Curt’s words to Carson and Taryn:
A Father’s Blessing
May God bless you with faith,
for without faith it is impossible to please God.
May God bless you with repentance,
because every faithful man and every faithful woman remains a sinner.
May God bless you with courage,
to reject the foolishness of the world and to keep the law of God in all of life.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
“He [Gregory] never abandoned his religious exercises
even amid the concourse of an earthly palace.
For some of his fellow-monks were so devoted to him
that they accompanied him to the Imperial city,
and he began to maintain a regular religious observance with them.
In this way, as he records,
their example proved an anchor-cable
that held him fast
to the peaceful shore of prayer
while he was tossed
on the restless waves of worldly affairs,
and his studies in their company
enabled him to refresh a mind
distracted by earthly concerns.”
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People p.99
After a rich and glorious weekend of celebrating Curt’s 50th birthday, there is a natural let down this morning. I would love more than anything to tune out; to curl up with Dr. Thorne, a blanket, and a cup a tea, and finish the last 100 pages.
One of the difficulties of being home is governing my impulses. I’m getting some help this morning from a little red Lutheran Prayer Book published in 1941. I picked it up at a book sale last spring and it has picked me up many mornings since.
Here are some snippets from prayers for Monday Morning:
Amen.
Discovering a new favorite author is one of the joys of the reading life. It’s like receiving a box of chocolates which should last several weeks, but tastes so good that it is rapidly disappearing.
Trollope is my chocolate.
The locus of the first two books in Trollope’s Barset Chronicles, The Warden and Barchester Towers, is a cathedral city. The conflicts of diocesan appointments, the juxtaposition of humble clerics with self-serving ecclesiastical climbers, and the quest of three very different men to marry a wealthy widow carry the narrative along.
The setting in Dr. Thorne is out in the countryside where landed gentry struggle to maintain the purity of their class connections and suffer from want of money. To this strata of society every potential marriage is evaluated by the ability of the person marrying into the family to provide either increased prestige or an infusion of cash. One phrase surfaces repeatedly: “Frank must marry money.” Unfortunately, the woman Frank loves does not have money; therein resides the conflict to be resolved.
Opposite the gentry are the merchants, manufacturers and professionals who insist they are equal in dignity to the Earls, Counts and Baronets. Wealth is a passport into the aristocracy, but a man like Dr. Thorne holds stubbornly to his right to enter into the society of anyone regardless of his own birth or wealth. Class consciousness is everywhere in this novel.
Trollope writes with humor, grace and insight. His portrayal of the ebb and flow of an alcoholic written in 1858 rings true today. Little gems like this pop up:
The expectation of some people that doctors should work only from altruistic motivation made me laugh aloud:
The Victorian Web is a good resource to learn more about Trollope. Contributors include P.D. James, Antonia Fraser, Paul Johnson, Maeve Binchy, and Louis Auchincloss. P.D. James has written an introduction to Dr. Thorne here.
Hawthorne’s quote on Trollope mirrors my thoughts:
Old Man Reading the Bible by Julius Komjati (1928)
Tough-minded,
Tender-hearted,
Bold but careful,
Confident, cheerful.
True and faithful,
Patient and grateful.
Just arbitrator,
Wise problem-solver,
Honest articulator,
Handsome provider,
Genuine promise-keeper.
Funny in a quiet way,
Humor laughed at every day,
Strong in strength which won’t decay,
For his people he does pray,
Trusting Christ on Judgment Day.
Guess who has a birthday this week? In past years the MagisterPater has been writing odes to his sons and essays to his parents. This time we’re giving him 50 words.
The pace of the series is agonizingly slow at times, and the style of videography is reflective of both 1982 and the BBC: slow pans, very little background music, single camera shots. If you are itching for action, watch National Treasure; get the itch out of your system before you sit and savor this slow, sweet film. With that caveat given, I can rave about this wonderful DVD.
At the heart of the story is “our dear Mr. Harding,” a man who is kind-hearted, contented, and perceptive, a man who is meek in the best sense of the word. His over-ambitious son-in-law, the archdeacon, is perpetually peeved at Mr. Harding’s placid response to personal criticism. “My father-in-law can be a very difficult person,” he complains to his father, the bishop. To which the bishop replies, “He has persistent bouts of ….Christianity.”
Lawyers and lawsuits occupy the first two episodes. Twelve bedesmen are persuaded to make a class-action suit against our cello-playing hero, who is the warden of Hiram’s Hospital, an almshouse for aging workers. One man is loyal to Mr. Harding and tries to talk them out of the suit.
“Law! Never a poor man yet was better for law or a lawyer. Will Mr. Finney [lawyer] be as good to you as the warden has been? Will he feed you when you’re sick, comfort you when you’re wretched? Wait ’til you’re all on your deathbeds. Then cry out for lawyers. See what good it’ll do you. Law! Tchah!”
The relationship between our dear Mr. Harding and his younger daughter is a lovely portrait of mutual devotion and respect. The man who loves this daughter has been cast in an adverserial role to the warden.
Finally, in a tender scene of parting, a benediction given to the bedesmen by Mr. Harding, the loyal bedesman responds, and Mr. Harding’s reply:
Such a treat last night – a concert held in a gorgeous church by the excellent Williamette University Chamber Choir.
My favorite piece was Felix Mendelssohn’s Richte Mich Gott (Psalm 43). You didn’t need to know German to tell, by the music, when the choir came to these words.
Professor Robert Greenberg, of The Teaching Company, on silence after a performance (transcribed from his series Great Masters:Haydn – His Life and Music):
One must always wait for an appropriate amount of silence. Silence is the frame that surrounds any given piece of music. We do not clap before the piece begins because we need to frame the beginning with absolute nothingness; and I trust that nothingness also includes no gagging, hacking, coughing or other tubercular signs of respiratory illness.What we brought to church:
What we brought home:
Franck’s The Complete Masterworks for Organ and Composers in Person CD with four French organists playing their own works on organ, mostly in the 1930s. The composers are Charles-Marie Widor, Olivier Messiaen, Marcel Dupré and Louis Vierne. (unsolicited loan of organ CDs to help my education in organ music along – imagine! Last week I’d never heard of Marcel Dupré and now I’m listening to a recording of him!)
Compilation of blues music (solicited loan to help my education in the blues along – favorite so far: I Want Jesus Over Me)
A box of Henty and Landmark books (returned to us after loan last summer)
Quote to ponder: “We chew many pills God intended us to swallow.”
Gladdened hearts.
If you have taken a trip, I want to see your photos. I want details, the stories behind the pictures. Take your time setting up the scene, I want to drink it in. After other’s eyes have glazed over, I’ll be there asking more questions. My current favorite photo is an outdoor dinner scene from Croatia. My BIL and SIL went there to meet my BIL’s aunts and uncles from the old country last summer. A group is sitting around a wooden table with a field of wildflowers as the backdrop. The table is loaded with bottles of every shape, glasses, plates, dishes; everyone looks relaxed and sated. There is something so European about the picture – it is really quite charming.
Last year my neighbors took a spur-of-the-moment weekend trip to Paris. Mr. Neighbor, a pleasant enough Philistine, had one praise and one complaint. He loved the lack of undergarments on French women, but hated that he had to watch Indiana Jones in French. Qu’est-ce que c’est? You have 4 days in Paris and you’re watching movies in the motel? His wife gave more details over the rosebushes. I pumped her with questions: Did you get out to Versailles? Left Bank? You go inside Notre Dame? She finally asked, “Really, Carol – how many times have you been to Paris?”
Footprints, a Xanga feature, counts the hits and tells the state or country of origin of blog visitors. France, Spain, Hong Kong and Japan show up every day. Less frequent are hits from Quebec, the Netherlands, China and Germany. I’m am thrilled and give my husband unsolicited reports. However, there is one glaring omission. Where, oh where, is Scotland?
Maybe I should write about reading John Buchan aloud to my husband last night (he fell fast asleep). Or mention my passion for a Scottish brogue. A Scottish pastor spoke at our church family camp and my friend said that the speaker could have read through the phone book and she would have been edified.
I love the Scots. People like John Knox, John Muir, Thomas Chalmers, Alexander Graham Bell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, David Livingston, William Wallace. My most favorite, most beloved author is an unknown Scottish woman Anna Buchan who writes under the pen name O. Douglas. If I have one trip in my life, it must be Scotland. Take me to Stirling, to Glasgow, to Aberdeen, to Edinburgh, to Perth, to Priorsford, to St. Andrews; take me to Skye before I die.
I want to see the highlands, the lowlands, the borderlands, the beaches, the firths, the kirks and the castles. Feed me scones, play me bagpipes, take me to Scotland. Or at least bring one Scot to my blog.
A Living Pencil 