writers | dual personalities

Variations on a theme

by chuckofish

Photo courtesy of the Missouri Dept. of Conservation

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

We’ve quoted Bonhoeffer before on the subject of thankfulness, but can we ever say it often enough? Probably not. It is so central to our well-being.

November is a good month to take a look at the things for which we are thankful, so I plan to do that.

Meanwhile, here’s a poem by W.S. Merwin:

Thank you my life long afternoon
late in this spring that has no age
my window above the river
for the woman you led me to
when it was time at last the words
coming to me out of mid-air
that carried me through the clear day
and come even now to find me
for old friends and echoes of them
those mistakes only I could make
homesickness that guides the plovers
from somewhere they had loved before
they knew they loved it to somewhere
they had loved before they saw it
thank you good body hand and eye
and the places and moments known
only to me revisiting
once more complete just as they are
and the morning stars I have seen

And I am thankful for the flyover view.

“Grumbling and gratitude are, for the child of God, in conflict. Be grateful and you won’t grumble. Grumble and you won’t be grateful.”
―Billy Graham

2 Comments

To be a fool

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of the great Quaker John Woolman (1720–1782).

I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain immoved by the sentiments of others. The fear of man brings a snare; by halting in our duty, and going back in the time of trial, our hands grow weaker, our spirits get mingled with the people, our ears grow dull as to hearing the language of the True Shepherd; that when we look at the way of the righteous, it seems as though it was not for us to follow them.

There is a love clothes my mind, while I write, which is superior to all expressions; and I find my heart open to encourage a holy emulation, to advance forward in Christian firmness. Deep humility is a strong bulwark; and as we enter into it, we find safety. The foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man. Being unclothed of our own wisdom and knowing the abasement of the creature, therein we find that power to arise which gives health and vigor to us.

–Journal, 1774

Celebrate accordingly.

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“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”*

by chuckofish

It is that time of year when the Monarch Butterflies appear in flyover country. These pictures are from a friend’s blog. Cool, right?

“Marvelous!” he repeated, looking up at me. “Look! The beauty–but that is nothing–look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact! This is Nature–the balance of colossal forces. Every star is so–and every blade of grass stands so–and the mighty Kosmos perfect equilibrium produces–this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature–the great artist.”

―Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

Photos by Don Sessions

*Psalm 19:1 (KJV)

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“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946)–American newspaperman and author. He is most remembered today for writing the stories which inspired the broadway musical Guys and Dolls.

Here are some things about him you probably didn’t know:

He was born in Manhattan–but in Manhattan, Kansas. He grew up in Pueblo, Colorado. His father and grandfather were newspaper editors.

In 1898, when still in his teens, Runyon enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish-American War.

He was the Hearst newspapers’ baseball columnist for many years, beginning in 1911, and his knack for spotting the eccentric and the unusual, on the field or in the stands, is credited with revolutionizing the way baseball was covered.

One year, while covering spring training in Texas, he met Pancho Villa in a bar and later accompanied the unsuccessful American expedition into Mexico searching for Villa.

Runyon died in New York City in 1946, at age 66. His body was cremated, and his ashes were illegally scattered from a DC-3 airplane over Broadway by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. The family plot of Damon Runyon is located at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

His stories are still in print and I am going to read them. His gangsters seem much more appealing than our 21st-century ones.

4 Comments

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

This made me LOL.

Also it got me thinking about support and encouragement, which are all very well and good, but lest we forget, here’s a word from Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance:

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

And a poem by Mary Oliver to get you moving:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Have a good weekend. October will be here tomorrow! The last quarter of the year is upon us. Let us make good use of it.

4 Comments

September 12, 2016

“My ransomed soul he leadeth”*

by chuckofish

I had a rather long to-do list this weekend, and I checked off most everything on it. This included getting my hair cut, going to several estate sales, going to Lowe’s, cleaning up my closet, doing a little yard work, and going to church. Pretty typical.

[Daughter #1 celebrated her birthday in NYC with daughter #2. They had fun (see picture) and cake!]

I started reading The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins, which daughter #2 sent me. (Sentimental novels of the mid-19th century are a concentration of her doctoral studies.)

Published in 1854, The Lamplighter, Cummins’s first novel, was an immediate best-seller, selling 20,000 copies in twenty days. The work sold 40,000 in eight weeks, and within five months it had sold 65,000. At the time it was second in sales only to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It sold over 100,000 copies in Britain and was translated into multiple different languages.

I am enjoying it immensely. Although Nathaniel Hawthorne may have sneered at it, there is a reason so many people gobbled it up. It is well-written, diverting and instructive, and to the average person struggling along in the daily grind, uplifting.

[Gerty’s] especial favorite was a little work on astronomy, which puzzled her more than all the rest put together, but which delighted her in the same proportion; for it made some things clear, and all the rest, though a mystery still, was to her a beautiful mystery, and one which she fully meant some time to explore to the uttermost. And this ambition to learn more, and understand better, by and by, was, after all, the greatest good she derived. Awaken a child’s ambition, and implant in her a taste for literature, and more is gained than by years of school-room drudgery, where the heart works not in unison with the head.

Agreed.

At church the Gospel lesson was about Christ eating with sinners and the Pharisees grumbling about it. The Apostle Paul reminded us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, he foremost among them. In the OT lesson, God changed his mind, at Moses’ prompting, and forgave the slackers in the wilderness. Most of us are grumbling Pharisees ourselves, and it is good to be reminded of it. It is good to be reminded of it weekly and to say this prayer of confession:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

We will forget soon enough and once again be grumbling Pharisees.

Later today the OM and I are driving to Indianapolis where the boy is having surgery tomorrow at Indiana University Hospital. All trace of his cancer is gone, but there is still a tumor and they will remove it. If all goes well, we will return on Wednesday. Please keep us all in your prayers.

*Hymn 410

4 Comments

September 8, 2016

Poetry amid the jarring notes of day

by chuckofish

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and Abolitionist. One of the “Fireside Poets” of the 19th century, he is hardly read anymore, of course. Whittier, California is named after him and also Whittier College. (Please note: The school mascot is “The Poet.”)

A number of his poems have been turned into hymns, including Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, taken from his poem “The Brewing Soma”. You may recall that Whittier was also one of the founding contributors of the magazine Atlantic Monthly and was supportive of women writers, including Sarah Orne Jewett, who dedicated one of her books to him.

You probably know more of his poems than you think. Remember–“Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!”

And how about Barbara Frietchie?

“Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.”

Here is a favorite of mine; read the entire thing and enjoy.

I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God’s hand
Rebukes my painful care.

I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.

The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;–

The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.

Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.

But smiting hands shall learn to heal,–
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.

Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe’er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;

That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;–

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father’s sight;

That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory’s sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.

(1859)

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Also lovely is the Amesbury, MA Friends Meeting House. The simple 1.5 story wood frame building was constructed in 1850, with our poet Whittier serving on the building committee. We are told it is currently a thriving congregation, with Meeting for Worship every Sunday at 10 a.m. The facing bench displays a small plaque that reads, “Whittier’s Bench.”

I have never been to Amesbury, but it appears to be a nice place.

Besides Whittier, our ancestor Josiah Bartlett lived there,

as did Mary Baker Eddy and Robert Frost. And there is this:

I need to check this place out. Have a good Thursday.

6 Comments

August 17, 2016

“On the banks of the Wabash, far away”*

by chuckofish

“That month he developed the habit every night of picking up the Bible the last thing before he went to bed and reading a few verses, and from thinking a prayer and from thinking thanksgiving, he advanced to the place where he boldly, in the silence and serenity of the little room, got down on his knees and prayed the prayer of thanksgiving. Then he followed it by the prayer of asking. He found himself asking God to take care of all the world, to help everyone who needed help; to put the spirit and courage into every heart to fare forth and to attempt the Great Adventure on its own behalf… Then he arose, in some way fortified, a trifle bigger, slightly prouder, more capable, more of a man than he had been the day before. He had asked for help and he knew that he was receiving help, and he knew that never again would he be ashamed to face any man, or any body of men, and tell them that he had asked for help and that help had been forthcoming, and that the same experience lay in the reach of every man if he would only take the Lord at His word; if he would only do what all men are so earnestly urged to do–believe.”

― Gene Stratton-Porter, The Keeper of Bees

Today is the birthday of Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 – December 6, 1924) who was an American author, naturalist, and nature photographer.

She wrote several best-selling novels–Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost, and The Harvester–which are set in the wooded wetlands and swamps of the disappearing central Indiana ecosystems. She knew and loved these, and documented them extensively. Her works were translated into several languages, including Braille, and she was estimated to have had 50 million readers around the world. Many of her books are still in print.

I have to admit I have never read any of her books, but I have always heard of them–especially The Girl of the Limberlost, which has to be one of the all-time best titles ever. Indeed, Stratton-Porter is one of Indiana’s best known authors and she really put Geneva, Indiana on the map by writing about the Limberlost swamp. Besides writing best-selling novels, she was an amateur naturalist who studied the bird life of the upper Wabash and recorded her observations. She was also a pioneer photographer, taking pictures of the birds she studied and loved.

Stratton-Porter’s two Indiana residences, “Limberlost Cabin” in Geneva, Indiana

and the “Cabin at Wildflower Woods” in Rome City, Indiana

were both designated Indiana State Historic Sites in 1946 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They are operated by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation as house museums.

She also had a honkin’ big house in Bel Air, California (she was in the movie business too), but I’m going to limit myself to exploring more of the Hoosier State. Road trip, anyone?

*Indiana state song by Paul Dresser

5 Comments

August 10, 2016

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

My scholarly dual personality is too modest to tell you that her book has just been published!

It was six years in the making, but now it is out!

Gregory Urwin of the University of Oklahoma Press writes:

I am pleased to announce the release of Volume 55 in the Campaigns and Commanders Series that I edit for the University of Oklahoma Press — The Campaigns of Sargon II: King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C. by Sarah C. Melville.

If you think you know the Assyrians from fleeting references in the Old Testament, think again. Melville has plunged deep into the sources, which are more extensive than most of us would think. She mastered Akkaidian, the language of the Assyrians, so she could read the clay, gold, silver, copper, lead, and lapis lazuli tablets on which these people recorded their history, along with inscriptions on freestanding steles, natural rock formations, walls, doors, thresholds, and bull colossi of palaces. She also deciphered palace reliefs, consulted archaeological studies, and reviewed the documentation left by the Assyrians’ enemies.

The result is a history that depicts the Assyrians as a much more complex race of warriors. They could be cruel in war, but they devised much more sophisticated means to hold their empire together than beheading defeated warriors and sending conquered peoples into exile. I found the brand of geo-politics that Sargon II practiced to be surprisingly modern.

At a time when ISIS fanatics are attempting to obliterate the pre-Muslim history of the Middle East and south Asia, the appearance of Sarah Melville’s book could not be more timely. Impeccable research and a lively writing style makes this the definitive look at the Assyrian way of war.

It is with no little pride that I see this volume take its place in my series. Part of that pride rests on the fact that Sarah is also the first woman historian to publish with Campaigns Commanders. It was about high time that happened…

So get your copy of The Campaigns of Sargon II today! I have mine and I look forward to finding out all about Sargon II.

On the fiction side of things, I finished the Grantchester book this weekend and also re-read Olive Kitteridge, the wonderful novel by Elizabeth Strout. If you have not read this great book, I highly recommend it.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

9 Comments

August 3, 2016

“Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.”*

by chuckofish

The last word is not said, — probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say our last word — the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be shaken, I suppose — at least, not by us who know so many truths about either. My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the telling, or rather in the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds. I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions — and safe — and profitable — and dull. Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone — and as short-lived, alas! (Lord Jim)

Ninety-two years ago today Joseph Conrad died. Although it is fashionable to call him a racist these days, I have always liked Conrad’s books. Also, some good movies have been made based on them. One film I especially like is Swept From the Sea (1997) based on the short story “Amy Foster”.

It stars Rachel Weisz, Ian McKellen, the always appealing Vincent Perez, and the windswept coast of England. The story is emblematic of the author’s lonely life as an exile, so probably a good choice to watch tonight (or at least add to the list you are keeping of movies to watch at a later date.)

*Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’

The picture at the top of the page is the anchor-shaped Conrad monument at Gdynia, on Poland’s Baltic Seacoast.

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dual personalities

Tag: writers

November 3, 2016

Variations on a theme

by chuckofish

October 19, 2016

To be a fool

by chuckofish

October 6, 2016

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”*

by chuckofish

October 4, 2016

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

by chuckofish

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

September 12, 2016

“My ransomed soul he leadeth”*

by chuckofish

September 8, 2016

Poetry amid the jarring notes of day

by chuckofish

August 17, 2016

“On the banks of the Wabash, far away”*

by chuckofish

August 10, 2016

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

August 3, 2016

“Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off.”*

by chuckofish