dual personalities

Tag: spirituality

August 31, 2023

The watered garden

by chuckofish

Mood. Yesterday my electricity went out shortly after I had finished doing my morning Bible reading. “Great,” I thought. “That’s just great.” Because, you know, when your electricity goes out, that means you can’t:

Get your car out of the garage;

do laundry or vacuum;

use the internet;

watch TV or listen to music;

use the dishwasher and a host of other electric appliances–

in fact, you are stuck.

I Swiffered the first floor and watered my plants. Then I started looking at some of my books in the living room (the room with the most natural light)…

and went through the drawers in the highboy.

I found something I had been looking for for some time–my husband’s family history. So that was fortuitous.

Eventually the electricity came back on in about two hours. Turns out, it was a planned outage–but no one told us about the plan. Thanks. But some good did come out of the annoying situation.

My life is like a watered garden.

The Lord will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

(Isaiah 58:11)

P.S. Baby Ida (top) kinda has some cousin vibes…

Remember him?

4 Comments
August 24, 2023

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

by chuckofish

The twins are back in school–first grade!

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Jerry Bock)

Oy. On that note we remind you of the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1664) who wrote:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

And can it already be the birthday of Jorge Luis Borges? It is!

And yet, and yet… Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny … is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.

Bonus: this is an excellent article by Kevin DeYoung about corporate responsibility, repentance and guilt. “The sins of the past are far from irrelevant. And yet we are not meant to live with a sense of corporate guilt for an ethnic, racial, or biological identity we did not choose and from which we cannot be free. Self-flagellation is not a requirement for spiritual maturity.”

So festina lente, keep cool, read some poetry, and note the time–it’s later than you think!

2 Comments
July 19, 2023

Every moment of happiness

by chuckofish

It’s Wednesday, so let’s all just take a moment to be thankful:

O MY GOD,

Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects,
my heart admires, adores, loves thee,
for my little vessel is as full as it can be,
and I would pour out all that fullness before thee
in ceaseless flow.
When I think upon and converse with thee
ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up,
ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed,
ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart,
crowding into every moment of happiness.
I bless thee for the soul thou hast created,
for adorning it, sanctifying it,
though it is fixed in barren soil;
for the body thou hast given me,
for preserving its strength and vigour,
for providing senses to enjoy delights,
for the ease and freedom of my limbs,
for hands, eyes, ears that do thy bidding;
for thy royal bounty providing my daily support,
for a full table and overflowing cup,
for appetite, taste, sweetness,
for social joys of relatives and friends,
for ability to serve others,
for a heart that feels sorrows and necessities,
for a mind to care for my fellow-men,
for opportunities of spreading happiness around,
for loved ones in the joys of heaven,
for my own expectation of seeing thee clearly.
I love thee above the powers of language
to express,
for what thou art to thy creatures.

Increase my love, O my God, through time
and eternity.

(“Praise and Thanksgiving” from The Valley of Vision, the Puritan prayer book)

And that said, it seems appropriate to read this from Willa Cather’s My Antonia.

3 Comments
July 18, 2023

Meanwhile back at the ranch

by chuckofish

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.”

I like stories like this about real people.

And seriously this video made me cry! I agree with the Bee: Thank you for being a man, sir!

So hang in there with me. Glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

4 Comments
July 17, 2023

Come weary saints

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? I redeemed a gift card from Mother’s Day and had an hour-long spa pedicure, which had me walking on air for quite some time. Wow.

We had a guest preacher in church and he preached on Daniel 6–the lion’s den! I love Daniel so I was pleased. We need reminders of heroes like Daniel to keep us on track. We also had interesting musical accompaniment to all our hymns–a harmonica. Not the usual for A Mighty Fortress is Our God, but not bad. The OM and I stayed for a luncheon with our “fold” after the service. They acknowledged his birthday (today) but refrained from singing Happy Birthday.

We celebrated the OM’s birthday later on Sunday when everyone came over for a barbecue and party. (Even Mr. Smith)

Good times…and presents!

We watched McClintock! (1963), one of my favorite movies extolling the Patriarchy. It is loosely based on The Taming of the Shrew. (And Maureen O’Hara is one helluva shrew.) It has a smart script which moves along at a brisk clip. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It has nothing good to say about bureaucrats, the government or college boys, but is very sympathetic to Native Americans and free enterprise.

Anyway, when you have had enough of our modern day BS, I recommend a good dose of John Wayne at his most John Wayne-ish. “I know, I know. I’m gonna use good judgement. I haven’t lost my temper in forty years, but pilgrim you caused a lot of trouble this morning might have got somebody killed. Somebody oughta belt you in the mouth but I won’t, I wont…the hell I won’t.“

In other news baby Ida got her first taste of solid food…

It was a big hit.

And ol’ Ricky Skaggs is nominated for several Dove Awards this year, including this song which is a favorite of mine…

…as well as this banger version of Go Tell It on the Mountain with Crowder (for a little Christmas in July):

Have a good week!

7 Comments
July 11, 2023

Leave it to God

by chuckofish

Today we remember Frederick Buechner (1926-2022), Presbyterian minister, writer and theologian. He died last year and I miss him. Presbyterians do not have feast days, but if they did, today would be his, as it is his birthday.

He made a big splash in literary circles when his first novel, A Long Day’s Dying, was published in 1950. But then he entered seminary and the shine wore off. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and for the National Book Award for Fiction, but he never won any big awards.

He said:

I wanted to learn about Christ – about the Old Testament, which had been his Bible, and the New Testament, which was the Bible about him; about the history of the church, which had been founded on the faith that through him God had not only revealed his innermost nature and his purpose for the world, but had released into the world a fierce power to draw people into that nature and adapt them to that purpose… No intellectual pursuit had ever aroused in me such intense curiosity, and much more than my intellect was involved, much more than my curiosity aroused. In the unfamiliar setting of a Presbyterian church, of all places, I had been moved to astonished tears which came from so deep inside me that to this day I have never fathomed them, I wanted to learn more about the source of those tears and the object of that astonishment. (Now and Then)

To this day, I am still crying those same tears (and in a Presbyterian church!) that he described.

2 Comments
July 10, 2023

Claiming to be wise, they became fools*

by chuckofish

I did the flowers for church this weekend and they were a rather humble offering–Hydrangeas–not too inspiring.

C’est la vie. Meanwhile the summer is flying by.

And just when you think the Anglican Church cannot dig itself any deeper into its hole, another Archbishop says something really, really stupid. As usual, Ann comments better than I am able.

Funnily enough our sermon this Sunday was all about God as our Father, since we are still working our way through Hosea: When Israel was a child, I loved him (Hosea 11:1). As J.I. Packer wrote, “‘Father’ is the Christian word for God. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.”

“Christians don’t always see how disbelief in one thing affects belief in another.” This article talks about the ripple effects of not believing in hell.

And thanks to Tim Challies for this great snippet from De Witt Talmage (1832-1902). “In many of the churches of Christ in our day, the music is simply a mockery.” As he says, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

The boy and his petite famille made it back safely from South Carolina and we look forward to hearing all about it soon!

Have a good Monday!

*Romans 1:22-25

2 Comments
July 3, 2023

The sheep of His pasture*

by chuckofish

It’s pretty quiet around here since the boy and his family are in Hilton Head for the week.

Before they left early Saturday morning, daughter #3 brought the wee twins over after soccer camp on Friday to have lunch and hang out with Mr. Smith.

Daughter #1 has a new chuck-it throwing toy which is great and wears Mr. Smith out with fetching.

Five stars for sure! The best part is you don’t have to pick up the slobbery ball with your hand. Of course, getting Mr. Smith to release the ball is an ongoing issue.

We had some wild weather over the weekend with a lot of downed trees and detritus everywhere.

Unfortunately, people were actually killed this time around in crushed cars and houses.

(Photos from KMOV4)

In church on Sunday we heard more from the prophet Hosea. His message, as our pastor put it, is “harrowing and brutal”–but maybe we need that.

“Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples,
For you have played the harlot against your God.” (Hosea 9:1)

Food for thought.

Tomorrow, of course, is the 4th of July and we send happy birthday wishes to my older brother. He was always a hit with the ladies.

The little girl in the picture was a neighbor of whom my mother was particularly fond. (Her name was Katie.) Anyway, here’s hoping he does something fun tomorrow.

And here’s a song–the boy introduced me to this rendition:

*”Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” (Psalm 100:3)

3 Comments
June 29, 2023

Rejoice in the Lord always

by chuckofish

June is almost over. [Insert praise hands emoji.]

Well, I am thankful that I no longer am a member of a church where they might say the “Sparkle Creed“. And “I’m gonna laugh endlessly at their stupid “sparkle” god like Elijah laughed at the prophets of Baal.”

Moving on, I loved this by John Piper about his most influential teacher.

And this is really cool:

And here’s a poem by Jorge Luis Borges:

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

1 Comment
June 14, 2023

Our God is Holy!

by chuckofish

Well, I have made it through two days of VBS. The weather has been beautiful so no complaints there.

Everything is going according to well-laid plans. This is necessary when you have over 200 kids in attendance. And the boy assures me that the wee twins are practicing their songs and praise hands at home.

Besides praise singing, we do a lot of scripture memorizing using a variety of games. I ask you, what could be better for small children to learn and internalize than this:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

My girls won the “Multi Verse Games” yesterday in our age group, so I was very proud. (Not that there are prizes or anyone pays attention to who wins or loses, but still, I was pleased.) We also tied in our field hockey game using pool noodles.

So onward and upward and here’s part of a prayer by John Calvin:

Grant that I may hear your voice in the morning since I have hoped in you. Show me the way in which I should walk, since I have lifted up my soul unto you. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, I have fled unto you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good Spirit conduct me to the land of uprightness.

5 Comments