Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.
—Henry David Thoreau, “Natural History of Massachusetts”
Here’s to some cheerful winter reading!
The painting is “Vermont Valley Farm – Winter” by Aldro Thompson Hibbard (American, 1886-1972)
Well, they are saying we will get 5-7 inches of snow starting later this afternoon.
We’ll see.
I plan to head home a little early and settle in for a quiet weekend. Hopefully I will get some reading done. I have a lot of new books.
And there are always movies to watch, right?
In the meantime, try to focus on the little joys encountered every day. For instance, yesterday morning on my way to work, I passed the boy in his big ol’ truck driving the wee babes to their nursery school. We waved to each other.
I received an email, of which the following is a tidbit, from one of my oldest BFFs to whom I had sent Alleghany Uprising (1939) for Christmas.
Allegheny Uprising was GREAT!! You would think after reading your blog for years that I would have seen more John Wayne movies, but we had only seen a few classics (Stagecoach, The Quiet Man). That is definitely going to change and “watch more John Wayne movies” may actually qualify as one of my resolutions this year!!
I ask, what could be a better new year’s resolution than that?
As the poet Fernando Pessoa lamented, “One of my life’s tragedies is to have already read Pickwick Papers–I can’t go back and read it for the first time.” Alas, there are practically no John Wayne movies I can watch for the first time, but, readers, you can!
My son-in-law (DN) is woefully behind in his old movie watching, so I gave him The Great Escape (1963), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1967) for Christmas–all of which he has not seen. Think of watching them for the first time!
[I must say there are some real spoilers in this trailer!]
Also from the mailbag: One of the books I bought at an estate sale last Saturday was a copy of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, a favorite of mine. In it he recommends two books that “are always among my things…
…the Bible and the books of the great Danish writer, Jens Peter Jacobsen. I wonder whether you know his works…Get yourself the little volume of Six Stories of J.P. Jacobsen and his novel Niels Lyhne…A world will open up to you, the happiness, the abundance, the incomprehensible immensity of a world. Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid to you a thousand and a thousand times…
Sold!
I had never heard of J.P. Jacobsen before, but I will “live a while in these books.”
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
― T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
I do not as a rule make resolutions. However, this year I do resolve to read through the Bible. I am also going to commit to memorizing bible verses. I think this will be good for my flagging memory. My brain needs the exercise.
Remember resolution #28 of Jonathan Edwards’s list of resolutions:
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
In case you have misplaced your copy of the aforementioned list of resolutions, here it is.
Alain de Botton is correct when he writes, “It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to information has come at the price of our capacity to concentrate on anything much. The deep, immersive thinking which produced many of civilization’s most important achievements has come under unprecedented assault. We are almost never far from a machine that guarantees us a mesmerizing and libidinous escape from reality. The feelings and thoughts which we have omitted to experience while looking at our screens are left to find their revenge in involuntary twitches and our ever-decreasing ability to fall asleep when we should.” (Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion)
I am going to fight that this year.
The painting is “Looking at the Sea” by Winslow Homer
“Is not my word like fire, says the Lord!” (Jeremiah 23:29)
“Gather ‘round that fire this Advent season,” advises John Piper. “It is warm. It is sparkling with colors of grace. It is healing for a thousand hurts. It is light for dark nights.” In other words, read some scripture this Advent!
If you are setting up your nativity scene with shepherds, the first to appear on the scene, you can read Luke 2: 1-20:
2 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
When you are setting up your creche with Wise Men, you can read Matthew 2: 1-12:
2 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,
6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
You will note that animals are not mentioned in the scripture. Even so, I always liked this song and this version by Sufjan Stevens is pretty straightforward.
I gave the wee babes the Fisher Price nativity set for their birthday.
Of course, Lottie loves to play with it in her precise, careful way. The wee laddie likes to throw the pieces and has no respect for the baby Jesus, despite my remonstrances to the contrary.
(I did not give him this sweater. But I definitely approve.)
Keep on reading your scripture in these final days of Advent! Only six days ’til Christmas!
“That was his favorite thing about books—they took you off to other people’s lives an’ places, but you could still set in your own chair by th’ oil heater, warm as a mouse in a churn.”
–Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good
As you know, when I am stressed, I turn to Jan Karon. Well, I have been stressed, so I am re-reading Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good. It’s just the ticket.
Meanwhile, I am checking things off my list. And if all else fails, I’ll remember what my rector told me on Sunday: “As long as you have your passport and a credit card, you’ll be fine.”
Over the weekend I finished reading Clock Dance, Ann Tyler’s new book. Although the book jacket proclaims that she is “at the height of her powers,” she is not. It was very thin, and it made me sad remembering her earlier books which were favorites of mine.
That said, however, the book is not without merit, and is still a lot better than many books published these days and touted as great works of art.
Anyway, I went back to my Ann Tyler shelf and pulled out Saint Maybe from 1991. I am enjoying it a lot.
I am also reading When You and I Were Young, Whitefish, a memoir by Dorothy M. Johnson, who you may recall was a writer mostly known for her western fiction. She wrote the short stories that became the movies The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Hanging Tree and A Man Called Horse. She was quite a gal.
What are you reading?
[The painting is “Evening Reading” by Georg Pauli, 1884]
All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.
In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the grass in meadow and hayfield, the mowing machine
clacketing beside you, while the sun walked high in the morning;
and after noon’s heat, you pulled a clawed rake through the same acres,
gathering stacks, and dragged the wagon from stack to stack,
and the built hayrack back, uphill to the chaffy barn,
three loads of hay a day from standing grass in the morning.
Sundays you trotted the two miles to church with the light load
a leather quartertop buggy, and grazed in the sound of hymns.
Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.
When you were old and lame, when your shoulders hurt bending to graze,
one October the man, who fed you and kept you, and harnessed you every morning,
led you through corn stubble to sandy ground above Eagle Pond,
and dug a hole beside you where you stood shuddering in your skin,
and lay the shotgun’s muzzle in the boneless hollow behind your ear,
and fired the slug into your brain, and felled you into your grave,
shoveling sand to cover you, setting goldenrod upright above you,
where by next summer a dent in the ground made your monument.
For a hundred and fifty years, in the Pasture of dead horses,
roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs,
yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter
frost heaved your bones in the ground – old toilers, soil makers:
O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.
–Donald Hall from Kicking the Leaves (1978)
Today we toast the poet Donald Hall (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) whose birthday it is. I missed the fact that he died earlier this year.
Hall published more than fifty books, from poetry and drama to biography and memoirs, and edited numerous anthologies, including New Poets of England and America (1957; coedited with Robert Pack and Louis Simpson). He went to Exeter, Harvard and Oxford, had a successful career as an academic and editor, then happily went to live on his ancestral farm in New Hampshire and devoted himself to poetry.
I remember this book from my children’s childhood.
In other news, the wee babes dropped by my office yesterday and ran up and down the long hallways.
They are both recovering from ear infections, so they didn’t stay long, but it was sure fun to see them and their daddy who brought them.
It is still pretty hot here in flyover country. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for fall. Enough already.
“But we have received a sign, Edith—a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm. There is a large spider’s web in the doorway of the barn cellar, right over the pigpen, and when Lurvy went to feed the pig this morning, he noticed the web because it was foggy, and you know how a spider’s web looks very distinct in a fog. And right spang in the middle of the web there were the words ‘Some Pig.’ The words were woven right into the web. They were actually part of the web, Edith. I know, because I have been down there and seen them. It says, ‘Some Pig,’ just as clear as clear can be. There can be no mistake about it. A miracle has happened and a sign has occurred here on earth, right on our farm, and we have no ordinary pig.”
“Well”, said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”
–E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Today is the birthday of Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) who was an American writer. He wrote for TheNew Yorker and had some success writing for children. You might recall that he won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the U.S. professional children’s librarians in 1970. Of course, they’ve changed the name of the medal now. Given time, I have no doubt they’ll find something offensive in Charlotte’s Web.
Well, it’s still one of my favorites. It may be time to dust it off and read it again.
The wee laddie likes to be read to, but he also likes to turn the page (mostly likes to turn the page) and so it is not easy to read a book to him fast enough. We will persevere. Lottie likes to be read to also. If they are playing on the floor and I start reading aloud, they will stop what they are doing and come over and climb up on the sofa and listen. Not for too long, if I don’t turn the pages fast enough, but for a little while. This is a good thing.
I was talking to one of my students the other day, one who graduated from our alma mater 10 years ahead of me (and so is in her 70s). We were talking about her parents who are both 96 and about to celebrate their 75 wedding anniversary! I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but she was telling me about how her father was a great one for reading to his three children when they were growing up. He read to them until they were practically teenagers and always in the dialect/accent of the character. They all loved it. He is still reading aloud, all these years later, in our Shakespeare class. She admitted that he practices at home. I can hear him sometimes through the wall of my office and it warms my heart.
The only time I read aloud these days (except occasionally to the wee babes) is in church. This past Sunday, because it was the long holiday weekend I suppose, attendance was spotty. In fact, one of the assigned lay readers did not show up! So after a pregnant pause in the service, I jumped up and headed to the lectern to read, unrehearsed, from the letter of Paul to the Romans:
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witnesswith our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (8: 12-17)
How I do love old St. Paul and all his commas! I did all right and 90-year old Shirley told me after the service that I had made a good catch.
I received an email, of which the following is a tidbit, from one of my oldest BFFs to whom I had sent Alleghany Uprising (1939) for Christmas.
You will note that animals are not mentioned in the scripture. Even so, I always liked this song and this version by Sufjan Stevens is pretty straightforward.
Of course, Lottie loves to play with it in her precise, careful way. The wee laddie likes to throw the pieces and has no respect for the baby Jesus, despite my remonstrances to the contrary.
(I did not give him this sweater. But I definitely approve.)
Over the weekend I finished reading Clock Dance, Ann Tyler’s new book. Although the book jacket proclaims that she is “at the height of her powers,” she is not. It was very thin, and it made me sad remembering her earlier books which were favorites of mine.
dual personalities 