Today my bible study group starts up again and, yes, we are continuing our study of Leviticus.
I get it, but I am heading once more into the breach.
In other news, I was amused to read about Neil Young’s ultimatum to Spotify that he will take all his music off their platform if they don’t remove Joe Rogan. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.” Gee whiz golly. Such hubris. I was not surprised this did not go well for Neil. Old Man, take a look at your life…
Also, the boy texted me this nice thing:
Today is the anniversary of the day on which the action for which Audie Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor took place in 1945. He was twenty years old. When asked after the war why he had seized the machine gun and taken on an entire company of German infantry, he replied, “They were killing my friends.” Murphy is another fine example of an American man who came from a very humble background (Texas sharecroppers) with little education, but who, when push came to shove, acted heroically and sacrificially. He became the most decorated soldier in U.S. history. Our current elite class has no appreciation or understanding of this kind of guy. Anyway, I suggest watching To Hell and Back (1955)…
…or one of Audie Murphy’s other movies. Lest we forget.
Tomorrow is the birthday of our ancestor John Wesley Prowers (b. 1838), the cattle baron, so I like to watch a cowboy movie in his memory, probably Red River (1948): “They’ll be no quittin’ along the way. Not by you, not by me.” This is a no-brainer.
PSA: There are tulips at Trader Joe’s! Always a sure-fire January pick-me-up…
Today is the feast day in the Anglican Church of Mary Mitchell Slessor (1848-1915), a Scottish Presbyterian missionary in Nigeria. She is most famous for having stopped the common practice of infanticide of twins in Okoyong, an area of Cross River State, Nigeria. She was 27 and had been a factory worker for 14 years when she heard that David Livingstone, the famous missionary and explorer, had died. She decided she wanted to follow in his footsteps. Her’s is quite the story. More here.
Today is the 76th birthday of John Piper, theologian, pastor, and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, MN. I have quoted him quite a bit on this blog and he has been quite influential in my spiritual walk. He does not mince words. Here are his 10 reasons to read the Bible every day. And here’s a clip from his famous “Don’t Waste Your Life” sermon.
I would toast him, but he’s a Baptist and might not approve of that. He would probably not approve of me making that little joke either. I confess I am always fighting my “allergy to seriousness.” But I am serious about my admiration for John Piper.
In other news, I did another puzzle over the weekend.
This was a fun one for obvious reasons. It inspired me to watch Errol Flynn in San Antonio (1945), a Warner Brothers technicolor western, but it was disappointing.
Although still in his prime at 36, Flynn is giving about a 50% effort and that is not enough. Plus, I never thought Flynn and Alexis Smith had much chemistry and the supporting cast is the WB B team. I expected more from the Alan LeMay/W.S. Burnett screenplay. Well, you win some, you lose some. C’est la vie.
Finally, here’s a positive story about good things actually happening in Chicago. “We understand that God is sovereign in all things, including the trials we went through during our leadership transition, COVID, and the individual trials in the lives of our members. We understand that ultimately it is in God that we live and move and have our existence (Acts 17:28), and that he is sovereign over every human heart, head, and hands (Prov. 16:9; Isa. 46:9–10).”
Today is Epiphany which marks the final celebratory day of Christmas. So let’s all sing “We Three Kings,” which was written by John Henry Hopkins Jr. in 1857. At the time of composing the carol, Hopkins served as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, PA. He wrote it for a Christmas pageant. It was the first widely popular Christmas carol written in America. (Bonus fun fact: Hopkins gave the eulogy at the funeral of President Ulysses Grant in 1885.)
We all learned this hymn as four-year olds for our first Christmas pageant, which back in the day, was in school. We thought it was very cool–so dramatic and kind of spooky with the gathering doom–and all that sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying. I think they turned off the lights and we turned on our little candle-looking flashlights for a special effect. There was no misunderstanding the end of the story for the baby in the manger. Here’s the BYU men’s chorus singing it:
Meanwhile I have packed up all of my Christmas decorations and taken them to the basement. However, I keep finding strays…
This always happens. C’est la vie.
If you are in need of a spiritual pick-me-up, I recommend watching The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) which tells the story of the real-life Gladys Aylward (1902-70), a former English domestic who became a Christian missionary in China in the 1930s.
In 1940 she shepherded more than 100 children over the mountains to safety at the height of the Sino-Japanese war. Ingrid Bergman is 100% believable as the missionary and her relationship with Curt Jergens as the Chinese Colonel, although embellished, is very romantic. Robert Donat, in his final role, is terrific. What can I say, when I watched it last night, I cried through the whole movie. (Some time ago I read the book by Alan Burgess, The Small Woman, on which the film is based, and it is very good too.)
This weekend we will celebrate daughter #3’s birthday which is actually today–bonne anniversaire!–thus wrapping up all the family birthday’s between November 28 and today.
I pray for the day ahead and that I might bring Glory to God, in word, thought and deed. I thank God thathis mercies are new to me every morning. I thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that I may encounter.
These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice.
T.S. Eliot, from Little Giddings
Like I said yesterday, I am not going to overdo the making of plans and goal-setting in the new year, but daughter #1 and I did get started on the time-consuming work of putting away Christmas over the weekend.
I still have a lot to do, but the two trees are down and the ornaments packed safely in their designated boxes. It always feels good to get things cleaned up in January, don’t you think?
After packing boxes and toting them to the basement, we watched Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959) to ring in the new year. It is, of course, an American classic–the brave sheriff (John Wayne), standing alone against the rich and powerful bad guy with his legion of paid gunmen, is aided by his friends, a motley crew consisting of a drunk, a crippled old man, a female card shark, a tiny Hispanic innkeeper, and a reluctant youth. Although he eschews their aid, they will not be dissuaded from helping.
The movie was a huge hit world-wide. Watch this climactic scene dubbed in French! (It’s not quite the same without John Wayne’s distinctive voice and manner…”Burdette! Nathan Burdette!”)
We also watched The Court Jester (1955)–another favorite with Danny Kaye and a stellar supporting cast. Can you say, “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”?
So I am off to a good start of vintage movie viewing in the new year. I cannot remember the last movie I saw that was made recently. If I wrack my brain, all I can come up with is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2020) or Ford v Ferrari (2020)–good grief. Last year was a total wash-out! I will stick with the classics–In fact, I am in the mood for a Paul Newman retrospective, aren’t you?
In other news, I have begun my Bible reading plan and I am working on one of my new puzzles.
I am also going to endeavor to read some actual books and not just my MacBook.
This sums up very well how I feel about everything. “Popularity makes a poor life preserver.”
Well, onward and upward. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” (Proverbs 19:21)
Christmas draws nigh and if we aren’t ready now, we’ll never be. Relax. Everything will be fine.
Today would have been our Aunt Susanne’s 97th birthday. She was our mother’s older sister and the Grand Dame of the family.
She was very different from our mother…
…as you can see in this picture taken in about 1930 (with their older cousin Marjorie). But they loved each other very much. When she was dying, it was Susanne who “understood” her best. After all, they had the most history together.
Of the three sisters, I think I am the most like Susanne, who also was a timid child. She played no varsity sports and she was not an intellectual like our mother. But she liked poetry and was a devoted church lady who endeavored to cultivate the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). She also liked a glass of spirits at the end of the day. When she died, her house was in order. As her son wrote me a few years after her death in 2000:
My mother saved everything (well, almost everything), and when the time came to settle her estate and move her belongings, I thought, “Maybe it’s important to save the things she thought were important to save.” So, I packed almost every item I came across.
Our attic and my workshop are stacked full of identical boxes that are just the right size for moving–not too big, not too small. Each one is labeled with its contents.
Periodically, I open one and try to make a decision to keep, or pass on, the items inside.
He is still working on it, all these years later…So tonight I will toast these devoted sisters and also our dear Aunt Donna, the remaining Cameron girl, who is 88.
Xmas card circa 1936
In other news, I finally watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Reginald Owen. Some people actually think this is the best version. I can’t imagine why. It was not good, especially when compared with the close-to-perfect 1951 Alistair Sim version. I could go into detail explaining why it is not good, but suffice it to say, do not waste your time watching it. Indeed, the Muppet version is much better.
To recap, besides the three versions of A Christmas Carol I have viewed this month, I have watched White Christmas (1951), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Bishop’s Wife (1947), The Santa Clause (1994). And I confess that I jumped the gun and watched 3 Godfathers (1946). I just couldn’t wait until Epiphany–mea culpa.
Can you blame me? I am holding off on a few Christmas favorites at the request of daughter #1 who will arrive home later today.
Speaking of movies, this was an interesting article about movies that were filmed in our flyover hometown. I found Harold Ramis’s back-pedaling about the scene he filmed in East St. Louis to be hilarious.
Merry Christmas!
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy, and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore, my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose, place me with ox, ass, camel, goat, to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face, and in him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart, embrace him with undying faith, exulting that he is mine and I am his.
In him thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.
Thursday again and another weekend approaches. Two weeks until Christmas and the wee twins turn five on Saturday!
(Social distancing with Santa in 2021–good grief!)
We do not have a particularly busy holiday schedule. Gone are the days of multiple Christmas parties to attend and work festivities and school events. And that’s okay with me.
TCM showed They Were Expendable (1945) on December 7 and I watched it even though I had seen it on Memorial Day. It is such a great movie and one of the very best war movies, in part because it is not about winning and glory, but about losing and going on, about learning to be part of a team and making sacrifices for the team. (For the record, there are brave women in this movie, but they are not the ones getting their ankles blown off.)
There is a lot of talk these days about “toxic masculinity” and frequently John Wayne’s name is bandied about as an example of that, probably by morons who have never seen one of his movies. This is a real trigger for me, and this movie exemplifies exactly what is not toxic about masculinity and Robert Montgomery and John Wayne are perfect as the heroes of the film.
Author William L. White based his novel “They Were Expendable” on the experience of Squadron 3 in the Philippines, who, among other things, evacuated Gen. Douglas MacArthur, his family and staff by night from the island of Corregidor, where U.S. forces were trapped by the Japanese army, to Mindanao, the southernmost of the Philippine Islands, on March 11, 1942. John Wayne played the part of Capt. John Kelly (Rusty Ryan in the movie). Robert Montgomery played the part of Lt. John D. Bulkeley (John Brickley in the movie), who won a Medal of Honor for his service as commander of the squadron. By the way, William L. White was the son of the famous William Allen White, long-time Editor/Publisher of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, whom he succeeded from 1944-1973.
I also watched Damn Yankees (1958) which is available on Prime now. I had not seen it in forever (if indeed ever.) I was curious to see the Bob Fosse choreography and his muse Gwen Verdon, who did not make many movies. As musicals go, it is pretty thin, but I enjoyed “You Gotta Have Heart,” which transported me back to my senior year in high school when I had to sing it in Class Day. I was in key about half the time.
This is an interesting perspective. “For what it’s worth (and, to be clear, I’m not saying you have to do as I do), Christmas is effectively a secular festival for me. It has nothing to do with the church and isn’t demanded of Christian people in the Bible. But it is fun and I like it. What is more, I am always glad to have an opportunity to think more about Jesus.”
John Piper is so right, as usual. “I risk a generalization to warn you: people who are exercised and preoccupied with such things, as how the star worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns to blood, are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal.”
And I have been wondering about this for a long time, haven’t you?
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
Well, it’s the last day of November and we are recovering from last week and preparing for the slide to Christmas. Back to reality. Back to a big pile of laundry and vacuuming. But also time to start wrapping Christmas presents and watching Christmas movies! Daughter #1 and I watched Miracle on 34th Street (1947) before she went back to JC. That always puts me in a festive mood.
I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer with the wee twins one night last week when the OM and I babysat while the young folk went out to dinner. Watching with almost 5-year olds gives one a fresh perspective.
This December I will once again be reading a chapter of Luke a day, starting on December 1 with chapter one. Simple, but a meaningful way to stay grounded amid all the commercialization and secularization in our culture.
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
“Giving thanks is also a powerful act of defiance in a culture steeped in selfishness. Gratitude forces us to face the darkness and disarm the demons of discontentment and complaint.”
Also, on Sunday our pastor quoted this line from Middlemarch, which I have probably quoted before, but it bears repeating:
“..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
We know it is November because the Christmas Cactus is throwing out buds like crazy! So excitiing!
In other news, I was talking to the boy one day last week and we were discussing my blogpost about my Top 10 favorite/best films. He asked me why I hadn’t included To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and I said, Oh my gosh, because I forgot it! It definitely belongs in the Top 10, maybe Top 5.
So I’ll have to revise my Top 10 and move To Have and Have Not down to 11-15. Sheesh. I am getting old. He also questioned my exclusion of The Professionals (1967) and I said it would definitely be in the top 20 list. So I guess I will start working on a Top 11-20 list. We are such nerds. But I am thankful that I have a son with whom I can discuss movies.
Since it is Veterans Day, which we should all acknowledge, I propose to watch one of my favorite war movies. I looked up on the AFI website to see if they had a top 100 war movies list, but they do not. In fact, there are only six war movies in their top 100 list! Of course, only one of them is a favorite of mine: #37 The Best Years of Their Lives (1946).
The other five are: #52 From Here to Eternity (1953); #54 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); $79 The Deer Hunter (1978); #83 Platoon (1986); #89 Patton (1970). Not terrible movies, but not favorites of mine.
No, I would suggest watching one of these WWII movies in memory of WWII Guy: They Were Expendable (1945); 12 O’Clock High (1949); Air Force (1943); or The Great Escape (1962).
If you’re not in the mood for WWII, I suggest: Drums Along the Mohawk (1939); SheWore a Yellow Ribbon (1949); The Horse Soldiers (1959); The Sand Pebbles (1966); or Glory (1989).
I ain’t much about no prayin’, now. I ain’t never had no family, and… Well, I just… Y’all’s the onliest family I got. I love the 54th. Ain’t even much a matter what happens tomorrow, ’cause we men, ain’t we?
Today the Lutheran Church celebrates the feast day of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish writer, philosopher and theologian, who died on this day in 1855. That is interesting considering Kierkegaard was extremely critical of the practice of Christianity as a state religion, particularly the Church of Denmark. But I’m okay with old Soren, so let us pray one of his prayers:
O Lord, calm the waves of this heart; and calm its tempests. Calm yourself, O my soul, so that the divine can act in you. Calm yourself, O my soul, so that God is able to repose in you, so that his peace may cover you. Yes, Father in Heaven, often have I found that the world around me cannot give me peace, O but make me feel that you are able to give me peace. Let me know the truth of your promise, that the whole world may not take away your peace. Amen.
Well, here we are in November and the end of the year approaches. Yikes. Thanksgiving is in three weeks! Advent starts on November 28!
However, Advent is not a Presbyterian tradition, and our senior pastor reminded us last Sunday that the Semper Reformanda (always Reforming) does not mean that we’re always adding to the Reformation, or modifying it to fit the world’s trends. No, it means the exact opposite, a return to Reformed confessional standards. So I don’t think Advent will be a thing at our new church.
I am okay with that. Advent has gone commercial anyway–anything to make a buck.
Happy November movie viewing on TCM–check out Laura’s detailed rundown of what’s showing. Sydney Greenstreet is the Star of the Month. I watched The Maltese Falcon (1941) last night for the first time in a very long time, and Sydney was truly one-of-a-kind. They knew about character actors back in the day.
I was happy to see the Atlanta Braves win the World’s Series, although I have pretty much opted out of MLB. But it did my heart good to hear shortstop Dansby Swanson give the glory to God: “God’s always got a plan and having faith in that plan will never fail you.” Amen.
Are we living in the last days? (You know you’ve asked yourself that question.) Here’s the answer:
But don’t allow yourself to get down in the dumps. Here is my favorite three-year old poetry aficionado reciting The Eagle: A Fragment by Aldred, Lord Tennyson. He makes me smile every time!
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Wish me luck on Saturday when I am giving a talk on the Santa Fe Trail to a group of DAR ladies here in town. You can bet I will work in a way to mention ol’ John Simpson Hough. It should be fun, right?
I have been thinking about Halloween and how back in the day, the getting of candy was really the big deal. No one had candy at home. Candy was something we got on special occasions and on Saturday mornings when we went to Spicer’s and spent a nickel on penny candy. Five pieces, which we picked out carefully, in a little brown bag. So a holiday like Halloween was about candy and the hoarding of it thereafter. Our mother made some pretty great costumes early on, but later, when we got older, costumes were secondary and frequently were thrown together at the last minute. It was the free candy that we wanted. Those mini candy bars were a seasonal treat and not available at other times of the year like they are now.
I remember when I was in kindergarten or first grade and I was going over to my best friend Trudy Glick’s house to Trick-or-Treat. She lived in a mansion on a street with other very large houses spaced far apart from each other. My older brother felt sorry for me because obviously we wouldn’t be going to very many houses. Anticipating quite a haul in our own neighborhood, he uncharacteristically and magnanimously actually said he would share his candy with me. Imagine our surprise when the denizens of Dromara Lane gave out full sized candy bars and I came home with a heaping bag of goodies. No apples or cookies or raisins. Lesson learned. (I have no memory of sharing with him, but maybe I did.)
Later, in college, Halloween was an excuse to wear makeup and to try to look sultry…
Now we just turn off the lights and ignore anyone who comes to the door.
Over the weekend we watched our share of “scary” movies: Signs (2002), Night Creatures (1962)–recommended by Paul Zahl–and The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (1964). Both Night Creatures and The Scarecrow are based on a book by Russell Thorndike, Dr. Syn. I have to admit, I prefer the Disney version. Those historical movies from the early sixties, filmed in England and sometimes starring Patrick McGoohan, were very good. The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh really holds up. And who doesn’t love a story about an Anglican vicar who has a side hustle as a smuggler so he can steal from the government to help the poor…and, of course, the title song?
We all went to church on Sunday. As a special Reformation Day treat, the men’s ensemble (a sextet) sang “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” at the beginning of the service. At the conclusion the wee laddie turned to me and whispered, “That song was awesome!” and he applauded. Luckily, he was not the only one so moved. We had brunch together at home afterwards, which I hope will be our new Sunday routine.
I served Episcopal Souffle, but I may have to change the name now. Calvinist souffle?
We did not get to see the wee twins in their Halloween costumes, but we saw a lot of pictures.
Lottie was a mermaid (striped shirt optional) and the bud was Kion from the Lion King.
Daughter #3 whipped up the costumes as requested. Very wunderbar.
Meanwhile baby Katie sat out Halloween…
…and looked adorable doing so.
Today is All Saints’ Day, at least in the Anglican world. But it is still a good reminder to pause and think about all those saints who have influenced our lives.
On All Saints’ Day, it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.
dual personalities 