In honor of the last weekend in August, here is a picture of our dear mother in a bathing cap in the water of Damariscotta Lake, Maine sometime in the 1950s. At least that is where I always thought this photo was taken. There is no writing on the back. I might be wrong.
I wish I was there now.
*Goodbye to Summer by Louis Armstrong
Yesterday was women’s equality day or something like that. I don’t usually pay attention to artificial ’cause X’ days but yesterday got me thinking about important women from times long past. And while I would not deny that throughout much of history regular women have had a hard time being heard, I would venture to say that exceptional women have always been right in the thick of things with the men. Take the 18th dynasty pharaoh, Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt after her husband died.
Okay, she did have to depict herself as a man sometimes and they did erase her name after she died, but while she ruled, she ruled!
And let’s not forget that wonderful Assyrian, Naqi’a, who became the power behind the throne while her son, Esarhaddon, ruled. Here she is depicted on a bronze relief that is now in the Louvre. She is standing behind the king and they are performing a ritual. The rarity of the scene — nothing else like it has ever been found — attests to her power.
In 5th century BC Athens, Pericles’ mistress, Aspasia, gained the public’s admiration through her intellect, social sophistication, and looks — just like the men of the time. How do you think Alcibiades or Pericles himself got so famous?
Centuries later, Cleopatra VII became infamous for killing her relatives and having affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
She wasn’t a nice person, but as a queen she couldn’t afford to be any different from her male competitors, who weren’t nice either. Everyone used guile, sex, wit, and charisma to gain power. They still do. Let’s not forget that none of these powerful women went out of their way to help other women. And that is not something that you can blame entirely on men. Recognizing the power of the people, Caesar, at least, made reforms to help them out.
I read a lot of complaints that women get judged more harshly for doing the same things that men do. Perhaps that’s true, but in my view, bad behavior is bad behavior no matter who does it. I’ve never celebrated men for lying, cheating, using their bodies to get ahead, or being wholly self-serving. Charm and beauty are nice — it’s how you use them that matters. Maybe we’d do better to emphasize that.
*Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
–C.S. Lewis
I am reading A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter, about whom I wrote last week. I found it on daughter #1’s bookshelf in her old room here at home. I am finding it quite engaging and not all that dated/old-fashioned. Girls were still girls back in 1909–concerned with what the cool ones were wearing and all that.
What are you reading?
*John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterrupted. It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy’s pack, and my three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the pines and hickories. They seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if unwilling to be brought in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and take my seat there. It was worth the while to see the sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more interesting most familiar objects look out of doors than in the house. A bird sits on the next bough, life-everlasting grows under the table, and blackberry vines run round its legs; pine cones, chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way these forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and bedsteads- because they once stood in their midst.
—Walden, chapter four, Henry David Thoreau
I don’t know about you, but old HDT always cheers me up.
The painting is by Thomas Hart Benton.
I had never heard/read/run across this phrase–“trampling the sabbath”–but I like it. It was from the first reading on Sunday, from Isaiah.
“If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs…” (NRSV)
Don’t you think this is much better than the NIV (also the New English Bible and the KJV):
“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words…”
“Trampling the sabbath” is so much more descriptive than “keeping your feet from breaking”…I mean really!
Anyway, I went to church. (Two weeks in a row!) We were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of one of our former rectors. There were a lot of people at church and cake and I got to sit behind my friend Carla’s granddaughter.
She let me hold her and didn’t even fuss about it. Quelle baby!
When I went home I got the OM to help me do some yard work. It was a glorious day–80-degrees and low humidity. Having filled up a couple of lawn and leaf bags, I sat outside for awhile and enjoyed the afternoon–unheard of in August in flyover country!
In other news this weekend, I read The Town in Bloom by Dodie Smith, who wrote I Capture the Castle. I enjoyed it. I had lunch with my friends and caught up on the phone with my dual personality and my two dear daughters. I re-charged for the week at work. What did you do?
*Isaiah 58:13
On Monday we moved son #2 and his lovely girlfriend to Syracuse, NY. My DH got to use his Tetris skills to pack everything into a 10 ft. Uhaul.
When he finished, the entire truck was completely full from back to front and floor to ceiling. Fortunately, we had our two cars for the overflow. Syracuse is about 2.5 hours south of us, so we didn’t get there until about noon. Then the four of us got to work, and by 2:00, voila,
a furniture and box strewn apartment!
Exhausted and hungry, we walked (uphill) to the nearest eatery for pizza and beer.
Nothing fancy — plastic utensils and cups, and paper plates that disintegrated on contact with food. Still, the beer was cold (don’t worry, that empty pitcher was full of water) and the pizza cheesy and hot.
Soon after, we left the younguns to unpack, bid them adieu and hit the road. We were home in time for Tai Chi (btw, in the photo I’m wearing my official Tai Chi shirt) but we were too tired to go. Maybe we’re getting too old for this kind of adventure.
Have a spectacular weekend, and remember, when you pick up a box, lift with your knees!
*Bob Seger, “Travelin’ Man”
Friday already, you say! This sure has been a busy week at work and it flew by. And that is okay.
Abracadabra, thus we learn,
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul should take
If the tax collector hasn’t got it before I wake.
Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) wrote that and his birthday is today. Tonight I will toast Ogden Nash and also Blaise Pascal who died on this day in 1662. You remember, he had a religious experience on November 23, 1654, a “definitive conversion” during a vision of the crucifixion:
“From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past twelve … FIRE … God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.”
He recorded the experience on a piece of parchment, which he carried with him the rest of his life, sewn inside his coat.
Awesome.
Nowadays people make lists like this.
Have a good weekend. I have no plans.
*the illustration is by Miroslav Sasek
Today on the Episcopal Church calendar we remember with a lesser feast the life of William Porcher Dubose (April 11, 1836 – August 18, 1918) .
Dubose served as a Confederate soldier and chaplain in Virginia and was captured and imprisoned at Fort Delaware. During Reconstruction he was an Episcopal minister in Abbeville and Winnsboro, S.C., and became a theologian at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee in 1871. Indeed, according to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, he was “probably the most original and creative thinker the American Episcopal Church has ever produced…He was not widely traveled, and not widely known, until, at the age of 56, he published the first of several books on theology that made him respected, not only in his own country, but also in England and France.”
You can read more about him here. Read the comments section for a long-winded, back-and-forth argument about whether Dubose should be disqualified from the Calendar because of his Confederate ties and his “support” of the KKK during Reconstruction and on and on. Or don’t bother. Whatever.
Here is a quote from a letter written by Dubose to his first wife Annie toward the end of the Civil War where he admits his imperfections:
“I have just commenced today our reading of the Old Testament. I will have to skip all the intervening chapters and begin afresh at the lesson for the day. You must read by the lessons and also keep in mind during the week the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. It will be sweet to know that we are reading and thinking together. My traveling etc. threw me a little off my balance and I am just recovering again. How is it that we will so often stray away from God when it is so sweet to be near Him and so full of discomfort and wretchedness to be far from Him? If our hope rested on our own faithfulness how miserable we’d be! But blessed be God, it rests upon His faithfulness and not ours. Is not God’s patience and forbearance a mystery! I am almost tempted sometimes to feel that it is useless to try Him again. I have been so often faithless to my most sacred vows. Then I feel I cannot live without Him and I always find Him more ready to receive me. Oh how I wish I could be more consistent and steadfast. The hymn beginning ‘Jesus my strength, my hope’ is a very sweet one to me.”
I have no doubt that God is patient with and forebears even self-righteous comment-writers of the 21st century.
*Jesus, my Strength, my Hope, Charles Wesley, 1742
Well, gee whiz. Heavy rain, causing power outages, road closures and water rescues, has wrecked havoc once again in our flyover bi-state area.
It took me a long time to get into work yesterday, but I had no problems except that my tire light came on and I had to deal with resetting it. Modern Problems.
They say it may clear (partially) tomorrow. Awesome.
*Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
Weekends that follow a weekend when one of my daughters has visited are always a little sad. You know, she was here and we were doing that, and now she is not here. And it was a rainy weekend to boot!
But I am not one to sit in a slough of despond, so I got busy. Since Gary is coming back this week to paint the living room and paper the dining room, I had to put away all the dishes in my china cabinet and pack up various shelves full of dishes etc. And there were also a lot of very dusty books to move. Good grief what a job!
I suppose it is a good job to do every once in awhile (and should no doubt be done more frequently) in order to dust off the books and be reminded what we have!
I also got a new pair of Tom’s on sale which made me happy.
I read the second lesson in church, a good long one from Hebrews (11:29–12:2) about how we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, something I believe in strongly. The Gospel was from Luke (12:49–56) where Jesus is at his politically-incorrect best, calling everyone a hypocrite and saying he “came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Our lady priest reminded us that there is no room for compromise in the Gospel and that the sweet Jesus people like to imagine is a fiction. (I think Zooey had something to say about that to Franny.)
Our organist/choirmaster has been on vacation for several weeks and so the organist substitute was the lady who always reminds me of Helen Feesh on the Simpsons.
I mean seriously.
I left right after the service and got back to work taking down drapes (more dust) and such.
Over the weekend I read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, which my dual personality had recommended. Now I recommend it to you. Hard to put down.
In the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep I picked up a book by Eudora Welty and was reminded how really great she is.
It is our inward journey that leads us through time–forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction. (One Writer’s Beginnings)
Sigh. Now it is Monday and it’s back to the salt mines–have a good week!
