December Thoughts
Reviewing the past is an activity many people, I think, enter into at the close of another year. Let me join them. Let’s see now – last week my neighbor, Adam, who is about 5 or 6 years old, was chanting, “Polly want a cracker.” After listening to him repeat the phrase several times, I challenged him, by saying, “Can’t you say anything else, such as, ‘Polly wants two crackers.’ “ Not to be manipulated by an adult he immediately chants, “Polly want a cracker” while holding up two fingers. Then he asked me for a cookie.
About a month ago I was playing a game of volleyball with my neighbors, Julia (age 9) and I against Victoria (age 11) and her mom, Vera. We were keeping score and having lots of fun. I noticed how very athletic everyone was but me. Julia was very graceful and athletic. However she kept saying, “Look how good I am. I’m great.” I suggested to her that she probably will make a mistake in volleyball if she keeps bragging about her skills. So she immediately makes several fine moves in our game, while declaring, with the same bragging voice, “I am not a great player. I am not a great player.”
People often are very resistant to suggestions from others – I recall my cousin, Tom visiting me two summers ago. He lives in Galveston, Texas and I suggested to him that he probably suffers from the damages of hurricanes. So he with his doctor’s degree in education and well thought of in his field as a college professor, rather patronizingly informed ignorant me that hurricanes never bothered him. As far as I know his home was destroyed a few months ago by a hurricane.
Also I recall being laughed at when I questioned the stability of the AIG insurance company. One of its representatives looked down at my ignorance as she told me that AIG has about 100 billion dollars in assets. As I recall, our government had to bolster AIG with many of billions of dollars when this company began to collapse a few months ago.
Maybe I should not make suggestions to people. I am almost afraid to suggest to you that you enjoy this issue of SUNSHINE.
A wonderful bird is the pelican.
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
Dixon L. Merritt (1879-1954)
In a place of perpetual summer,
Midst the toil and strife of the world,
Lies a jewel, a Garden of Eden,
In a diadem set, like a pearl.
There our labors do not make us weary
Nor the passage of time make us old.
There the Sun always shines in His glory,
And death does not sting us with cold.
The angels tread softly among us,
They whisper good things in our ears.
They are present from steeple to cellar,
Gathering every smile or tear.
These they bear on their wings up to heaven,
And, with greatest care, they are stored.
Not one of them ever is missing,
But is spread at the feet of the Lord.
He sees all, and with a gaze, oh, so tender
Looks down, and with mercy and love
Guides our steps till our last breath’s surrender,
Till we join Him as angels above.
Yes, it looks rather quiet and sleepy,
This small town with its church and its school.
But it’s heaven to all in this kingdom,
The subjects of God and His rule.
First Impressions (October 18, 1997)
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify.
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.
I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe – “That government is best which governs not at all.”
Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than the preaching.
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
We boil at different degrees.
Invention breeds invention.
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing.
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
The Twelve Months
Snowy, Flowy, Blowy
Showery, Flowery, Bowery,
Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy,
Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy.
George Ellis (1753-1815)
When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney’s firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
I polished up the handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!
W. S. Gilbert (1836-1911)
Look at itsy-bitsy Mitzi!
See her figure slim and ritzy!
She eatsa
Pizza!
Greedy Mitzi!
She no longer itsy-bitsy!
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song.
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands, little gold head;
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares?
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.
A. A. Milne
This was one of my prayers: for a parcel of land not so very large, which should have a garden and a spring of ever-flowing water near the house, and a bit of woodland as well as these.
Horace (65-8 B. C.)
ENGLISH PRAYER BOOK (1662):
Grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of the night.
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give.
Have mercy on us miserable sinners.
Lord we beseech thee to keep thy household the Church in continual godliness.
Let us pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church militant here on earth.
I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh.
Lord, hear our prayers.
And let our cry come unto thee.
Peace be to this house, and to all that dwell in it. (Visitation of the sick)
Anoint and cheer our soiled face
With the abundance of thy grace.
Keep far our foes, give peace at home:
Where thou art guide, no ill can come.
The Morelands and Bryn Athyn
By the Old York Road Historical Society
Alnwick Grove was located along the Pennypack Creek south of Fetter’s Mill bridge. The area was improved in 1879 by a M. J. Campbell, an excursion agent in Philadelphia, and promoted as a “goodly land.” It was a popular spot for Sunday school picnics, with tables, rowboats, canoes, pleasant places to swim, and a pavilion for dancing and shelter during storms. For those desiring to escape the heat of Philadelphia summers, the Philadelphia-Newtown line ran trains to the site.
Members of the Swedenborgian community on Cherry Street in Philadelphia were among those who found the banks of the Pennypack Creek at Alnwick Grove a delightful site for picnic excursions. The Swedenborgians traveled to the grove in the 1880s. They came to the area for several summers before members of the community decided that the area would be a suitable site for locating their religious community.
George W. Elkins purchased the farmland for Justa Farm in the 1920s. Elkins was the grandson of William L. Elkins, the traction magnate for whom Elkins Park was named, and son of George W. Elkins, the founder of Abington Hospital…. At its height, Justa Farm totaled some 600 acres and extended from Byberry Road north to County Line and from Buck Road west across Huntingdon Pike to Heaton (now Creek) Road. The property included a dairy farm and at various times herds of Black Angus cattle and Brahma bulls. Elkins’ wife, the former Natalie Crozier Fox, was vice president of the Woman’s Board of the hospital from the founding of the hospital until her death in 1954. From 1946 to 1956, the hospital’s main benefit, the June Fete, was held on the grounds of Justa Farm.
In 1928, Elkins, in partnership with his eldest daughter, Stella, then 18 years old and a fine rider, constructed a stable and racetrack on the fields of Justa Farm. The course opened in October and included a half-mile racing track, a three-mile steeplechase course…. It cost $500,000 and was considered one of the finest privately owned racetracks in the country…. The races held at Justa Farm were among the high-society events of the year, and attracted thousands of racing enthusiasts.
THE FIRST EIGHTY YEARS
By R. Linquist
March 19
EPSILON SOCIETY
A questionnaire based on some of the queries posed to Epsilon Guides [at the Cathedral] has been prepared and circulated by Richard Linquist on behalf of the Church Extension Committee and is a most interesting study of the different yet harmonious approaches used in greeting visitors who ask about the New Church.
May 7
MISS FREDA PENDLETON
Miss Freda Pendleton, devoted worker for the Church and the Academy for many years, passed into the spiritual world on May 4th. Born in Chicago Illinois in 1883, she was the fifth daughter of the late Bishop W. F. Pendleton. Miss Freda was a resident of Bryn Athyn for more than seventy years, graduated from the Academy schools, Class of 1902, and studied in the Academy Normal Department and several universities.
She served as Secretary to Bishop W. F. Pendleton and Bishop N. D. Pendleton and was Glenn Hall Housemother from 1909 to 1915. She was Librarian for the Academy for many years and worked on the Archives after her retirement in 1951.
She was a devoted worker for the Theta Alpha, of which she was also the President, and served for many years on the Chancel Guild.
August 27
Ruth Glebe reports that at a recent party celebrating the 75th birthday of Miss Iona Doering, it was pointed out that she has cared for 342 babies in the area – and is still rendering valuable service.
The following statements were taken from term papers written by college students as recorded in A. Henriksson’s book, NON CAMPUS MENTIS.
By William and Mary Morris
Dahlia is a plant native to Mexico, with tuberous roots and variously colored flowers. It was named by Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist and taxonomist [a specialist in the systematic arrangement of plant and animal organisms] after one of his pupils, Anders Dahl.
[Linnaeus married the daughter of Johan Moraeus, whose uncle Bishop Jesper Swedberg was Emanuel Swedenborg’s father.]
Halleljah is an expression of jubilation which comes from two Hebrew words, hallelu (praise) and yah (short for Yahweh, the Lord).
The word emeritus after a title, simply means that its possessor has been retired but retains a courtesy title identical with the one he held immediately before retirement. It comes from Latin and means, literally, “earned by service.”
[I suppose therefore that I am a Bryn Athyn Cathedral curator emeritus. Indeed this title was earned by service. When I resigned from this use perhaps a better title would have been Cathedral Curator Exhaustitus.]
Hello – its earliest ancestor seems to be hallow, a word of greeting common in the time of Chaucer [1340? – 1400]. By Shakespeare’s day, it had become hallo …. Legend has it that Thomas Alva Edison himself was the first to say hello over the telephone…. It is indeed true that hello came into widespread popularity within a very few years after the introduction of the telephone.
Hoist by his own petard means “destroyed by his own trickery or inventiveness.” A petard, in medieval warfare, was an explosive charge which daring warriors would affix to the walls or gates of a castle under siege. This action in itself was a most hazardous one, but the greatest danger came after the petard was in place. The explosive was detonated by a slow match or slowly burning fuse. Occasionally, of course, the explosive went off prematurely, in which case the warrior was hoist (lifted or heaved) by his own petard.
It is unlikely that this archaic phrase would have persisted in our language, even in a figurative sense, had not Shakespeare conferred immortality upon it with this line from Hamlet: “‘Tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.”
Today it is chiefly used to describe a person ruined by plans or devices with which he had plotted to ensnare others.