There are still an amazing bounty of flowers still blooming in our flyover town. It must be all that rain we had in the spring. Long after the Daylilies in my yard are gone, Don’s garden is still pretty lush…
Meanwhile the twins started third grade and Katie started kindergarten. Sunrise, sunset. And I guess that means the summer is over…
This picture of the prairie girls reminds me of the conversation I had with Lottie about her recent trip to Oklahoma. I said, oh yes, they have great clouds in Oklahoma–big sky, big clouds. And she said (with a bit of a tone) well, their clouds are no better than our clouds here in Missouri! I stand corrected.
Here’s a wonderful reminder from John Piper about God’s provision for us.
We won’t endure on our own. God brings brothers and sisters in Christ into our lives to help us along the path to heaven. That’s actually one of the great themes in Bunyan’s famous allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. Faithful and Hopeful are the friends Christian needs, his fellowship, along his path to the gates of the Celestial City.
And I really like the new Zach Williams song, don’t you?
*Oliver in Only Murders in the Building
Mabel Mora – “I’m a stranger that lied to you a bunch. And you’re two randos that dragged me into a podcast.”
Oliver Putnam – “‘Rando’ is a slang term for a person of no significance.”
Charles-Haden Savage – “I used context clues, but thank you.”
Hard to believe it is October 10th already and we are well on our way to Halloween (or, if you prefer, Reformation Day) and the slide to the end of the year!
Don’s chrysanthemums
Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Ben at his fancy retirement community. We were joined by three other friends who live there which made it almost a party. It was quite enjoyable and a reminder that old friends are best. We talked about poetry and old times and avoided politics.
Speaking of celebrating, today we toast the great Yul Brynner on the anniversary of his death in 1985. Yul was without peer and we will enjoy watching one of his movies.
Shall it be The King and I (1956) or The Magnificent Seven (1960) or The Ten Commandments (1956)?
We are experiencing absolutely beautiful weather here in flyover country and I feel almost guilty considering what those south and east of us are enduring. There but for the grace of God…Here’s an inspiring article about God’s Grace working through the church in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Daughter #2 sent this picture and it made me chuckle:
Preschool on the prairie
And finally, this made me laugh–100 raccoons! ‘Somehow the word got out in raccoon land and they all showed up to her house expecting a meal,’ Kevin McCarty, a spokesperson for the Kitsap County Sheriff, said.
Time continues to march on and we are nearly halfway into the year.
It is hot here, and the hostas are looking pretty droopy and sad. The lawn, despite copious watering, is burning up. But the day lilies are amazing as usual–they love the heat! They scoff at the lack of rain. They just keep going.
(Photos taken from my car!)
This old plant is native to Asia and arrived on our shores early during the colonial period from Europe. It was so popular, and “passed along” from so many gardeners to their neighbors, it now grows happily from coast to coast, often along roadsides. When wagon trains went west, the old orange day lilies rode along with many a frontier gardener. I think that’s great.
Everyone should have some day lilies in their yard!
Today we remember my mother who died on this day in 1988. I can’t believe I have lived over half my life without her. Here she is with her baby sister Donna circa 1934.
Weep not, weep not, She is not dead; She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus. Heart-broken husband–weep no more; Grief-stricken son–weep no more; Left-lonesome daughter –weep no more; She only just gone home.
— from “Go Down, Death” by James Weldon Johnson (who also died on this day in 1938)
All the flowers have been blooming ahead of schedule this spring–now the day lilies are going strong!
Don’s flowers are amazing!
I am happy to have his photos to share because I am feeling too crummy to go outside and take pictures of my own. Yes, another cold with painful sinuses. What is with this? I am not amused.
Anyway, I wanted to remind everyone that, of course, today is June 6th and that means the 80th anniversary of D-Day! Lest we forget, D-Day was the name given to the June 6, 1944, invasion of the beaches at Normandy in northern France by troops from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom during World War II. France at the time was occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany, and the amphibious assault—codenamed Operation Overlord—landed some 156,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day.
So a toast to those brave men who stormed the beaches–including Robert Montgomery, Yogi Berra, James Doohan, Charles Durning, David Niven, Alec Guinness, Richard Todd (parachuting from a plane), and, of course, J.D. Salinger. John Ford was also there, leading a team of US Coast Guard cameramen in filming a documentary on D-Day for the Navy. I like to think of my friend Herschel, who also parachuted from a plane and lived to return to flyover country and lead his mild-mannered life. I only knew about his involvement in D-Day when I read it in his obituary.
I’m going to watch The Longest Day (1962) tonight but it will probably take me three nights to see the whole thing.
(Red Buttons in the Herschel A. part.)
Lest we forget.
Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
Today is leap day. As you know, nearly every four years, we add an extra day to the calendar in the form of February 29. These additional 24 hours are built into the calendar to ensure that it stays in line with the Earth’s movement around the sun. While the modern calendar contains 365 days, the actual time it takes for Earth to orbit its star is slightly longer—roughly 365.2421 days.
Meanwhile the temperature dropped 60 degrees yesterday–from a record high of 86 on Tuesday to lows in the 20s. Wind chills in the 10s. The weathermen are loving it–getting to say things like “weather whiplash” etc. But we’ll be back in the 70s by the weekend, so no apocalypse yet. I am just glad we didn’t experience any tornadoes because of the “fast changing air masses”. Weather is endlessly fascinating because we cannot control it, despite our Power Dopplar radar scanning the skies.
This is a good one by Darryl Dash. “Big dreams impress, but ordinary faithfulness delivers. We tend to overestimate what can be done through large initiatives, and underestimate what can be done through ordinary obedience, persistent prayer, and sacrificial love.” The author also quotes Wendell Berry and that got me reading some Berry poetry. He is a favorite of mine. Here’s another good one:
He wrote this poem in 1967, but it sure resonates today.
How was your weekend? Hope you managed to keep cool. We had more storms and this time the electricity at our house went out for an hour and a half! I was just packing a bag to go to daughter #1’s house, when it came back on. Such drama–these days we are lost without our precious electricity.
Poor daughter #2 and famille had their air conditioning go out on Saturday and had to wait all day to get it fixed. I am sympathetic, but back in my day, we didn’t have central air conditioning at all and we had to wait all summer for relief. We are very spoiled now, that’s for sure. We would go to the movies to sit for a few hours in the AC. Grocery shopping was also a diversion!
Anyway, c’est la vie. Saturday morning I went to a flower arranging workshop at church led by the floral director at Schnucks Markets. I learned a lot!
I like the fact that the flowers at our church are always done by volunteers. There is no “the flowers are given (i.e. paid for) to the glory of God and in thanksgiving for/in memory of by so-and-so” announcement in the bulletin. It is just an anonymous gift. But we in the flower guild do our best (for the glory of God) and every week the arrangements are very different.
After church on Sunday there was a reception for a lady who is retiring after working there for 24 years–one of those unsung women who make everything run smoothly in the office and, if they are lucky, are appreciated for being “hard-working” and “organized”. Lois was also lauded for her sincere faith. Well, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).
I watched a really good movie–Intruder in the Dust (1949) based on William Faulkner’s novel, which is basically a mystery story set in the deep South. It is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, an independent, land-owning black man, who is unjustly accused of the murder of a white man, Vinson Gowrie. Through the help of two teenage boys, the town lawyer and an elderly white lady, who figure out who the real murderer is, he is able to prove his innocence.
I had not seen this movie in many years. It held up. Shot entirely on location in Oxford, Mississippi, it has an air of authenticity that the backlot never would have achieved. The actors are all solid. The screenplay by Ben Maddow sticks to Faulkner’s book. The Director Clarence Brown, who grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and apparently knew something about the South, was not even nominated for an Oscar for this movie, but he won the British Academy Film Award for it. (Brown holds the record for the most Academy Award for direction nominations–6–without a win.)
Not surprisingly, the film failed at the box office, not even earning back its negative costs according to studio records. There is, after all, no romance in this movie; there are no pretty girls. There is no real action to speak of–only the threat of action (a lynching). There are tense moments, to be sure, for our heroes as they ride around at night and dig up a dead body and, when they get the sheriff on board with their plan, dig the body up again. But American audiences were not interested.
It is said, however, that William Faulkner himself was pleased with the film and Ralph Ellison wrote that of the whole cycle of race-based movies released in 1949, Intruder in the Dust was “the only film that could be shown in Harlem without arousing unintended laughter, for it is the only one of the four in which Negroes can make complete identification with their screen image.”
Check it out. It’s worth a viewing. Then read the book!
“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the bank either. Just refuse to bear them.”
Summer is here and it’s tiger lily season–they are blooming all over town.
I am looking forward to all the blooms to come.
In other news, as you know, I have been reading books written in the 1930s and 40s by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying them enormously.
I just finished “Miss Buncle’s Book” and loved it. Stevenson has a real talent for characterization and for subtly drawing a picture of a town and its inhabitants. In this novel the main character has written a book (using a pseudonym) about a fictional town that is strikingly similar to the one in which she really lives. It is so similar that some of the inhabitants are outraged and want to find out who the author is, so they can take him to court for libel. Of course, they never imagine that the quiet, mousey woman who is the actual author could have written the book.
If you have ever wondered when the actual date of your conversion was (as I have), Charles Spurgeon has a comforting illustration.
And this is J.I. Packer on the six things you should tell yourself everyday.
I am currently reading the book of Matthew in my daily reading. Yesterday I read chapter 24, which is where Jesus tells his disciples about the coming ‘tribulation’. I was interested to see him referencing Daniel in verse 15:
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.“
This is why it is so important to read the Old Testament, and, indeed, the whole Bible. Jesus is referring to Daniel 9:27 and 11:31. The “abomination of desolation” refers to the desecration of the temple.
Jesus goes on to say:
“Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”
Heavy stuff.
Well, I hope that isn’t too heavy for you on Wednesday. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Well, Don’s Iris are blooming! Mine are still buds, but I can tell it’s going to be a good year for the Iris. The peonies are budding as well. Truly, this a glorious season in the flyover garden to be relished and enjoyed.
Let us not forget that today is the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant. It might be a good time to take down his Personal Memoirs from off the shelf and read: “My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.”
Thanks be to God.
So check out the Iris in your yard, open up your Grant Memoirs, and praise God from whom all blessings flow.
*John Knox, inscribed on the Reformation Wall in Geneva, Switzerland
Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes.
–William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale (1610–11) act 4, sc. 3, l. 121
Yes, the big storm missed us. It just rained and then the sun came out. No big deal.
Tomorrow I do have a Big Deal–an Event to attend back at my flyover university. It is the kind that makes me very nervous, so pray for me. People always think I am so calm, cool and collected, but little do they know. I will be inwardly reciting my mantra: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
Plus, I don’t even know what I’m wearing.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
dual personalities 