I did the flowers for church on Sunday–sunflowers make such a statement, don’t you think? I have a soft spot in my heart for them because years ago at my highfalutin’ Episcopal Church, the wife of the new rector put sunflowers on the altar and the frozen chosen ladies of the church were outraged. So when they are in season and available at Trader Joe’s, I always use them.
The OM and I went to the early service (and stayed for Sunday School) so we could finish early and get packed before going to the bud’s soccer game later in the afternoon.
This was accomplished and we brought daughter #1 home with us so that we could all get up at 3:00 am to Uber to the airport. Yikes.
While we are gone on our western adventure, daughter #2 will be filling in with literary thoughts and tales of the prairie girls…
…and updates of our travels. So be sure to stop by the blog this week.
And please don’t forget to keep us in your prayers.
And here’s a reminder from Tim Challies (and Hank Williams) not to let the dust gather on your Bible.
Not to sound like Katie, but to totally quote Katie, life has been a lot lately. Work has been busy, I’ve been overcommitted outside of work, we’re going to the Navajo Nation next week. It’s a lot. I am excited for our trip, but I’d like to just get to Arizona, you know? Also, today I found out I need a new boiler for my house and my bank account is like Homer going into the bushes. Don’t look at me?!
Anyway, Mr. Smith turns two today! Perhaps I’ll get him a treat and he can have extra time with Pappy. His real treat is his own spa vacation next week at the kennel where he can frolic with other dogs and people play with him. Shall we recreate this photo from his first birthday?
I might have to go to the Dollar Tree for some full size party hats. Or maybe a birthday headband! Updates to come…
Join our respective bible study groups and pray for our safe (and smooth) travels this week. Onward!
Today is the 444th anniversary of the completion of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the Earth in Plymouth, England on September 26, 1580.
This was the first English circumnavigation, and second circumnavigation overall. Drake’s exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque (“The Dragon”). “While Spain regarded him as a pirate even then, he was really a privateer, since he carried the royal warrant and the Crown participated by furnishing money and armed ships. That is hardly piracy as we understand it.” (This is an interesting article about Drake.)
I have shared this prayer by Drake before, but it bears repeating:
“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life, having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms will show your mastery, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes, and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. ”
Wonderful.
We also remember Paul Newman, who died on this day in 2008.
Kind of like Sir Francis Drake, Paul Newman is in a league of own. Nominated eight times for Best Actor (and once for Supporting Actor), he only won one Oscar for The Color of Money (1987) and that seemed like a consolation prize at the time. Newman wasn’t even there to pick up his award. C’est la vie. He was great and everybody loved him. Anyway, a toast to the great Paul Newman!
And speaking of cool, how about that new statue at the U.S. Capitol? Johnny Cash, representing Arkansas, became the first professional musician to be honored with a statue in the Capitol.
Cash’s daughter, Rosanne Cash, said her father would have viewed the statue “as the ultimate honor” in his life. She said her father’s hard upbringing instilled in him a strong work ethic and that he loved the idea of America as a place of dreams and refuge. “This man was a living redemption story,” Rosanne Cash said. “He encountered darkness and met it with love.” Amen, brother.
Now there’s three aces! Sir Francis Drake, Paul Newman and Johnny Cash. Woohoo! Have a good day!
I may have mentioned that next week the OM, daughter #1 and I are heading out West to visit Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border. The valley is considered sacred by the Navaho Nation, within whose reservation it lies. It is rather sacred to me as well. We are pretty excited.
Recently daughter #2 and Katie were reading this book…
…which included this…
How cool is that? IYKYK. I do love Pete.
In preparation for this trip, I am re-watching some of John Ford’s iconic films. First up was Fort Apache (1948) starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, et al. It is the first of Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy.
Next on the docket will be Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946) and She Wore A YellowRibbon (1949)–three of my all-time favorites.
Unrelated to this, I also recently watched The Human Comedy (1943) on TCM. Directed by Clarence Brown from a story by William Saroyan, it stars Mickey Rooney as high school student Homer Macauley, who works part-time as a telegram delivery boy in the fictional town of Ithaca, California, during World War II. The movie depicts the effects of the war on the Home Front over a year in Homer’s life in a series of vignettes involving himself, his family, friends and neighbors in his hometown, and his brother Marcus, a Private in the U.S. Army. Homer is thrust into some difficult situations, some of which are heart-wrenching.
Rooney handles it all with skill and does not overdo it. (He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.) He is really quite impressive and he carries the film like a pro.
This scene, which does not involve Rooney, but includes Van Johnson as his brother on a troop train, is a real emotional highpoint–the kind they were not embarrassed to attempt in 1943.
I have no doubt that many today would find this entire movie to be absolute hokum and too rah-rah America, but I did not. I pity them. We still sing this hymn at my church and I will always think of these soldiers from now on when I hear it.
I’m back in the Psalms in my daily Bible reading. Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm and also the longest chapter in the Bible with 176 verses.
Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. 130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. 131 I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments. 132 Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. 133 Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me. 134 Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts. 135 Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.
(Psalm 119: 129-135)
David Powlison observed that “Psalm 119 is actually not about the topic of getting Scripture into your life. Instead, it is the honest words that erupt when what God says gets into you. It’s not an exhortation to Bible study; it’s an outcry of faith…Psalm 119 is the thoughtful outcry that rises when real life meets real God.”
Charles Spurgeon liked this “priceless Psalm” so much that he suggested “we might do well to commit it to memory.” I wish I could, but 176 verses is a lot!
This sacred ode is a little Bible, the Scriptures condensed, a mass of Bibline, Holy Writ rewritten in holy emotions and actions. Blessed are they who can read and understand these saintly aphorisms; they shall find golden apples in this true Hesperides, and come to reckon that this Psalm, like the whole Scripture which it praises, is a pearl island, or, better still, a garden of sweet flowers.
And here’s a sobering thought from Sinclair Ferguson:
How was your weekend? Mine was pretty quiet compared to recent ones. No visitors, no parties. Just the usual.
It was so hot at the bud’s soccer game that Pappy left his fleece in the car! It was even hotter for the players and coaches.
Before the game daughter #1 and I went to an estate sale and we got a few odds and ends, such as this classic book from 1922…
Donald Ogden Stewart, you will recall, was an American humorist, actor, playwright, and screenwriter, who won a 1940 Oscar for his screenplay adaption of The Philadelphia Story.
I also worked on a new puzzle…It was a fun one!
Life in the fast lane.
We went to church with the twins and they once again checked their depravity at the door. I am very proud of them. I had to sign them into Sunday School using the new system which you do on an iPad which then prints out a name tag and a receipt which you use when you pick them up. It was pretty complicated for this old lady, but I managed somehow. Quite a reflection on our modern world, but okay, I get it. The subject of our adult Sunday School was church discipline, which in light of this was especially interesting. Anne had this to say about that.
The trouble is—well, there are so many troubles, but one of them is—that the only way for Christians to live peaceably together in the Kingdom of God is if they really understand down in the depths of their hearts that they are really so bad, that their inclinations are so ugly that unless God does something, they have no hope. And this is a hard saying, for none of us really believe that we are that bad. Our sins are “struggles.” They are just us being “broken.” They are the result of our childhoods. They are because other people are selfish and didn’t consider us more highly than themselves. They are because we didn’t have the same opportunities as other people. There are a thousand reasons why those stray vile thoughts about other people are not my fault. But the seedbed of peace is, as James says, humility, and humility is the result of looking into your own soul and seeing that you have thoughts and desires in there that would destroy the whole world.
Read the whole thing.
Here’s another good article from Carl Trueman: “Ours is a childish age…That is not to say that the matters at stake in both church and world are not deeply serious. But the idioms for addressing them have become infantile, and the church must resist the temptation to follow the world in this. To seek relevance therefore requires not capitulation to, or emulation of, the infantile, but rather a recapturing of what it means to be an adult.”
As my mother said on Monday, it was a busy and fun weekend. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that my family and friends really made me feel loved and special for my birthday and I am grateful. It was a lovely weekend and party and I enjoyed it immensely.
Naturally, after such a wild weekend, I was off to New Mexico for a photoshoot at a coal mine. I hadn’t been to New Mexico in quite awhile and had forgotten how beautiful and striking the scenery is.
Of course, traveling for work (and photoshoots) sounds so glamorous but in reality, it is hard work. Especially when you have to wear steel-toed boots. Regardless, it was a treat to get out of the office. We had perfect weather and the guys at the mine were nice and helpful. It is always amazing to see the reclamation areas–former coal pits that have been returned to nature! We saw several herds of elk grazing and drinking the water.
The short trip also got me very excited for the upcoming trip to Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon.
I had not heard of the Battle of Iuka, nor of Iuka, Mississippi for that matter, until yesterday. Before the Civil War the town boasted an all-female college, a boys’ military academy and a fine hotel. The Civil War brought widespread devastation when a major engagement took place on September 19, 1862.
Major General Ulysses Grant brought two armies to confront Sterling Price in a double envelopment: Rosecrans’s Army of the Mississippi approaching Iuka from the southwest, and three divisions of his own Army of the Tennessee under Maj. General Edmund Ord, approaching from the northwest. Although Grant and Ord planned to attack in conjunction with Rosecrans when they heard the sound of battle, an acoustic shadow suppressed the sound and prevented them from realizing that the battle had begun.
Now hold the phone, what is an acoustic shadow?!
“An acoustic shadow is an area through which sound waves fail to propagate, due to topographical obstructions or disruption of the waves via phenomena such as wind currents, buildings, or sound barriers.”
I looked up in his Memoirs to see what Grant had to say about this:
“During the 19th the wind blew in the wrong direction to transmit sound either towards the point where Ord was, or to Burnsville where I had remained…A couple of hours before dark on the 19th…the wind was hard and in the wrong direction to transmit sound either to Ord or to me. Neither he nor I nor any one in either command heard a gun that was fired upon the battle-field. After the engagement Rosecrans sent me a dispatch announcing the result. This was brought by a courier. There is no road between Burnsville and the position then occupied by Rosecrans and the country was impassable for a man on horseback. The courier bearing the message was compelled to move west nearly to Jacinto before he found a road leading to Burnsville.”
Boy, the things we take for granted in our tech world today.
Anyway, I thought that was very interesting. And now we know what an acoustic shadow is.
Today is also the anniversary ( in 1863 ) of the first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, in northwestern Georgia, the bloodiest two-day battle of the conflict, and the only significant Confederate victory in the war’s Western Theater. You will recall the short story by Ambrose Bierce about the deaf-mute boy who wanders onto the battlefield.
One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest—victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose victors’ camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a heritage.
A very grim read, to be sure.
September 19 was also the first day of the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest in 1944, which was the longest battle on German ground during World War II. It is the second longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought after The Battle of Bataan. The Battle of Hürtgen Forest has been referred to as a stalemate that consumed large amounts of resources on both sides. Many men died in the freezing cold. The Americans suffered 33,000 casualties during the course of the battle which ranged up to 55,000 casualties, including 9,000 non-combat losses, and represented a 25 percent casualty rate.
J.D. Salinger was there. And I always think of a girl I knew in college whose father was there in the Hürtgen Forest and who returned home after the war and became a mailman in Worcester, MA.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. 5 You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
9 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge — 10 no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. 12 On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
14 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. 15 When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
One night recently when I was flipping channels trying to find something to watch, I came upon Forrest Gump (1994). After a few too many commercials, I remembered that I own the DVD, so I started watching that. I had not seen the movie in many years and I really enjoyed it.
An adaption of the novel by Winston Groom, it follows the life of an Alabama man with a low IQ named Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), who unwittingly participates in some of the major events of the twentieth century and interacts with several major historical figures in the process. It won six Academy Awards including the Best Picture Oscar as well as Best Actor and Best Director. It was a huge hit. The soundtrack which includes 32 songs from the eras presented was also a hit.
In a famous scene toward the beginning of the movie Forrest meets Jenny, his best friend for life, as elementary school children on a bus. No one else will let him sit with them. Later he meets his “best good friend” Bubba on a bus of army recruits headed for Vietnam. He also will let Forrest sit by him. It struck me that I too met my best friend Trudy Glick sitting on a school bus in Junior Kindergarten. I was so shy I couldn’t speak to anyone, but she spoke to me and we were best friends through second grade. I remember telling the boy when he was in middle school to be kind to people on his bus–it could mean a lot to someone. I think it took years, but he learned that lesson. It is an important lesson. God places people in our path and the least we can do is smile and move over.
At one point in the movie when Forrest is running back and forth across the country, he runs through Monument Valley…
…and actually that is where he stops running.
We are headed there in less than two weeks! I will probably watch a few more movies filmed in Monument Valley in preparation for this trip, but Forrest Gump was, unwittingly, a good place to start. I recommend it if you are looking for something to watch.
By the way, Forrest Gump’s favorite book was Curious George. Which reminded me of this:
I can’t say I exactly bounce back ever, but I try. On Mondays I always get back to my Bible reading and I do my Bible Study homework. My house is not the only thing that needs to be ordered and tidy.
We had a really good sermon on Sunday on Hebrews 2:1-9.
“Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”
Indeed, we all know people who have made a “shipwreck of their faith” by the slow drift of indifference. This is your weekly reminder not to let that happen!
This is a great Ask Pastor John answer from John Piper. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
Also this article about corporate singing really rings true. “Christians can’t seem to stop singing: in catacombs, in cathedrals, everywhere throughout church history. In Saudi Arabia, the underground churches soundproof the walls and windows, sometimes with mattresses, so they can lift their voices in praise without detection. As Jesus said of the rejoicing multitudes, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out’ (Luke 19:40).”
Funnily enough, our “ministry” minute in church this week was provided by the choir and our young friend Ridge, who invited people to join the choir. He has sung in a church choir ever since his father “volun-told” him he was joining at age 12. All through high school, college, law school, and now young parenthood, it has been his priority to show up on Wednesday night and Sunday morning. He is one reason our congregation really sings! We sing five hymns in the morning service plus the Gloria Patri and the Doxology. Sometimes there is an organ accompaniment, sometimes a piano. And sometimes there is a guitar or a trombone or trumpet or a harmonica. We have a lot of participating musical members.
I know ‘joy’ is an overused and mis-used term these days, but even we very serious Presbyterians really do feel the joy in our hearts. I think that is why I cry so much.
Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall, go spread your trophies at his feet, and crown him, crown him, and crown him Lord of all.
dual personalities 