dual personalities

Tag: spirituality

November 27, 2020

We lift our hearts to God on high

by chuckofish

Now that the daylight fills the sky,
we lift our hearts to God on high,
that, he, in all we do or say,
would keep us free from harm this day:

Our hearts and lips may he restrain;
keep us from causing others pain,
that we may see and serve his son,
and grow in love for everyone.

From evil may he guard our eyes,
our ears from empty praise and lies;
from selfishness our hearts release,
that we may serve, and know his peace.

–John Mason Neale
#4 The Episcopal Hymnal 1982

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.

It was just the three of us (the OM, daughter #1 and I), but it was a nice day spent leisurely getting ready for our dinner and listening to nostalgic show tunes on 50-year-old LPs. Who doesn’t like to sing along with John Raitt?

And now we have a lovely day off. We have a lot to do now, getting out all the Christmas decorations and preparing for the visit of daughter #2 avec petite famille in a few weeks. We also will celebrate the boy’s thirty-something birthday this weekend!

He hasn’t changed much over the years, certainly not in the way he perceives himself (see above self portrait). 😉

We love him dearly and he makes us proud every day.

Sunday is also the first Sunday of Advent–not that anyone is really paying much attention to such things these days. I plan to do what I did last advent, which, if you recall, was read one chapter of Luke each night starting on December 1. On Christmas Eve I will have read the entire account of Jesus’s life and been reminded who and why we celebrate.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

BCP, Collect for first Sunday in Adent

Happy long weekend. Keep doing your best.

2 Comments
October 9, 2020

Help of the helpless

by chuckofish

Truly, the last rose of summer

I read recently that one of our local scions, in his later years, did a three-minute plank exercise each morning, propping himself up on his elbows and toes while singing “Abide With Me,” reciting the Lord’s Prayer and praying for loved ones. I think this is just a great exercise plan and I have started doing it. So far, I am unable to maintain the plank for the full time, so I shift into a yoga pose taught to me by one of my daughters.

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

That “help of the helpless” seems particularly appropriate for an exercise descriptive.

Anyway, I am taking today off–no Zoom meetings, so it is possible–and I’m getting some ‘stuff’ done. I am going for my flu shot and I am having my hair cut. Woohoo!

In other news, I am forcing myself to continue reading Jack by Marilynne Robinson. Sad to say, Jack, as the NYT reviewer put it, is “the dullest bad boy in the history of bad boys.”  And he is not, in the long run, very likable. Worst of all, the book is kind of boring. If it were written by anybody else, I would not finish it. Sigh.

I enjoyed this article about scrubbing away one’s anxiety. “This is why I am so glad that my church’s lectionary is taking us through the book of Exodus right now. I’m reminded that we are not the first group of people to be led through hard times. We are not the first people to grumble and whine and not trust that God will provide. We aren’t even the first ones to do dumb things to distract ourselves from the problems that weigh us down.”

I confess that I have contemplated buying a power-washer.

Have you started your Christmas shopping? You know this year it’s going to creep up on us. It may feel like it’s still May, but it is not! It is mid-October. I mean, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Christmas is, indeed, 77 days away.

This made me laugh:

So get out this weekend and enjoy the fine fall weather! Do some Christmas shopping! Shop local! And remember:

5 Comments
September 4, 2020

“Hey, Ma, how ’bout some cookies?”

by chuckofish

Raymond J. Eastwood
High Plains Range Land, 1950

A glorious three-day weekend is upon us. My office is officially closing at Noon today so it’s actually a three and a half day weekend! One more Zoom meeting to go and then I am free to putter around my house to my heart’s content. (Daughter #1 is driving home this weekend so I will do more than putter.)

Yesterday we had the electrician in our house all day fixing numerous things and (finally) installing a new ceiling fan in my ‘office.’ Hopefully nothing will break for awhile. Now we will have light in the basement again, so we have no excuses for getting back to work on all those boxes.

This week we watched a couple of old Charles Bronson movies: Breakheart Pass (1975) and Red Sun (1971). Breakheart Pass is a good western/mystery-on-a-train story written by Alistair Maclean and directed by Tom Gries. Red Sun is also a western with the added attraction of Toshiro Mifune as a samurai who joins forces with Bronson to retrieve a ceremonial Japanese sword.

Both movies offer lavish productions, good casts and excellent music. I enjoyed them. However, I can never watch a Charles Bronson movie without thinking of this:

Tomorrow is the birthday of Missouri native and legend Jesse James (1847-1882). Everyone knows that he and his brother Frank were American outlaws, bank and train robbers. Disenfranchised ex-Confederates, they wrecked havoc across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy. Jesse James has been portrayed in film by Tyrone Power, Roy Rogers, Rod Cameron, Audie Murphy, Clayton Moore, Robert Wagner, James Keach, Robert Duvall, Kris Kristofferson, Colin Farrell, and Brad Pitt, just to name a few. I tried to watch the Brad Pitt version of the Jesse James story, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) in preparation for this post, but it was unwatchable. I cut my losses halfway through. Like many 21st century films, it was more interested in the look and sound of the movie than the story or the characters. There was not one likable or interesting character. It was slow, it was boring. Worst of all, it was filmed in Canada and did not even look like Missouri.

There are many museums and sites devoted to Jesse James across the U.S. including several in his home state. The James farm in Kearney, MO is a house museum and historic site operated by Clay County. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. One can’t help but think his mother would be proud. I may have to add Kearney to my bucket list.

One of my favorite blogs, which I have read for years and whose author I admire, is ending (at least for the time being.) Times change and we roll with the punches and I applaud her decision to focus (without guilt) on her large and exuberant southern family. You go, girl!

I thought this piece from one of my favorites was very on point. “We have to decrease and defund our inner police so that Jesus can increase in us.” (Did you get the reference to John 3:30?) SO true!

Have a joy-filled weekend. Love where you are and who you’re with.

6 Comments
August 28, 2020

Fri-yay!

by chuckofish

It’s been a long week. And I am ready for the weekend–the last weekend in August! Can you believe it? The summer is just about over. Where did it go?

Today is National Red Wine Day and we will toast the awesome Shania Twain on her birthday (August 28, 1965). We can all use a little Shania, can’t we?

It is also the feast day of Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430 AD) who is recognized as a saint in the Anglican Communion. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, consider him one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation and divine grace. 

Lord God, the light of the minds that know thee, the life of the souls that love thee, and the strength of the hearts that serve thee: Help us, following the example of thy servant, Augustine of Hippo, so to know thee that we may truly love thee, and so to love thee that we may fully serve thee, whose service is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

BCP, Collect for Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Theologian

If you have 20 minutes, here’s a lecture by R.C. Sproul about the influence of Augustine.

And here’s an interesting article about the riots in Minneapolis just blocks from John Piper’s neighborhood. No one in my denomination walks the walk like John Piper. Not by a long shot.

Well, enjoy the tail end of August–four months until Christmas! Zut alors–are you kidding me?

3 Comments
August 17, 2020

Accentuate the positive*

by chuckofish

It’s Monday and I have no cute pictures of darling wee babes to share. Oh well, c’est la vie. Sometimes we have to fend for ourselves, latch on to the affirmative and smile, dude! I had fun this weekend–even without a visit from wee babes–how about you?

Daughter #1 drove home on Saturday and we went to three estate sales (!) and found nothing! Not even so much as a plant rescue or a book. Unheard of, you say. Indeed. We consoled ourselves with take-out margaritas from Club Taco and listening to music all evening.

When daughter #1 drove home to mid-MO on Sunday morning, I tuned in to Morning Prayer with Christ Church, Charlottesville, where David Zahl gave a good sermon on Joseph and his brothers. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20) Joseph’s story is a good reminder for us all during a trying time that God is with us through thick and thin.

In other news, Matt Rollings, super keyboardist, who has played with Lyle Lovett, Mark Knopfler and many others, just released his first solo album in over 30 years, Matt Rollings Mosaic, and I bought it. I highly recommend it. Here’s a taste:

In another track, Lyle Lovett sings the old Johnny Mercer/Harold Arlen standard, “Accentuate the Positive.” The lyrics seems appropriate to the times.

Gather ’round me, everybody
Gather ’round me while I’m preachin’
Feel a sermon comin’ on me
The topic will be sin and that’s what I’m ag’in’
If you want to hear my story
Then settle back and just sit tight
While I start reviewin’
The attitude of doin’ right
You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene
To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do just when everything looked so dark?
(Man, they said “We’d better accentuate the positive”)
(“Eliminate the negative”)
(“And latch on to the affirmative”)
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between (No!)
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
(Ya got to spread joy up to the maximum)
(Bring gloom down to the minimum)
(Have faith or pandemonium’s)
(Liable to walk upon the scene)
You got to ac (yes, yes) -cent-tchu-ate the positive
Eliminate (yes, yes) the negative
And latch (yes, yes) on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
No, don’t mess with Mister In-Between

On that note, I’ll wish you a good start to the week. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

5 Comments
August 11, 2020

Faithless fears and worldly anxieties

by chuckofish

So yesterday I was allowed to go to my flyover university office on campus and retrieve my computer and other needful things that I have been doing without for six months (while using my personal laptop at home). Thinking I would be back in a couple of weeks, I left some plants in my office when I vacated the office back in March and they were (of course) all dead. I packed up a few files and such and brought everything home and lugged it inside and set it up.

And, oh boy, I had forgotten how great a big screen is! Anyway, I guess we are telecommuting for the long haul, i.e. the end of the year.

Sigh.

But here’s something to cheer you up if you need it:

Sigh. I’m sure we all need it.

Loving God,
you want us to give thanks for all things,
to fear nothing except losing you,
and to lay all our cares on you,
knowing that you care for us.
Protect us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties,
and grant that no clouds in this mortal life
may hide from us the light of your immortal love
shown to us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

–William Bright (1824-1901)

(The painting is by Van Gogh.)

4 Comments
August 7, 2020

“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there”*

by chuckofish

I’ve had a long week of back-to-work activities. Zut alors! I’m still at home.

I thought this was interesting, written by a fellow Episcopalian.

God has made us know what we always sorta knew: that we are not in charge, no matter how much we take charge of what God has left for us to do. 

Indeed, we are not in charge. Sometimes I guess we need to be hit over the head to be reminded. But I choose to believe that all is not chaos and that God is in control. This helps me persevere.

I also try to keep things in perspective and stay grateful. We have much for which to be grateful, don’t we?

Our families, for one thing, far-flung as they may be. They keep us close in their hearts, as we do them. My niece sent me this video because she thought I might like it (and I do, of course)…

Our friends who stand by us…

Our churches, such as they are, even the virtual ones.

@thebabylonbee

We have our memories of summers past…

…and visions of the future…

I am grateful for good work to do even if I have to do it in an upstairs guest bedroom/office…

Keep being grateful and thanking God for whatever comes next. We can handle it. Have a good weekend!

“Be cheerful—the problems that worry us most are those that never arrive.”—Benjamin Franklin

*Bob Dylan

6 Comments
August 3, 2020

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho*

by chuckofish

Yes, today I am back at work–still at home of course–but doing my thing remotely.

The gospel lesson yesterday was the loaves and fishes story in Matthew 14:13-21, a straightforward telling of one of Jesus’ miracles.

(I have been to this site near the Sea of Galilee where the loaves and fishes episode took place. I have the magnet to prove it.)

Five thousand fed and baskets of leftovers–all from five loaves of bread and two fish. There will always be enough if we share with our neighbors as Jesus commands us. Remember, Bunyan’s rhyme is true spiritually as well as providentially:

“There was a man and some did count him mad,
The more he gave away the more he had.”

Here’s a sermon on the topic from Charles Spurgeon.

In other news, not much has happened on the homefront. We’ve had a lot of rainy days and so I haven’t ventured outside much and I haven’t seen the wee babes in weeks except for a brief visit when they dropped off my belated Mother’s Day present.

Thanks, guys!

I finally ‘drove my Cooper’ after three weeks of not in order to go to Michael’s for a curbside pickup. It was easy-peasy. We also took a drive to Lone Elk Park for something to do, but never saw a single bison. Ho hum. Par for the course.

FYI August is always “Summer Under the Stars” month at TCM, so there are lots of good movies to DVR this month. Olivia de Haviland has her day on August 23.

Try to enjoy your Monday.

*It’s home from work we go…(Frank Churchill and Larry Morey) The expression “heigh-ho” was first recorded in 1553 and is defined as an expression of “yawning, sighing, languor, weariness, disappointment”.

5 Comments
July 31, 2020

The song of my marrow-bones

by chuckofish

It is the last day of July. Baseball has (kind of) started and I can’t say I care much. But here’s a throwback from 1966 when our Big Brother was in 9th grade and played on the CODASCO “C” team.

They look so young. Our BB is in the front row, third from the right. His best friend is next to him in the middle of the row. He has at least 7 inches to grow! His other friend Mike is directly behind him (obscured) and had about a foot to grow! Such babes. Our brother played third base.

I remember going to see several Cardinals games at the old Busch Stadium with all three of those boys. It was always so much fun to be around them! Though pushing 70 now (!), they are still nice boys.

Well, besides looking nostalgically backwards, I have been reading more Lovejoy.

“Cheerful adversity is vaguely entertaining, but even friends steer clear of doom.”

(Gold By Gemini)

I also searched high and low for my copy of Knowing God, having read about the passing of J.I. Packer last week. I have yet to find by book, but I have read a lot about Packer and listened to an interesting interview with Packer and John Piper. Packer was an evangelical and a lifelong Anglican, someone with whom I can identify. He spent the first half of his life in England and the second half in Canada but was perhaps most popular in the United States. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential theological popularizers of the twentieth century. Like the Puritans he loved, Packer believed that the Christian faith is based on clear thinking while at the same time engaging the heart. According to Justin Taylor, he saw himself as “a voice that called people back to old paths of truth and wisdom.” His entire life was spent resisting the idea that “the newer is the truer, only what is recent is decent, every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.”

Knowing God was given to me in 1976 as a Christmas present by a young man at Williams College who was in a Bible study I attended. He was a little older than everyone because he had taken a year or two off to travel in Africa. He was certainly not your typical Williams student. He was the first person outside my family who recognized that I was perhaps spiritually deeper than the flakey chick most people saw. I’m not sure what became of Joe, but I’m pretty sure he was headed to divinity school. It is good to be reminded of such people–the ones who encourage and nudge you along the way.

Here’s some more pandemic musing which I found interesting.

And a poem by Stanley Kunitz:

End of Summer

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

Best Face Mask Award goes to Marty Stuart and his Manuel-designed couture mask.  ❤️
4 Comments
July 28, 2020

“I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”*

by chuckofish

We all have our coping mechanisms. People tend to credit me with being a very calm person, but let me tell you, that is only because I have been practicing/pretending to be calm for years. Indeed, I have become quite good at controlling my blood pressure, and if watching Steve McQueen drive very fast keeps me from crossing the line, so be it and yay me.

The thing is, metaphorically speaking, if SMcQ is the green Mustang, I am the green VW Bug that keeps turning up in this scene. Men like the OM wish they could be the Mustang, but I am content and happy to be the VW.

Lately I have been entertaining/calming myself by watching British war movies from the 1950s, mostly black and white ones starring John Mills and a host of great British supporting actors. I watched Dunkirk (1958) and The Colditz Story (1955), the latter which I had never seen. It is the true story of allied prisoners in Colditz Castle who made many attempts to escape captivity from the arrival of the first British prisoners after Dunkirk in 1940 until the liberation of the castle by the Americans in 1945. Colditz was a “special” camp, designed by the Nazis to hold high-risk and politically important prisoners.

Next on my list** is Reach For the Sky (1956), the amazing true story of RAF Group Captain Douglas Bader who, after losing both legs, flew a British fighter plane during WWII. He was also, coincidentally, a POW at Colditz.

Anyway, these are all good movies and I recommend them. Of course, if you prefer the Big Hollywood rendering, there is always The Great Escape (1963) which boasts a British cast and SMcQ.

Well, the point of this blog is to say that we all need to find our coping mechanisms during this more than usually difficult year and indulge in them. Hopefully you find some equally innocent and healthy way to deal with your stress. The following scene just says it all.

If that doesn’t help, maybe this little story from Henry Ward Beecher will:

I remember when I was a young person attending school in the vicinity of Mount Pleasant. One day I sat on the side of the mountain and watched a storm as it moved through the valley. The skies were filled with darkness, and thunder began to shake the earth. It seemed as though the lush landscape were completely changed, and its beauty gone forever. But the storm passed quickly and soon moved out of the valley.

If I had sat in the same place the following day and said, “Where is that intense storm and all its terrible darkness?” the grass would have said, “Part of it is in me.” The beautiful daisy would have said, “Part of it is in me.” And all the other flowers, fruits, and everything that grows in the ground would have said, “Part of the storm has produced the radiance in me.”

Have you ever asked the Lord to make you like Him? Have you ever desired the fruit of the Spirit and prayed for sweetness, gentleness, and love? If so, then never fear the fierce storms that even now may be blowing through your life. Storms bring blessings, and rich fruit will be harvested later.

(Henry Ward Beecher quoted in Streams in the Desert)

*Psalm 4:8

**These films are all available to rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99.

3 Comments