dual personalities

Tag: prayer

February 28, 2022

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”*

by chuckofish

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 5: 13-16

We had a great sermon on Sunday by our guest preacher, the retired President of Covenant Seminary. It was about prayer and about the necessity of it in our everyday lives. He also talked about what is going on in the Ukraine and how the people need our prayers. He worked in the mission field there and has a lot of friends. So pray, pray, PRAY! Never forget that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

In other news, daughter #1 came home this weekend and we indulged in a few favorite pastimes. Instead of estate sales, we hit a couple of antique malls. I got this little Victorian child’s chair…

My grandkids will love it and will enjoy moving it around with our other small chairs. This is a favorite activity.

We also made an interesting discovery–there is a Puzzle Warehouse right here in our little flyover town! Daughter #1 googled “puzzles” and found it, a mere five minutes away! Bingpot!

It was a very busy, happening place. I had no idea jigsaw puzzles are such a thing. We were a bit overwhelmed by the variety of puzzles–although puppies, kittens and Thomas Kinkade did predominate. Still, there was a lot to choose from in the palatable three percent left.

I resisted this one only because it is 1000 pieces and I am not advanced enough for that…

…but I found a good one to keep me busy for awhile.

We also drank our share of red wine.

And we listened to the two CDs the boy dropped by last week.

It is no wonder that the wee twins are big fans!

Step forward in faith this week and don’t forget to:

 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing.

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-17

*Corrie Ten Boom

3 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.

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December 23, 2021

“Let every heart prepare him room”

by chuckofish

Christmas draws nigh and if we aren’t ready now, we’ll never be. Relax. Everything will be fine.

Today would have been our  Aunt Susanne’s 97th birthday. She was our mother’s older sister and the Grand Dame of the family. 

She was very different from our mother…

…as you can see in this picture taken in about 1930 (with their older cousin Marjorie). But they loved each other very much. When she was dying, it was Susanne who “understood” her best. After all, they had the most history together. 

Of the three sisters, I think I am the most like Susanne, who also was a timid child. She played no varsity sports and she was not an intellectual like our mother. But she liked poetry and was a devoted church lady who endeavored to cultivate the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). She also liked a glass of spirits at the end of the day. When she died, her house was in order. As her son wrote me a few years after her death in 2000:

My mother saved everything (well, almost everything), and when the time came to settle her estate and move her belongings, I thought, “Maybe it’s important to save the things she thought were important to save.” So, I packed almost every item I came across.

Our attic and my workshop are stacked full of identical boxes that are just the right size for moving–not too big, not too small. Each one is labeled with its contents.

Periodically, I open one and try to make a decision to keep, or pass on, the items inside.

He is still working on it, all these years later…So tonight I will toast these devoted sisters and also our dear Aunt Donna, the remaining Cameron girl, who is 88.

Xmas card circa 1936

In other news, I finally watched the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Reginald Owen. Some people actually think this is the best version. I can’t imagine why. It was not good, especially when compared with the close-to-perfect 1951 Alistair Sim version. I could go into detail explaining why it is not good, but suffice it to say, do not waste your time watching it. Indeed, the Muppet version is much better.

To recap, besides the three versions of A Christmas Carol I have viewed this month, I have watched White Christmas (1951), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Bishop’s Wife (1947), The Santa Clause (1994). And I confess that I jumped the gun and watched 3 Godfathers (1946). I just couldn’t wait until Epiphany–mea culpa.

Can you blame me? I am holding off on a few Christmas favorites at the request of daughter #1 who will arrive home later today.

Speaking of movies, this was an interesting article about movies that were filmed in our flyover hometown. I found Harold Ramis’s back-pedaling about the scene he filmed in East St. Louis to be hilarious.

Merry Christmas!

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and enlarge my mind;

let me hear good tidings of great joy, and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore, my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose, place me with ox, ass, camel, goat, to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face, and in him account myself delivered from sin;

let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart, embrace him with undying faith, exulting that he is mine and I am his.

In him thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.

From The Valley of Vision

3 Comments
August 30, 2021

“Frail as summer’s flow’r we flourish, blows the wind and it is gone”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? After a busy Friday with two social engagements and multiple phone calls with loved ones, the rest of my weekend was very quiet. But as the dog days of August wind down, we are looking forward to a busy September.

FaceTiming with Katiebelle

I did my homework for my Bible class, which meets on Thursdays. There are 40 or so women in the class, so it is divided in two and I am in the class with mostly old ladies. I was shocked to be so placed, but then I remembered that I am an old gray-haired lady. I do not feel like one, but it has been many years since my children were in middle school! There are a few women with college-aged kids in my group, so I don’t feel too bad. Anyway, we are reading Leviticus, which you will recall, is the third book of the Pentateuch, following Exodus. It is all about being holy.

We also put the patio umbrella on the new (old) table.

Here is a great prayer by Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) for us gray-haired oldsters. “Now, when I am old and grey-headed, forsake me not; but let Thy grace be sufficient for me; and enable me to bring forth fruit, even in old age. May my hoary head be found in the ways of righteousness!” Read the whole thing.

*Hymn #77, Henry Lyte, 1834

7 Comments
May 28, 2021

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough”*

by chuckofish

It was a busy week at work, and I was still getting over that cold. I went to the dentist, which is always a joy and a half. And I went in to my office on Thursday for various reasons and met with my assistant whom I had not seen in almost a year. We commiserated about our COVID weight gain. It is a mad world.

But, what ho, it is a three-day weekend and that in itself is something to celebrate. And we have Memorial Day to consider. I plan to watch They Were Expendable (1945) which has become one of my favorite war movies.

There is nothing remotely sentimental about this movie and its depiction of war. John Ford is admirably restrained. The American war machine is in retreat, as one by one the islands of the Philippines are seized by the Japanese. No help is coming, no one will save them, they are on their own. But we know who will win.

I watched Wee Willie Winkie (1937) the other night. Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglan, Caesar Romero as Khoda Khan–and also directed by John Ford–pretty great.

Grown men cry and whales blubber.

This was an interesting article. A celebration and lament over science. I concur.

Daughter #1 is coming home today and we will find some roof deck or winery on/at which to hang out. (The other grandparents are back in town so the twins and their parents will be otherwise occupied at their weekend abode.) The weather should be conducive to hanging out. Maybe I can get some sun on a part of my body other than the tops of my feet.

Enjoy the long weekend! Look up! Pray for the day ahead. Pray that you might bring glory to God, in thought, word and deed. Thank God that his mercies are new every morning. Thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that you may encounter.

*I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman, whose birthday is May 31

5 Comments
April 23, 2021

Tally ho!

by chuckofish

It’s Friday and I am very excited because daughter #2 and baby Katie are arriving tomorrow for a quick visit. How great is that? Thankfully we have gotten through all the snow and cold temps and we should be able to enjoy some nice sit-outside weather.

In other news, my DP gave me this book for my birthday and I have been flying through it.

Scary stuff, harrowing stuff, but we knew that about the Comanches already. (I had a hunch that Larry McMurtry wasn’t exaggerating. He must have read Rachel Plummer’s journal.) Read it, if you can take it. There is no sugar-coating and excuse-making for the Comanches’ behavior. There is plenty of context. I am enjoying it a lot.

I watched two Humphrey Bogart movies this week: The African Queen (1951) and The Oklahoma Kid (1939). I enjoyed them both a lot. The African Queen is a classic, of course, and I have seen it many times. I had not seen the latter in 50 or so years–not since the Humphrey Bogart Theater on channel 11 days of my childhood. It also stars James Cagney as the eponymous hero. He is a little weird (and short) in a western, but I have grown to appreciate him in my dotage. He had a style all his own, even in high-heeled cowboy boots.

This was a thought-provoking piece. “How does a person become a saint? By grace alone. To argue otherwise questions what the Bible has to say about people and about saints. A true saint is not someone we strive to imitate, but someone who shows us a clearer picture of what it means to be a sinner saved by God.”

This reminded me that The Selfish Giant was one of the boy’s favorite stories and deeply affected him as a child. “And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

BCP

Enjoy your weekend! Make good choices!

5 Comments
February 23, 2021

Our daily bread

by chuckofish

Here’s hoping you are not dreading anything this week.

I gather that yesterday was National Margarita Day. Why didn’t someone inform me? If I didn’t read Instagram, I would never know. (Note to self: stop reading Instagram.)

Today we toast the handsome actor John Hall (1915-1979) on his birthday. Best known for nearly blowing away in The Hurricane (1937) with Dorothy Lamour…

…he also starred as the title character in Kit Carson (1940) with Dana Andrews as Captain Fremont, which I am going to try and find to watch. I’m sure it’s dreadful, but who knows. Ward Bond plays his sidekick–how bad could it be? And that coat looks almost authentic.

The gospel lesson for today is:

“And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
    On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread;[a]
12 And forgive us our debts,
    As we also have forgiven our debtors;
13 And lead us not into temptation,
    But deliver us from evil.[b]

14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6:7-15

Seems pretty straightforward. But forgiveness is a hard thing.

When we strive against all thoughts of revenge; when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well to them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them, and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them. (Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity)

Hang in there. Dread not.

6 Comments
February 16, 2021

“The snows that are older than history”*

by chuckofish

This was the view out my “office” window yesterday.

And here’s the view out my front door. My work day was basically unchanged, because Zoom classes just carry on despite the weather. Zut alors! Quel monde!

I usually like to walk around in the snow, but when the high is 3 degrees, that’s too cold to mess around. I was happy to stay inside in my snug house and watch this:

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
   I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it— 
   Came out with a fortune last fall,— 
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

(Read the whole poem here.)

Daughter #1 sensibly took the train back to mid-MO, rather than drive. (I’m sure you’ll hear more about that adventure tomorrow.)

In the meantime I’ll bundle up and count my blessings and contemplate the coming Lenten season, which commences tomorrow. No pancakes though, as in yesteryears, in Albright Hall tonight. And that’s okay. I certainly won’t be giving anything up this year. If anything, I will take something on.

Give me a heart to believe, that I may obey you, for you have commanded it. Give me a heart to believe, that I may please you, for you have said that is what you desire. Give me a heart to believe, that I may honor you, for you have declared that this gives glory to you.

It is enough to be yours. Just give me a heart to believe, since without faith I can have no part in you.

David Clarkson (1622-1686)

*Robert W. Service

3 Comments
February 8, 2021

What is your life?

by chuckofish

Brigham Young University Museum of Art

David Zahl used this Norman Rockwell painting “Lift Up Thine Eyes” (1957) as a sermon illustration this week and I thought I’d share it too. Rockwell depicts New Yorkers with hunched shoulders and downcast eyes passing St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street. They are not looking up at the beauty around them or at the message on the church sign or at their fellow man. Nowadays he would no doubt illustrate people with eyes locked on their cell phones, oblivious to their surroundings and their fellow man. But the sign on the Episcopal Church wouldn’t quote scripture–it would probably say, “All are welcome here” and fly a rainbow flag. And the church would still be empty.

We didn’t get much snow, but the temperature plunged. It was 7 degrees when I checked on Sunday morning.

It was the kind of weekend where you were content to sit by the fire…

and/or cuddle under a blanket.

On Saturday I did venture out to an estate sale at a very modest house in my flyover town, a house which I would normally skip. However, the pictures online of the interior of the house revealed a lot of nice things, including a mysterious array of early 1960s high-end children’s clothing. There were Steiff animals, needlepoint canvases, worked and unworked, and other signs of cultural familiarity.

When I got there my interest was piqued…

and when I found these M.I. blazers, I knew the house had belonged to someone I knew long ago.

Indeed, it all came together and I remembered reading that this woman, who was in the class below me all during my growing up years at school, had died a month or so ago. Well, estate sales can become very creepy when you realize you knew the person(s) who lived there. This happens more than you might think, mostly because I know a lot of older people because of my work. However, a surprising number of my contemporaries have departed this mortal coil, and that does start one thinking.

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14)

Well, I bought a book–I already have a copy, but I always pick up out-of-print treasures like this when I get the chance.

Sigh. All this has caused me to feel a certain nostalgia for the wretched 1970s!

In that spirit, I give you the Grateful Dead:

P.S. While looking on Youtube for the GD version of this song, I found this cover by some talented youngsters–I love these guys! Jack-A-Roe (or Jack Monroe) is a traditional English folksong which has been recorded by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, among others. Time goes by, but things stay the same, right?

Have a great week, starting with today–Monday! Look up! Pray for the day ahead. Pray that you might bring glory to God, in thought, word and deed. Thank God that his mercies are new every morning. Thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that you may encounter.

5 Comments
December 29, 2020

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

Did you get a lot of good books for Christmas? Me too.

Yes it’s true. I contain multitudes.

Oh, for grace to acknowledge you, to obey you, to love you. And as the Father has set you upon your throne, may his grace also give you the throne of my heart! And while all your enemies must bow before you, may all your friends and followers rejoice in your service! Even so, Amen!

Robert Hawker, Puritan (1753-1827)

Now it is two days of work before the four-day weekend. Ugh and a million emails to catch up with. Even so, Amen.

2 Comments