spirituality | dual personalities

Into your hands

by chuckofish

Here’s a morning prayer to get you going for the day:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.

–Martin Luther

How do you like that Playmobil Martin Luther? The OM gave him to me for my birthday!

Have a good Thursday.

5 Comments

Kickin’ up dust

by chuckofish

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about.”

–Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Have a good weekend. Try to find some time to be quiet and think. Turn off the computer. Take a break from social media.

Read some Buechner. Read this.

Watch A Thousand Clowns (1965): Remind yourself why you were “born a human being and not a chair.”

I plan to read some more old letters which I have unearthed in my ongoing basement reorganization/clean-up. Here’s a tidbit from a letter my mother wrote in 1979 when I was in graduate school and my dual personality was at Smith:

It’s around 5 o’clock and I wish you were here to share some sherry and nibblies with me and have a good chat. It’s times like this when I miss you the most. I haven’t had any sherry since you left–it’s the sort of thing I have to have with someone in order to enjoy it.

Some things never change! (Although I have no problem drinking by myself!) Ah, a toast to mothers everywhere who miss their daughters!

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April 16, 2015

Good grief, Charlie Brown

by chuckofish

One of the blogs I follow–Interesting Literature–had a post on 10 Rare But Useful Words Everyone Should Know. The first word is “UHTCEARE“ meaning ‘lying awake before dawn worrying’. I think this should be on my license plate or something. I mean, I do that all the time. All the time.

Do you?

I try to remember the “have no anxiety about anything” commandment:

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

And Jesus was very clear when he said:

Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? (Matthew 6:25)

And, of course, there is my favorite:

“Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34)

I know that if I just trust in the Lord, all will be well. But we puritan types have a hard time letting go of taking responsibility.

Well, I guess we can take some solace in the fact that old St. Paul probably had some sleepless nights too:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. (Romans 7: 15-20)

Sigh. In the early morning when I cannot go back to sleep, I sometimes just get up and read.

I am working on being more happy-go-lucky.

Any suggestions?

4 Comments

April 9, 2015

Just saying

by chuckofish

“It was like I was empty. Well, I’m not empty anymore. That’s what’s important, to feel useful in this old world, to hit a lick against what’s wrong for what’s right even though you get walloped for saying that word. Now I may sound like a Bible beater yelling up a revival at a river crossing camp meeting, but that don’t change the truth none. There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you’re dead as a beaver hat.”

– Davy Crockett (John Wayne) in The Alamo (1960)

I have an event-packed calendar today, so I need a little John Wayne to get me started. That and a little Philippians 4:13.

Have a great day! Tomorrow’s Friday!

3 Comments

March 31, 2015

Tuesday’s message

by chuckofish

“St. Paul Preaching in Athens” by Raphael

Wonderful words for Tuesday in Holy Week:

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The Bible speaks to us in the 21st century. Selah.

2 Comments

March 19, 2015

Preaching to ourselves

by chuckofish

Then at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There has never been a time past when God wasn’t with us as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts–whether we believe in God or not–that keeps us human enough at least to get by despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human. To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift.

–Frederick Buechner (A Room Called Remember)

2 Comments

March 11, 2015

Way Back Wednesday

by chuckofish

Today is Johnny Appleseed Day! John Chapman was a real person,

Harper’s Weekly 1871

who became a legend through his travels as a pioneer nurseryman and missionary for the Swedenborgian Church.

Among other things, he is remembered for singing the Swedenborgian hymn: “Oooooh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the appleseed. The Lord is good to me. Amen.”

When I was a Sunday School teacher back in the day, we sang this as a grace before our snack. We sang it a lot at home as well, because it is pretty catchy.

I made this counted cross stitch sampler for my son when he was little and he has it hanging in his house.

And do you remember this? I bet you do.

So let’s raise a cup of apple juice to ol’ Johnny Appleseed tonight! Or maybe a glass of this.

Do they still make this stuff?

I guess they do.

4 Comments

March 5, 2015

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

by chuckofish

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

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.