dual personalities

Tag: family

September 25, 2025

Lest we forget: Laus Deo

by chuckofish

At the top of the Washington monument in Washington D.C., on the East-facing surface, are two Latin words: Laus Deo. “Laus Deo,” translated from the Latin, means “Praise Be To God.” The words cannot be seen from below and they face perpetually to the rising Sun in the east. 

The presence of those two words on his monument may recall, however, the prayer George Washington offered at his first inauguration as the first President of the United States:

“Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United states at large.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Amen, indeed!

If you haven’t seen this yet, check it out:

I will leave you with this video of 2 1/2-year old Idabelle’s favorite radio song. She knows all the words and sings along. How I wish I had a video of that!

Yea, though I walk through the valley
I will have

[Chorus]
No fear (No fear)
No fear (No fear)
The mighty power of Jesus is fighting for me here
No fear (No fear)
No fear (No fear)
The light of the world makes the darkness disappear

3 Comments
September 22, 2025

Our hope springs eternal

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Since daughter #1 was out of town and I had no plans of my own, it was a pretty quiet one for me. There wasn’t even a good estate sale to go to!

I did watch some good movies…

Friday night I watched The Natural (1984) and it was great. Just great. I loved everything about it. Robert Redford was perfect as were all the supporting characters–especially Richard Farnsworth with his sad blue eyes.

The cinematography was exceptional, the music was perfect, the direction A+. The script was unusually restrained and, may I say, profound. I cried at the beginning. I cried at the end.

I also watched Tom Horn (1980) which is Steve McQueen’s penultimate movie and a favorite of mine. It also stars Richard Farnsworth.

Directed by William Wiard and adapted to the screen by Thomas McGuane and Bud Schrake from Horn’s own autobiography, it is a sad, serious movie about changing times.

I highly recommend both movies.

We went to church as usual on Sunday; the twins were great. Lottie took good notes–writing down the words she didn’t know for clarification later: “vindicate ungodly”. I hope her dad obliged!

We had a great sermon on Philippians 1:18-26 and a wonderful adult class on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

After church the boy and the twins and I stopped at the kennel to pick up Mr. Smith. He rode to my house with the boy and behaved himself.

(He was a little bedraggled from having played in his water dish.)

When we got home, the boy helped me move some furniture out to the curb where it will be picked up on Bulky Trash Pick-up day. So grateful for that help!

After they went home, I watched the livestream of the memorial service for Charlie Kirk–100,000+ (original estimates of 100K bumped to up to 300,000) people in a stadium and the President of the U.S. plus most of his cabinet and Elon Musk in attendance. Impressive. You can watch it on Youtube.

Yup.

Daughter #2 arrived back from the prairie and she picked up Mr. Smith and stayed for a glass of wine.

Happy Monday–have a good week!

4 Comments
September 14, 2025

O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise

by chuckofish

Well, how was your weekend? I enjoyed some quality time with my therapy dog…

We celebrated daughter #1’s birthday, but it was pretty low-key–burgers ‘n fries at the boy’s house and a French Silk pie…

It was quite hot on Saturday so we bailed on the Greentree Festival in our flyover town. I did, however, go to the bud’s soccer game on Sunday–so hot–96 degrees–but I am a devoted Mamu!

We went after church and Sunday School and a change of clothes at my house. By 1:30 I was wiped out!

Our current sermon series is on Philippians, so Sunday’s verses were very appropriate to what is going on in our country.

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Phil. 1:12-14)

Christ reframes everything, including the way we see our trials. Never forget that God is in control. Our Sunday School class on C.S. Lewis was also excellent and I appreciated that our teacher opened up the last 15 minutes of class to a discussion about Charlie Kirk–something we would never do in church or our sermon.

And this is the transcript of a podcast with Kevin DeYoung which is very helpful about processing violence and grief. “We never want to normalize evil, but we are trying to normalize that God has been with his people and has been with us personally through difficulties, national tragedies, and that same God is going to be with you…They need to know and hear from us a faith that we have, that God has not left the throne, that this did not take him by surprise, and that the end of the story has not yet been written for us, but it has been for God, and it’s ultimately a good story, right?”

Amen.

This is a new Lauren Daigle song (at least to me)–a re-working of the well-known Frances Ridley Havergal (1874) Anglican hymn:

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.

3 Comments
September 11, 2025

Highs and lows

by chuckofish

Today is daughter #1’s birthday.

She shares it with Mungo Park (1771-1806), O. Henry (1862-1910), D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Bear Bryant (1913-1983), Tom Landry (1924-2000), Earl Holliman (1928-2024), Harry Connick Jr. (b. 1967), Ludacris (b. 1977), and a host of other people whose birthdays will never be quite the same since the events in 2001.

Later today we are going to our favorite local hang-out for Happy Hour. And tomorrow we are going to the boy’s house for a bar-b-que. Too bad we can’t have a donut (“wif yots of sprinkles!”) with the Prairie Girls.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (3 John 1:4)

I don’t like to get political on the blog, but I have to say something about the political assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday at a campus event in Utah, because it really upset me. Here was a young man–31 years old–who was totally committed to civil discourse. He believed in the power of free speech and debate. He would answer any question and talk to everyone.

But he was so successful in his use of the Socratic method that the opposition couldn’t win in a debate with him.

They hated Charlie because he was so effective at what he did. So they murdered him. They’re trying to scare us into not attending events and speaking out. This is biblical level evil.

Pray for his wife and two children. Pray hard for our country. Charlie was a Christian, so we know he is in a better place…

1 Comment
September 10, 2025

Non-relatives of note

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Confederate General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler (1836-1906). He was a calvary general in the CSA during the American Civil War, and then a general in the U.S. Army during both the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars near the turn of the twentieth century. He also served several terms in the U.S. Congress representing Alabama.

After graduating from West Point in 1854, while stationed in New Mexico and fighting in a skirmish with Indians, Wheeler picked up the nickname “Fighting Joe.” He is one of the few Confederates who is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

It is worth noting that Wheeler was of New England ancestry–descended from the English Puritans who came to New England in the seventeenth century–so it is possible that he is a distant cousin of our own Connecticut Wheelers.

Today is also the birthday of Arthur Holly Compton (1892-1962), the American particle physicist who shared the 1927 Nobel Prize for Physics with C.T.R. Wilson for his discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.

(Compton on the cover of Time magazine on January 13, 1936, holding his cosmic ray detector)

Compton was a key figure in the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear weapons. His reports were important in launching the project. In 1942, he became a member of the executive committee and then head of the “X” projects overseeing the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Throughout WWII, Compton remained a prominent scientific adviser and administrator. In 1945, he served, along with Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi, on the Scientific Panel that recommended military use of the atomic bomb against Japan. He was awarded the Medal of Merit for his services to the Manhattan Project.

After WWII he became the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. When I worked there, forty-plus years after he retired, people were constantly asking me if I was related to him. I would say, no, and my husband isn’t either.

So a toast to famous non-relatives Fighting Joe Wheeler and Arthur Holly Compton! Have a good day!

2 Comments
September 9, 2025

Bound for glory

by chuckofish

Our beautiful weather continues, although they say it is going to heat up again by the end of the week. I will endeavor to live in the moment and enjoy it.

This made me LOL:

This is an interesting article about an unexpected encounter with an American Patriot. “I was intrigued to see a solitary grave with a military headstone out in the middle of nowhere. There were no houses or businesses anywhere in sight. It was a very rural area without any nearby tourist attractions…Not a place where I expected to see a veterans’ cemetery or even a solitary grave.”

The twins are coming over to my house tonight while their parents go to some parent-teacher thing at school. I am planning to make them suggest we watch The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (1963), also known as Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. I loved that movie when I was their age and especially the song.

You remember the story of Dr. Syn, a country vicar who leads a rebel band against the King’s naval press gangs in the 18th century. Dr. Syn conceals his secret identity behind a sackcloth mask, and carries on activities a la Scarlet Pimpernel from his parish base. The twins may be too jaded to enjoy it, but I hope not.

And Josiah Queen has a new song!

4 Comments
September 8, 2025

“Oh, God. I can’t wait to get into bed and stretch out. You know, there’s a Bob Hope movie on television later.”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was lovely. The weather was perfect. The sky was blue. I enjoyed great conversation, good fellowship at my mini-retreat in a beautiful setting…

I watched a good movie with daughter #1–in fact, my favorite Woody Allen movie (besides Annie Hall)–Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). There is no bad language, no sex–just middle aged neurotics trying to solve a murder! I love the end where Woody is so relieved to find his wife (Diane Keaton) bound and gagged, but okay–he is so relieved and happy! It is like Cary Grant and Irene Dunne!

And you have to love Diane in a turtleneck, a blouse, a tweed jacket, and a belt!

Meanwhile we are back on our fall schedule of going to the 8:30 a.m. service at church, followed by Sunday School, and then on to a soccer game at 12:15. The boy and I went to the class on “The Power of Story in the Works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien” taught by our favorite college professor with a ponytail. It was very good. Also, our Associate Pastor is back from sabbatical and he gave a really good sermon on Philippians 1: 1-11.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace,[d] both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

And BTW I heartily agree with this article by Albert Mohler Jr.: “I try to be appropriately respectful of all elected officials, but Sen. Kaine uttered one of the most profoundly wrong, dangerous, and downright stupid comments a member of the Senate might articulate.” Who are these ignorant people?

Have a good week! Pray hard.

*Larry Lipton in Manhattan Murder Mystery

3 Comments
September 1, 2025

Postcards from the weekend

by chuckofish

How was your holiday weekend? Mine was delightful. We sat outside and enjoyed the lovely flyover weather and good company.

On Saturday we went to an estate sale where daughter #1 scored a Lane cedar chest for a very reasonable price. Then we went to Meijers in Champaign, which actually blew our minds. So big, so clean. There were even tropical fish.

But then, it doesn’t take much to please us.

We went to church on Sunday at daughter #2’s church in Urbana and heard a good sermon on Genesis 38–God works through what is sinful and shameful to accomplish his glorious redemptive purpose.

And Mr. Smith was a good boy.

I never took a picture of our hosts, but c’est la vie. Mea culpa. Everything was wonderful.

“Lord, help me to glorify Thee; I am poor, help me to trust Thee; I am weak, help me to lean on Thee; I am foolish, help me to learn of Thee.” (Charles Spurgeon – 1834-1892)

3 Comments
August 28, 2025

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful

by chuckofish

I’ve been working hard this week. How about you?

And today I am packing a bag to travel up to see the prairie girls and DN tomorrow. Here’s a poem by William Cullen Bryant to get us all in the mood…”The Prairies”:

These are the gardens of the Desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,

For which the speech of England has no name—

The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch,

In airy undulations, far away,

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,

And motionless forever. —Motionless?—

No—they are all unchained again. The clouds

Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;

Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase

The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—ye have played

Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks

That from the fountains of Sonora glide

Into the calm Pacific—have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

Read the whole poem here.

2 Comments
August 25, 2025

Deepening personal humility and the amazing bounty of God

by chuckofish

August continues to wind down. I have been thinking more about small joys and I ran across this quote from Pilgrim’s Inn, which I have quoted before:

“…Hilary enjoyed himself, just as he had enjoyed himself drinking the port. Increasingly, as he got older, he enjoyed things. As his personal humility deepened, so did his awareness of the amazing bounty of God…so many things…The mellow warmth of the port, the pleasure of the game, the sight of Lucilla’s lovely old face in the firelight, and David’s fine hands holding the cards, his awareness of Margaret’s endearing simplicity, and the contentment of the two old dogs dozing on the hearth…One by one the small joys fell. Only to Hilary no joy was small; each had its own mystery, aflame with the glory of God.”

I can really relate to this, can’t you? Coffee with a friend, a glass of wine with my daughters and joking about New Jersey “Charbonnay”. The satisfaction of filling in a hole in the driveway with Quik-crete (just add water!) with the boy.

Along those lines, daughter #1 and I went to a good estate sale on Saturday. It was at a big old, well-maintained three-story house in the old neighborhood where I grew up. We got a few books and some pretty blue juice glasses and Lamar gave us our usual discount. We drove by the old manse on Westgate and it was good to see it totally renovated and looking good. Interestingly, it is owned now by a law professor who is also a faculty fellow with the Carver Project. The world is more than we know.

Meanwhile the twins went to the farmers’ market out in their neck of the woods. And the prairie girls got ice cream.

After church on Sunday, daughter #1 and I went to our favorite winery in Hillsboro for the first time this year!

We had a lovely time sitting outside listening to live music on a really lovely day.

So remember, no joy is really small, after all, and all are aflame with God’s glory.

And don’t miss this:

Go Mizzou! What?! (Not a joke.)

4 Comments