dual personalities

Tag: quotes

April 2, 2012

They call you lady luck

by chuckofish

But there is room for doubt
At times you have a very unladylike way of running out!

Oh I do love Guys and Dolls. All this talk of the lottery and mega-millions reminded me of the classic Frank Loesser show. I have seen it many, many times–it is a perennial favorite in high schools and college (I even tried out for a production at Williams College in 1977!)–but I particularly love those Kirkwood productions that the boy was in–twice: in seventh grade and as a junior in high school–both times playing the ever-popular Benny Southstreet!

Here he is with Nicely-Nicely Johnson: What’s in the daily news? I’ll tell you what’s in the daily news. Story about a guy who bought his wife a small ruby with what otherwise would have been his union dues. That’s what’s in the daily news.

And here he is basking in the after-show glow of middle school stardom.

I was unable to find any pictures from the Kirkwood HS production. Darn it. “I plead the fifth commandment.”

I also always loved the 1955 movie of Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. I mean, Marlon Brando singing? Irresistible! Johnny Silver played Benny Southstreet and he was pretty good. But the boy–he had that special “je ne sais quoi”. At least his mother thinks so.

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March 27, 2012

Imperatives

by chuckofish

Imperatives, Part 2 of Mysteries of the Incarnation

by Kathleen Norris

Look at the birds 1

Consider the lilies 2

Drink ye all of it 3

Ask 4

Seek

Knock

Enter by the narrow gate 5

Do not be anxious 6

Judge not; 7 do not give dogs what is holy 8

Go: be it done for you 9

Do not be afraid 10

Maiden, arise 11

Young man, I say, arise 12

Stretch out your hand 13

Stand up, 14 be still 15

Rise, let us be going …14

Love 15

Forgive 16

Remember me

1 Matthew 6:26. See also Luke 12:24, “Consider the ravens.” 2 Matthew 6:28; Luke 12:27. 3 “Drink from it, all of you” (Matthew 26:27). Norris uses the King James translation here. 4 This stanza is a series of Jesus’s commands from the Sermon on the Mount: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7, King James; also Luke 11:9). 5 Matthew 7:13-14; also Luke 13:23-24. 6 Matthew 6:25, 31; Luke 12:22, 29. 7 Matthew 7:1; Mark 4:24; Luke 6:37-38. 8 Matthew 7:6. 9 Matthew 8:13. 10 “Do not be afraid” – a frequent command by Jesus; for example, Matthew 10:31; 14:27; 17:7; 28:10. 11 The healing of Jairus’s daughter: “Little girl, get up!” (Mark 5:41; also Luke 8:54). 12 The healing the widow’s only son; Luke 7:14. 13 The healing of the man with the withered hand: Matthew 12:13; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11. 14 Jesus’s healing the paralyzed man: Matthew 9:2-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26. 15 Jesus’s command to the ocean: Mark 5:39; also Matthew 8:26; Luke 8:24. 14 Jesus to his disciples in Gethsemane: “Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me” (Matthew 26:46; Mark 14:42). 15 Jesus’s two great commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. … You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39; also Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-28). 16 Matthew 18:21-22; Luke 17:4.

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March 22, 2012

On the road again

by chuckofish

What should I bring?

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

Daughter #1 is just coming home for the weekend, but travel is travel…Can’t wait to see her!

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March 15, 2012

God be in my head

by chuckofish

"Old Sarum" by John Constable

God Be in My Head
Anonymous
(from a 1506 Sarum Book of Hours)

God be in mihede And in min vnder ston dyng
God be in myn hyyesse And in min lokeyng
God be in mi movthe And in myspekeyng
God be in my hart And in my thovgvt
God be at myneyende And ad myde partying

God be in my head
And in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes
And in my looking;
God be in my mouth
And in my speaking;
God be in my heart
And in my thinking;
God be at mine end,
And at my departing.

Old Sarum as it looks today.

And here’s a picture of the “New Sarum” also by John Constable.

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February 17, 2012

Such secret comforts

by chuckofish

“I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted : and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them ; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”
–Daniel Defoe

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February 2, 2012

Virtue and Honor

by chuckofish

“However fashionable despair about the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, thinks and lives fashionably; virtue and honor will not be banished from the world however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed self-serving element in it; theologians always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honor will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit, and people long to make the pattern a reality in their own lives, whatever means they take to do so.”

–Robertson Davies

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February 1, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

Saint Paul by Burne-Jones

The First Lesson appointed for use on the Feast of Brigid (today) is one of my favorites:

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Frederick Buechner writes that when he first met St. Paul and these lines, he “had the feeling that I knew something of what he was talking about. Something of the divine comedy we are all of us involved in. Something of grace.”

God turns everything upside down.

And god forbid that we should take ourselves too seriously.

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January 4, 2012

Back at work

by chuckofish

…with a new Snow & Graham calendar, thanks to daughter # 1.

Well, the Christmas Holidays can be very hectic indeed. First we put up all the decorations and then we take them down. We spend months picking out gifts, wrap them and then tear them open. We clean up. We go to the grocery store (a lot). The family gathers and then they disperse once again. Everyone is so busy! Daughter # 1 moved to NYC over the weekend. Daughter # 2 is in Chicago visiting a friend. And the boy moved into a grown-up apartment yesterday. Phew. It was almost a relief to go back to work for some quiet time!

And so, as I endeavor to regain my equilibrium, I offer this well-known quote from the wonderful Robert Louis Stevenson:

“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.”

I plan to do some major league cleaning and sorting and arranging in all my empty rooms. Life’s plain, common work is before me! (And that’s a good thing.)

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December 16, 2011

God was man in Palestine

by chuckofish

Christmas
by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

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December 15, 2011

What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?

by chuckofish

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
– Dr. Seuss

The Grinch first appeared in the 1957 story How the Grinch Stole Christmas, written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, published as both a Random House book and in an issue of Redbook magazine. My paternal grandmother, completely out of character, sent us the story from the magazine and that was the version we always had. It turned brown with age and was taped and stapled. We read it every year on Christmas Eve, along with other Christmas stories, poems and songs. When my children were little, we finally bought the book. I was never a fan of the 1966 TV version and never saw the Jim Carrey film version. It is best read aloud. And its message is still solid and timely.

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