quotes | dual personalities

Alive and well somewhere

by chuckofish

“What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

I went to a memorial service yesterday at the Unitarian Church on “Holy Corners” in the Central West End.

You can see the Christian Scientist and Methodist churches in the background, built in better days around the turn of the 20th century.

The Unitarian Church was built on a more humble scale and added to accordingly. It turns out it was the church of William Greenleaf Eliot, the founder of my flyover university and also of the girls’ school I attended. Not that he would recognize this congregation.

Anyway, I had never been to a Unitarian memorial service before. The music was pretty bad and there was only one scripture reading–a terrible translation of Psalm 39–and one prayer. (We never even said the Lord’s Prayer.) The minister gave a long homily about the mystery of life and how everything dies, and a long eulogy about the deceased, and the husband of the deceased gave a long eulogy. Like her parents, she was a lifelong member of the church and a serious Unitarian and social justice warrior. She and her husband were also big supporters of their partner church in Transylvania–yes, there are Unitarians in Transylvania! They are the second largest group of Unitarians in the world! It is amazing what one doesn’t know about people.

Well, it all got me thinking about old Walt Whitman’s lines about death in Song of Myself, which seem very Unitarian in spirit to me but are more meaningful than anything I heard in the service. I like to think that my friend is alive and well somewhere, although I guess that’s not what she expected.

*The painting is “Moonlight” by Fausto Zonaro (1854 – 1929)

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October 25, 2016

On the way to knowing

by chuckofish

I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something–whatever you like–you will be on the way to knowing more about Him; that is what I say to myself. But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence; and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more. That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith.

–Vincent Van Gogh

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October 24, 2016

Cheers, it’s Monday!

by chuckofish

Did you have a quiet weekend? I researched whether this pumpkin spice thing really has gone too far. And I got a lot of things around the house done and that felt good.

I went to church and read the first lesson–a not very inspiring passage from Sirach (one of those second-listed wisdom books from the Apocrypha). The second reader got to read from I Timothy–no fair.

Since it is that stewardship time of year, we had our weekly “stewardship moment,” which was delivered by a parishioner who is the producer of a weekly TV show. She was nervous about her testimony, so the two stars of her show came along for moral support and were seated in the congregation. Kind of sweet.

I went to an estate sale in the neighborhood and bought an “antique” wash stand which I put in my den, switching out a table that has never really fit there. I rearranged things and am pleased with how things look.

(Apologies for not having styled an appropriate vignette yet.)

I read quite a bit of Prelude to Terror, an old thriller (1978) by Helen MacInnes. After reading several books by Shirley Jackson, I was having trouble finding something to read. (Karin Fossum’s latest dreary Swedish mystery did not make the cut.) Helen seems to be just what I was looking for.

I watched Genius (2016) about the great editor Maxwell Perkins and the writer Thomas Wolfe. It was disappointing, despite having quite a primo cast.

Sigh. Well, here’s a little Wolfe to make up for the disappointment:

Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your ear upon the earth and listen.

The voice of forest water in the night, a woman’s laughter in the dark, the clean, hard rattle of raked gravel, the cricketing stitch of midday in hot meadows, the delicate web of children’s voices in bright air–these things will never change.

The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence of morning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of young boughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, the thorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry–these things will always be the same.

All things belonging to the earth will never change–the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth–all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth–these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever.

—You Can’t Go Home Again

So it is Monday again and we are back at the salt mine. Make the most of your day.

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October 20, 2016

“Be at peace, Son of Gondor.”

by chuckofish

Happy birthday to Viggo Mortensen (b. 1958) who is almost as old as I am.

We made a lot of jokes this past weekend about 28 Days (2000) and how we hoped daughter #1 would make a toast just like Sandra Bullock does in that movie and wear a black bra under her Maid of Honor dress,

and that made me want to watch it again. This movie was the last one Viggo made before he was launched into the stratosphere of movie super-stardom as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

(Yes, we still have that poster hanging in the basement…)

Up ’til then Viggo usually played the second or third or (minor) male part. Frequently he was cast as a heavy and his career was all over the map, veering from Albino Alligator to Portrait of a Lady in one year. We made it a game for awhile finding Viggo in small parts in obscure movies–sometimes the movies were way inappropriate for pre-teens–but it was fun.

Anyway, I always liked 28 Days, even though it was not a hit. Which is typical.

So happy birthday to Viggo Mortensen.

P.S. My dual personality has actually met Viggo, since he is an alumnus of her north country university (where her DH is a math professor) and occasionally returns for events. I always thought Viggo kind of looks like that other north country alum…

Kirk Douglas! The chin you say, but not just that…

Have a great day! The iris bloomed!

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October 5, 2016

“The skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Remington Kellogg (October 5, 1892 –May 8, 1969)–a fascinating fellow who was an American naturalist and a director of the United States National Museum. Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, he attended the University of Kansas where he pursued his lifelong interest in wildlife. From there he went to the University of California–Berkeley. While serving in the Army in France during WWI, Kellogg still found time to collect specimens, which he sent back to Berkeley and the University of Kansas. He was discharged in July 1919 and returned to Berkeley to complete his doctorate, transferring from zoology to study vertebrate paleontology.

In 1928 Kellogg became assistant curator at the United States National Museum and in 1941 became curator. At the museum he devoted time to studying primitive whales from the Eocene and early Oligocene of North America. In 1948 he was appointed director of the Museum and in 1958 was made assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1951.

Whales have been at the heart of Smithsonian research since 1850. It was Museum director Remington Kellogg who wanted a “scientifically accurate” model and pushed for the research to make one.

So a toast to Remington Kellogg (what a great name!) and to Herman Melville while we’re at it.

“Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!

Have a good “hump” day!

*Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

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October 4, 2016

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946)–American newspaperman and author. He is most remembered today for writing the stories which inspired the broadway musical Guys and Dolls.

Here are some things about him you probably didn’t know:

He was born in Manhattan–but in Manhattan, Kansas. He grew up in Pueblo, Colorado. His father and grandfather were newspaper editors.

In 1898, when still in his teens, Runyon enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish-American War.

He was the Hearst newspapers’ baseball columnist for many years, beginning in 1911, and his knack for spotting the eccentric and the unusual, on the field or in the stands, is credited with revolutionizing the way baseball was covered.

One year, while covering spring training in Texas, he met Pancho Villa in a bar and later accompanied the unsuccessful American expedition into Mexico searching for Villa.

Runyon died in New York City in 1946, at age 66. His body was cremated, and his ashes were illegally scattered from a DC-3 airplane over Broadway by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. The family plot of Damon Runyon is located at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

His stories are still in print and I am going to read them. His gangsters seem much more appealing than our 21st-century ones.

4 Comments

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

This made me LOL.

Also it got me thinking about support and encouragement, which are all very well and good, but lest we forget, here’s a word from Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance:

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

And a poem by Mary Oliver to get you moving:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Have a good weekend. October will be here tomorrow! The last quarter of the year is upon us. Let us make good use of it.

4 Comments

September 21, 2016

“That was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered.”*

by chuckofish

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was published 79 years ago on September 21, 1937 to wide critical acclaim. As you know, it is recognized as a classic in children’s literature. And lots of people other than J.R.R. Tolkien have made a lot of money on various movie adaptions.

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”

“There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.”

It might be time to dig out a copy and re-read The Hobbit. Well, we’ll see. Hope your Wednesday isn’t too awkward.

*The Hobbit, of course. The illustrations pictured are by the author.

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September 12, 2016

“My ransomed soul he leadeth”*

by chuckofish

I had a rather long to-do list this weekend, and I checked off most everything on it. This included getting my hair cut, going to several estate sales, going to Lowe’s, cleaning up my closet, doing a little yard work, and going to church. Pretty typical.

[Daughter #1 celebrated her birthday in NYC with daughter #2. They had fun (see picture) and cake!]

I started reading The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins, which daughter #2 sent me. (Sentimental novels of the mid-19th century are a concentration of her doctoral studies.)

Published in 1854, The Lamplighter, Cummins’s first novel, was an immediate best-seller, selling 20,000 copies in twenty days. The work sold 40,000 in eight weeks, and within five months it had sold 65,000. At the time it was second in sales only to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It sold over 100,000 copies in Britain and was translated into multiple different languages.

I am enjoying it immensely. Although Nathaniel Hawthorne may have sneered at it, there is a reason so many people gobbled it up. It is well-written, diverting and instructive, and to the average person struggling along in the daily grind, uplifting.

[Gerty’s] especial favorite was a little work on astronomy, which puzzled her more than all the rest put together, but which delighted her in the same proportion; for it made some things clear, and all the rest, though a mystery still, was to her a beautiful mystery, and one which she fully meant some time to explore to the uttermost. And this ambition to learn more, and understand better, by and by, was, after all, the greatest good she derived. Awaken a child’s ambition, and implant in her a taste for literature, and more is gained than by years of school-room drudgery, where the heart works not in unison with the head.

Agreed.

At church the Gospel lesson was about Christ eating with sinners and the Pharisees grumbling about it. The Apostle Paul reminded us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, he foremost among them. In the OT lesson, God changed his mind, at Moses’ prompting, and forgave the slackers in the wilderness. Most of us are grumbling Pharisees ourselves, and it is good to be reminded of it. It is good to be reminded of it weekly and to say this prayer of confession:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

We will forget soon enough and once again be grumbling Pharisees.

Later today the OM and I are driving to Indianapolis where the boy is having surgery tomorrow at Indiana University Hospital. All trace of his cancer is gone, but there is still a tumor and they will remove it. If all goes well, we will return on Wednesday. Please keep us all in your prayers.

*Hymn 410

4 Comments

September 8, 2016

Poetry amid the jarring notes of day

by chuckofish

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and Abolitionist. One of the “Fireside Poets” of the 19th century, he is hardly read anymore, of course. Whittier, California is named after him and also Whittier College. (Please note: The school mascot is “The Poet.”)

A number of his poems have been turned into hymns, including Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, taken from his poem “The Brewing Soma”. You may recall that Whittier was also one of the founding contributors of the magazine Atlantic Monthly and was supportive of women writers, including Sarah Orne Jewett, who dedicated one of her books to him.

You probably know more of his poems than you think. Remember–“Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!”

And how about Barbara Frietchie?

“Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.”

Here is a favorite of mine; read the entire thing and enjoy.

I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God’s hand
Rebukes my painful care.

I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.

The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;–

The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.

Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.

But smiting hands shall learn to heal,–
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.

Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe’er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;

That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;–

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father’s sight;

That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory’s sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.

(1859)

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Also lovely is the Amesbury, MA Friends Meeting House. The simple 1.5 story wood frame building was constructed in 1850, with our poet Whittier serving on the building committee. We are told it is currently a thriving congregation, with Meeting for Worship every Sunday at 10 a.m. The facing bench displays a small plaque that reads, “Whittier’s Bench.”