dual personalities

Tag: music

June 20, 2022

Pickin’ and grinnin’

by chuckofish

As you know, I had quite a week, what with volunteering at Vacation Bible School…

…but the fun did not end there. After a slam bang VBS finish on Friday morning (which included a big slip ‘n slide on the front lawn), I rushed home to meet the OM so that we could drive to Jefferson City where we celebrated Father’s Day by attending a Ricky Skaggs concert with daughter #1 in the city’s outdoor amphitheater.

(As usual I did my best to advertise for Ultimate Lacrosse as well as use my Unclaimed Property fan to great advantage! It was super hot.)

We have seen Ricky in concert at least four times. The first time was in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry twenty-five years ago.

Taken with a camera–before cell phones!

We have all aged quite a bit since those glory days, but ol’ Ricky and his Kentucky Thunder Band still put on a great show.

No one goes to a Bluegrass concert who isn’t really into it, so the crowd is always rockin’–and this crowd of mid-Missouri oldsters was no exception.

I went to my first Bluegrass concert back in the 1970s. It was the legendary Doc Watson and his son Merle, playing in Graham Chapel at Washington University. I went with my brother and his friend Tom, who were bluegrass musicians themselves. I have been a fan ever since.

Anyway, we stayed up way past our usual bedtime on Friday night, but Ricky Skaggs was worth it.

On Saturday, daughter #1 and I went to a few favorite places in JC…

including the always interesting “Vin-tique” antique mall. Then we all had lunch at Steak ‘N Shake, followed by a treat at Central Dairy before heading home and collapsing.

On Sunday I had to wear my VBS t-shirt one last time to church for the final celebration and explosive display of Christian enthusiasm before we all settled back down into our more sedate Presbyterian worship. The OM and I thought we would bring the boy lunch at his store after church since he had to work, but every place we tried to stop was way too crowded and the drive-through lines were too long, so we just stopped by and said “Happy Father’s Day!” and went home. C’est la vie.

Here’s hoping life will be calmer this week while I ready myself to visit this little tyke and her parents in North Carolina next weekend.

Cheese!

5 Comments
June 16, 2022

I will praise your name

by chuckofish

I am that old lady! But the week is nearing an end. (Thank goodness.)

These homeschooled/Christian- and public-school kids are smart, disciplined, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic. They are allowed and encouraged to blow off steam during music (lots of jumping and hand movements) and during games, so they are ready to calm down and focus during crafts and Bible study. No one has complained about the heat (yet) and I haven’t heard a whine or mean word. (One girl did use a tone with me.) There are lots of teenage volunteers to pick up the slack for us oldsters. The games leader is a tall, handsome West Point cadet home for three weeks on break. The kids are all crazy about him, of course, and do not mind getting hot and sweaty and drenched with water balloons. (I am much less enthusiastic.)

But as Tim Challies advises, I have “embraced my finitude”—i.e. the fact that I am limited and weak and in so many ways insufficient and incapable. “This is a feature of your humanity rather than a bug.”

Anyway, I will make it through the week and then will have succeeded in making a few new friends and feeling more a part of my new church. Not a small thing for a super introvert who would prefer to not. Yay, me!

And the black bears are back! Ay caramba!

Thank you, sir, for saying this.

I liked this article a lot. “Whereas we denizens of late modernity are wandering in the fog of the simultaneous global renegotiation of all human custom, and consequently pining for nodal points of orientation, it seems fitting to remind ourselves that it is of the very essence of said “nodes” that they force no ultimate choice betwixt — ” Food for thought!

And in other news, Katiebelle’s mother gave her a haircut.

Perfect hair wasted on a toddler!

P.S. I almost have the hand movements down to this VBS song which doesn’t involve much jumping and so is my favorite. Also the lyrics are pretty familiar, right?

5 Comments
June 9, 2022

What are you reading/watching?

by chuckofish

I have to admit that my reading material has not been terribly cerebral these days. But it is summer and that’s my excuse.

I have been re-reading books from Craig Johnson’s Longmire series and enjoying them anew. Walt and Henry Standing Bear are old friends and it is always a treat to be reunited.

I am also reading Confessions of a French Atheist, which I heard about on Carl Trueman’s Mortification of Spin podcast. Guillaume Bignon is an analytical philosopher and computer scientist working in New York’s financial industry. He is also an evangelical Christian whose conversion story is very interesting. “As the foundations of his unbelief began to crumble, Bignon discovered the wonder of a God that offers salvation freely and not by good works.”

Chris Kyle’s American Gun, which he was writing at the time of his untimely death, is a timely read.

“There’s a saying that to really know someone you have to walk a mile in their shoes. I’d add that to really know our ancestors, we have to put on more than their shoes, which were generally poor- fitting and leaky. Hitch a plow to an ox and work a field for a few hours, and you come away with a whole new appreciation for what your great-great-grandpa did come spring on the Ohio frontier. Pick up a Kentucky long rifle and aim it at a fleeing whitetail, and you’ll learn real quick about how important it is to use every bit of an animal you harvest; you may not have another one down for quite a while.”

This man understood context.

“Whether they’re used in war or for keeping the peace, guns are just tools. And like any tool, the way they’re used reflects the society they’re part of. As times change, guns have evolved. If you don’t like guns, blame it on the society they’re part of.”

As for what I have been watching, it is a combination of the usual old and vintage movies and some newer documentaries. I watched The Jesus Music (2021), directed by the Erwin brothers, and featuring interviews with prominent Christian artists like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Toby McKeehan, Kirk Franklin et al. I am old enough to remember the Jesus Freaks of the 1970s, but I had no idea there were Heavy Metal Christian bands in the 1980s. It really is fascinating to watch.

I also watched The Capote Tapes (2019) which is another look at the court jester of the rich and powerful set. There is nothing really new revealed in this documentary, but I have always liked Truman Capote. He was a very talented writer and his demons were real and actually quite relatable. At the end of the movie Andre Leon Talley talks about the items he bought at the auction of Capote’s estate. The thing he wishes he had gotten was an old tin still filled with the cookies Truman’s Cousin Sook had sent him long, long ago. That just about did me in.

(Both documentaries are available on Hulu.)

Meanwhile, I am gearing up and getting my head in the right place for Vacation Bible School next week. Again, I say, keep me in your prayers.

P.S. How could I have forgotten to mention that the wee twins “graduated” from pre-kindergarten last week. What ho, on to kindergarten in the fall!

What are you reading and watching?

2 Comments
June 2, 2022

June, she’ll change her tune

by chuckofish

Well, here we are–a new month and the year almost half over! It is also the start of the festivities celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.

We wish her well. Here are some thoughts on a long monarchy and what comes next for the church. “Queen Elizabeth is a devout Christian and has increasingly made this clear through her annual Christmas broadcasts. At the same time, she is the representative of a sort of national folk-Christianity; a symbol of a time when Britain was a Christian nation. As such, she has allowed us to fool ourselves that things are not as bad as they could be. The nation still has a Christian heart.”

And, boy, this rings true:

“Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
― C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns

Do you think he was talking about us?

Anyway, it is feeling decidedly like summer around here. Here’s a summery snapshot of my grandmother (Catherine) and her beau/future husband (Bunker Cameron) circa 1919 with some great-aunt in between.

Bunker is, of course, goofing around wearing someone else’s hat. Catherine thinks it’s hilarious. Who knows what the old lady thinks–but she was probably amused by Bunker too.

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.

One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the midnight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed–
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you–
It takes life to love Life.

–Edgar Lee Master, “Lucinda Matlock–Spoon River Anthology”
3 Comments
March 1, 2022

Crashing and burning with dignity

by chuckofish

A new month is starting and spring is on the horizon. Let us rejoice and sing! We still have a little ice and snow around, but Mother Nature is undeterred.

If you are in need of a mood lightener (and who isn’t?), I recommend this article. You also have to watch the embedded video which is pure gold. “You see, in a world plagued by sin and evil, in which churches increasingly have no room for church musicians without commercial appeal, Jon Daker represents hope, joy, and faith. Here is a regular guy who has managed to lift the spirits of millions thanks to his love of singing and a willingness to crash and burn with dignity.”

I also cannot express how much I love these daily updates that the daycare sends to daughter #2 and that she in turn sends to me from Maryland.

This is Life from the frontlines of daycare.

In case you forgot, today is the birthday of David Niven (1910-1983) so we’ll have to watch one of his movies tonight to celebrate! Maybe Separate Tables (1958) for which Niven won the Best Actor Oscar. Hard to believe, but it was the only time he was nominated and I can think of other roles for which he was more deserving. With 23 minutes and 39 seconds of screen time, his performance in this movie is the shortest ever to win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Here he is winning his Oscar. (Note how tiny Jerry Lewis appears to be next to John Wayne.)

It’s nice to see someone win who is so clearly pleased but has no ax to grind beyond saying thank you. But then, he had some class.

And since you enjoyed yesterday’s video, here’s Iron Horse with another Metallica cover–bluegrass style. Personally, I can’t get enough of this.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 
Praise Him, all creatures here below; 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host: 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

4 Comments
February 7, 2022

“Though great our sins and sore our woes/ His grace much more aboundeth”*

by chuckofish

Well, we got about 6-7 inches of snow last week in our neck of the woods. It took us awhile to dig out–we had to get our driveway plowed–and so I was home until Saturday.

In the meantime I managed to shovel the front walk and felt pretty darn good about it.

No one lost their electricity and we had plenty of food and the house wine, so I kind of enjoyed it. Here’s a couple of pictures my friend Don took of the Frank Lloyd Wright house in his neighborhood in our flyover town.

Look at that unbroken stretch of white–just some deer tracks. So beautiful.

On Sunday the OM and I officially joined our new church along with fifteen or so other new members. We attended both morning services so people could get a look at us as we said our “I do’s” in response to the five vows in front of the church body (Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?…). I like this old hymn by Martin Luther we sang (even with piano, guitar and drums), but the boy was offended that someone had turned it into a “praise song” with a new tune.

Well, you can’t please all the people all the time. Anyway, we are Presbyterians now! Our Scottish ancestors were all non-conforming Baptists, but our Irish ancestors were Presbyterians (until one married my namesake Catherine Rand, an Episcopalian.) We are back in the fold.

Recently I was reading something written by James Muilenburg, who taught at Union Theological Seminary back when Frederick Buechner was a student there in the 1950s (and back when it was a seminary worth going to.) It seems rather apropos to today and the misdirection of so many to the self.

This is a good interview with the Very Rev. Dr. Paul Zahl about the last third of life. “Where it becomes deeply Christian is, you get to a point when you realize that engagement with the world is sort of a joke, in that the world really is passing away. You can’t tell someone who’s in the midst of life at 35 years old, or 45 years old, that that’s true, because at that time it doesn’t feel like it is. This is why I’m speaking empirically, not prescriptively. But then they’ll get to a stage when they’ll see that a tremendous amount of what felt important simply is passing away.” Amen, brother.

I also liked this article, especially because I, too, am reading Job. “The thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” (Job 3:25) We all deal with this one. “If atomic bombs or Chaldeans or tornados or illness or accidents or injury or our worst-case scenario finds us, let it find us living — not curled up in a ball in the corner.”

Amen, brother. Grace aboundeth.

*Martin Luther, Psalm 130

5 Comments
January 6, 2022

Hallelujah the earth replies

by chuckofish

The Star of Bethlehem by Burne-Jones

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 that his mercies are new to me every morning. I thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that I may encounter.

4 Comments
December 21, 2021

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy

by chuckofish

Four days til Christmas! I am re-reading Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon, the Mitford Advent/Christmas book, to help put me in the mood. It’s the one where Father Tim is fixing up the old nativity set. Standard stuff but always comforting.

I also got out some of my mother’s old Christmas books, including Happy Christmas, published in 1968, which includes selections from a wide variety of books.

This one reminds us that nothing changes that much–at least peoples’ view that times are never as good as the good ol’ days…

Anne is right on target as usual. “In the face of all this searching desire on the part of God, you can keep backing up, like Israel always did, hoping he will get bored and hassle someone else. Or you can be like Mary. You can magnify him—that is, praise his holy Name. You can let your soul rejoice in him. You can revel in the contrast between his great mercy and strength, and your own foolish weakness.”

Here is part two of Paul Zahl’s TCM picks for December. I have to say, I really disagree with him about King of Kings (1961) which he still really likes. I loved it as a child (Jeffrey Hunter is dreamy) and the music is great, but it is unbiblical and really pretty bad.

And here’s the Charlie Brown Christmas Medley (with all the parts played by Josh Turner) to put you solidly in the mood for mistletoe and presents for pretty girls…

And this made me laugh.

7 Comments
December 14, 2021

Daily walking close to Thee

by chuckofish

Calvinist humor

Well, how are you doing nine days before Christmas? Organized and ready to go?

My bedroom is a disaster area, but I’m “getting there” and that’s the best I can do. But getting there is half the fun!

This is an interesting article by a birdwatcher. I know some birdwatchers and I doubt if they would agree with it. “Brother and sisters, God has placed birds in your life…for you to enjoy, to praise God for, to care for and to teach you to be confident and remember that God will look after you.” I like to watch birds because they remind me how obvious it is that God did indeed create the heavens and the earth and that on the fifth day He “let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky…every winged bird according to its kind.” I saw a Bald Eagle when we were driving in mid-MO a few weekends ago and that was very exciting, but seeing a Flicker in the backyard is just as exciting to me! Quel oiseau!

@gatewaygardener

But wait, birds aren’t real, right? Not surprisingly, the New York Times did a front page story on these idiots, but I can’t link to it because I don’t have a subscription. Tant pis.

On a higher plain, here’s a classic Christmas episode of the The Andy Griffith Show from 1962 to put you in a yuletide frame of mind.

And here’s a great old hymn. I remember it from Cool Hand Luke (1967). Harry Dean Stanton sang it.

Through this world of toil and snares,

If I falter, Lord, who cares?

Who with me my burden shares?

None but thee, dear Lord, none but thee.

Hang in there! Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.  (Isaiah 52: 1)

4 Comments
October 11, 2021

Come ye weary, heavy laden

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? The weather here is still balmy and summery and I have no complaints. Daughter #1 came home on Friday and we had a lovely time sitting outside at Club Taco listening to the musical stylings of Dusty Rhoades. On Saturday we got the OM to drive us to Hillsboro where we hung out at our favorite winery. Lots of people had the same idea and the line for wine was very long and slow, but once we got our bottle and spread out our picnic, we relaxed and enjoyed the musical stylings of Brian Tobin, whose playlist was all our favorite 1970s tunes. Among the others enjoying the beautiful day and rolling hills of Jefferson County was a 60th birthday party, a gathering of overweight ‘witches’ in black pointy hats and suggestive outfits and a group of rainbow-attired Megan Rapinoe lookalikes. Everyone had fun.

Sunday morning we headed to church. Even the OM came along and so did the boy and the wee twins. It made me so happy to be all together, that I’m afraid I cried through all the hymns. C’est la vie.

We sang this hymn which I was unacquainted with and I really like it.

Words: Joseph Hart, 1759; chorus, Walker’s Southern Harmony, 1835
Music: Walker’s Southern Harmony, 1835

The wee twins and their parents came over Sunday night for one more October barbecue. We had more fun. They went on a hunt for my newest estate sale find yard ornament.

The wee laddie also asked me to go dig around a bit for cool stuff (i.e. bugs) and we found this guy, which he identified correctly as a praying mantis.

I was impressed. He pays attention.

Meanwhile I have been reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, which my DP has previously reported is excellent. (I concur.) I also remembered that a year ago when I advised my students at my flyover institute to read A Gentleman in Moscow, one of them emailed me to tell me he had gone to school with Amor’s father, right here in St. Louis at the same school my brother attended. He was, indeed, his best friend.

The world is more than we know.

4 Comments