dual personalities

Tag: spirituality

March 5, 2015

“You should not confuse your career with your life.”*

by chuckofish

office

Today’s PSA:

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
–Martin Luther

Have a good Thursday and stay focused.

*Dave Barry

7 Comments
March 4, 2015

Dear March–Come in

by chuckofish

John William Inchbold (1830--1888)

Dear March — Come in —
How glad I am —
I hoped for you before —

Put down your Hat —
You must have walked —
How out of Breath you are —
Dear March, Come right up the stairs with me —
I have so much to tell —

I got your Letter, and the Birds —
The Maples never knew that you were coming — till I called
I declare — how Red their Faces grew —
But March, forgive me — and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue —
There was no Purple suitable —
You took it all with you —

Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door —
I will not be pursued —
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied —
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame —

(Emily Dickinson)

The painting is “A Study, In March”  by John William Inchbold (1830–1888)

3 Comments
February 23, 2015

While the nearer waters roll*

by chuckofish

It being the first Sunday in Lent, we started off our service yesterday with The Great Litany which includes all those great “preserve-us-froms” such as “…from the crafts and assaults of the devil; and from everlasting damnation…” and “…from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil…”

We don’t hear these enough if you ask me. However,  I hear that over in England they are discussing getting rid of all references to the devil in the baptismal service. You know, because nobody believes in the devil anymore. Oh please. When will the powers that be in my poor church ever leave well enough alone?

I read the first lesson which was from Genesis and was about Noah and the new covenant God makes with him after the flood. The Gospel lesson was from Mark about Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. It was all tied together in the second lesson which was Peter talking about Noah and being saved through water and then how we are saved through the cleansing water of baptism. Peter is never as logical as Paul and the points he attempts to make sometimes elude me–they probably eluded him. Our rector is not good at clarifying anything, but he did make the point that we are tempted every day. Truly this is so. Not that he mentioned the devil.

Oh where is Jonathan Edwards when we need him?

He is wretched indeed, who goes up and down in the world, without a God to take care of him, to be his guide and protector, and to bless him in his affairs . . .That unconverted men are without God shows that they are liable to all manner of evil . . .liable to the power of the devil, to the power of all manner of temptation . . .to be deceived and seduced into erroneous opinions . . .to embrace damnable doctrines . . .to be given up of God to judicial hardness of heart . . .to commit all manner of sin, and even the unpardonable sin itself. They cannot be sure they shall not commit that sin. They are liable to build up a false hope of heaven, and so to go hoping to hell . . .to die senseless and stupid, as many have died . . .to die in such a case as Saul and Judas did, fearless of hell. They have no security from it. They are liable to all manner of mischief, since they are without God. They cannot tell what shall befall them, nor when they are secure from anything. They are not safe one moment. Ten thousand fatal mischiefs may befall them, that may make them miserable forever. They, who have God for their God, are safe from all such evils. It is not possible that they should befall them. God is their covenant God, and they have his faithful promise to be their refuge. (The Works of Jonathan Edwards)

Our rector mentioned C.S. Lewis and repeated several stories straight from the internet, but he could have just quoted Jonathan Edwards and been done with it. But he didn’t ask me, did he?

Anyway, I continued with my office organization. I put together a little bookcase to put in the closet I cleaned out and now I have more space for all my papers and notebooks.

2015-02-22 14.37.02

IMGP1196

IMGP1201

IMGP1200

IMGP1199

IMGP1202

So now it is time to get down to work and the devil be damned, right?

Happy Monday!

*Charles Wesley, hymn #699

7 Comments
February 10, 2015

Thought for the day

by chuckofish

UUSA Angel by Roger Bird for website

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

–C.S. Lewis

“Angel of the Lilies” by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst

2 Comments
February 9, 2015

When the storm of life is raging / Stand by me

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? We enjoyed a glorious mid-winter weather break this weekend with record-breaking temperatures in the low 70s. Wow. After church the OM and I headed down to Ted Drewes only to find it closed with a sign saying it would be open by Valentine’s Day! Why? I have no idea. Confused and let down, we drove back to our flyover town and settled for Andy’s frozen custard, which was good, but just not the same.

Otherwise the weekend was pleasant enough. I did some more work on the basement re-organization project and went to lunch with some girlfriends. Again, we were thwarted in our plans, due to our chosen restaurant being too busy. Everyone and his brother was out and about this weekend!

Since I had finally gotten the DVD back from the boy, I watched Road to Perdition (2002) and enjoyed it a lot.

road-to-perdition-original

I was quite struck by the cinematography, so  I looked up the cinematographer, Conrad Hall who, it turns out, won his third Oscar for this movie. I found out that he was the son of James Norman Hall, who along with Charles Nordhoff was the author of Mutiny on the Bounty. He was born in Tahiti and studied filmmaking at USC. Nominated ten times, he won Oscars for American Beauty (2000) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970) and the aforementioned Road to Perdition, his last film. He was nominated for one of my favorites, The Professionals (1966), but not for another favorite, Cool Hand Luke (1967). Indeed, he was a great cinematographer.

The beautiful musical score is by Thomas Newman, who is the son of the great Alfred Newman (How the West Was Won and many  others) and the cousin of Randy Newman. Thomas has been nominated twelve times for an Oscar, but has never won. He composed the music to Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Oscar and Lucinda (1997) among many others.

Considering that The Road to Perdition is a movie about Irish-American mobsters, there is not an overabundance of violence. (But it is directed by Sam Mendes and not Martin Scorcese.) Bad things happen, terrible things, but first and foremost it is a very low-key film about fathers and sons. Tom Hanks plays the anti-hero who is so screwed up by his upbringing that he cannot escape perdition, but he does the best he can to save his son.

Daughter #1 sent me the link to Bob Dylan’s speech accepting the MusiCares Person of the Year Award. Read the whole thing, because it is quite the speech. Bob is just the Best.

bob-dylan-musicares-2015-billboard-650

I can not tell you how much I love it that he quotes the old hymn “Stand By Me” in front of all those unbelievers! Testify. When I do the best I can / And my friends don’t understand / Thou who knowest all about  me / Stand by me.

The Old Testament reading on Sunday was the wonderful passage from Isaiah 40:21-31:

21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

So do not faint and grow weary, Kiddos. All will be well. Have a good Monday.

7 Comments
January 30, 2015

WWDD

by chuckofish

d2232a382e66613d7419dcc5364bd4b7

How is it that I missed this wonderfulness?

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYaPXeFVbKs

Do you  have big plans for the weekend? My only scheduled event is an annual church dinner which raises money for the youth mission trip in June. It is billed as “The Elegant Italian Dinner,” but it is anything but that.

Last year's big event

Last year’s big event

They hang twinkly Christmas lights around Albright Hall, turn the lights down very low and serve lasagna. The youth group members wear bow ties and are the waiters. The cool dads serve as the bartenders. (This is an Episcopal Church–there is always a bar.) You get the picture. But it is always fun and the OM even goes.

I’m sure Dolly would too.

Besides this special event, I will be forging on with the basement clean-up. The OM cleaned off his workbench last weekend. Onward and upward.

Friday Movie Pick: Last night TCM featured movies starring Rod Taylor who died earlier this month.

rod-taylor-the-birds

They showed The Time Machine (1960), The Birds (1963), The Glass-Bottomed Boat (1966) with Doris Day, and a few other movies of his. My favorite Rod Taylor movie is, of course, the original 101 Dalmations (1961).

220px-One_Hundred_and_One_Dalmatians_movie_poster

Rod Taylor was the voice of Pongo! I loved that movie! My friends and I in kindergarten “played” it during recess for a long time.  Everyone wanted to be Pongo. I would watch it tonight, but I only have a VHS copy!

Oh well. I have a solution. Rod, who was good friends with John Wayne, made one movie with him: The Train Robbers (1973).

Rod is the one in the red kerchief.

Rod is the one in the red kerchief.

It isn’t a particularly great movie, but it works for me! (And, yes, I have it.)

Have a great weekend, y’all!

6 Comments
January 20, 2015

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening

by chuckofish

Did you enjoy your long MLK weekend?

We celebrated (belatedly) the birthday of daughter #3

lauren

and I celebrated (belatedly) the birthday of an old friend with my pals.

fondue

The OM and I watched American Sniper 

20141003_AmericanSniper1

with Bradley Cooper and–this is the last thing I thought I would be saying–he was awesome. He really deserves the Oscar. This movie is really, really good. Clint Eastwood–and I am not a big fan of his directing–knocked one out of the ballpark. I also have to say kudos to Clint, who is eighty-four, for even being able to attempt this at his age. (I know a lot of guys in their eighties and it is hard to imagine any of them making a movie in the desert.)

Put this movie on your “to do” list!

According to Forbes, American Sniper blew past all reasonable predictions and crushed the January record books with a scorching $90.2  million Friday-to-Sunday and an estimated $105 million Friday-to-Monday debut frame. Well, no kidding. This is a movie with an actual (non-comic-book) HERO in it, with a plot, characters, action, tension–the whole nine yards. Of course, people are going to go see it. Duh. Wake up, Hollywood.

In between bouts of reading Middlemarch, I read a Louis L’Amour oater, Ride the Dark Trail, about one of the innumerable Sacketts. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am also enjoying Middlemarch, which is full of passages like this:

“My mother is like old George the Third,” said the vicar, “she objects to metaphysics.”

“I object to what is wrong, Camden. I say, keep hold of a few plain truths, and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr. Lydgate, there was never any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had the same opinions. But now, if you speak out of the Prayer-book itself, you are liable to be contradicted.”

It is a sure sign that I am really getting old, that I identify with the minor, comic characters, I suppose.

Oh, lordy, life is good, right?

7 Comments
January 16, 2015

Friday movie pick: “I once was lost, but now am found”

by chuckofish

Considering that this is the long MLK weekend and we will be celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, I think an appropriate film to watch tonight is Amazing Grace (2006)–a really good movie about the wonderful British saint William Wilberforce, who headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.  (I have blogged about him previously here.)

MV5BMTg3Nzc0MzIyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzM3OTQ1MQ@@._V1__SX1429_SY843_

Directed by Michael Apted, it stars a bevy of British hotties, including Ioan Gruffudd as Wilberforce, Benedict Cumberbatch as William Pitt and scene-stealing Rufus Sewell as Thomas Clarkson. Former hottie Albert Finney is John Newton, who, you will recall, though once the captain of a slave ship, experienced a spiritual conversion, became an evangelical Anglican priest, and wrote the much-loved hymn “Amazing Grace.”

I watched it again the other night and was quite impressed with the screenplay, the beautiful production values and the acting. It is a rare movie where the Christians are the good guys!

P.S. It is interesting to note that everyone–from Alan Jackson to Celtic Thunder and everyone in between–has recorded the hymn “Amazing Grace.” I like it played on the bagpipes myself.

We had a piper at my mother’s funeral and he played “Amazing Grace.”

Have a good weekend!

5 Comments
January 15, 2015

“I’ve seen the promised land.”

by chuckofish

Martin_Luther_King_memorial_Westminster_Abbey

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last; Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered as a martyr on the calendar of the Episcopal Church with an annual feast day on the anniversary of his death, April 4, but his birthday is commemorated liturgically today.

King’s oldest daughter Yolanda was a classmate of mine at Smith College. She was a theater major, however, so I don’t think our paths crossed. “In life,” she said, “I had to be prim and proper and poised — the King daughter. But acting, I could be zany, silly, sometimes the foolish person that I am. I could let the rough edges show.” (NYTimes obit, 2007) I get that.

I am reminded today that my son’s poem “Stop the Violence” was awarded 1st place in the MLK poetry contest at his elementary school (or was it the school district?) back (circa) 1994 when he was in the second grade…I wish I had a copy of it to share with you, but it is lost in a dusty pile of memorabilia. I think he was given a medal.

I remember telling my children that Dr. King was a Baptist minister who believed that we are all God’s children. It is a good thing for all of us to keep in mind.

Martin Luther King, Jr. statue over the west entrance of Westminster Abbey, installed in 1998.

7 Comments
January 8, 2015

“Turn out the lights, the party’s over”*

by chuckofish

509a63810be88aa65578862607d25e35

Well, we are a week into the new year. Now that my girls have returned to their respective homes in the East, I am going to throw myself body and soul into cleaning, organizing and de-cluttering my  house. (Here’s an article on Purging the Pantry.)

Because daughter #2 wanted me to keep up the tree and all the Christmas decorations for the BF when he visited, I am way behind in putting away all things Christmas. Oy.

But as I say every year, all this cleaning keeps my mind off my personal pity party. How about you? How do you deal with the ‘Mean Reds’?

*Willie Nelson

7 Comments