DN is re-reading Moby-Dick and, reading this about Ahab in the chapter about dining at the captain’s table, he thought I’d like the reference to bears in Missouri:
“Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!”
Of course, I did.
(I also love that phrase, “nominally included in the census of Christendom”.)
Have a good weekend–re-read something good, watch out for bears!
As previously noted, the summer has flown by and now it is almost September! Good grief, Charlie Brown!
My weekly Bible Study group has started up again. It is good to be back with these faithful ladies, although the prayer requests at the end of our meeting are a constant reminder of the dark world we live in full of sickness and depravity.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…
(2 Corinthians 4:16-17)
We are reading Even Better Than Eden: Nine ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything About Your Story by Nancy Guthrie, which takes us from Genesis through Revelation. It’s a departure from our usual format of reading one book of the Bible, but it should be interesting (and a lot of work!) I am also enrolled in Hillsdale College’s free online course, “The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives.” I am halfway through and so far I am enjoying being “back in the classroom.” There are even quizzes!
This is a good one from Carl Trueman about “the isolated wasteland of modern life” and the opportunities the church has.
And I liked this one from Tim Challies about growing old. “It is in old age that the fruit that began to grow in the younger days finally comes to its ripeness.”
So do not lose heart, keep up with your Bible study and let the breeze mess up your hair!
We are in the middle of a flyover heatwave, so there is not much going on! Everyone is keeping cool inside (if they can) and that includes me.
It is good weather for reading poetry–perhaps a poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) whose birthday is today.
You may recall that his famous poem “Invictus” was the favorite of Nelson Mandela who recited it to his fellow prisoners at Robben Prison. Clint Eastwood named his biographical sports movie Invictus (2009) after the poem.
This poem doesn’t really take into consideration God’s providence, but I can see how it resonates with some people. Sadly, I am unable to think of Henley and his most famous poem without remembering Richard Armour’s parody: Out of the night that covers me/ Black as the pit from pole to pole,/ I thank whatever gods may be/ I have not fallen in a hole.
Also, I did not know that the one-legged Henley was the inspiration for the character Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. File that fun fact away.
I see hummingbirds in my garden not infrequently. When I catch a glimpse, I always think it is a very large insect and then I realize, no, it’s a hummingbird! They are amazing creatures indeed.
So keep cool, read some poetry, and remember:
The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever.
It’s taken me several days to get my house back in order after our little foray into the world last weekend. I did not take my laptop with me, so I was off the internet for about four days except for a few quick Instagram checks on my phone. I have to say it was a nice break. I should take note.
Anyway, I have been catching up on my reading and here are some good links.
I have followed this lady’s blog for several years. She really walks the walk. “Years of higher education cannot compare to the visceral theology of a disability diagnosis. We are forced to tread the Gospel road of humility, where the way is rough, but holy. We learn to guard and guide our child in the beauty of their brokenness, and ours.”
The Desiring God website always provides good daily reading material such as this one and this one. And this video from John Piper’s Instagram is inspiring.
Now don’t be shocked, but I was sorry to hear that Paul Reubens had passed away last week. I know that Carl Trueman says “we live in a childish age, where immaturity is lionized” and I agree with him. But I always thought Pee Wee Herman was amusing–maybe that shows how immature I am–but it’s true. He made me laugh. And I loved all the crazy characters on his kid’s show–Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne!), Captain Carl (Phil Hartman!) and the rest. The show was like an updated Captain Kangaroo and just as innocent. I also liked Pee Wee’s BigAdventure (1985).
I know that Reubens messed up, but he was resilient. He managed several comebacks–remember Murphy Brown?–and he kept working, mainly because he had a lot of friends.
On August 2nd, 1923–100 years ago–Vice President Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace were on vacation at Coolidge’s family farm near Plymouth Notch, Vermont in the Green Mountains.
The farm house had no electricity and a phone that only occasionally worked. The couple went to bed early, but a little before midnight, they were awakened by a loud knock at the front door. A moment later, Coolidge’s father called up to Calvin to come down. President Warren Harding was dead.
Coolidge got dressed. He prayed with his wife. And in the early morning hours of August 3rd, he was sworn into office by his father John Calvin Coolidge Sr. who was a Vermont notary public and justice of the peace. By the light of a kerosene lamp, Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States. Since it was 2:47 in the morning, President Coolidge went back to bed.
With the 1924 election just around the corner, many expected Coolidge to be a lame duck President, but on his train ride back to Washington he began immediately to plan how to build upon Harding’s most important policies. His first order of business…limiting the government itself.
We could use old Silent Cal these days, don’t you think?
Well, it is August now and we are well into the Dog Days of Summer. We are finally getting out of town tomorrow–heading to Saratoga, NY to attend the wedding of my nephew Tim and Abbie.
We are very much looking forward to the festivities and to seeing our DP and her family, but the air travel will no doubt be arduous. Please pray for travel mercies for the OM and me, the boy, daughter #1, and daughter #2 and her petite famille.
In the meantime, here are some good links to worthwhile things:
August on TCM is Summer Under the Stars month with a different star celebrated every day. At first glance it’s not a great selection, but there are some good days in there!
This is the Introduction to the graphic novel, The Grand Inquisitor, but it serves as an excellent overview of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. This novel is very relevant today in view of our culture’s desire to find technological/scientific solutions to the problem of Evil. “This way of thinking appalled Dostoyevsky. With his profound grasp of psychology, he regarded the materialists’ view of human nature as hopelessly simplistic. Deeply suspicious of what intellectuals would do if they ever gained the power they sought, he described in greater detail than any other nineteenth-century thinker what we have come to call totalitarianism. Even in its less terrifying forms, rule by supposedly benevolent experts was, he thought, more dangerous than people understood.”
Also, I read recently that the New York Times is disbanding its sports department. Oh really? If our local paper got rid of its sports department, there would be (literally) nothing left to read. Another nail in the coffin of print journalism I guess.
We are looking forward to a guest post from DN on Friday, so stay tuned!
The painting is “The Swearing In of Calvin Coolidge by His Father” by Arthur I. Keller, 1923.
We have had more storms and more storms. What started out as a very dry spring, has turned into a very wet summer. Our Florida Room has flooded several times now, but hopefully we have that figured out. Fingers crossed. It has also been a particularly windy year all around. This is beginning to be a familiar sight:
(KMOV photo of damage in Ferguson, MO)
God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though its waters roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with its swelling. Selah (Psalm 46: 1-3)
Meanwhile I am working on getting everything ready to send off to the printer for the next KHS Review. Life goes on between outbursts of bad weather.
This seems really obvious to me, but clearly it is not. “Reading doesn’t begin as an activity your child does by himself. It begins with fathers and mothers. It begins with us reading aloud. We increase our kid’s appetite by narrating books that they enjoy and understand. These books are not the books you would choose to read in your alone time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them together.”
Recently I was reading about Esther Forbes (June 28, 1891 – August 12, 1967), the American novelist and historian. She wrote a number of historical novels, but she is mostly remembered for writing the Newbery Medal winner Johnny Tremain, published in 1943. She also won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1942 for Paul Revere and the World He Lived In.
My grandmother, Mira Sargent, was about the same age as Esther and they grew up in the same social circle in Worcester, Massachusetts. Both were descendants of old Colonial families with roots in the seventeenth century. Esther attended Bancroft and Mira went to Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield. Their paths continued to cross throughout their lives–in New York City, Boston and back in Worcester. My father always said they were friends but who knows.
Anyway, I decided to read Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, although my expectations were low, having read other books by mid-century female authors of this ilk. How wrong I was! From the first paragraph I was engaged:
There had been week upon week of the cold grey fury of the North Atlantic, for it was mid-winter when the little refugee, Apollos Rivoire, made his crossing. At such a season only the hardiest of passengers ventured much above deck. Bunks were dank, bread wormy, beef tainted, and many of these small sailing ships never made port, but at least the Atlantic was crossed in great company. God brooded upon the face of these waters. His hand parted the mountainous waves. He upheld the ship. Even if one drowned, it was the Providence of God. Apollos did not drown. He entered Massachusetts Bay late in 1715 or early 1716.
Apollos Rivoire was the father of Paul Revere. He came to Massachusetts as a 13-year old Huguenot refugee, fleeing persecution in France. His family owned great vineyards, but they saw no future for him in France, so he was sent to America as an indentured servant who was apprenticed to learn the silversmith trade. I did not know that! As usual, there is a lot I do not know, but this book is filling in the blanks in a delightfully readable manner.
So read an old book; learn something new!
The painting at the top is by Albert Anker (1831-1910)
As I mentioned earlier I have been reading books written by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying them immensely. The three I read take place after WWII in rural Scotland. Life is hard what with rationing and no one having much money, but people get along. There is a sophistication in these books which is lacking in contemporary fiction that I appreciate. The characters are educated and actually know things. They have read their Bibles as well. The lower class folk are not put down for their ignorance, but appreciated for what they do know. Everyone has a work ethic.
Anyway, I decided that I should not just go on ordering new books from Amazon, although I wanted to keep reading, so I went to our public library and got a library card! I had torn mine up 25 years ago in disgust over some triviality, but I swallowed my pride and went back. They, of course, have to order the Stevenson books through inter-library loan, so I still don’t have one. 🙄 But I did peruse the fiction section and took out Elizabeth Strout’s Oh, William!, which daughter #2 wrote about a few weeks ago. It won the Pulitzer Prize (!) and I liked some of her early books, so I thought I would give it a whirl.
I read it in two days–there is not much to it beyond a lot of navel-gazing. Oh, poor me, poor him, poor her. I am sympathetic to a point, but then I think, get over it. But they cannot because they are all self-obsessed. They believe in nothing and thus they understand nothing. God (only acknowledged in “Oh God!” hand-wringing moments) is a myth. In fact (spoiler alert) “we are all mythologies. We are all mysteries, is what I mean,” as Lucy, our protagonist, announces at the end of the book. And by the way, I hate that vernacular Lucy uses throughout–“…is what I mean.” But the author is patronizing in that way. It is her way of putting down the character for growing up in the midwest. Yeah, yeah, she cannot escape her past, we get it.
It is all very well to write a book and then announce that nothing is understandable and we are all mysteries, but that seems very facile and empty. But these people are empty vessels. So it’s back to D.E. Stevenson for me.
Interestingly, I watched a movie over the weekend that poses many of the same questions: Why do bad things happen to some people? Why do things work out for some people? I had not seen Tender Mercies (1983) since it first came out forty years ago. Robert Duvall won the Oscar for best actor for playing the washed up country singer and Horton Foote won the Oscar for best original screenplay.
Not much seems to happen in this movie, but really quite a lot happens. Mac (the alcoholic country singer) is near death at the beginning of the movie. His redemption and self-improvement run parallel with his conversion to Christianity and although many of the hard questions mentioned above are not overtly answered, the movie is not unsatisfying. Christians know that bad things will happen and that suffering is inevitable. But we can respond in faith to the tender mercies we have received. God is real, although He is mysterious. We can only understand ourselves in relation to Him. This is a good movie and I recommend it. (Available on Prime.)
Well, it is good to be reading actual books. So put down your phone, read a book, watch a good movie, praise God from whom all blessings flow, and enjoy your Tuesday.
Well, I have hardly left the house all week and I am not complaining. Baby Ida is doing well, and how could she not with such a good big sister? I am not sure how much actual “help” I have been besides being another pair of hands to hold the baby and another lap for Katie to sit in, but we have managed quite well.
While here, I have been reacquainting myself with A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh and am newly impressed. “For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.” But for a bear with very little brain, he has quite a varied and amusing inner monologue.
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t.”
Anyway, the stories are a pleasure to read, to yourself or out loud to a two-year-old.
I also love stories like this. It is what being an American is all about.
And, oh Dolly, you released a good new song on your 77th birthday last week! The apocalypse is coming…
And speaking of the apocalypse, Anne is on fire here. Yeehaw.
“How on earth can you say that the Bible is “central to our understanding,” though that is a tepid, if not actually fatuous, way of putting it, and then announce that there are many different possible conclusions for what it says about gender, relationships, and marriage?”
(The links in the first paragraph are also excellent.)
Have a good Monday. Read some A.A. Milne. Listen to some Dolly. Hold a baby. Ask yourself:
Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den, if he has taken nothing? Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing? Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?
We have been enjoying the January Thaw here in flyover country. And I must say, it is nice not to have to bundle up every time the pup needs to walk around the yard looking for gross things to dig up and munch. (I hate to think what he has ingested, but I can’t be held responsible. He heeds not his Mamu’s sharp words.) This warm weather will, of course, not last. The daffodils and iris and lilies etc seem to think otherwise.
In other news, I put up this bird feeder which was a Christmas gift from a BFF…
I can’t wait to see which birds find it!
Last week I mentioned that someone had suggested I read the entire Shakespeare canon since I had completed reading the Bible. Since I own an (incomplete) set of Shakespeare that belonged to my grandmother, I may dive in. Mira, it seems, was given a new play for birthdays and Christmas when she was a teenager.
I mean, why the heck not? (But who was Aunt Fannie?)
I just found out that our Women’s Bible Study group will be studying the book of Daniel this spring and I am happy we will be back in the Old Testament. I am glad I spent so much time last year reading Leviticus–twice! Here’s a great explanation of why that is so. “Our own age of diversity echoes the fickle relativity of the ancient gods.”
However, just like ancient Israel, believers now don’t have to live at the mercy of the fickle gods. We have God’s Law and his gospel, wondrously clear and accessible. It proved to be a solid rock in the churning sea of ancient polytheism. It is just as stable of a rock in the contemporary sea of progressive culture and globalization.
And Tim Challies really nails delineating what he wants in a church here: “The cure that these church leaders propose is actually indistinguishable from the disease. The cure they propose for this illness is to administer more of the illness! They are treating cancer with cancer, infection with infection, radiation poisoning with even greater doses of radiation.” Amen, brother.
Raise your hand if you think Stetson Bennett IV , the Georgia QB, is awesome. Okay, I am a sucker for a good (Christian) sports story. “Bennett III was asked how his son was able to reach his ultimate goal of playing at Georgia. ‘Everyone that asks that question,’ he said. ‘I tell ’em two things: One, how good the Lord is. And two, just the fact that he never gave up. I’ve told him his entire life that he can do anything in the world that he wants to do, but he can’t just want it, you got to go to work. That’s what he did.’”
But, what ho, Two Gentlemen of Verona calls…”Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers…” Have a good day!
dual personalities 