The week is almost over and so is the month of May. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, and all that.
I don’t have many plans for the weekend, which is kind of nice. I have the new Walt Longmire mystery, which was released on Tuesday, so I am already back in Absaroka County.
I am 70 pages in and Henry has not appeared, so I am a bit dubious, but we shall see.
I liked this post about “the beauty of the unnamed and the unnoticed…the glory of mundane faithfulness.”
And let’s not forget to toast Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), one of the most influential composers in Hollywood history, on his birthday. Winner of two Academy Awards–for Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)–his scores were brilliant and influential (think Star Wars, entirely derivative).
A blog I read recently asked the question Have you ever met an author in person? That got me thinking. The answer is not many, but, yes, a few come to mind. And by “met”, I mean “shaken their hand”.
I met Frederick Buechner when he preached at Christ Church Cathedral here in town. He came at the invitation of his old friend Hays Rockwell, the Bishop. I shook his hand after the service and he shook my children’s hands as well.
I heard John Updike speak at my flyover university one afternoon in the “chapel”. And I sat behind Marilyn Robinson when she spoke at my university. I could have reached out and touched her mass of frizzy hair, but I restrained myself. I had a good view of her when she spoke to the relatively small audience (at least compared to Updike).
I met Nancy Willard when she was a speaker at my old high school and I was the alumna representative of the writing contest back in the ’90s. I drove her to and from the event and ate dinner with her. She was very nice.
Madeleine L’Engle spoke at my church 35+ years ago and I exchanged a few words with her afterwards. I went to the Ethical Society to hear Nathaniel Philbrick and he signed my copy of Blind Ambition. Amor Towles came to town, but I had to see him on Zoom.
All of these sightings meant something at the time, but I don’t remember much about them now. Words of great wisdom were not imparted that I recall. The best was Buechner and half the people there were shocked when he asked the people (and children) in the back of the church to be quiet. But his message was always pay attention!, wasn’t it?
The lesson I think is that authors are much less interesting than their books are. Most of them just want to be left alone to work–traveling and speaking is something they do to please their publishers and sell books. If you have the good luck to actually know a writer, more power to you, but meeting them randomly at an event isn’t much.
So read a book!
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”
The other day when I was perusing the shelves at the local public library I found this book published back in 2013, which I had missed at the time.
I like reading about old J.D. so I checked it out. His experiences in WWII are really terrifying–not that they are different or worse than a lot of men’s–but to be reminded of what they went through at Utah Beach and then in the Battle of the Bulge–especially in the Hürtgen Forest campaign in the September-December of ’44 is terrifying. He won five battle stars. To have survived all that and then to move on to liberating concentration camps where the emaciated dead bodies were piled like cord wood…how did any of those men expect to lead “normal” lives when they returned to their homes in the U.S.? I think J.D. did pretty well considering. No wonder he wanted to disappear in Cornish, NH and be the anonymous man at the Congregational Church roast beef dinners.
I am also re-reading Jan de Hartog’s novel The Little Ark, published in 1953 about two Dutch children who survive the catastrophic North Sea flooding of the dykes in the Netherlands during 1953. (It was the worst natural disaster of the 20th century in the United Kingdom and the worst in the Netherlands since the Middle Ages.) Powerful stuff, to say the least.
I’m glad I have some good reading material, since daughter #1 is driving up to visit her prairie sister et al today. Mr. Smith is going to the kennel/spa to hang out with the boyz and get a makeover. He kinda needs it. (#rude)
I’ll pick him up on Sunday for some therapy time.
Have a good weekend! Read a book, pet a nice dog, go to church!
We had quite a noisy Midwest thunderstorm Sunday night/early morning. Then we waited around on Monday for part II which was billed as much more serious…
The tornado sirens did go off in the afternoon and the view got a little dicey…
It was a drama-filled day. Some schools let out early! A second wave did come through in the evening. The boy reported hail in Wildwood.
And we had 60-70 mile an hour winds. But no rotation, so I am thankful. Phew. The sky was an insane golden-green when it was over. Midwest weather!
In the meantime I puttered around doing things like cleaning my refrigerator and watering my indoor plants. I also read some Conrad Richter, including his short story “As It Was in the Beginning”, written back in 1935 for the Saturday Evening Post. I was especially interested in it as it is one of his Southwest stories, based in part in Bent’s Fort and dealing with a Sante Fe trail trader. He is such a good writer ! But he was hardly ever on any best seller list. Times sure have changed in nearly 100 years! To think that nowadays we have to be careful not to buy AI generated slop from Amazon! I’ll stick to the old books, thank you.
I have a lot of books on my bedside bench…
…which I work at in a haphazard way. Frequently I fall asleep at 9:30 pm only to wake up at 3:00 am. Reading Dominion by Tom Holland is a lot at that time of night, so I keep the latest issue of Tabletalk magazine handy. When the prairie girls were visiting the weekend before last they each loaded a tote bag full of Tabletalks to take home. They love paging through them and “pretend reading” them. They are just the right size for little hands.
(Tabletalk is an outreach ministry of Ligonier Ministries.)
Well, just another day in flyover country! Happy Tuesday!
The sun was out yesterday–so big win! I went to Hobby Lobby and bought several craft kits to do with the twins when they spend the night tonight. We will probably watch a movie–maybe How the West Was Won (1962) if they haven’t seen it yet.
This is one of the best opening credit sequences of all time!
This is a about the other book that shaped America (next to the Bible). If you haven’t read it recently, I suggest you do. It is wonderful.
“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend; The difficulty will not me offend. For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear. Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”
Today is going to be a very busy, stressful day, as is tomorrow. But what ho, it is the bell and it tolleth for me. Have a good one–watch an old movie, read an old book, let’s neither faint nor fear.
Have you been watching the Olympics? Me neither. Every night I try, but it is just so uninspiring, and, I’m sorry, I do not want to watch women’s curling! No one does, outside Canada. Ugh. If they showed a replay of the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, I would watch that…or the ones in Lillehammer–they were great! I have no doubt that the ratings would be much better. Well, I’ll just keep watching Lonesome Dove from back in 1989.
Meanwhile I am reading this biography of William Tecumseh Sherman…
It is “popular” history and therefore quite readable, and I am enjoying it. The author understands context and does not judge his subject by 21st century standards. I have always liked Sherman. He hated politicians and journalists and he was fiercely loyal. I can relate to that.
I am also reading this…
…which is also very interesting. The emphasis is on Sarah Edwards, the “godly wife”. By all evidence, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards had a very happy marriage and 11 children, all of whom lived to at least young adulthood–an amazing thing in the early 18th century. Noel Piper wrote this long article about the book and the impressive couple.
I couldn’t have said this better: “The church has always lived in changing times, even if today’s changes might feel more aggressive and chaotic than before. But our hope has never rested in the stability of society. It rests in the stability of God: ‘I the Lord do not change'(Mal. 3:6). The world may reinvent itself every decade, but God does not evolve, and His truth does not expire. It does not need updating. It does not need rebranding. Truth that shifts with the culture isn’t truth at all—it’s marketing.”
And here’s a new rendition of one of my favorite hymns:
Today we toast the great American writer A.B. Guthrie, Jr. on his birthday (1901-1991). He wrote the western series featuring Dick Summers, who I maintain is one of the great characters of fiction, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The WayWest in 1950. ”I don’t write ‘gun-and-gallop’ jobs that promote the myth of the West,” Mr. Guthrie said in an interview. ”I avoid the myth. I have a sense of morality about it–I want to talk about real people in real times. For every Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid, you see, there were thousands of people trying to get along–not ready with a gun or ready to spill blood. And that story has been obscured.” His books are well worth reading.
Last week John Piper celebrated his 80th birthday. As you know, he is considered quite the guy in reformed circles. He has been a wonderful help to me on my spiritual journey. He has taught me a lot. “In his second year as a pastor, Piper noted that the mercy of God and the sovereignty of God were the twin pillars of his life: ‘They are the hope of my future, the energy of my service, the center of my theology, the bond of my marriage, the best medicine in all my sickness, the remedy of all my discouragements. And when I come to die (whether soon or late) these two truths will stand by my bed and with infinitely strong and infinitely tender hands lift me up to God.’”
Here’s the audio transcript of his latest Ask Pastor John podcast. “[Public] faithfulness becomes public performance when we fail to hope that God will be glorified more than we will be glorified. We just fail to want that; we don’t want it. That’s a failure. Which brings us back to where we started: Is God real for us? Is he a precious Father to us? Is the promise of his reward far more desirable to us than the rewards of human admiration?”
Have a good Tuesday!
And remember: “If you do not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week. There is no such thing known in heaven as Sunday worship unless it is accompanied by Monday worship and Tuesday worship and so on.” (A.W. Tozer)
My busy week proceeds, but I will stop to note that yesterday was the birthday of writer Jack Schaefer (1907-1991) who, as you know, wrote the novel Shane, published in 1949. The book ends differently than the movie…
Out of the heart of the great glowing West…Good stuff.
Speaking of Wyoming, daughter #1 returns from a business trip to Gillette today. However, she will not be home in time to pick up Mr. Smith at the kennel, so I will do that. It is supposed to rain all day and Mr. Smith has a thing about windshield wipers, so pray that he doesn’t go all Westie on me and tear up my car or force me to drive off the road. I kid you not.
The weather has been unseasonably warm and beautiful for November–blue sky, orange trees, temps in the 70s! Daughter #1 and I sat out on a lovely patio on Friday afternoon and enjoyed a glass of wine–in November! Then we drove out to Wildwood and enjoyed pizza night with the boy and his family. Lovely.
The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet. I finished a D.E. Stevenson book and watched the leaves float down. I watched the new Kevin James movie–Playdate–on Prime. I’m not saying it’s a great movie, but I enjoyed it.
A “buddy action comedy movie”, it is about two dads and their sons who are targeted by mercenaries. There is no bad language, no sex, no politics, and very little real violence. It held my interest for 90 minutes. And the first scene takes place at a lacrosse game. Why don’t they make more movies like this?
On Sunday I went to church and heard a great sermon on Philippians 4:2-9.
2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 3 Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Think about these things. Practice these things. The Lord is near. Wow. And Wow.
My adult ed class was about the diaconate. We have 14 deacons at my church and they really walk the walk. Presbyterian polity, which was developed as a rejection of governance by hierarchies of single bishops, also differs from the congregational polity in which each congregation is independent. In contrast to the other two forms, authority in the presbyterian polity flows both from the top down (as higher assemblies exercise limited but important authority over individual congregations, e.g., only the presbytery can ordain ministers, install pastors, and start up, close, and approve relocating a congregation) and from the bottom up (e.g., the moderator and officers are not appointed from above but are rather elected by and from among the members of the assembly). Brilliant. This theory of governance was developed in Geneva under John Calvin and was introduced to Scotland by John Knox. Presbyterians view this method of government as approximating that of the New Testament and earliest churches. In our church, deacons exercise responsibility for practical matters of the building and grounds and administer the welfare matters of the congregation. Members who are in need are helped by the deacons. These men are the faith in action team.
dual personalities 