dual personalities

Category: Spirituality

April 3, 2015

This and that

by chuckofish

Well, it’s Good Friday.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Good Friday, BCP)

My Holy Week has been less than focused. It has been busy, busy at work, and I’m afraid I’m not the multi-tasker I once was–the result being that I am exhausted in the evening. I fell asleep during everything I attempted to watch this week, from Shogun (1980) to Peter and Paul (1981).

Last night I participated in the “Could you not keep watch with me for one hour?” vigil, as I always do.

Agony_in_the_Garden

In past years I have been late signing up so I always get stuck in the 4-5:00 a.m. or 5-6:00 a.m. slot., but this year I had the 9-10:00 p.m. slot which was a piece of cake in comparison. Which isn’t exactly the point–it being easy–but I was grateful anyway.

Tonight, of course, I will start Ben Hur (1959).

ben-hur

Last year daughter #1 was home and we watched the whole thing at one sitting, but I think I will watch until the chariot race and finish up on Holy Saturday.

benhurhighestnoms

What’s the rush?

benhur

And don’t forget: Wolf Hall starts on Sunday night on Masterpiece Theatre! Mark Rylance looks right for the Thomas Cromwell part anyway.

mark-rylance-wolf-hall

In past film renditions he has always been played as an evil, and therefore porcine, politician.

Leo McKern in 'A Man For All Seasons' (1966)

Leo McKern in ‘A Man For All Seasons’ (1966)

Please. I am hoping for the best. We shall see.

Also, tomorrow is our pater’s birthday. He would have been 93!

ancIII 2

Love this pose!

A toast would be appropriate and perhaps some bagpipe tunes.

And FYI there will be a lunar eclipse on April 4th!

Have a wonderful Easter! Hopefully the OM will accompany me to church on one of his two annual visits. Then we’ll meet the boy and daughter #3 at my flyover university’s faculty club for brunch. No cooking for me.

 

4 Comments
March 31, 2015

Tuesday’s message

by chuckofish

"St. Paul Preaching in Athens" by Raphael

“St. Paul Preaching in Athens” by Raphael

Wonderful words for Tuesday in Holy Week:

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The Bible speaks to us in the 21st century. Selah.

2 Comments
March 30, 2015

“The thorn tree had a mind to Him, when into the woods He came.”*

by chuckofish

palmcrosses

Did I not tell you this would happen? Here is the picture I tore the house apart looking for–daughter #1 making palm crosses in the fifth or sixth grade…I found it on Sunday, sitting peacefully in a shoe box on a shelf…C’est la vie.

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A basket of palm crosses at Grace this year.

In church on Palm Sunday we read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark in place of the Gospel reading. The layreaders took the parts. I was a “Bystander”, which, as my friend Carla explained to my seat-mate, is a step up for me. Usually I am a “Servant Girl”. Carla was a “Witness” and her husband was Judas–who only has two lines, one of which is “Rabbi!” His Method Acting was impressive.  My favorite part was when Peter says, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about” and I really think the reader was a bit lost. There is a lot of jockeying for position around the microphone. Since only three of us showed up for practice last week, some confusion is understandable and, although quite avoidable, again par for the course.

And so we enter Holy Week. I’m afraid I have not kept a good Lent. And by that I mean that The Robe (1950) is the only movie on my Lenten movie list that I have watched! I plan to make up for it this week with non-stop biblical epic-watching, culminating, of course, with Ben Hur on Good Friday. I can do this! However, you will not catch me watching A.D. The Bible Continues on Easter. Nosiree, Bob. I will be watching Wolf Hall on Masterpiece Theatre/PBS that night. I advise you to mark your calendars and do the same! It was a huge hit in Britain and I hope that means they did a good job turning this great book into a mini series. We’ll see.

In other news, this weekend there was a three-day estate sale across the street at our neighbor’s house. I got to experience first-hand the annoyance of having hundreds of strangers coming and going and parking all over the place. The shoe was on the other foot and it was weird. The estate sale company put up “No Parking” signs in front of our house and beside it, so we didn’t really have anything to complain about. At least the OM didn’t get into a fight with anyone, which is always a possibility when he comes in contact with the public. Now we will just have to deal with the house being for sale. Whatever.

We had the boy and daughter #3 and some friends over for dinner on Sunday night to hear the highlights of their recent trips to NYC. It was super fun and then the weekend was over.

Have a good Monday.

*Sidney Lanier, A Ballad of the Trees and the Master. Check this out.

5 Comments
March 19, 2015

Preaching to ourselves

by chuckofish

fleurs

Then at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There has never been a time past when God wasn’t with us as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts–whether we believe in God or not–that keeps us human enough at least to get by despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human. To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift.

–Frederick Buechner (A Room Called Remember)

2 Comments
March 5, 2015

“You should not confuse your career with your life.”*

by chuckofish

office

Today’s PSA:

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
–Martin Luther

Have a good Thursday and stay focused.

*Dave Barry

7 Comments
February 26, 2015

“I exist as I am, that is enough”*

by chuckofish

Well, thank you, fastcoexist.com for letting me know that I live in one of the worst states for “well-being”.

3042617-inline-i-1-the-states-where-people-are-feeling-the-best-and-the-worst

Yes, there we are in gray in flyover country. Well, I say phooey.

Don’t you get tired of being told the results of surveys and studies? I say, live your life and forget about surveys.

I think I will give them up for Lent.

Meanwhile, our well-being in flyover country is greatly enhanced by the fact that these guys are back in training.

matheny-motte

matheny

C’mon, Mike, turn around!

“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself.”

(Walt Whitman)

 

9 Comments
February 16, 2015

Day-star in my heart appear*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend?

Mine was very pleasant. I received three of my favorite magazines in the mail on Saturday.

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So when I took breaks from my office clean-up, I could read them. I also have two new books to read.

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My dual personality found the Jacques Perret book (which I had mentioned in a blogpost a couple of weeks ago) online and ordered it for me. Wasn’t that sweet? I can’t wait to read it, except I am waiting until I’ve finished Anne Tyler’s newest book which was released last Tuesday. I am enjoying it first.

Happiness is a pile of books waiting to be read.

At church I was reminded that Lent starts this Wednesday.

2015-02-15 16.13.55

Many lenten pamphlets were available, so I took them all. The “Saintly Scorecard” is for hip Episcopalians who “learn from those who came before us as faithful witnesses to the gospel” while having fun just like the ungodly who bet on basketball during “March Madness.” You pick a bracket and all that jazz. No thanks. (I do not make this stuff up.)

Well, I guess I will have to get in gear for Lent. My life is pretty spartan as it is, so Lent is really just a change of focus for my movie-watching. And I’ll go to church on Tuesday night for pancakes. However. I draw the line at giving up wine or candy in the name of religious fervor.

Let’s just call a diet a diet, shall we? Such as the Diet of Worms…

diet of worms

We couldn’t let Playmobil have all the fun could we?

*Hymn #7 (Charles Wesley)

4 Comments
February 13, 2015

Love your life

by chuckofish

val

Emily McDowell, of course

Here’s hoping we all have a happy Valentine’s Day, complete with candy and grocery store flowers. If you don’t have someone to give them to you, buy your own. And love your life. Enjoy the day! Smile, even when you don’t feel like it! Someone will smile back.

Just remember: your glass is half full, not half empty.

And if you are lucky enough to have a husband/wife/partner, remember that having the same exact thought at the same time is not habit or routine–that’s a blended soul. You are meant for each other. Set me a seal upon your heart.

I have no specific plans, but I will probably watch one of my favorite romantic movies. I have to say that the lists of such movies I’ve seen on the internet are pretty pathetic. Usually they include nothing older than twenty years and those chosen are pretty lame. Maybe the list will include some old chestnut like An Affair to Remember (1957) with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr–which really is a terrible movie and doesn’t deserve to be on any list ever–but that’s a big maybe. List-makers usually haven’t seen a movie older than Titanic (1997)!

My list would include:

Captain Blood (1935)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Casablanca (1942)

Key Largo (1948)

The Quiet Man (1952)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The Princess Bride (1987)

Green Card (1990)

The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain (1995)

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Chocolat (2000)

Dear Frankie (2004)

Of course, there are many more, but I couldn’t think of them and particularly anything from the 1970s (Worst. Decade. Ever.)

What is your favorite romantic movie?

7 Comments
February 10, 2015

Thought for the day

by chuckofish

UUSA Angel by Roger Bird for website

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

–C.S. Lewis

“Angel of the Lilies” by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst

2 Comments
February 9, 2015

When the storm of life is raging / Stand by me

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? We enjoyed a glorious mid-winter weather break this weekend with record-breaking temperatures in the low 70s. Wow. After church the OM and I headed down to Ted Drewes only to find it closed with a sign saying it would be open by Valentine’s Day! Why? I have no idea. Confused and let down, we drove back to our flyover town and settled for Andy’s frozen custard, which was good, but just not the same.

Otherwise the weekend was pleasant enough. I did some more work on the basement re-organization project and went to lunch with some girlfriends. Again, we were thwarted in our plans, due to our chosen restaurant being too busy. Everyone and his brother was out and about this weekend!

Since I had finally gotten the DVD back from the boy, I watched Road to Perdition (2002) and enjoyed it a lot.

road-to-perdition-original

I was quite struck by the cinematography, so  I looked up the cinematographer, Conrad Hall who, it turns out, won his third Oscar for this movie. I found out that he was the son of James Norman Hall, who along with Charles Nordhoff was the author of Mutiny on the Bounty. He was born in Tahiti and studied filmmaking at USC. Nominated ten times, he won Oscars for American Beauty (2000) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970) and the aforementioned Road to Perdition, his last film. He was nominated for one of my favorites, The Professionals (1966), but not for another favorite, Cool Hand Luke (1967). Indeed, he was a great cinematographer.

The beautiful musical score is by Thomas Newman, who is the son of the great Alfred Newman (How the West Was Won and many  others) and the cousin of Randy Newman. Thomas has been nominated twelve times for an Oscar, but has never won. He composed the music to Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Oscar and Lucinda (1997) among many others.

Considering that The Road to Perdition is a movie about Irish-American mobsters, there is not an overabundance of violence. (But it is directed by Sam Mendes and not Martin Scorcese.) Bad things happen, terrible things, but first and foremost it is a very low-key film about fathers and sons. Tom Hanks plays the anti-hero who is so screwed up by his upbringing that he cannot escape perdition, but he does the best he can to save his son.

Daughter #1 sent me the link to Bob Dylan’s speech accepting the MusiCares Person of the Year Award. Read the whole thing, because it is quite the speech. Bob is just the Best.

bob-dylan-musicares-2015-billboard-650

I can not tell you how much I love it that he quotes the old hymn “Stand By Me” in front of all those unbelievers! Testify. When I do the best I can / And my friends don’t understand / Thou who knowest all about  me / Stand by me.

The Old Testament reading on Sunday was the wonderful passage from Isaiah 40:21-31:

21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

So do not faint and grow weary, Kiddos. All will be well. Have a good Monday.

7 Comments