Fuzz, Pompey, Pete, and Robert Preston!

Also, this meme made me LOL:

P.S. Many thanks to whoever sent the fruitcake from Texas–there was no card!

*Zechariah 9:9

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December 15, 2023

“From now on call me Velvet Thunder”

by chuckofish

Ten days til Christmas! This weekend we will decorate our tree which the boy kindly set up in its stand. We’re movin’ now.

Tonight we are going to the Christmas concert at Central Presbyterian Church, which daughter #1 attends. The program includes the first part of Handel’s Messiah and a variety of Christmas carols. I am really looking forward to it.

Tomorrow is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea party! On December 17, 1773, John Adams wrote, “Last night, three cargoes of tea were emptied into the Harbour. This is the grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened!” He also wrote, “The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered, something notable, and striking. The destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid, and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I can’t but consider it as an epocha in history.”

Don’t forget to celebrate appropriately.

In other news, we were saddened to hear that Andre Braugher, who starred as Captain Raymond Holt in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has died. Nobody could say “punk” like Captain Holt. Of course, someone did a YouTube tribute and it’s pretty good even though the compilation does not include Cheddar:

Rest in peace, Andre. Love you, Captain.

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