spirituality | dual personalities

October 6, 2014

“You may have found your sweet spot. But there’s what Bonhoeffer said: ‘We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.'”*

by chuckofish

Ah, it’s pumpkin weather. Seriously my favorite time of the year. The OM of course is complaining that it is cold, while I am throwing open the windows to let in the fresh air. C’est la vie.

Several people have sheepishly asked me about my own little pumpkin patch, which they notice I haven’t mentioned in quite awhile. Well, my pumpkin patch, which at first seemed to thrive, shriveled up in August and is no more. Heavy sigh. The OM said it didn’t get enough sun. Daughter #1 surmised that it was because I planted the pumpkins in the Indian Burial Ground corner of our yard where nothing has ever grown. Whatever. I refuse to get all upset and weepy about it. The pumpkin patch at the Methodist Church has a ton of pumpkins and so I bought one there on Saturday.

It’s a beauty!

Meanwhile I finished The Big Sleep and have moved on to Jan Karon’s newest Mitford book—Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good–which I am enjoying immensely. Reading it is like taking a vacation. I know some people find Father Tim and his wife a little cloying, but to them I say, “Bah humbug!” This is science fiction, after all. Furthermore, Karon and I are on the same page. And she includes enough Thomas a Kempis and Wordsworth and references to the BCP to deepen the storytelling. Her focus is always on God.

In any decision making, he’d learned to wait for peace; it was heedless to make a move without it. There was no time for waiting, and yet waiting was imperative.

He remained on his knees, prayed aloud. ‘Heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by the Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever walking in thy sight…’

He moved directly then to the abridged version. ‘Help me, Jesus.’

And she’s funny! So if you are in need of a little literary vacation from the vicissitudes of modern life, I highly recommend Jan Karon.

‘Tis also the season when Evensong starts back up at church. I dragged the boy along with me yesterday and it’s a good thing we went, because we made up 2/3 of the congregation. Afterwards I cooked dinner for him. His wife was at a meeting at the flyover college where she is the recruitment advisor of her sorority chapter, so I think he appreciated the meal.

Hope you are enjoying some glorious fall weather. Try to get out and breathe some fresh air. Have a good week!

*Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good

4 Comments

September 30, 2014

Vain self-concern

by chuckofish

1907 window by Tiffany Studios

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who dost feed the birds and clothe the flowers, and who carest for us as a father for his children: We beseech thee of thy tender goodness to save us from distrust and vain self-concern; that with unwavering faith we may cast our every care on thee, and live in daily obedience to thy will; through thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Austrian Church Order, 1571

(prayer posted by Kendall Harmon on TitusOneNine)

Oh man. Distrust and vain self-concern–two things I have such a difficult time letting go of.

How about you? Discuss among yourselves.

3 Comments

September 24, 2014

No God?

by chuckofish

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) “Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California” (1868), Smithsonian American Art Museum

“Beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, I think that you and I can say, that to us the surest fact in all the world is that there is a God. No God? I live in him. Tell a fish in the sea there is no water. No God? Tell a man who is breathing that there is no air. No God? I dare not come downstairs without speaking to him. No God? I would not think of closing my eyes in sleep unless I had some sense of his love shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost. ‘Oh!’ says one, ‘I have lived fifty years, and I have never felt anything of God.’ Say that you had been dead fifty years; that is nearer to the mark. But if you had been quickened by the Holy Spirit fifty minutes, this would have been the first fact in the front rank of all fact, God is, and he is my Father, and I am his child. Now you become sentient to his frown, his smile, his threat, or his promise. You feel him; his presence is photographed upon your spirit; your very heart trembles with awe of him, and you say with Jacob, ‘Surely God is in this place.’ That is one result of spiritual life”

(C. H. Spurgeon, Sermon No. 2267, “Life from the Dead,” delivered March 13, 1890 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington)

Here is some mid-week food for thought this Wednesday. Discuss among yourselves.

Note: Charles Haddon Spurgeon was one of the foremost 19th century English preachers. You may recall that the 15-year old Spurgeon was on his way to a scheduled appointment when a snow storm forced him to cut short his intended journey and to turn into a Methodist chapel in Colchester where God opened his heart to the salvation message. The text that moved him was Isaiah 45:22 – “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.”

3 Comments

September 2, 2014

Vocation

by chuckofish

In honor of Labor Day, some wisdom from Frederick Buechner:

IT COMES FROM the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

—Wishful Thinking

Discuss among yourselves.

5 Comments

September 1, 2014

The days grow short when you reach September*

by chuckofish

Sigh. August is over and with it goes the summer. School starts and we begin that snowball slide to Christmas and the end of the year.

Well, I did meet some of my August goals.

I (almost) finished my rehab of an upstairs bathroom. The painting is done. It is nearly impossible to take a picture in a bathroom, but perhaps this gives you an idea. I am pleased.

I caught up with several old pals for a few meals and conversation this month. (Once school gets underway, lunch out is impossible.)

Not much to check off the list I suppose, but meanwhile work and home continue to run fairly smoothly. Meals are made (such as they are), sheets are changed and new rolls of toilet paper appear. Sometimes that is all we can aspire to I think.

It’s time to appreciate/enjoy the last blooms of summer before those oak leaves begin to fall in earnest. Oy.

Enjoy your day off if you have one today! Appropriate movies to watch might be: Norma Rae, How Green Was My Valley, The Molly Maguires, Silkwood, The Grapes of Wrath, On the Waterfront.

Well, appropriate maybe, but I can’t say I’m in the mood. Any suggestions?

* “September Song” by Maxwell Anderson/Kurt Weill

6 Comments

August 25, 2014

Upward and onward

by chuckofish

I went to a funeral this weekend. It was at the church where I grew up and it was filled with a familiar crowd of people. The man who died was the father of four, all classmates of mine, the OM and my dual personality. There were 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild–a fine, handsome family–good people.

It was the Rite I version of the Episcopal service without communion and included three hymns, one being “Once to Every Man and Nation” which I had not sung in a long time.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Old James Russell Lowell–I gotta love you.

But I bet the clergy were cringing. This hymn is not even in our hymnal any more. It was printed in the leaflet. As I recall we used to sing it occasionally at my school–it was in that hymnal. Well, time makes ancient good uncouth…

Back at church on Sunday I was heartened to hear our rector give a sermon on the Gospel, which was Matthew 16:13-20, where Jesus asks Peter “Who do you say that I am?” For once, Peter gets it right: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The rector talked about how many professing Christians are really atheists who do not live their beliefs or actually walk the walk. But the bottom line, which he did not address, is that many Christians, including many members of the clergy, don’t seem to believe in anything anymore. You know, it’s all just a nice story. Jesus was just a social reformer trying to create a just society. They love “the symbolism of the Resurrection.” And as one ~~fatuous~~ misguided intern wrote in our diocesan newspaper, our “religion is just about being in one big love affair with God and Creation.” Ugh.

Well, it was good to be back in the pew after a few weeks off and it was fun to see the families and little kids back at church. We had ice cream to celebrate.

And our organist/choirmaster took the ALS challenge and was doused with ice water after church. Oh boy.

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Before

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After

True summer weather (finally) descended on us last week with temperatures pushing 100 and the heat index out of sight. But summer is coming to an end…Labor Day is a week from today! Good grief, Charlie Brown. Our (relatively) lazy days are getting busier and busier.

Can autumn be far behind?

Tout va bien.

4 Comments

August 15, 2014

“Was you ever been bit by a dead bee?”*

by chuckofish

Bacall and the Duke in “The Shootist” (1976)

Well, now Lauren Bacall has died. She was 89 and lived in the Dakota on Central Park West. She liked Bissinger’s chocolate from St. Louis, speaking her mind and being Mrs. Humphrey Bogart. She made some good movies with him, notably To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948).

She also made two good movies with John Wayne: Blood Alley (1955) and The Shootist (1976). She liked the Duke–they had good chemistry together she said.

I’m going to watch The Shootist tonight, because I’m in the mood for a sad western with music by Elmer Bernstein, but any of the aforementioned films would be appropriate.

Rest in peace, Betty Bacall. Into paradise may the angels lead thee; and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.
–BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I

*Eddie (and Slim) in To Have and Have Not

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August 14, 2014

Vain expectations

by chuckofish

“Bowl of Goldfish” by Childe Hassam

‘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!’

– George Eliot

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August 13, 2014

“Fame you’ll be famous, as famous as can be, with everyone watching you win on TV, Except when they don’t because sometimes they won’t…”*

by chuckofish

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.”

–May Sarton, Journal of Solitude

May Sarton is right. Hang in there.

*Dr. Seuss

4 Comments

August 1, 2014

“To amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself…seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously.” *

by chuckofish

Winslow Homer’s “The Nooning”

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.

*Aristotle

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