Spring teaser
March 30, 2006
It’s getting along toward time to forego the boring treadmill for outdoor walks again. Maybe past time. Yesterday morning it didn’t feel much like spring; the sunshine was still a weak wash, and the landscape was still near-monochromatic, but my eye caught a few hints of color here and there. The forsythia started adding flecks of yellow bloom a week or so ago, until it was momentarily arrested by snow and cold, the daffodils and narcissus that have been poking up are now showing a few tentative blooms, a few star magnnolia have whitening buds, and some maples adding a little red to the scene. Life is being renewed once again, always a welcome process after the indignities of winter.
Dave, feeling spring fever coming on.
The Three Musketeers
March 29, 2006
I was a high school sophomore in 1947, and our family had just moved to Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, from Topeka, Kansas. I stared in awe at strange and wondrous sights of glowing, molten slag from the Bessemer furnaces being poured from railroad cars onto the huge slag heaps that bordered the steel mills and furnaces, lighting up the night sky. I for sure knew I was not in Kansas anymore.
I also was doing a lot of reading at that time, and one of the books that stimulated my imagination was The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I remember that a couple of church youth fellowship buddies and myself took on the names of the musketeers - Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnon. We were a swashbuckling trio as we postured and waved imaginary swords on the front steps of the United Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh.
Fast forward to 2006. By chance our daughter Laura gave me three classic books for Christmas, one of them being The Count of Monte Cristo, an epic tale by Dumas. As he did over a half-century ago, Dumas captivated me for 600 glorious pages, even though I never did quite unscramble some of the family relationships depicted. Never mind, though, because it is a grand tale set in romantic times. This is escape reading at its best. In my dreams, I am now known as Edmond Dante, le Comte de Monte-Cristo.
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
– Acts 2:18
Dave, with a far-away look in his eyes.
Anti-semitism
March 28, 2006
Thanks to daughter Linda for pointing me to this interesting article. My education about things Presbyterian continues.
With the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA scheduled to convene in June for the first time since the 2004 GA passed a notorious anti-Israel divestment resolution, supporters and detractors of divestment are discussing whether the Church’s decision was anti-Semitic, or – somehow - anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. Curiously, despite the storm caused by the divestment vote, most Presbyterians remain unaware of the extent to which the PCUSA leadership has involved itself in old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism.
The anti-Semitic alliances undertaken by the national church are particularly surprising in light of the well-known open-minded and unbiased attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Presbyterians.
Few of us sitting in Presbyterian pews are able to figure out what the anti-Israel divestment issue is all about. It helps to know something about “old-fashioned theological anti-seminism, and we all need to be aware of the misguided activism of some of our denominational leaders and that the PCUSA formally rejected Replacement Theology in 1987.
Dave, head-scratching pew-sitter.
Neighborhood hawk
March 27, 2006
Mr. Red-tailed Hawk dropped by the other day
to lend a hand with reducing the neighborhood squirrel population. He looks like he might also like to reduce the photographer population as well. Our alert and fearless neighborhood association board chairman, Bob Weirather, grabbed his trusty 8 megapixel camera and risked his life to take this shot.
A year or so ago, I was walking toward home on 22nd Street and saw Mr. Hawk’s cousin perched on a chain-link fence ahead of me alongside the sidewalk. No camera, unfortunately.
It’s nice to be relatively high in nature’s food chain.
Dave, resolved to leave his squirrel-tail hat at home for his next walk.
Ephesians 3:8-13
March 26, 2006
3:8 To me–less than the least of all the saints–this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ 3:9 and to enlighten everyone about the divine secret’s plan–a secret that has been hidden for ages in the God who has created all things. 3:10 The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. 3:11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 3:12 in whom we have boldness and confident access to God because of Christ’s faithfulness. 3:13 For this reason I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
Paul realizes that he is “less than the least of all the saints,” because he was not numbered among the original disciples, not that this ever slowed down his proclamation of the Gospel! His words convey his sense of wonder at his own boldness and confidence, which he ascribes to Christ’s faithfuness. I don’t doubt for a moment that he actually gloried in his being selected to suffer for Christ’s sake. It gives me no little hope that if I were ever called to suffer for my Lord, that I would find glory in it. -sdg-
Curglaff
March 25, 2006
Which it is another forgotten English word, meaning the shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into cold water. -John Jamieson’s Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808.
From my Forgotten English Calendar I also learned that St. Cuthbert was a seventh-century monk who became a patron of sailors, a status that may have been due to his renowned mastery of adverse conditions. Presumably, Cuthbert, who liked to pray while floating nude in nearly frozen water, experienced his fair share of curglaffs.
Dave, hoping for a curglaff-free fishing season.
Elitist detachment
March 24, 2006
Peggy Noonan makes the persuasive point that the White House has become detached from the realities on the ground in Iraq.
Elites become detached, and governments are composed of elites. In a way we all know this, but we know it so well we forget it. The tribute politicians pay to pollsters shows they are aware they operate at a remove. At least pollsters can claim to have spoken to people on the ground, at least by phone, last Wednesday. They have numbers, on a page.
In international actions great nations should, in general, go slow, think dark, assume the worst. If it can go wrong it likely will. Prepare, take steps; forewarned is forearmed. Listen to the “unimportant”; heed the outside voice. Know you don’t know.
In my view this goes a long way to explain why our Government found itself surprised and unprepared for the insurgency in Iraq. I don’t doubt that there was someone close to the seat of power that really knew what the Iraqis were thinking and what would happen.
Dave.
Can we talk?
March 23, 2006
How rare it is to really talk with someone! It’s a lost art, and much of what goes for conversation today is pretty insipid, it seems to me. Richard Brookhiser, in his regular City Desk column in the March 27 issue of National Review describes the salons, or discussion clubs, that used to be common in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York.
Running a salon should be the easiest thing in the world: the great ideas, the news of the day, a pinch of malice, twelve tongues, and you’re off. But, having passed through a number of such groups over the years, a few of which fell silent, I can testify that good talk is harder than it looks.
He goes on to say that a successful salon must meet periodically, probably at least monthly. He says that since we talk with our mouths, eating and drinking are natural accompaniments. There must be next to no discussion of business. A salon must have a dictator and a conductor (perhaps the same person), the latter being the man or woman who floats a topic, who floats another if the first dies stillborn, who raps a glass if too many are speaking at once.
The models for a good conductor are not Bernstein or Cab Calloway - no hams, please - rather the Baroque maestro who sat on his harpsichord bench and led from the keyboard. …The most important quality in those who do the talking is listening. A salon is not combat, and since one may hear something new, or uncongenial, neither is it a pep rally. …when you lose your point, listen to the person on your left.
Sounds like great fun, doesn’t it?
Dave, trying hard to think of his last great idea.
Dr. Syn
March 22, 2006
This morning I climbed the ladders from the orlop to the captain’s cabin, pulled up a chair and sat there for a moment, gazing back at the arrow-straight wake stretching out to the rising sun and reflecting a bit on my life inexorably flowing on with neither beginning nor end in sight.
Then I started to feel a chill about my meager hams, and the spell was broken.
Oops! Wrong image. It’s really a self portrait of Andrew Wyeth and copyrighted to boot. Sorry.
Dave, sailing the wrong direction in the ship of life.
Spring equinox
March 21, 2006
For some unknown reason I feel compelled to note the passing of each equinox, and a quick look out the front door suggests that the spring edition can’t pass too quickly. Central Illinois is on the south edge of a huge band of snow stretching across the upper midwest, and yesterday’s signs of spring are hidden from sight under a wind-blown blanket of the white stuff. The forsythia are blooming, some oak trees have red buds, and the tulips are poking up green tips, but for now we must take it on faith.
So let the record show that today at 39 degrees north latitude there are 22 seconds more daylight than darkness, and that the sun rises due east and sets due west, rising to an altitude of 50 degrees at noon.
Dave, looking past the snow to pleasant days and spawning bass.
