It is October! The great slide to the end of the year begins! It will be Christmas before we know it. But let’s all take a deep breath and enjoy October. It was 92 degrees yesterday, but that’s all going to change this weekend. Cold front. Rain. You get the picture.
And here’s my favorite oft-quoted October poem from Robert Frost…
Enjoy the first day of October!
(The painting is by Albert Bierstadt, 1886.)
It is the last day of September. Where did it go? It is a mystery.
Anyway, today we remember the poet W.S. Merwin (1927-2019), who went to Princeton with Frederick Buechner, back in the day when that’s where Presbyterians went to college. He received many awards during his long career including the Pulitzer and the National Book Award and the Tanning Prize and was popular during the Vietnam era. When he died he lived on an off-the-grid 18-acre restored pineapple plantation in Haiku, Maui, which had been transformed from an “agricultural wasteland” to a “Noah’s Ark” for rare palm trees. He got his own Library of America collection, but I’m really not that familiar with him.
Here’s a poem:
And I found this interesting: “We boomers are in a crisis of confusion We do not know what to do. Retire? To do what? Work on? To what end?” What he says is mostly too true. But I am not confused. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.” That goes for boomers in retirement too.
It came to my attention while perusing old blog posts that it was ten years ago this week that the boy went to Indianapolis to have a second surgery for his cancer at Indiana University Hospital. The OM and I went and spent the night there also. Once again, time flies. A lot has happened in those intervening years, things change. But some things do not change. And that’s a good thing.
Here’s an old-fashioned, and some would say, sappy poem, but it expresses my feeling very well. It’s “The Stick-Together Families” by Edgar Guest:
I will also note that this week marks the fifteenth anniversary of this blog! Back when I started it, daughter #1 was living and working in Washington DC, the boy was unmarried and daughter #2 was still in college! The OM and I were working stiffs. Thank you to all who continue to read the blog. L’chaim!
And just as a reminder…
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
–RWE
Today we toast T.E. Hulme (1883-1917), an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism. Hulme volunteered as an artilleryman in 1914 and served with the Honourable Artillery Company and later the Royal Marine Artillery in France and Belgium. He was killed by a shell in West Flanders.
A touch of cold in the Autumn night –
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.
We are in the middle of another hot week in the 90s, so I won’t be doing much walking abroad! All the better for catching up on my Bible study homework and other reading. I am also re-watching No Direction Home Bob Dylan, the 2005 documentary by Martin Scorsese, and really enjoying it.
Have a good Wednesday! Read some poetry, re-watch a good movie, listen to some Bob.
(The painting is by Atkinson Grimshaw, a Victorian artist.)
Today is daughter #1’s birthday! Although September 11 has been ruined to some extent by the heinous events of 2001, we will endeavor to celebrate anyway. Because if anyone deserves a party, it is she.
This day, whate’er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.
–Jonathan Swift, “Stella’s Birthday, March 13, 1727”
Kentucky poet, novelist and essayist Wendell Berry died on Monday. He was 92.
He was right about a lot of things and wrong about others (as are we all) but I always liked him.
I like his poetry and I like his novels.
“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
‘Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.’
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”–Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter
I am re-reading Hannah Coulter; it is pretty great.
Enjoy your Tuesday! Read some poetry, re-read an old book, take a walk, be thankful, do not be ashamed.
* Wendell Berry, read the whole poem here.
Well, here we are–it’s the last Friday in August. One more weekend and then it’s September! It was a good summer. Good weather. A little travel. I watched all seven seasons of The Mentalist (2008-2015). Now I am ready to get back into the fall swing of things.
Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
In the meantime, here are some good things to read:
I agree with this. “There is a difference between possessing the information contained in a book and possessing a book.”
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death? A. That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. This is important: What the Heidelberg Catechism Says to the Age of Self.
R.C. Sproul’s entire teaching series library is now free forever. You can find them all on Ligonier’s Teaching Series page.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662) as printed by John Baskerville is available online.
Have a good weekend!
P.S. This made me LOL:
*William Wordsworth, September, 1819…read the whole poem here.
How was your weekend? We had lovely sunny days in the high 70s–low eighties, so no complaints. I didn’t do much, but that’s okay too. Church on Sunday morning is always a pick-me-up for me. Good music, an excellent sermon (on Psalm 38) and another wonderful adult ed class on prayer. It was our last class and I will miss this topic–it has been great!
Wrapping up the course, we talked about practicing daily prayer. The teacher asked the class how we practiced this growing up. It occurred to me that I went to a private school where we had daily chapel, which we all just took for granted. But really, this was quite a privilege. We sang a hymn, we said prayers–it was all very Anglican, like our headmaster. Of course, this sort of practice at schools is mostly all a part of the distant past now. More’s the pity. Anyway, I am inspired to get serious about my daily prayer routine.
Today I must note that it is the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), who readers of this blog know, is one of my favorites. He really was brilliant.
In other news, sadly, Scottie Scheffler was under the weather at the BMW Championship here in town and had a bad day on Thursday. He battled back on Saturday after a rough start, but it wasn’t enough to catch up and win on Sunday. C’est la vie. I went to the pool with daughter #1 and they had set up a big screen TV poolside, so I got to watch the final round while floating! Anyway, I was reminded, while watching, of driving the boy to Bellerive Country Club at the crack of dawn when he used to caddy there twenty-something years ago. Sunrise, sunset.
Have a good Monday!
*George Herbert
Yesterday my copy of The Sing! Hymnal–a Treasury of 200 Hymns for Worship & Reflection–came in the mail.
It is a lovely book, small and compact. It includes all of my favorites–I am amazed that I know almost all 200 of them.
A perfect book for one’s bedside table.
Yesterday I also went down to the Link Auction House to pick up three chairs I rescued for a pittance. Two are ebonized, stencil-backed, cane-seated chairs which daughter #1 will be able to use with her Hitchcock dining set. The third is a small antique Hitchcock rocking chair which I will keep or give to daughter #2.
They are always so nice at the auction house, good-naturedly helping to fit everything into the speedwagon. This kind of service is not always the case these days and I appreciate it!
It is also interesting to drive down to the Central West End and see the slow progress being made on the mansions along Lindell Blvd which were heavily damaged in the tornado on May 16, 2025. So many tile roofs to replace! Millions of dollars! Progress is slow.
They have planted a lot of trees in Forest Park, but there are so many massive stumps!
It is always a shock to see the tornadic devastation wrought in the blink of an eye.
Well, have a nice weekend! Sing a hymn (or read one), watch an old movie, pet a nice dog.
(Mr. Smith is a big fan of The Mentalist.)
Yes, it’s back-to-school time on the prairie! Can you believe it? Well, time like an ever-rolling stream and all that.
The twins don’t go back until the week after next. They will be in fourth grade! They have a few more days to wreck havoc before they have to buckle down.
I was always ready to go back to school (after Labor Day) after a long, hot, boring summer. I actually liked school.
…I know, nerd alert.
Well, here is a poem I like by Howard Nemerov, my old neighbor, about the first day of school.
