‘One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young’s theory that “as soon as we have found the key of life it opens the gates of death.” Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one!’
Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It’s all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They’ve forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!
Leonard Lowe, Awakenings (1990)
Well, I am very sad about the suicide of Robin Williams earlier in the week. He seems to have succumbed to despair.
Robin and I go a long way back–all the way to “Mork and Mindy” which I watched when I was a graduate student in 1979. I thought he was hilarious.
I have written before about the kinship I always felt with him, of how he was my brother’s doppelganger, born weeks apart in 1951. Years would go by when I wouldn’t see my own brother, but I would see Robin. And then he played “Mrs. Doubtfire” and reminded me of my mother! It was that inner Scotsman, I guess, full of melancholy and sweetness. Indeed, he was like kin and so his death seems not so much like the death of a movie star, but like a brother. Perhaps you think that is silly, but it is how I feel. It is possible to feel very close to writers, poets, and yes, even movie stars.
I watched Awakenings last night–this movie is pure gold–and it is all about appreciating Life and reminding oneself often of the great gift that it is. So it is doubly heart-breaking to know that Robin Williams had lost sight of this.
“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”
It is August. The year is more than half over! The goals I have set for my summer are looming.
All that said, I still try to take each day as it comes and enjoy the moment. I suggest you do the same.
Here are a few things to think about this weekend:
“Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him.”
(Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons)
“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”
(Julian of Norwich)
“I have found that I even have to pray for the willingness to give up the stuff I hate most about myself. I have to ask for help, and sometimes beg. That’s the human condition. I just love my own guck so much. Help. Then I try to be a good person, a better person than I was yesterday, or an hour ago. In general, the Ten Commandments are not a bad place to start, nor is the Golden Rule. We try not to lie so much or kill anyone that day. We do the footwork, which comes down mostly to paying attention and trying not to be such a jerk. We try not to feel and act so entitled. We let others go first.
How can something so simple be so profound, letting others go first, in traffic or in line at Starbucks, and even if no one cares or notices? Because for the most part, people won’t care—they’re late, they haven’t heard back from their new boyfriend, or they’re fixated on the stock market. And they won’t notice that you let them go ahead of you.
They take it as their due.
But you’ll know. And it can change your whole day, which could be a way to change your whole life. There really is only today, although luckily that is also the eternal now. And maybe one person in the car in the lane next to you or in line at the bank or at your kid’s baseball game will notice your casual generosity and will be touched, lifted, encouraged—in other words, slightly changed for the better— and later will let someone else go first. And this will be quantum.”
(Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow)
Clay Boone: I think we’ll go to St. Louis.
Cat: St. Louis?
Clay Boone: Yeah, St. Louis! City on the Missouri, railhead of the Santa Fe, jump off for the Oregon Trail – producers of beef, beer, shoes and, ah, good times.
(Cat Ballou, 1965)
Cat Ballou will be shown on TCM tonight as part of their all-Jane Fonda-all day program. I remember going to see it at the movies back in 1965 and I thought it was pretty great. Of course, I was nine. It is not a great movie, but I am kind of in the mood for such silliness. Lee Marvin, of course, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Kid Shelleen/Tim Strawn. I’m sure Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, Rod Steiger, and Oskar Werner–who were also nominated that year–weren’t laughing. If you look at the nominees/winners, you’ll see it was a really weak year.
Anyway, it’s been a busy week and I am ready for my weekend! Have a good one.
Today on the Episcopal Church calendar is the feast day of the worthy William Wilberforce, English politician, philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.
Unfinished portrait of Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence
He was born in 1759 and served in Parliament from 1780 to 1825. A turning point in his religious life came while on a tour of Europe. In the luggage of a travelling companion he saw a copy of William Law’s book, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. He asked his friend, “What is this?” and received the answer, “One of the best books ever written.” The two of them agreed to read it together on the journey, and Wilberforce embarked on a lifelong program of setting aside Sundays and an interval each morning on arising for prayer and religious reading. He considered his options, including the clergy, and was persuaded by Christian friends that his calling was to serve God through politics.
He was a major supporter of programs for popular education, overseas missions, parliamentary reform, and religious liberty. He is best known, however, for his untiring commitment to the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. He introduced his first anti-slavery motion in the House of Commons in 1788, in a three-and-a-half hour oration that concluded: “Sir, when we think of eternity and the future consequence of all human conduct, what is there in this life that shall make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice and the law of God!”
The motion was defeated. Wilberforce brought it up again every year for eighteen years, until the slave trade was finally abolished on 25 March 1806. He continued the campaign against slavery itself, and the bill for the abolition of all slavery in British territories passed its crucial vote just four days before his death on July 29, 1833. A year later, on July 31, 1834, 800,000 slaves, chiefly in the British West Indies, were set free.
A movie of the life of William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, was released in 2006. It stars Ioan Gruffudd as Wilberforce.
Also featured are Albert Finney as John Newton, Rufus Sewell as Thomas Clarkson and Benedict Cumberbatch as William Pitt. It is definitely worth watching for many reasons, not the least of which is that Mr. Gruffudd is so darn cute.
*Amazing Grace by John Newton
Information about Wilberforce from Christianitytoday.com.
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
–“Fireflies in the Garden” by Robert Frost
“In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of — moments when we human beings can say “I love you,” “I’m proud of you,” “I forgive you,” “I’m grateful for you.” That’s what eternity is made of: invisible imperishable good stuff.”
–Fred Rogers
“Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
–I Corinthians 15:51-52
This is how my mind works.
The famous Whitelaw monument in the Glasgow Necropolis features the scripture from I Corinthians around its base.
Today is the birthday of Oswald Chambers (24 July 1874 – 15 November 1917), an early 20th century Scottish Baptist and Holiness Movement teacher and evangelist.
You can read about him here. He is most famous today as the author of My Utmost for His Highest (1924), a daily devotional composed of 365 selections of Chamber’s talks, each of about 500 words. The work has never been out of print and has been translated into 39 languages. The book was published after Oswald’s death in 1917, his wife Gertrude Hobbs compiling the passages from her shorthand notes.
I have had my own copy of this wonderful book for many years. It is dog-eared and much highlighted. If you do not have a copy, I recommend you get one.
“The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not–Do your duty, but–Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of–“Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood”. . . Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is–Never look for justice, but never cease to live it.”
There is a good reason that this book has never been out of print! There is also a daily online devotional.
“Get into the habit of saying, ‘Speak, Lord,’ and life will become a romance.”
Bonus tidbit: Since we celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in 1969 earlier this week, I thought I would share this story with you. Do you know that Buzz Aldrin, an elder in his Presbyterian Church in Texas, brought communion on the space flight and celebrated it with Neil Armstrong on the moon? He did. Here is the full text of the original article — written by Buzz Aldrin — published inGuideposts magazine in October of 1970.
So I unstowed the elements in their flight packets. I put them and the scripture reading on the little table in front of the abort guidance system computer.
Then I called back to Houston.
“Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM Pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to invite each person listening to give thanks in his own individual way.”
On this day in 1865 British revivalist preacher William Booth founded the Salvation Army.
Originally a prominent Methodist evangelist, Booth felt constrained by the need to have a pastorate. Eventually he resigned from the ministry and began preaching to crowds of people in the streets of the East End of London. Soon he and his wife opened ‘The Christian Revival Society’ (later renamed The Christian Mission) where they held meetings every evening and on Sundays.
The Salvation Army, as the mission became known, was modeled after the military, with its own flag (or colors) and its own music, often with Christian words put to popular and folk tunes sung in the pubs. Booth and the other soldiers in “God’s Army” wore the Army’s own uniform, ‘putting on the armor’ for meetings and ministry work. He became the General and his other ministers were given appropriate ranks as officers. Other members became soldiers. During his lifetime, William Booth established Army work in 58 countries and colonies, traveling extensively and holding salvation meetings.
Today the Salvation Army is one of the largest and most popular charitable organizations in the world.
George Bernard Shaw wrote a three-act play Major Barbara about a Salvation Army member who becomes disillusioned when the charity accepts money from a arms maker and a whiskey distiller. In the preface to the play, however, Shaw derided the idea that charities should only take money from “morally pure” sources. He points out that donations can always be used for good, whatever their provenance, and he quotes a Salvation Army officer, “they would take money from the devil himself and be only too glad to get it out of his hands and into God’s”.
Vachel Lindsay wrote a poem about General Booth, General William Booth Enters Into Heaven. (You can read the whole poem here. )
And when Booth halted at the curb for prayer
He saw his Master thro’ the flag-filled air.
Christ came gently with a robe and crown
For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down.
He saw King Jesus. They were face to face,
And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place.
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
On a lighter note, while toasting the Army tonight, we could all watch Guys and Dolls (1955).
Since my dual personality already posted about her silver anniversary and the wonderful wedding in England that started it all, I will refrain from doing so. My pictures from the big event are pretty much the same.
I will limit myself to this one of daughter #1 (almost 5) and the boy (2 1/2).
The boy, as previously noted, was coming down with chicken pox, but he was enough on the ball to be quite taken with the wedding. It was in the fall, after all, that he came home one day from pre-school and announced that he “had decided.” “Decided what?” I gamely asked. “I’ve decided to marry Lauren B.”
And, reader, he did. Just about twenty-three years later, he did–and in July as well!
I don’t think he would have been contemplating wedlock if he had not attended this great wedding in England. You just never know what your younguns are thinking.
What a bud.
Anyway, how was your weekend? I estate-saled, ran errands, tore wallpaper off the walls of an upstairs bathroom (you gotta have a project), attended church, and planted a rose bush.
As I noted on Friday, I planned to watch Road to Perdition, but I could not find my copy! Can you believe it? Curses again. Instead I watched TheNakedJungle (1954) with Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker and William Conrad with a really bad French (?) accent.
You remember–it’s the one about the plantation in South America that is in the path of a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants! It was clearly shot on a soundstage, but it is better than it sounds. Charlton is always worth watching.
On Saturday night I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
I am not a fan of Wes Anderson–he is highly over-rated, if you ask me–so my expectations were low. I enjoyed it, however, mostly because I am a minor fan of Ralph Fiennes. He is wonderful (who knew he could be funny?) and elevates the material. There are the usual cameo appearances by Wes’s hipster friends (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Ed Norton, Bob Balaban, etc.) and inappropriate (and an inordinate) use of the F-word, but it is worth watching for Ralph and his sidekick played by the very funny teenager Tony Revolori.
I was a reader once again at church (substituting for vacationing lay readers) and I read the story of Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending the ladder (Genesis 28:10-19a). I also read Romans 8:12-25, which includes “you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear” and also “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” Good stuff.
Here is a terrific rendition of the old negro spiritual “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder” sung by a Dutch men’s chorus. (I love that they pronounce Jacob as “Yacob.”) We don’t hear this one much anymore–probably because of the refrain: “Soldiers of the cross.” Listen to the whole thing–it’ll rev your engines to start the week off right!
Saw Perez Blood in his frock,–a stuttering, sure, unpretending man, who does not speak without thinking, does not guess. When I reflected how different he was from his neighbors, Conant, Mason, Hodgman, I saw that it was not so much outwardly, but that I saw an inner form. We do, indeed, see through and through each other, through the veil of the body, and see the real form and character in spite of the garment. Any coarseness or tenderness is seen and felt under whatever garb. How nakedly men appear to us! for the spiritual assists the natural eye.
I had a busy week that flew by and then a quiet weekend filled with my usual musings and meanderings.
I read the second lesson on Sunday–one of Paul’s attempts at logically explaining the unexplainable in Romans 8. How I do love him. The associate rector praised my reading as I left the sanctuary after the service and when I demurred, he clasped my hand and said, “Oh, no, no. You are a superstar! When you read you give the words meaning…” I blush to remember. But I must say I was pleased. No one else calls me a superstar!
On the way out I caught up with a man who I have been trying to get in touch with and asked him if he would take part in a course we are offering this fall at our flyover institute. He is the former head of a global architectural firm based in our flyover city. He said yes. I was on a roll!
I decided to go back to an estate sale I had gone to on Saturday to see if a few things were still there. They were not, but I bought three art books for a dollar each. Score.
On the flora and fauna front, my hibiscus, which I planted from seeds (harvested from a friend’s garden) last year, has bloomed!
See the bee hard at work in there?
It really is the little things that make us happy, right? Someone saying “good job!” or someone saying “Yes!” or a flower blooming.
I hope this week is full of more positive reinforcement. We musn’t forget to hand out those positive vibes when we are in a position to do so. Say “Yes!” at least once this week.
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
dual personalities 