dual personalities

Category: literaure

June 8, 2015

The small joys

by chuckofish

IMGP1249

“…Hilary enjoyed himself, just as he had enjoyed himself drinking the port. Increasingly, as he got older, he enjoyed things. As his personal humility deepened, so did his awareness of the amazing bounty of God…so many things…The mellow warmth of the port, the pleasure of the game, the sight of Lucilla’s lovely old face in the firelight, and David’s fine hands holding the cards, his awareness of Margaret’s endearing simplicity, and the contentment of the two old dogs dozing on the hearth…One by one the small joys fell. Only to Hilary no joy was small; each had its own mystery, aflame with the glory of God.”

—Pilgrim’s Inn

IMGP1248

This weekend I finished re-reading Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge, an old favorite written in 1948 about an English family after the war. It seems a bit dated now, but I found it quite satisfying and I recommend it. The fact that it and her other novels are still in print tells you something.

IMGP1252

The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night after returning from a week in South Carolina and we heard all about their adventures.

IMGP1256

IMGP1258

Summer has arrived here in flyover country–we topped 90 degrees on Sunday. But spring was long and lovely and the heat and humidity are inevitable. Why complain?

Here are some fun videos (and here) from the Total Lacrosse YouTube channel featuring the boy testing and touting Warrior equipment.

You going to the gun show?

You going to the gun show?

Have a great Monday!

5 Comments
December 2, 2014

I couldn’t agree more

by chuckofish

PD-James

“My love for the Prayer Book began in very early childhood, before I could read – when I could only listen to it. Of course, it was the only book used then. Later, when I could read, during long, boring sermons I would read it and specially loved the instructions – for instance, those to priests for giving holy communion in time of pestilence. That conjured up pictures in my childish mind of the priest walking with the sacred vessels through the almost deserted village, almost certainly to become ill himself; or the prayers for when in danger on the sea, knowing that they would have been read by everyone on board, and the ship would almost certainly founder.

“There is so much history, romance, and great beauty in it. And the prayers like the General Thanks­giving and the prayers after com­mun­ion are so superb that they meet my need in praying much better than my own words do, and I still use them in private prayer.

“I enjoy services in other denom­inations, like those of the Reformed Church, or going to a Roman Catholic mass with a friend – but what is essential to me is an atmos­phere of devotion and concentration on God. If there’s a great deal of happy-clappy singing and an­nounce­ments of birthdays, and so on, I can see that it binds people together, but I don’t personally find it’s useful to me. I want silence, so I can concentrate on God – not just talking to him and giving him a list of my requirements.”

–Baroness P.D. James, who died last week, quoted in the Church Times, 2009

1 Comment
November 17, 2014

Our shelter from the stormy blast*

by chuckofish

IMGP1124

Yes, the Christmas cacti are blooming! Can it really be that time of year again?

IMGP1127

It must be…’cause it snowed too!

Note the leaf bags!

Note the leaf bags!

IMGP1129

The anthem at the Offertory at church on Sunday was the poem “Love” by George Herbert (1593-1632) which is a particularly lovely one:

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”:

Love said, “You shall be he.”

“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on thee.”

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.”

“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”

“My dear, then I will serve.”

“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”

So I did sit and eat.

It snowed all day, but never amounted to too much. Time to get serious, though, about the snowball descent to the end of the year.

Have a good week!

*Hymn #680, Isaac Watts

4 Comments
October 20, 2014

Weekend reading

by chuckofish

leavesin street

I had a quiet weekend and spent a good part of it reading Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Lila. 

2014-10-19 15.31.28

In this third novel that takes place in the town of Gilead, Robinson revisits the characters we have met in the earlier books (Gilead and Home), in particular the mysterious woman who marries the old minister John Ames. As usual, the author examines the mystery of existence. She quotes John Calvin freely–without smirking. It is terrific.

Robinson just blows me away. Her characters are thoughtful and have inner monologues that are deep and penetrating. The story takes place some time after WWII when people did not have attention spans reduced to tweets. They still think about things. And we are encouraged to think about them (and the mystery of existence) as well.

Anyway, of course, I highly recommend this book and the first two if you haven’t already read them. (Why haven’t you already read them?)

Have a great week!

Almighty God, who hast bestowed thy grace upon thy people by thy Son Jesus Christ: Grant us, we beseech thee, to be enriched with his manifold gifts; that patiently enduring through the darkness of this world, we may be found shining like lamps in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he cometh in his kingdom; to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever.

(Prayer posted by Kendall Harmon on TitusOneNine)

4 Comments
October 13, 2014

“I can’t look at everything hard enough.”*

by chuckofish

Field of Lilies, Louis Comfort Tiffany

“Field of Lilies”, Louis Comfort Tiffany

Last week I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir  (1947) and cried through much of it. Then this weekend I watched Our Town (1940) and wept through the entire third act.  I must say that much of this was due to the great musical scores of both films, by Bernard Hermann and Aaron Copland, respectively, but still. They even changed the end of Our Town! (Spoiler alert) Emily doesn’t die! They softened up the hard ending of the play, but it was still effective.

Then I finished Jan Karon’s Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good and got a little weepy. It is not a sad book at all, but it reminds us all to rejoice and be glad and you know that that can make me tear up.

Then we sang hymn #624 in church–“Jerusalem the Golden”–and I was done (or undone as the case may be).

Well, you know what Frederick Buechner says about tears:

You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay close attention.

They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

(Whistling in the Dark)

So keep your eyes and your heart open as you go forth into the world this week. Thanks be to God.

*Emily in “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder

2 Comments
August 26, 2014

Dedication to a mountain

by chuckofish

I was reminded recently that Herman Melville dedicated Pierre: or, The Ambiguities to a particular mountain, which I saw every day when I was a student at Williams College. I climbed Mt. Greylock one Saturday with members of the Mountain Club and enjoyed the view which encompasses five states.

Mount_Greylock_Massive

It was always in the background of all our shenanigans.

mt greylock

Kite flying in the spring of 1977 with Spud and Emmett

I miss those mountains, and I suppose those big-hearted football players.

Anyway, here is Melville’s most gracious dedication:

To Greylock’s Most Excellent Majesty

In old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and eternally challenging homage.

But since the majestic mountain, Greylock–my own more immediate sovereign lord and king–hath now, for innumerable ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray.

Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbours, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheatre over which his central majesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstinted fertilisations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.

Don’t you just love old Herman? I mean really.

7 Comments