JANUARY - 2010

JANUARY

January is named for the Roman god, Janus. He is depicted with two faces, one looking backward and one forward. He is also associated with doors, gates and all beginnings. Thus he was chosen to represent the first month of the year.

So also many people, at the beginning of January, have a habit of opening a door to the past and reflecting on it and also opening a door to the future and looking there. My general view of the past is to let the wheat and tares grow together until the time of harvest (Matthew 13:30.) At that time for every person, each will be judged to heaven or to hell, for eternity. Just as on earth, men will seek in the spiritual world those who are friends to their ruling loves, whether they be angels or devils.

As I look back to 1981, I remember with respect and affection a New Churchman who rose above some of his contemporaries and abstained from voting against me in a meeting of the board of trustees of the Bryn Athyn Church. Michael Pitcairn perceived, I believe, that good was not being served and he would have no part of the devilment that apparently possessed the minds of a few men at that time, about 29 years ago. Thanks, Mike.

As for the future, let us be cheerful and always seek to be servants of the Lord in our daily activities. Then all will be well with us.

Here are some more comments about January:

“January brings the snow, Makes our feet and fingers glow.” - Sara Coleridge

“The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months.” - Edward Payson Powell

MODERN PARLANCE

BLAMESTORMING: people sitting around a boardroom table discussing what went wrong and who is to blame.

MOUSE POTATO: a person who is on-line all the time or who plays computer games continually.

METROSEXUAL: a heterosexual male with a strong interest in clothes, hairstyle, beauty products, cooking and home accessories.

TREEWARE: any printed publications such as newspapers, books, etc.

TWEENAGERS: Children between the ages of eight and twelve who emulate their teenage friends.

IRRITAINMENT: entertainment that is annoying.

QUOTATIONS

“I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada.” - Britney Spears

“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.” - Dan Quayle

END OF NATURAL LIFE

Old pilots never die, they just go to a higher plane.

Old sculptors never die, they just lose their marbles.

PROVERBS

All that glitters is not gold.

Charity begins at home.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.

CATHEDRAL CURATORS AND DIRECTORS

William R. Cooper He became the curator on February 18th 1920. He served during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and most of the 1960s – wow!

RICHARD LINQUIST I served from 1966 to 1981. Part of the time during the first few years, I served as the manager of the General Church Book Center in the mornings and at the Cathedral in the afternoons and on weekends. I recall clearly that during the last twelve years, I drove my mother to work at Pitcairn Hall to be there at 8:30 a.m. sharp. This often made me 5 to 10 minutes late for my starting time of 8:30 at the Cathedral. I hope that I will be forgiven for this lateness because I did work more than 100 nights per year for 15 years. This was all volunteer work beyond my regular work day. Vacations were almost non-existent and of short duration. The record will show that I served at 99% of the services.

DENIS COOPER Denis is one of Will Cooper’s sons and was well-qualified to serve the needs of the Cathedral which he did with faithfulness, a good sense of order and a steady good-natured spirit. He served for about six years.

CARL GUNTHER Carl served with a high degree of intelligence and an over-flowing good will. He is one of Ariel Gunther’s sons. Carl served for eleven years.

FRANK VAGNONE He was the Cathedral’s first director; he served for nine years.

JIM ADAMS Jim has been the Cathedral Director for several years now and I like what I see of his accomplishments. The cleaning of the stone has been a wonderful transformation and now we can get an idea of how the Cathedral must have looked originally. Also I especially like the new railings in the stairwells and the handicapped access at the porte cohere. But I would say to you Jim, remember that most new men on the job, who are in the public eye, go through the process of being idolized, then criticized and finally ostracized! But I believe that you are a survivor. Keep up the good work.

ANAIS NIN (1903-1977)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Dreams are necessary to life.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.

I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

Good things happen to those who hustle.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

QUOTATIONS FROM EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

…“Lord” is never used in the Word except where good is treated of, and the same in true of “Jehovah” but when truth is treated of, “God” and “King” are used.

Regeneration is nothing else than that the natural be subjugated, and the spiritual obtain the dominion; and the natural is subjugated when it is reduced to correspondence.

Because such is the nature of peace, namely, the inmost of all happiness and blessednesses, and hence the universal that reigns in them all, therefore the ancients used as a common form of speech the words, “Peace be unto you,”….

…and in the Lord’s kingdom or heaven they who are the greatest (that is, they who are inmost) are servants more than others, because they are in the greatest obedience, and in deeper humiliation than the rest….

As solicitude about things to come is what produces anxieties in man, and as such spirits appear in the region of the stomach, therefore anxieties affect the stomach more than other viscera.

…for when a man is being tempted, unclean spirits are near him, and surround him, and excite the evils and falsities with him, and also hold him in them and exaggerate them, even to despair.

From the Divine Itself nothing of doctrine can possibly proceed except through the Divine Human, that is, through the Word, which in the supreme sense is the Divine Truth from the Lord’s Divine Human. Not even the angels in the inmost heaven can apprehend that which proceeds immediately from the Divine Itself, because it is infinite, and therefore transcends all apprehension, even of all angels. But that which proceeds from the Lord’s Divine Human they can apprehend….

The quotations are from volume seven of the Arcana Coelestia.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

On Sunday afternoon, November 15th, Dorothy and I were walking among the well-preserved Victorian houses in Lambertville, Pa. It was an unusually warm 70-degree day. Several homes displayed lazy cats in windows and at one point in our travels we came upon three elderly ladies also sunning themselves, beside an old house. Approaching them I called out, “Can any of you ladies tell me about that green Victorian mansion?” (Several weeks earlier I was informed by a tour guide that the home had belonged to a lady who had lived there for 84 years and had just recently retired to a near-by apartment.)

One of the elderly ladies responded by asking me what I knew about the house. I told her what I knew and being a bit excited I said that the former owner had retired to an old people’s home or retirement home. Well, she indignantly informed me that she was that former owner and that now she lived in a first floor apartment within view of her former home. She asked where we were we from. I responded, “Bryn Athyn.” She told us that she knew Laren Pitcairn and loved Elizabeth Pitcairn’s wonderful playing on the red Stradivarius violin. Then I asked her if she could tell me anything about a salmon colored, green shuttered Victorian home across the street from her former home. She boldly told me that it was none of my business who lived there, but after a few minutes she informed me that the son of the owner was the producer of the Anderson Cooper CNN television news program. Then she said excitedly, “There he is now” and she greeted him warmly.

She walked away with the TV producer and in a few minutes Dorothy and I followed. Then as we walked by them I heard her complaining loudly to him that Cathy was telling everyone that she lived in “an old people’s home.”

I often watch Anderson Cooper on TV and, in my day dream, now imagine that one of his co-workers asks him why he is so unhappy. He responds, “Well, some know-it-all from Bryn Mawr, claiming that he owns and plays a Strad, told a lady in Lambertville, NJ that she lives in an old people’s home. She then complained to my producer, who told his mother who began to cry, and he vented his irritation over this matter towards me this morning.” Sorry.

NEW YEAR’S COMMENTS

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.

A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.

I will no longer waste time on reliving the past, instead, I will spend most of my time worrying about the future.

“Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.” - Oprah Winfrey

“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.” - Joey Adams

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” - Bill Vaughan

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, let each new year find you a better man.” - Benjamin Franklin

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” - Louis L’Amour

HUMOR

They accused her of stealing the brooch, but they just couldn’t pin it on her.

Birthday candles are for people who want to make light of their age.

CONTEMPORARY PROVERBS:

Gossip is the art of letting the chat out of the bag.

All work and no play makes Jack a rich boy.

Where there’s a will there’s a family at war.

He who hesitates has lost the parking spot.

MEDICAL EVALUATIONS:

The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.

The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.

The patient had no past history of suicides.

The patient left the hospital feeling much better except for her original complaints.

SIGNS:

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CAUTION AUTOMATIC DOOR, PUSH TO OPERATE

MENANDER (342-291 B.C.)

I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Let bravery be thy choice, but not bravado.

“Know thyself” is a good saying, but not in all situations. In many it is better to say “know others.”

The character of man is known from his conversations.

The man who runs [away] may fight again.

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.

He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.

The sword the body wounds, sharp words the mind.

I am a man: nothing human is foreign to me.

How sweet is life, can we but choose with whom to live it: to live for oneself is no life.

All men have one refuge, a good friend, with whom you can weep and know that he does not smile.

The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum.

Bad company corrupts good character.

THE YEAR 1909

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

The average wage was 22 cents per hour.

More than 95 percent of all births occurred at home.

Sugar cost four cents a pound and eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Marijuana, heroin and morphine were available over the counter at local drugstores.

A STORY

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari to Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long he discovers that he is lost. So wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having him for lunch. The dachshund thinks, “OK, I’m in deep trouble now.” Then he notices some bones on the ground close by, and immediately he settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard was about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, “Boy that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here.”

Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a feeling of terror overcomes him, and he slinks away into the trees.

Meanwhile, a monkey, who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, thinks that he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dachshund saw him heading for the leopard and figured that something must be up.

The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, “Here monkey, hop on my back and see what is going to happen to that conniving canine.” Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, “What am I going to do now?” But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn’t seen them yet and just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says, “Where’s that darn monkey? Sent him off a half an hour ago to bring me another leopard.”

OXYMORONS

Act naturally

Working vacation

Good grief

Almost exactly

Alone together

SPOONERISMS

Butterfly = flutterby

take a shower = shake a tower

lunatic = tuna lick

A GOOD ATTITUDE

There once was a woman who woke up one morning and found that she had only three hairs on her head. “Well,” she thought, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.”

The next morning she found only two hairs on her head. “Hmmm,” she said, “I think today I shall part my hair down the middle.”

Next morning only one hair was left. “Well,” she thought, “Today I shall wear my hair in a ponytail.”

The next day when she awoke, not a single hair was in evidence. “Yea,” she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”

IRISH SAYINGS

Least said, soonest mended.

If a rogue deceives me once, shame on him. If he deceives me twice, shame on me.

Don’t tell your complaint to a person who has no pity.

Constant company wears out its welcome.

A man is often a bad advisor to himself and a good advisor to others.

You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.

Put a silk coat on a goat and it is still a goat.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.