dual personalities

Tag: poetry

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
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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.”

And here’s a sonnet–#73 by William Shakespeare:

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November 1, 2023

A day of small things*

by chuckofish

In the late afternoon of November 1, 1941, Ansel Adams took this black-and-white photo, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”. Pretty cool indeed.

Also pretty cool is Lyle Lovett, and it is his birthday today! Happy Birthday, Lyle! Hats off to you–67 years old and still touring.

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Ezra Pound (1885-1972) who was a major figure in the modernist poetry movement. An indulged son of privilege, he was always somewhat “out of key with his time”–another way to say, he never fit in. I was amused to discover that his first job out of graduate school was teaching at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, which he considered the “sixth circle of hell”. Well, la di da.

Not surprisingly, he was asked to leave Wabash shortly after starting there.

Anyway, his “legacy” is certainly a mixed one, and he is mostly remembered for his advancement of some of the best-known modernist writers of the early 20th century. All the cool kids: Eliot, Joyce, Lewis, Frost, Williams, Hemingway, H.D., Aldington, and Aiken, Cummings, Bunting, Ford, and Marianne Moore, who became one of his staunchest defenders throughout his controversial career. He lived a long life and is buried in the Protestant section of the San Michele cemetery in Venice. Supposedly Pound had wanted to be buried in Idaho (where he was born) with his bust by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska on his grave. Tant pis. He wouldn’t have fit in there either.

I would rather toast Noah Beery, Jr. who also died on this day in 1994. He was, of course, a supporting actor best known for playing James Garner’s father in The Rockford Files. However, he acted in a lot of movies, most notably as a pilot in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and as a cowboy in Red River (1948)–both directed by Howard Hawks.

So on this first day of November, look up at the sky, listen to some good music, read a poem, watch an old movie, embrace your supporting part.

Amen.

*See Zechariah, chapter 4

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October 25, 2023

That we may reap, Great work is done while we’re asleep

by chuckofish

(Wendell Berry)

The days are getting shorter, aren’t they? I hope you are enjoying these wonderful fall days.

Meanwhile, Trevin Wax has been wondering “How can anyone preach Jesus without mentioning judgment? How do you deal with his parables? With his constant and consistent warnings about perdition? With his either-ors and contrasts? Even if you fashion yourself a “red-letter Christian” who waves off Paul and the other apostles, you can’t miss the red letters that warn about destruction and losing your soul, images of a worm that won’t die and a fire that never goes out.”

I have been wondering about that as well–where do people get this idea that Jesus is non-judgmental? In reality he is the mediator and judge of us all. He tells us not to judge, lest we be judged. But make no mistake, we will all be judged by Jesus.

Along those lines, Anne says, “I am always excessively bemused about so many pastor-influencers who purport to speak about a God they insist cannot be known by his own words. How do they know what it means to ‘Follow in the way of Jesus’ when they will not let Jesus have the last, authoritative, and final Word? How can they possibly say what God is like when they reject his Law, his instructions, his precepts, his version of the story? Why does anyone still listen to this?”

They listen because it is what they want to hear. The truth is too hard. It has always been too hard. I am currently reading the book of John in my daily reading and Jesus emphasizes many of his really important statements by starting off with “Most assuredly, I say to you…”. For instance, John 6:53:

“Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

You will recall that after this long, difficult section in John 6:53-65, “many of His disciples went back and walked with him no more.” Indeed.

Well, consider this your weekly reminder to read your Bible. Get to know the real Jesus.

And here’s a bonus pic of Katie and Ida in their two little bees finery.

The painting is Autumn Roadside, Kentucky by William Forsyth, 1903

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September 15, 2023

A simple walk in the park

by chuckofish

Friday again–where did the week go? I did the usual: reading, grocery shopping, lunch with a friend, preparing for Bible Study, going to Bible Study…and the unusual–having Mr. Smith as a house guest while daughter #1 was in Indiana working in the field.

Mr. Smith was pretty stressed because he was left again with us. I tried my best to reassure him. I read him a poem.

Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.

Their bodies will shiver with happiness.

A simple walk in the park is just about

the height of contentment for them, followed

by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,

a place to curl up and sleep. Someone

to scratch them where they can’t reach

and smooth their foreheads and talk to them.

Dogs also have a natural dislike of mailmen

and other bringers of bad news and will

bite them on your behalf. Dogs can smell

fear and also love with perfect accuracy.

There is no use pretending with them.

Nor do they pretend. If a dog is happy

or sad or nervous or bored or ashamed

or sunk in contemplation, everybody knows it.

They make no secret of themselves.

You can even tell what they’re dreaming about

by the way their legs jerk and try to run

on the slippery ground of sleep.

Nor are they given to pretentious self-importance.

They don’t try to impress you with how serious

or sensitive they are. They just feel everything

full blast. Everything is off the charts

with them. More than once I’ve seen a dog

waiting for its owner outside a café

practically implode with worry. “Oh, God,

what if she doesn’t come back this time?

What will I do? Who will take care of me?

I loved her so much and now she’s gone

and I’m tied to a post surrounded by people

who don’t look or smell or sound like her at all.”

And when she does come, what a flurry

of commotion, what a chorus of yelping

and cooing and leaps straight up into the air!

It’s almost unbearable, this sudden

fullness after such total loss, to see

the world made whole again by a hand

on the shoulder and a voice like no other.

(John Brehm, “If Feeling Isn’t In It”)

Meanwhile the babes in Maryland are redefining precious.

C’est la vie. Have a good weekend.

4 Comments
September 11, 2023

“But meantime let me whoop it up”*

by chuckofish

Today is daughter #1’s birthday. She was born during a humdinger of a thunderstorm and a low pressure system that caused the water of every pregnant woman in St. Louis County to break. Seriously, they were lined up in the hallway at St. Luke’s. She was two weeks early, but that wasn’t a big deal since back then Moms stayed at the hospital for a week anyway–at least Dr. Gulick’s patients did. I was never in the hallway either and I had a private room, so no complaints from this peanut gallery.

This year we celebrated her birthday on Sunday in our usual style…

…with tacos and Tippin’s pie.

Because daughter #1, the OM and I went to our favorite winery on Saturday to celebrate her birthday and listen to the musical stylings of Bryan Toben…

…we missed the wee laddie’s first soccer game (there are 9 more), but the boy, who is also one of the coaches, took lots of good pictures.

I looked for, but could not find, any pictures of the boy at the same age playing soccer–but he looked just like this.

Sunrise, sunset.

In other news, the twins started Sunday School with the big kids (1st grade!) so we are all going to Sunday School at 10:00 am before the 11:00 am service. This is quite a departure from the way we were used to doing it in the Episcopal Church where Sunday School was just a short business during the sermon and communion. Besides all the kids’ classes, there are six adult classes to choose from–the boy and I attended the class on “Modern Ethical Topics”. I was impressed.

So onward and upward. This will be a busy week. May the God of love and peace be with you.

*Robert W. Service, “Birthday“

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August 30, 2023

The heart replies

by chuckofish

When summer’s end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
  In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
  And darkness hard at hand,
  And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
  The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
  Breathed from beyond the snows,
  And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
  And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
  That ever can ensue
  Must now be worse and few.

So here’s an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer’s parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.

–A.E. Housman

(The painting is by Pablo Picasso, 1902)

3 Comments
August 24, 2023

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

by chuckofish

The twins are back in school–first grade!

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Jerry Bock)

Oy. On that note we remind you of the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1664) who wrote:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

And can it already be the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges? It is!

And yet, and yet… Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny … is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

Bonus: this is an excellent article by Kevin DeYoung about corporate responsibility, repentance and guilt. “The sins of the past are far from irrelevant. And yet we are not meant to live with a sense of corporate guilt for an ethnic, racial, or biological identity we did not choose and from which we cannot be free. Self-flagellation is not a requirement for spiritual maturity.”

So festina lente, keep cool, read some poetry, and note the time–it’s later than you think!

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