St. George window in the Princeton United Methodist Church by Tiffany Studio of New York City
“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Alexander fighting dragons, Le livre et la vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre, Paris, c. 1420–25
Kunisada dragon
Arthur Rackham
‘St. George and the Dragon’, by Wassily Kandinsky, 1911
‘The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun’, by William Blake
Talk about dark and dreary–that was our weekend! But it was brightened a whole lot by my Saturday outing to historic Kimmswick for lunch with my good friends.
We dined at the celebrated “Blue Owl” restaurant. Our food was yummy and the company, as always, hilarious. Carla, our intrepid social planner, drove as usual. It is great to be like a child on these outings and just follow along. I mean that. With all my heart.
The boy came over and burned a CD for me. It is the soundtrack to the movie Inside Llewyn Davis.
Yes, that’s Justin Timberlake singing. It is a wonderful CD and I highly recommend it. (Also highly recommended by daughter #1) How can you miss with T. Bone Burnett producing? Well, you can’t.
I have also been listening to the new CD Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.
I believe it just won a Grammy in the “Americana” field. What is this field, you ask? I had never heard of it, but it seems to be a category where old singers are put so they can still win Grammys. I am not trying to be harsh but, c’mon, this is a straight on Country album. I think Steve Martin and Edie Brickell were nominated in this field too. Anyway, it is a good album and I especially like their cover of the Kris Kristofferson song “Chase the Feeling” which includes the classic line: “You got loaded again, Ain’t you handsome when you’re high.”
Speaking of music, I heard that my friend Andrew Hunt will be opening for none other than (be still my heart) Dwight Yoakam
in Austin, TX soon. He will not be with his band Johnny Appleseed, but some other guys. Boy, wouldn’t it be great to see that concert? Okay, Dwight may not be the heart-throb he once was, but neither am I.
Saturday night I watched The Commancheros (1961) with John Wayne and Stuart Whitman.
Stuart Whitman (who replaced James Garner, Charlton Heston and several others) and the Duke in that iconic faded red shirt, leather vest and kerchief.
It is the last film directed by one of my favorites, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood). He was very ill, dying as it turned out, during the filming of it and John Wayne stepped in and actually directed most of the movie. He took no credit for it, of course. Any film from this era of John Wayne westerns is always a winner in my book, especially when you have had it up to here (already) with X-Game sports at the Olympics.
At church on Sunday I was confronted with the fact that they have cut out a section of my pew (fifth row, epistle side) to accommodate oldsters with walkers. Carla had warned me about this, but still it was a bit jarring on Sunday morning. I had to find a new pew, and for oldsters like me, that is not easy! C’est la vie. I’ll live.
The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night. I made Episcopal souffle, a nice salad and cut up a baguette for dinner. Perfect.
How was your weekend? Have a good week!
*…to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart”–BCP
“I think of a person I haven’t seen or thought of for years, and ten minutes later I see her crossing the street. I turn on the radio to hear a voice reading the biblical story of Jael, which is the story that I have spent the morning writing about. A car passes me on the road, and its license plate consists of my wife’s and my initials side by side. When you tell people stories like that, their usual reaction is to laugh. One wonders why.
I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that’s going on? But I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: “You’ve turned up in the right place at the right time. You’re doing fine. Don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten.”
–Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
A couple of weeks ago I was preparing to make a special report in a weekly meeting I attend at work. Doing this always makes me very nervous. I tell myself these people are not scary; they are my peers. It is no big deal. Still, I get nervous. I have trained myself not to ruin the day worrying about things that will take place in the future. Still, I worry.
Then, on the night before this meeting, I turned the page-a-day calendar I have to the next day. The Bible verse was: “For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but one of power, and of love and of self-control.” My favorite Bible verse from First Timothy! And it couldn’t have been more appropriate. I wasn’t nervous anymore.
I do not believe in coincidence. I believe in the whispering voice saying, “You’re doing fine.”
Have you ever had such an experience? Pay attention and you will see that it happens with some frequency.
“This is a dynamic and mysterious universe and human life is, no doubt, conditioned by imponderables of which we are only dimly aware. People sometimes say, “the strangest coincidence happened.” Coincidences may seem strange, but they are never a result of caprice. They are orderly laws in the spiritual life of man. They affect and influence our lives profoundly. These so-called imponderables are so important that you should become spiritually sensitized to them. Indeed, the more spiritually minded you become the more acute your contact will be with these behind-the-scenes forces. By being alive to them through insight, instruction, and illumination, you can make your way past errors and mistakes on which, were you less spiritually sensitive, you might often stumble.”
― Norman Vincent Peale, Stay Alive All Your Life
* Albert Einstein and also Albert Schweitzer who said, “Coincidence is the pseudonym dear God chooses when he wants to remain incognito.”
“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”
― Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
For the past 3-4 weeks my routine has been disordered. The holidays will do that.
Sometimes, I admit, it feels like we are adrift in chaos. But I choose to believe I am an individual–created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where I am supposed to be. Therefore, it behooves me to get my act together.
So slowly I am getting my house back in order and my daily routine in sinc.
By the way, last night I watched the second episode of Justified (season 5)–Hello, Raylan.
Mostly this weekend was a time for catching up. I had no social plans beyond a birthday lunch with my girlfriends and church on Sunday. We had a baptism and it was good to renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness with my brethren. At the end of the service we sang the interminably long but deeply wonderful “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”. Verse 6 always brings tears to my eyes:
Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
On the literary front, I finished In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, which daughter #2 had encouraged me to read. I enjoyed it, but it was the kind of book where you are always aware that you are reading “literary” fiction. Not really my cup of tea. Great literature does not hit you over the head with its worthiness. Furthermore, I have to say that while some of the characters are engaging, they are also anarchists/terrorists. So again, how can you really care what happens to them? In point of fact, I didn’t.
I watched two movies–one was a really good one: Oscar and Lucinda (1997), an Australian movie directed by Gillian Armstrong and based on the Booker Award-winning novel by Peter Carey. Boy, I really liked it.
Ralph Fiennes plays an Anglican priest in the mid-18th century who is an obsessive gambler. His reasons for gambling are pure and his Pascalian argument for his legitimate use of it as a Christian, completely righteous. He meets Cate Blanchett, who is a compulsive gambler, on the ship going to Melbourne and they become friends. Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport a glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads “to the events that will change both their lives forever.”
I was so impressed with Ralph Fiennes who plays the innocent and devout minister without the least bit of irony or judgement. He is totally believable and likable. Cate Blanchett is as always intelligent and precise and believable. Both are so good as kindred spirits. Plus there are lots of fine actors in smaller roles. The production is beautiful. The music is by Thomas Newman.
Just a great movie! I will have to read the book now.
I also watched Company (2011)–a filmed version of the Broadway show which won the Tony for Best Musical back in 1971.
I was talking to someone at work awhile back and I said I hadn’t ever seen Company and the next thing I knew he had brought it in for me. He said I’d like it. Well, I finally got around to watching it and I did not like it. Stephen Sondheim’s negative take on marriage and relationships (and women in general) is very cynical and “sophisticated”.
Puff puff. But there is not one likable/relatable character in the bunch. The main character, played by one of my least favorite actors–Neil Patrick Harris–is a jerk. Poor Mr. Sondheim. I feel that he was writing from experience.
On the home front, I took down our outside Christmas lights. It was 60-degrees yesterday so it seemed like the smart thing to do. I was impressed with what a good job the boy did putting them up. I guess he isn’t an Eagle Scout for nothin’!
Golden Globe update: FYI June Squibb is from Vandalia, Illinois. You go, Flyover Girl!
Well, I guess you can say we have been preoccupied with snow lately. It does have a way of disturbing one’s routine. It snowed again last night. Bah humbug.
Snow days are great, but those (school) days must be made up. As the person who decides when to call a snow day, stress ensues. It is at such times that I turn to my lectionary.
Today in the Episcopal Church it is the feast day of Julia Chester Emery, missioner and founder of the United Thank Offering. We remember Julia for raising funds, organizing volunteers, administering institutions, and educating lay members of the church.
“Apparently, her only training for this ministry was a willingness to try it, for she possessed no special education or preparation. Her only authority was collegial, for being a lay woman, she had neither the office nor the perquisites of ordained status to buttress her leadership. Julia Emery reminds us that we all possess the resources we need to be effective missionaries, except perhaps the two most important qualities exemplified in her—a willingness to try and the commitment to stick with it, even for a lifetime.” (Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts by Sam Portaro )
I can certainly relate to her. I mean, she is the ultimate Church Lady.
Julia Chester Emery was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1852. In 1876 she succeeded her sister, Mary, as Secretary of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions which had been established by the General Convention in 1871.
During the forty years she served as Secretary, Julia helped the Church to recognize its call to proclaim the Gospel both at home and overseas. Her faith, her courage, her spirit of adventure and her ability to inspire others combined to make her a leader respected and valued by the whole Church.
She visited every diocese and missionary district within the United States, encouraging and expanding the work of the Woman’s Auxiliary; and in 1908 she served as a delegate to the Pan-Anglican Congress in London. From there she traveled around the world, visiting missions in remote areas of China, in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hawaii, and then all the dioceses on the Pacific Coast before returning to New York. In spite of the fact that travel was not easy, she wrote that she went forth “with hope for enlargement of vision, opening up new occasions for service, acceptance of new tasks.”
Through her leadership a network of branches of the Woman’s Auxiliary was established which shared a vision of and a commitment to the Church’s mission. An emphasis on educational programs, a growing recognition of social issues, development of leadership among women, and the creation of the United Thank Offering are a further part of the legacy Julia left to the Church when she retired in 1916.
In 1921, the year before she died, the following appeared in the Spirit of Missions: “In all these enterprises of the Church no single agency has done so much in the last half-century to further the Church’s Mission as the Woman’s Auxiliary.” Much of that accomplishment was due to the creative spirit of its Secretary of forty of those fifty years, Julia Chester Emery.
Quoted from the Holy Women, Holy Men blog
God of all creation, thou callest us in Christ to make disciples of all nations and to proclaim thy mercy and love: Grant that we, after the example of thy servant Julia Chester Emery, may have vision and courage in proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our light and our salvation, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Lets hear it for Julia Chester Emery! A woman with vision and courage and no “training” who got the job done.
I think this will be my mantra for 2014. It is a good mantra.
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
― Corrie ten Boom
Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.
–Henry Ward Beecher
AMEN!
Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887), you will recall, was quite a fellow.
The son of the celebrated preacher Lyman Beecher and the brother of renowned author Harriet Beecher Stowe, he was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God’s love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His personal life was the thing that soap operas are made of and it is pretty amazing that no one has thought to make a movie about him. (But we do not want this guy to play him!)
He is cool enough, after all, to have a statue in Brooklyn.
Statue of Beecher in Brooklyn, NY
I would like to go see the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn where he was the first pastor. (This would be a fun walking tour.)
57 Orange Street between Henry and Hicks Streets in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood
According to the NHL, it was designed “to accommodate the large crowds that came to hear Beecher and his cohorts. Its simple design reflects the Puritan ethic of plain living and high thinking, and the walls that once rang to the sound of abolition oratory remain largely unchanged.”
Among those who came to hear Beecher were Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. In fact, so many flocked to hear his sermons that special “Beecher boats” were needed to ferry the throngs from Manhattan!
Abraham Lincoln stained glass window by Frederick Stymetz Lamb
“The stained glass windows of Plymouth Church are widely recognized as artistic treasures. The prominent artist Frederick Stymetz Lamb designed, and his brothers of the J. and R. Lamb Studios in Greenwich Village built the nineteen major windows of the Sanctuary, and installed between 1907 and 1909. As planned by then-minister Newell Dwight Hillis, they are unusual in depicting historical, not religious, subjects, taking as their theme the influence of Puritanism (the parent of Congregationalism) on the growth of liberty in the United States-personal liberty, religious liberty and political liberty.”
Well, it’s my kind of place. And as you know, this is how my mind works.
Happy New Year! Thanks for reading our blog in 2013! Keep reading in 2014!
The blogosphere, as you can imagine, is all about new year’s resolutions right now. Lists of resolutions: lose weight, quit smoking, save money, get fit, drink less, manage stress. You get the picture. Well, no thanks. January, I will admit, is a good month to get one’s closets in order, to edit one’s stuff, to clean house. But so is every month. You gotta keep up with these things or you can be buried alive.
That goes for a lot of things.
When it comes to New Years Resolutions, we can do better. I suggest we read the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards– all 70 of them.
According to the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, the Resolutions were Edwards’ guidelines for self-examination. Puritans set great store by biblical injunctions to submit themselves to divine searching and to monitor their motives and actions. On a community level, congregations were exhorted to practice introspection as a duty of great consequence.
Edwards lays out the Resolutions in a matter-of-fact style, treating them much like scientific principles. Of the seventy resolutions, the first one dated, No. 35, was written on December 18, 1722, when the Diary begins. The last, No. 70, was composed on August 17, 1723.
Let’s resolve to be more self-examining. We can do better.
“There are always two sides to every story, and it is generally wise, and safe, and charitable, to take the best; and yet there is probably no one way in which persons are so liable to be wrong, as in presuming the worst is true, and in forming and expressing their judgement of others, and of their actions, without waiting till all the truth is known.”
― Jonathan Edwards, Charity & Its Fruits
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake up from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Romans 13: 11–14
Well, this reading from Sunday morning seems like a timely scripture for this Advent when the country goes en masse on a month-long frenzy of spending and partying which has nothing to do with the real “reason for the season”. I don’t know about you but I’m taping this one to the mirror.
I went to church twice this Sunday, because we had the annual Lessons and Carols service at Grace in the early evening. I got to be one of the readers and read the third lesson. This still makes me so happy. It doesn’t take much, right?
In other news, the boy came over and put up our lights.
Not a great iPhone picture, but you get the idea.
Don’t they look beautiful?
I also got out a lot of Christmas decorations this weekend. And I put away a lot of stuff to make room for the Christmas decorations. I set up my mantle.
Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sin release us, let us find our rest in thee.
