poetry | dual personalities

March 5, 2024

This leaping combustion of spring*

by chuckofish

In my daily Bible reading I am currently reading Deuteronomy. Moses really has his hands full with those stiff-necked Jews.

And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.
–Deuteronomy 8:19

Of course, nothing has changed since then and we are worse than ever. Remember what Calvin said about the human heart being a factory of idols. He had read Deuteronomy!

In other news, today we celebrate the birthday of American illustrator and author Howard Pyle (1853-1911). Pyle was widely respected during his life and continues to be well regarded by illustrators and fine artists. His contemporary Vincent Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo that Pyle’s work “struck me dumb with admiration.” I had a copy of Otto of the Silver Hand as a child, which deeply effected me. Looking at his art makes me want to watch Captain Blood (1936)–clearly the art director of this film was a fan of Howard Pyle.

Sixty-seven years later Hollywood still looked to Pyle for inspiration…

Today is also the anniversary of the day the great actor William Powell died in 1984. He was in a lot of really good movies throughout his long career, most notably The Thin Man (1934) et al, My Man Godfrey (1936), Life With Father (1947), and Mister Roberts (1961). I recommend watching any of these. Pour yourself a highball first.

This is a good example of sports testimony. “So yes, a missed pop fly did lead to grace — revealed in the instincts of a loving father, the kindness and generosity of a doctor, and a gift that kindled a lifetime of enriching interests. Sometimes the things we fear the most do happen. But that is not the end; there is One who is more. In those panic-stricken and dark moments, grace mysteriously goes to work.”

And speaking of baseball, can you even believe the uniform debacle in the MLB? See-through pants? Mis-matched uniforms? Stupid Nike.

And did you hear that the “British Board of Film Classification has decided to raise the rating on Mary Poppins from U (for Universal) to PG because of racial slurs. At two points in the film the neighbor of the Banks family, Admiral Boom, uses the term “Hottentots,” which some people now consider a derogatory name for one of the indigenous peoples of South Africa. The film has also been criticized for blackface because of the scene in which sooty chimney sweeps dance over rooftops.” (World News Group) The world is a clown show.

Enjoy your Tuesday. Do not forget the Lord.

*D.H. Lawrence, “The Enkindled Spring”

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February 29, 2024

The wind blows where it wishes

by chuckofish

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.

Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

P.S. The flowers are in Don’s yard, not mine!

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February 27, 2024

A little brimstone

by chuckofish

Today is the 217th birthday of the great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Like most of our mid-19th century poets, Longfellow is not much appreciated these days. Eric Metaxas writes in his book If You Can Keep It that part of this is due to the fact that since roughly the 1960s “public expressions of the heroic, whether in stories or other artworks have effectively disappeared. America decided that it made more sense to be suspicious of heroes than to venerate them.” So we don’t want to read about Paul Revere or the like anymore. This is a shame.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go on reading Longfellow.

Here’s a poem, “The Ladder of Saint Augustine”, which was adapted into a hymn.

You can read the whole poem here.

And here’s a really good sermon on Revelation 14:6-7 by Kevin DeYoung that offers some more brimstone. “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Read the whole thing: it’s long–like all PCA sermons–but it’s worth it.

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February 22, 2024

A certain natural gift for rhetoric

by chuckofish

A few nights ago I watched the movie Pygmalion (1938) which I had not seen in many years. It is based on the play by George Bernard Shaw.

It was really good! The screenplay is by Shaw himself (he won the Oscar for writing that year) and stars Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins, a part he was born to play. Wendy Hiller plays Eliza Doolittle and the wonderful Wilfrid Lawson plays her father Alfred Dolittle. Here’s a clip that shows both of Lawson’s big scenes.

It’s readily available on Youtube and I highly recommend it.

I could launch into a vent on why no one can write a screenplay like this today, one that even includes a good amount of social commentary, but I will not. What’s the point? Instead I will repeat my old mantra: watch an old movie, read an old book, look up from your phone, step into the sun, step into the light!

As for going outside, yesterday afternoon, the boy and the wee bud came over after school while Lottie was in dance class. The bud said, “Can we have some driveway sittin’ time, Mamu?” and I, of course, said YES. Since it was in the high 60s, it seemed right–the first day of driveway sittin’!

He tuned up the Raptor and drove around the yard, waving at all the neighbors and every dog that walked by. The boy and I sat on the driveway and talked. When the OM came home from work, he joined us. Lovely.

And here’s a poem for Thursday by William Blake:

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February 14, 2024

The best kind of love

by chuckofish

Happy Valentine’s Day, loyal readers!

Do you have special plans? Me neither. The OM and I will watch Bullitt (1968) which is our Valentine tradish. He will probably fall asleep.

Here is a fine poem by Billy Collins to celebrate the day…

And lest we forget: this. You’re welcome.

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February 1, 2024

The only day in existence

by chuckofish

Well, now it is breezy and “spring-like” here in flyover country. I’m not complaining, but, you know, that means the Iris will be popping up only to be crushed by the next inevitable arctic freeze.

Daughter #2 and famille are settling in here for a few days. The movers should arrive in Illinois early next week. Fingers crossed.

I am happy to have more time with everyone.

In the meantime, here are some good things to read.

I could not agree more with this. “Changing songs to remove these kinds of words makes for weak theology and a gutted gospel. When we do this, we’re changing the very nature of God by making him into an image of what we think he ought to be. We’re keeping God’s mercy but removing God’s justice, and when we do that, it ironically makes his mercy completely unnecessary. We’re essentially saying to God, ‘I think your message is a little too rough for this new generation and we really need only to talk about how much you love them because that’s all they actually want to hear.’” Read the whole thing.

This will cheer you up: A Tour of Dolly Parton’s Career-Spanning Closet!

I really could care less about the Super Bowl, but I do like Brock Purdy.

And here’s a poem by Billy Collins: The Only Day in Existence

The early sun is so pale and shadowy,
I could be looking up at a ghost
in the shape of a window,
a tall, rectangular spirit
looking down at me in bed,
about to demand that I avenge
the murder of my father.
But the morning light is only the first line
in the play of this day–
the only day in existence–
the opening chord of its long song,
or think of what is permeating
the thin bedroom curtains

as the beginning of a lecture
I will listen to until it is dark,
a curious student in a V-neck sweater,
angled into the wooden chair of his life,
ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,
quiet as a goldfish in winter,
serious as a compass at sea,
eager to absorb whatever lesson
this damp, overcast Tuesday
has to teach me,
here in the spacious classroom of the world
with its long walls of glass,
its heavy, low-hung ceiling.

The Lord be with you and bless you today.

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January 23, 2024

Frosty wind made moan

by chuckofish

Yesterday we woke up to the world covered in a sheet of ice. The neighbor across the street got as far as the end of her driveway before she stopped and just left her car there and retreated into the house.

I had gone to the grocery store preemptively on Sunday, so I just hunkered down (once again) and stayed home. The OM worked from home as did daughter #1 and the rest of the world.

(Zoom calls at home.)

Moving along, today we remember Alexander Korda, the Hungarian–born British film director, producer, and screenwriter, who died on this day in 1956. He founded his own film production studios and film distribution company. He made a lot of good films, including some of my favorites, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), The Four Feathers (1939) and The Third Man (1949). Any of them would be worth watching as we toast this notable film producer. Because of his work with Winston Churchill before and during WWII, he was the first British film producer to be knighted.

And here’s a little Shakespeare for a wintery day:

(As You Like It, Act II Scene VII)

Plus, some wise words from C.S. Lewis:

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” – Mere Christianity

Amen to that.

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December 8, 2023

The soul in paraphrase

by chuckofish

Maybe nobody wants to hear any more about prayer, but here’s a great poem by George Herbert who, you will recall, was a poet and Anglican priest writing in the seventeenth century.

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
“Prayer (1)” by George Herbert

3 Comments

November 8, 2023

Of shades and wanton winds

by chuckofish

Today we remember John Milton, English poet and Puritan, who died on this day in 1674. I wonder if he is still read in college. Probably not. Therefore, in protest, take down your Milton tome (I know you have one) and read some poetry.

You might start with “Lycidas”, which he wrote in 1637 following the death of his friend Henry King when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales. Milton was 29 years old. Numerous novels have taken their titles from this poem, including Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel.

You can read the entire poem here.

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November 7, 2023

That time of year…when yellow leaves…do hang

by chuckofish

This week I am busy getting ready with joy and anticipation for our out-of-town guests–daughter #2 and her family–who will be visiting at Thanksgiving. I am rearranging things in our four bedrooms to accommodate them more easily. The boy brought our little antique brass bed upstairs from the furnace room where it has been stored for 27 years and assembled it so Miss Katie can use it. I cleaned and polished it and it looks pretty good.

Baby Ida will be sleeping in my office in a borrowed pack-n-play. I hope she will not be overstimulated.

We will be playing musical beds for a few days, but I think that’s fun and it’s great to be filling up our empty house with family.

Some readers may recall that I worked for (almost) twenty years in the field of lifelong learning at my flyover institute, so I found this to be very interesting. “God created his world and inspired his word to display his glory. A well-educated person sees the glory of God in the word that God inspired and in the world that God made. An educated person understands God’s glory and evaluates it and feels it and applies it and expresses it for others to see and enjoy. That outward bent is called love. Therefore, the aim of lifelong learning is to grow in our ability to glorify God and love people. We think the six habits of mind and heart are a description of that process of growth.”

This is a long one from Carl Trueman, but wow, so worth reading. “We are idolaters because we want to be. We are not hapless tools of a system that dominates our individual agency and thus absolves us of any responsibility. Isaiah notes the zeal with which Israel embraces idolatry. Paul links the lust of sexual sin to panting after idols. We want to reject God and create our own gods. Thus, the biblical critique is not only cultural but also spiritual. It convicts idolaters of their personal responsibility for the system within which they operate, a system within which they happily live, even as it contradicts the moral structure of the world God created.”

And this made me laugh–the things people do!

I will also remind you that today is the anniversary of the day Steve McQueen died back in 1980. It is also the birthday of Billy Graham, whom McQueen met on November 3, four days before his death. He’d wanted to meet the evangelist for some time, and on that day, Mr. Graham paid him a visit. The pair prayed together and talked about the afterlife, and McQueen told him how his faith in Christ helped him deal with the cancer. At the end of their meeting, Billy Graham left McQueen his personal Bible, the name “Billy Graham” printed on the front. Inside, he wrote the date, along with a message: “To my friend Steve McQueen, may God bless and keep you always.” He signed his name, along with a reference to a Bible verse, Philippians 1:6: “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.”