dual personalities

Category: Quotes

July 10, 2019

Mid-week inspiration

by chuckofish

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Most loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our care on thee who carest for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which thou hast manifested unto us in thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

–William Bright (1824–1901), English ecclesiastical historian and Anglican priest

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.”
― Norman Vincent Peale

“We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.” –Oswald Chambers

“Ultimately the only answer God gave to Job was a revelation of Himself. It was as if God said to him, “Job, I am your answer.” Job was not asked to trust a plan but a person, a personal God who is sovereign, wise, and good. It was as if God said to Job: “Learn who I am. When you know me, you know enough to handle anything.”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in the Christian Life

Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

–Psalm 116:7 (NIV)

 

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June 26, 2019

They neither toil nor spin

by chuckofish

It is daylily season in our flyover town.

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As you know, I love them and their heat-loving generosity of spirit. We have had a very long wet, fairly cool spring but the lilies seem to have adjusted. They just go with the flow and fill in and keep going.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day. (Matthew 6:25-34

Here are some pics from a friend’s blog. He has a much more diverse display than we do.

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(And let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day!)

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May 10, 2019

“Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorn’d in heav’n, though little notic’d here.”*

by chuckofish

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Let’s hear it for the weekend and for Mother’s Day!

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We are celebrating Mother’s Day on Saturday night with the wee babes (and their wonderful mother). Daughter #1 is in St. Louis for work today so she will stay in town and join us.

Have a good weekend and remember your mothers!

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“Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the Pack and was not called The Demon for compliment’s sake. Shere Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave mouth growling…”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

Paintings are (top to bottom) by James Whistler, Francis Coates Jones, Honore Daumier, Nguyen Thanh Binh, Mary Cassatt, Henry Moore, Norman Rockwell)

*William Cowper, “On the Receipt of My Mother’s Picture Out of Norfolk”

6 Comments
May 7, 2019

Flowery May, tra la

by chuckofish

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“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”
–  Rainer Maria Rilke

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May 6, 2019

Send us now into the world in peace

by chuckofish

Well, first this:

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The dapper wee laddie had his fitting for the suit he will wear as the ring bearer at his aunt’s wedding in June. He seemed pleased with the look. I am not surprised, as his father always liked getting dressed up as well.

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He has always been at home in formal attire…

Screen Shot 2018-08-03 at 4.18.32 PM.pngAnyway…my weekend was low key and fun.

The gabfest with my two old friends was wonderful but too short. I forgot to take a picture.

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(taken at an event I did not attend–love those flyover blonds!)

Daughter #1 arrived home in time to make margaritas at 5 pm. Then she played DJ and we listened to music. There is nothing I like better than to listen to favorite tunes chosen by someone else.

We went to church on Sunday morning and then she had to hurry back to mid-Mo as she was heading to KC bright and early on Monday morning. But first we sat on the patio at Club Taco under the blue, blue sky…

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..and listened to our friends Gary and Don play some good, good music…

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Good times…Meanwhile I am re-reading Moby-Dick and loving it. It is amazingly current and prescient.

This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to  him who seeks to please rather than appall! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself castaway! (“The Sermon”)

Look to yourself, Episcopal Church.

Have a good week!

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May 2, 2019

When in doubt

by chuckofish

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“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.”
― J.I. Packer, Knowing God 

While we’re waiting, we can watch Paul Newman movies. He is the Star of the Month on TCM!

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I am not being glib. Sometimes binging on well-loved movies is the way to go.

(The painting is by J.M.W. Turner)

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April 19, 2019

A mighty heart was broken

by chuckofish

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“GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD,” John writes, “that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son even to this obscene horror; so loved the world that in some ultimately indescribable way and at some ultimately immeasurable cost he gave the world himself. Out of this terrible death, John says, came eternal life not just in the sense of resurrection to life after death but in the sense of life so precious even this side of death that to live it is to stand with one foot already in eternity. To participate in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ is to live already in his kingdom. This is the essence of the Christian message, the heart of the Good News, and it is why the cross has become the chief Christian symbol. A cross of all things—a guillotine, a gallows—but the cross at the same time as the crossroads of eternity and time, as the place where such a mighty heart was broken that the healing power of God himself could flow through it into a sick and broken world. It was for this reason that of all the possible words they could have used to describe the day of his death, the word they settled on was “good.” Good Friday.

– Frederick Buechner, The Faces of Jesus

Have a blessed Easter weekend. Go to church!

We will celebrate with our little family at church, brunch and with peeps.

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–Thomas Aquinas, translated from Latin to English by Edward Caswall and the compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861

(The Crucifixion stained glass window by J. Gordon Guthrie, Saint Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, New York City)

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April 5, 2019

“Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness”*

by chuckofish

Another busy week (almost) in the books. Phew.

And I have exciting plans for the weekend! Today daughter #2 is flying home for a long weekend! Huzzah! We will celebrate her birthday and also cheer on daughter #1 and the boy as they race in the Go! St. Louis half-marathon on Sunday.

I will also note that daughter #1, who always takes a Xanax before getting on a plane, and had always sworn she would never ever fly on a small craft, flew in a little plane (sans Xanax) with her boss to a work event in Springfield the other day.

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Yay! She did it! (I guess this is jet-setting, mid-MO style.)

Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again. It is the groom who knows the jumping horse well who can safely ride him.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage”

But don’t forget the bottom line: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13, for Pete’s sake)

Have a good weekend! And I couldn’t resist this…

What can happen to an Old-Fashioned?

Isaiah 41:10

7 Comments
April 4, 2019

Mutual incomprehension

by chuckofish

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Today is our father’s birthday. He would have been 97!

I have forgiven my father for a lot and forgotten even more.

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I am grateful to him for tying the knot with my mother and for going to work all those years and supporting us when he might have been doing something else. We were a boisterous trio of kids and we annoyed him frequently, if not endlessly. That’s the impression he gave anyway. I wish he could have enjoyed us more. I think all fathers should enjoy their children. They grow up pretty fast and move on and have children of their own.

Well, I know for a fact that the boy enjoys his children.

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May it always be so.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; 5 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

–Deuteronomy 6:4-9

(Pssst. A frontlet is a decorative band or ornament worn on the forehead.)

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April 3, 2019

Quietness of heart

by chuckofish

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“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.”
― Andrew Murray

Sixty years of ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, more than 200 books and tracts on Christian spirituality and ministry, extensive social work, and the founding of educational institutions—all these were outward signs of the inward grace that Andrew Murray experienced by continually casting himself on Christ.

“May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love, and joy of God’s presence,” was his prayer. “And not a moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel for him to fill full of his Spirit and his love.”

The woodblock print is by Frances Hammell Gearhart.

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