My copy of Jan Karon’s 15th Mitford novel arrived on Tuesday and I jumped right in.
Jan Karon is 88 years old and when I heard that a new book was coming out, I was a little surprised. I mean it’s been eight years since To Be Where You Are was published. I thought she was retiring at that point–at 80 years old! But, my goodness, on she goes. Having just finished a vaguely Christian novel with a cutesy title (The Bitter End Birding Society) written in that grating style we see so much in modern fiction–the type seemingly aiming to impress someone’s 8th grade English teacher–I can say Karon’s novel is a welcome relief.
Last night my Church Community Group started up again after its summer recess, so I am back to doing homework! We are continuing to read this book…
…which we began last spring. I think I would rather read an actual book by Tim Keller, but this is okay. We got some good conversation going.
Next week my Women’s Bible Study starts back up. We are continuing with the study of Exodus (19-40) by Jen Wilken. So more homework! It’s a good thing my shredding project is almost finis. And in case you are wondering, somehow I have kept up with my daily Bible reading! I just read 2 Corinthians 4–I highly recommend it.
Tomorrow I am going to a ladies’ lakeside mini-retreat at Innsbrook about an hour out of town. I am looking forward to this fellowship time with my church friends.
Here’s a fascinating look at the “secular liturgy” that is Goodnight Moon. This book is still a favorite of my younger grandchildren, but it cannot be denied that its author, Margaret Wise Brown, was a real mess and lost soul. (You may recall that she was the granddaughter of early Missouri governor Gratz Brown, about whom I wrote a while ago.) Her famous book reflects her lostness. I have to admit, I always thought the book was a little odd. “Instead of appealing to a God who holds all things together in his ordered creation, the liturgy of Goodnight Moon simply observes the randomness of an inexplicable universe: Goodnight nobody. Goodnight mush.“
This is much better:
O LET the Earth bless the Lord: * yea, let it praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Mountains and Hills, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O all ye Green Things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Wells, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O all ye Beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever. O ye Children of Men, bless ye the Lord: * praise him, and magnify him for ever.
I forgot to mention that Sunday was the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine essayist, poet and translator. As you know, he is a favorite of mine.
I will toast him tonight and read some poetry.
I watched a good movie the other night, one recommended by my DP several years ago. The Professorand the Madman (2019) is the true story of professor James Murray, who in 1879 became director of an Oxford University Press project, The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, and the man who became his friend and colleague, W.C. Minor, an American doctor who submitted more than 10,000 entries while he was confined at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Crowthorne after being found not guilty of murder due to insanity.
Mel Gibson plays the Professor and Sean Penn is the Madman. They are both excellent.
This is not a film that would appeal to a large audience, but I liked it. Despite the fact that it takes place in large part in an insane asylum and a university, it is full of interesting, intelligent and kindly people. The only real cruelty is perpetrated by well-meaning doctors trying to advance medical understanding. There is even a Christian message.
I also re-watched Seven Days in Utopia (2011) starring Robert Duval and Lucas Black, two more favorites of mine. It tells the story of Luke Chisholm, a young professional golfer, who, after melting down during a tournament and shooting 80 in the final round, crashes his car into a fence and finds himself stuck in Utopia, Texas while his car is repaired. He meets retired golfer Johnny Crawford and learns from him how to move on with his life and career. It also has a Christian message.
This movie is actually rated G!
I am currently re-reading Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. It is a great book, so beautifully written.
“Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his devotions; and a priest in a thousand, one knew at a glance. His bowed head was not that of an ordinary man,—it was built for the seat of a fine intelligence. His brow was open, generous, reflective, his features handsome and somewhat severe. There was a singular elegance about the hands below the fringed cuffs of the buckskin jacket. Everything showed him to be a man of gentle birth—brave, sensitive, courteous. His manners, even when he was alone in the desert, were distinguished. He had a kind of courtesy toward himself, toward his beasts, toward the juniper tree before which he knelt, and the God whom he was addressing.”
So read a poem, watch a good movie, re-read a favorite book, and praise God from whom all blessings flow.
You know I am a great believer in re-reading books (and re-watching movies) and so is the writer of this article. “Love is the starting place of repeated rereading. And because of that beginning, the gifts of reading are amplified within its practice. Let me make a case to you: rereading is a rich, moral craft that forms us as people.”
And what do you know, science proves it! It says so here.
I definitely think this is true! I have my go-to bonafide stress-reducer movies that I like to watch when I need a lift. Don’t you? It might be time to watch Hatari (1962).
Speaking of John Wayne, this is super cool! “Many Americans of Generation X and older will recall the red, white, and blue American Freedom Train that was a centerpiece of America’s glorious Bicentennial celebration. But few know that the Freedom Train, pulled by a steam locomotive and filled with American historical artifacts, was the brainchild of none other than John Wayne.” Let’s bring back John Wayne’s rolling tribute to America’s finest.
And a bear was spotted playing in a Connecticut back yard…watch the video–priceless!
Yesterday we were able to do some driveway sittin’ when the boy came over with the bud while Lottie was in dance class. The bud drove the little Raptor around and we had a gay ol’ time gabbing away. Truly there is nothing better on a lovely spring day than to sit and soak up some vitamin D under the blue, blue sky.
Meanwhile I have been crossing items off my to-do list. The Review is at the printer. I have been to the dentist. And so on. I am reading another Agatha Christie–Ordeal by Innocence, published in 1958. Life goes on at a retirement pace–I have no complaints.
In other news, the pope died. I will let Carl Trueman speak for me. “Francis was thus my own worst Protestant nightmare: an authoritarian Roman pope driving a liberal Protestant agenda, a leader who embodied the worst of all possible Christian worlds.”
I talked to my 90-year old Catholic friend yesterday about the pope’s passing. She thought he was great–he really cared about the environment. So go figure.
And news alert: there’s going to be a rare ‘smiley face’ celestial alignment in the morning sky this Friday, April 25, so make a note.
My friend Carla gave me Help Thanks Wow by Anne Lamott for my birthday. I have read it, but I read it again (I do that a lot.)
When all is said and done, spring is the main reason for Wow. Spring is crazy, being all hope and beauty and glory. She is the resurrection. Spring is Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God./ It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.” I read Hopkins for the first time in seventh grade, when I also first read Langston Hughes, and between the two of them, I was never the same.
Poetry is the official palace language of Wow.
Buds opening and releasing, mud and cutting winds, bright green grass and blue skies, nests full of baby birds. All of these are deserving of Wow–even though I have said elsewhere that spring is also about deer ticks–and everywhere you look, couples are falling in love, and the air is saturated with the scent of giddiness and doom. Petals are wafting and falling slowly through the air, and there is something so Ravel, languorous, reminding me to revel in the beauty of the things wafting.
I am reading Matthew again in my daily Bible reading. I have just read through the beatitudes and the similitudes and a lot of talk about the law. Following after that, chapter six is all about how to do things right and not like the hypocrites and reminders that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Humility is the watchword of the day. We can never read about that too much, can we?
I am also reading several other books…
…and I actually finished one: The Pale Horse written by Agatha Christie and published in 1961. I have never been much of a Christie fan, but I ran across a mention of this book and I thought, I’ll give it a whirl.
The plot involves a dying woman, Mrs Davis, who gives her last confession to Father Gorman, a Roman Catholic priest, but along with her confession she gives him a list of names and a terrible secret. Before he can take action, however, he is struck dead in the fog. As the police begin to investigate, the main character begins to piece together evidence which points to a dark, occult group. I was pleasantly surprised by the book–it is well written, moves right along and is peopled with likable characters who are well developed and realistic. I enjoyed it so perhaps I will attempt to read another Christie mystery.
I am also reading Tim Keller on the Christian Life by Matt Smethurst for my Community Group. We are going through it chapter by chapter, starting tomorrow. You may recall that Tim Keller has been very influential to me on my spiritual walk. I credit him, along with R.C. Sproul and John Piper, with explaining the gospel to me, with showing me that the Bible is the foundation of the Christian life and with urging me to find a new church.
Boy, am I grateful for his guidance.
Today we also remember Henry Mancini who was born on this day in 1924. Let’s all have a cocktail and toast him tonight.
Well, the sun–thankfully–came out yesterday, but it was still quite cold. I had a lot of desk work to do, so I stayed inside mostly, only venturing out to mail a card. (Am I becoming my father?)
Today we celebrate the birthdays of two good writers–Elizabeth Bacon Custer in 1842 and Glendon Swarthout in 1918. Libby Custer was the wife of George Armstrong Custer. Left nearly destitute in the aftermath of her husband’s death, she became an outspoken advocate for his legacy through her popular books and lectures. She is largely responsible for his posthumous fame.
She never remarried and died in 1933, four days short of her 91st birthday.
“As the sun broke through the mist a mirage appeared, which took up about half of the line of cavalry, and thenceforth for a little distance it marched, equally plain to the sight on the earth and in the sky. The future of the heroic band, whose days were even then numbered, seemed to be revealed, and already there seemed a premonition in the supernatural translation as their forms were reflected from the opaque mist of the early dawn.”
–Boots and Saddles, or Life in Dakota with General Custer
Like Libby Custer, Glendon Swarthout was born and raised in Michigan. After serving in WWII, he went back to school, earning his PhD in Victorian literature, all the while teaching in college and writing short stories. He was paid $2500 in 1955 for one of these stories, “A Horse for Mrs. Custer”, which was made into a movie starring Randolph Scott, 7th Calvary (1956). The day after he finished his last doctoral examination, he started writing a novel called They Came To Cordura about Gen. Pershing’s 1916 expedition to capture Pancho Villa. The book was quickly sold to Random House and then to Columbia Pictures in 1958, becoming a major motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth.
Gary Cooper and Swarthout during filming
He wrote more best-selling novels, some of which were also made into good movies. As usual, though, the books are better than the movies.
So we’ll toast Libby Custer and Glendon Swarthout tonight and maybe we’ll watch They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with Olivia De Havilland as Mrs. Custer or They Came to Cordura (1956) or The Shootist (1976) starring John Wayne.
And it might be time to dust off Bless the Beasts and the Children and read it!
I will also note that recently our local rag (the Webster-Kirkwood Times) ran a story about the increase in recent coyote sightings in our neck of the woods. You will recall that I saw a coyote in my yard a few weeks ago and noted it. The experts attribute this to the huge cicada emergence last spring, which resulted in plentiful food resources and high survival rates for coyotes and other species. Well, my goodness, you don’t say? What I really want to know is who are the busybodies who report such things and to whom do they report them? I mean, if I saw a bear, I might call the police, but a coyote? That must be Karen, I guess.
At the suggestion of daughter #1 I am re-reading TheDaughter of Timeby Josephine Tey. It is very good and the type of literary mystery written by an intelligent and educated author, which you rarely run across these days.
“Did no one, any more, no one in all this wide world, change their record now and then? Was everyone nowadays thirled to a formula? Authors wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it. The public talked about “a new Silas Weekly” or “a new Lavinia Fitch” exactly as they talked about “a new brick” or “a new hairbrush.” They never said “a new book by” whoever it might be. Their interest was not in the book but in its newness. They knew quite well what the book would be like.”
The Daughter of Time was chosen by the Crime Writers’ Association in 1990 as the greatest crime novel of all time(!). After this, I will try to find some of her other books to read.
I wonder if Hilary Mantel read this book–because Tey brings Sir Thomas More to task for writing the “definitive” history of Richard III based soley on hearsay. He was actually five years old when everything transpired. He was not a witness. Did this book get her thinking about Thomas More? Did she come to the conclusion that Thomas More was a monster and not a saint….Interesting.
Well, the bud and his dad came over yesterday afternoon and we had a gab fest and the bud jumped in with the Beanie Babies for a rollicking good time…
We discussed movies and books and the state of the world.
I liked this one from Tim Challies. “God’s plan all along has been to use ordinary leaders to accomplish extraordinary things.”
We are in the deep freeze–it was around 10 degrees all day yesterday. We got some snow, but nothing compared to south of us. We hunkered down.
I read some more of Signal 32 by MacKinlay Kantor–I ordered a used copy online. It is a hard-boiled police procedural from 1950, probably written to make some money, but it is, as you can imagine, better than the average from that genre. It is about two uniform cops in NYC who go about their daily business, sort of like a post-WWII Adam-12. In 1948 the Acting Commissioner of Police authorized Kantor to proceed on all police activities, accompanying the patrolmen in their work. Kantor learned the life of a policeman through first-hand experience. It is pretty grim and stark and emphasizes (like the TV show) all the bad stuff policemen have to deal with on a daily basis.
I did my homework for my bible study–Exodus 4. It is a lot of work! But it is good to have challenging work to do. My brain needs the exercise!
This is a very cool video from the John 10:10 Project about penguins:
And I really liked this “drinking hymn”* which Anne posted in memory of her friend, a Reformed Episcopal Church (Anglican) priest, who died. I’m not quite sure what my PCA brothers would make of this–Would they do this at one of their men’s retreats?
Raise a glass to the King, boys! Raise a glass to the King!
For He has dealt most kindly with us; raise a glass to the King!
You may have noticed that I have been trying to read real books lately. I was shocked to realize that, indeed, I read very few entire books in 2024. Part of that is because most contemporary fiction is not worth the effort, and part of it is because I cannot read at bedtime because I fall asleep.
Well, I have given myself permission to read during the day–a silly thing, but it is something I struggle with. I am retired, I tell myself. I can do what I want. I do not have to be particularly “productive”.
But some of it, I must admit, is because I have a hard time focusing on reading. Obviously, this is not just my problem. This about reading in a scrolling world is pertinent to what a lot of us are feeling. Brain rot is real.
Well, I did read through the Bible for the third year in a row, so I can pat myself on the back for that. Right now, in my 5x5x5 NT reading plan, I am in the book of Acts, and Stephen–whose “face is like the face of an angel”–is about to be martyred. Sela.
The Grammy Awards are as out of touch as anything else these days, but the Americana genre keeps producing some interesting artists, including this year’s big winner, Sierra Ferrell…
So take heart, put your phone away, read a book!
“Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”
dual personalities 