Today we remember the Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) who was born on this day 212 years ago. He wrote many long, wonderful poems including “My Last Duchess”, “The Pied Piper of Hamlin”, “Fra Lippo Lippi”, “The Ring and the Book” and many more.
I actually had a couple of lines from “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” on my senior page. (Yikes.) Over the years he has had many detractors but also many fans, including Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote “Browning Decides to Become a Poet”:
Today he is probably as well known for his romance with poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning as for his poetry, but c’est la vie. His poems are pretty great. You can read some here.
And if you have a mind to, you could watch one or both of the two filmed versions of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.
So dust off an old college book and read an old poem by Robert Browning (or Borges).
The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in His heaven, All’s right with the world!
We had a rainy day on Tuesday, so the road crew was absent from our street and work stalled. Damn and blast. Yesterday was a beautiful day, but the workmen were slow in getting started and basically did nothing. We’ll see what happens today.
Since I was given two archival boxes for my birthday, I have been reading through piles of old letters before filing them away. They really are a window into the souls of our ancestors. I especially enjoy the ones my maternal grandmother wrote to my mother when she lived far away in flyover exile.
Tomorrow morning I have a hair appointment. Have I ever mentioned that I have let my hair grow since last Sept. and it is a “French Twist”? Ellen Coghlin told me I looked 20 years older and tried to get me to cut it. But long it is. I am nearly 65 and willing to look it. I am sure Ellen’s dyed, buffant hairdo does not make her look any younger! And her wrinkles are many.
Women do not change, do they? Well, I am with my grandmother. I am 68 and willing to look it.
Today we note the birthday of Maud Hart Lovelace(1892 – 1980), an American writer best known for the Betsy-Tacy series. My daughters were big fans of these books back in the day and now daughter #2 is reading them aloud to three-year old Katie, who loves them. She then “reads” them aloud to her sister and to the world at large. Since she has begun atttending a Lutheran pre-school two mornings a week, Jesus has been introduced as a character in her interpretive readings.
This is a beautiful time of year in flyover country. Everything is popping, the bugs are not omnipresent and the humidity has not set in yet. The grass is so green and plush!
But look what we have had across the street for going on three weeks!
I feel like we have an Imperial Walker parked in front of our house! It is quite alarming. And good grief this street “improvement” has been going on since before Christmas!
The view out my office window:
Lovely.
But we count it all joy, friends, don’t we? Well, we try to.
I thought that this was a good piece on the Christian response to cultural catastrophe.
–from “To the Dandelion” by James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891. Read the whole poem here.
Spring seems to have sprung, but here in flyover country we know better than to jump to any conclusions. We could have snow before the end of the month. It sure is nice, however, to sit on the patio in the seventy-degree afternoons and soak up some sunshine.
He is 79 years old! Kudos for still touring. Here is a list of other oldsters who are still out there making music in public.
Later today daughter #1 is dropping Mr. Smith off at our house. He will be staying with us while she visits daughter #2 et al in Illinois. So please keep us in your prayers!
Ha!
Daughter #1 will no doubt enjoy spending quality time with Katie and chasing Ida around–did I mention that Ida is now walking/playing soccer? The boy says, “Get out the cones! Agility drills start now!”
We will do our best to keep Mr. Smith from stressing out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
dual personalities 