As you can see, the snow is mostly all gone except where those big piles are slowly melting.
Yesterday I didn’t wear a coat when I went out to lunch! (Of course, as to be expected, there were people out and about wearing shorts and t-shirts, but that’s ridiculous!)
Here is John Piper talking about aging, which I find very relevant and you might too. “Between now and the moment we die, we are walking into an unknown country. No matter how many steps you have taken to make it feel secure, it’s not — not in this world.”
“For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
I found this clipping in a box of my parent’s things. It seems like something my Boston grandmother would have cut out and shared with ANC III.
There is, of course, no Choister Cathedral in England. It must be a typo–Chester Cathedral? When you google ‘choister’ it defaults to Chorister. According to the Urban Dictionary choisters are “Asian women who follow the popular influencer, Michelle Choi. Most commonly, they follow her fashion style, habits, and dogs.” Well, who knew?
The world is more than we know.
And this was the moon on Sunday night…
P.S. Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter after seeing his shadow on Groundhog Day 2026. Oh goodie.
Yesterday was a beautiful day–cold, but beautiful. Blue sky, untouched white snow reflecting the sunlight. Very nice. I sat in my office and watched a huge red-tailed hawk cruise around.
Here’s a poem, “Shovelling Snow” by Harry Edward Mills, written around 1901:
And Don shared this lovely Dan Fogelberg piece with me:
More cold weather coming up, so I’ll be sitting by my window for the foreseeable future.
“Every bit we eat, and every drop we drink is mercy; every step we take, and every breath we draw, mercy. [These are] what we have reason to acknowledge with thankfulness to God’s praise.” (Matthew Henry, 1662-1713)
My driveway was plowed yesterday morning and the front walk cleared (with a leaf blower!) so I was free to move around the neighborhood. I went to the public library to return some books, including two murder mysteries written by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. in the 1970s, which I enjoyed. The library was closed, like a lot of other places. Officially we got 8.5 inches of snow in Kirkwood. Seems about right. Now we are adjusting to sub-zero temps and continuing to hunker down.
Today we toast two writers who both died on January 27–John Updike in 2009 and J.D. Salinger in 2010.
They are both writers I admire a lot.
In honor of the aforementioned birthdays, I re-read For Esmé–with Love and Squalor. I was pleased that I still regarded it with the same enthusiasm as I did years ago.
They sang without instrumental accompaniment–or, more accurately in their case, without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost to the point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might, without straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest children dragged the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer’s mother could have found fault with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept hoping it was one with a dozen or more verses.
I continue to take down my Christmas decorations and to tidy up my house. I am also working on the Kirkwood Historical Review and getting it ready to send off to the printer. But I like to take a break on the yellow antique loveseat in my office and read the internet or poetry and listen to the woodpecker outside in the tree by my window.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of him and it is very exciting.
(I wish I had taken this photo, but, of course, I did not. Thank you @audubonsociety.)
Anyway, the pace of January is much slower than December and that is okay with me.
And, hey, my new sweet grandson Wes is a month old (four weeks) today!
I made it safely to the snow-covered prairie–a very windy trip, but uneventful. I controlled my 241 horses and raced north, arriving in good time. Praise the Lord.
All is well.
*And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.
Well, how was your weekend? I enjoyed some quality time with my therapy dog…
We celebrated daughter #1’s birthday, but it was pretty low-key–burgers ‘n fries at the boy’s house and a French Silk pie…
It was quite hot on Saturday so we bailed on the Greentree Festival in our flyover town. I did, however, go to the bud’s soccer game on Sunday–so hot–96 degrees–but I am a devoted Mamu!
We went after church and Sunday School and a change of clothes at my house. By 1:30 I was wiped out!
Our current sermon series is on Philippians, so Sunday’s verses were very appropriate to what is going on in our country.
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Phil. 1:12-14)
Christ reframes everything, including the way we see our trials. Never forget that God is in control. Our Sunday School class on C.S. Lewis was also excellent and I appreciated that our teacher opened up the last 15 minutes of class to a discussion about Charlie Kirk–something we would never do in church or our sermon.
And this is the transcript of a podcast with Kevin DeYoung which is very helpful about processing violence and grief. “We never want to normalize evil, but we are trying to normalize that God has been with his people and has been with us personally through difficulties, national tragedies, and that same God is going to be with you…They need to know and hear from us a faith that we have, that God has not left the throne, that this did not take him by surprise, and that the end of the story has not yet been written for us, but it has been for God, and it’s ultimately a good story, right?”
Amen.
This is a new Lauren Daigle song (at least to me)–a re-working of the well-known Frances Ridley Havergal (1874) Anglican hymn:
Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in endless praise, let them flow in endless praise.
I was thinking about my grandkids going back to school on Monday and in particular Katie, who started Kindergarten. (I hear that she was a bit disappointed that she did not learn to read on the first day.) Anyway, I looked up my class picture from Kindergarten in 1961–there I am on the right with the bangs. I liked school. I had made it through Junior Kindergarten and learned the ropes. I have no doubt that little Katie will like school too–she has a long road ahead of her!
“I suppose identity depends on memory. And if memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist–I mean if I am the same person. Of course, I don’t have to solve that problem. It is up to God, if any.”
The summer is drawing to a close. The boy and the twins took a last trip to the zoo before school starts and rode the train. I had lunch with my old friend and former administrative assistant and heard all about the goings on at the university. I took the Mini in for an oil change.
Katie starts kindergarten today! She met her teacher yesterday and wore her favorite dress which belonged to her aunt back in the day.
I am looking forward to September and the return (hopefully) to some semblance of my old routine.
Life goes on and I am grateful.
“I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matterwhether over mud or over stones.”
