Baby shower!

Today we picked up Anne Janeway in Marlboro and drove over to Bennington for a baby shower for Mark Nissen and his partner, Jenn. Mark and Jenn live in Denver, and they had come all the way to Vermont for this shower - but so had Mark's sister, Erica, and her husband, Tom, and children, Julien and Clare - they came all the way from Capetown, South Africa! Also there were Mary's sister, Chris, from North Carolina, and her sister-in-law, Jeannie, and Jeannie's daughter, Lily, also from North Carolina. Tom's parents, Nancy and Len, were there from their home near Boston; Sue, a friend of Mary's, and an old friend and work colleague of John Nissen's, Timmy, also came. And of course, Mary Anderson herself, mother of Mark and Erica, who was the host, about 17 all-told. The event had been planned for Mary's backyard, but it rained. Fortunately, some folks were staying nearby at an AirBnB which was sort of amazing - a beautiful old brick building, the Old Academy, a former school, which provided a large room in which we could gather and not be jammed together. It was a very nice event, with a beautiful custom-made cake which featured a scene of Jenn and Mark running with a jogging stroller - anticipating the future! Jenn is a dedicated runner and will probaby enter a big marathon next summer. There were snacks and gifts as well. I had a comfortable place to sit and people came by to visit, especiallly Mark and Jenn. I had not seen Mark since the year Betsey died - 2016 - he came to see her in Boulder. And I had never met Jenn. I have a strong connection with this family having married both John and Mary in 1974 and Erica and Tom in 2003, as well as having been a work colleague of John's for over a decade and a friend for over forty years, up until his death in 2013. So this was a special event. I'm so glad we were able to be there.

The Old Academy, where we had the baby shower

The specially-made cake.

Mark and Jenn, preparing to cut the cake.

The group gathered in the kitchen.

What can we celebrate today?

Yesterday, Lea Morris, an African-American woman song-writer and choral leader was the guest choir director at the Guilford Community Church, and as a part of the service, she sang the song "When I Wake Up in America" by David Kinnoin and Jimmy Hammer. It has a very hopeful message which Ellen felt deeply and wrote about to her friends. Thank you Ellen for this insight! The song is celebrating what many feel is the original intent of the phrase in the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal" = All PEOPLE, of every kind, no matter what, are created equal." It originally was just white, wealthy men who were equal, but gradually the list has lengthened, and even though today we seem to the slipping backward, it is still a worthy dream and aspiration that EVERYONE should be respected, treated fairly, cared for, etc., in America. We can still celebrate that. Here are the lyrics: WAKE UP IN AMERICA words and music by Jimmy Hammer and Dave Kinnoin ©2016 Sync Track (ASCAP) and Song Wizard Music (ASCAP) 1 When I wake up in America, I see my neighbors there With every kind of clothes and shoes, Hats and skin and hair, Every strange belief and custom, Scores of songs from who knows where. When I wake up in America, Our stories fill the air. Chorus: Wake up. Wake up. Wake up in America. The light in the harbor shines for us all When I wake up in America. 2 When I wake up in America, I hold my head up high. I find my way as others do Beneath the same big sky. I repeat the pledge of allegiance In a voice that’s clear and strong. When I wake up in America, I’m right where I belong. (repeat chorus) bridge: See the kids, see the kids playing. Happily, happily swaying. Good to be, good to be staying In a place like this With a face like this. 3 When I wake up in America, I put away my fear And love my neighbor as myself And say, “I’m glad you’re here.” We have found ourselves together In a land we dreamed could be. When we wake up in America, Everybody will be free. Chorus Wake up. Wake up. Wake up in America. The light in the harbor shines for us all When I wake up, When you wake up, When we wake up in America.

Lea Morris, guest choir deirector at the Guilford Community Church, sang "Wake Up In America" yesterday.

A restorative day

Today I really took it easy! I was awake pretty early, and I stayed in bed until almost noon, working on Wordle, Quordle and Spelling Bee. I did something I had never done before and really didn't think hardly possible - I completed Quordle in just five turns, which means I entered the first word (which was"ARGUE"), and then found the right word the first try in each quadrant, bang, bang, bang, bang! Wow! I think there had to be some luck in that, but I also gave each one a lot of thought. The first one I solved had three yellow letters - "A," "G." and "U," in that order, in positions 2, 3, and 4. I entered "GAUNT" as my guess, and it was right! It could just as well have been "LAUGH." There are undoubtedly other words it could have been. "GAUNT" was the first one I came up with that was possible, and it was right. The same for the other three words (TITAN, APNEA and NINNY). The last quadrant, I was looking at __ I N N __. I suspect that "NINNY" might be the only word that would fit into that pattern (you can only use the letters that are left to you to use. A, E, G, P, R, T and U had all been ruled out in that quadrant. So, for example, TINNY was not an option). Anyway - I was amazed. It made up for the fact that in Wordle I had to use all 6 lines to get the right word. That's better than total failure, but it isn't great. I aim for three or four, and that's what I usually get. As you can see, I'm really into these word games! I got up a bit before noon and had a lovely breakfast on the deck. Then John csme over at about 2pm, and we talked for close to three hours. That was really nice, sitting on the deck, listening to the birds and the wind in the trees, and talking about this and that (our health, summer plans, contemplative ecology, what's happening in his and Cynthia's working lives, our pending decisions on what kind of heating system to install as a backup to the wood stove, etc.). One thing that came out was a book he found on a website that was a free download - a study of Thomas Merton as a "radical ecologist." It's by Donald St. John, and it is pretty amazing what Merton was thinking back in the 1950's and 1960's. He was WAAAY ahead of his time. John was excited to find it and feels confirmed in his own thinking - he is not a total "outlier." He feels that a lot of what Merton was saying could have come out of his own mouth. But much of it is found only in his journals - it was not published before his death in 1968. So the public was largely unaware. More's the pity!

The book John told me about

More files to save!

Thursday was a Savanna day, and I spent about five hours at the house in Shutesbury while Ellen took Savanna to her chemotherapy and Katie and Brendon went on an excursion to the MassMOCA Museum (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams- something Brendon has been wanting to do for some time. I could have gone with them, but decided that with my knee so sore, walking and standing around in a museum would not be fun. So I was alone at the house, and I had brought with me more "stuff" to digitize. I ended up spending quite a bit of time writing a note to Ted Vogt, Winnie Vogt's son (I wanted to write in the guest book yesterday, but others were busy writing in it and I decided to go home). But I did eventually find the time to digitize some files.One was a folder of copies Rob had made for me of notes people sent him at the time of Betsey's death back in July, 2016. It was quite touching to read these notes again. And I discovered - or rather, had confirmed an earlier realization - that the notes I regard as most precious today are those that are quite specific in identifying something about Betsey that that person admired, and will miss not having in their lives in "real time." (This is a good insight to remember when writing a sympathy card - be specific!). So, for example, a friend of Betsey's from Columbia, MO, named Neil, wrote and said ".....For some reason we were talking about (games like Sodoku) and Betsey said something like, "well, those games are just logic". And at the time, I thought, "well, heck, Betsey, it is a lot more than merely solving a logic problem. You must not have spent much. time playing or thinking about these games." And I can't account for why I thought that. I knew Betsey was a mathematician and I would be wise to listen to what she said. I suppose I wanted the pastime to be a wee bit more sophisticated than cracking a logic puzzle. At any rate, for some reason, finally, I realized that Betsey was right (of course). These games are nothing more than logic puzzles, a bunch of "if/then" conjectures to be balanced against one another. So here's the second thing I wanted to tell you: I think of Betsey often; in fact, I think of her whenever I play one of these games. But I'm not going to. reveal how often that is." I couldn't help wondering, when I read this, if Betsey were alive today, would she be a big fan of Wordle and Quordle, and play them every day like Ellen and I do? They too are essentially logic puzzles. We might be trading scores every day, like Ellen does now with Max. And speaking of Max, who is in Boulder, I think if Betsey had gotten to know Max, she would have really enjoyed him. One of those many, many possibilities that were wiped out by her death.

A sample note about Betsey****************************************** The other file folder that I started on, and only got a start, was related to my doctoral dissertation - going back to 1964 or so at Brown University. I was sort of amazed by what it contained. I had first of all carefully made a chart of every Old Testament quotation in the Gospel of Luke, and noted the origin of the quotation and any parallels in the other Gospels. And then, for each quotation, I had made a page with the quotation written out in Greek from the Gospel, the original form of the quotation from the Septuagint (Greek) and the Hebrew Bible, and any other parallels. This was obviously foundational work that I could refer to again and again. organized in a way that was convenient and useful. But what an immense amount of careful, painstaking work! Saving this file may be sort of crazy, but I do have on the back burner the idea of revisiting, revising, re-evaluating my doctoral dissertation. I actually started working on that in earnest a few years ago, then put it aside. I started to make a new copy of the complete dissertation on the computer so that I could self-publish it as a hard-cover book. It was never published, and my only copy is a typed MS. It would be sort of gratifying to hold it in my hands as a book. But of course, even that thought is sort of crazy. Then I really got into going to major biblical libraries like Wheaton College in Illinois or Princeton Theological Seminary, and looking up every citation of my dissertation (and the articles I published based on it) that I could find. That was really fun, and I got a very good sense of the various issues that my dissertation raised and how scholarly discussion of those issues had developed over time. I was amazed at how many different scholars had read my work - close to a hundred ! - and some of them had discussed it at some length. So there was another project - writing a summary of all that! But then the pandemic brought all that to a screeching halt! All those libraries closed to the public, and remain closed to this day. I used to go pretty regularly to the Amherst College Library (the Robert Frost Library) because it is a short drive from Katie and Savanna's house. But it is still closed to anyone who is not a student or faculty member at Amherst. I don't know when, if ever, those academic libraries will re-open to the public! It is a huge loss to me. And it makes the idea of revisiting my dissertation unlikely - although I have to say that the work I have already done might be enough, if I got it all organized. So anyway, as crazy as it is, I'll take the time to save this folder. It represents a lot of work, and it would be useful to have it to refer to if I went back and took another look at my dissertation.

Part of the chart of OT quotations in Luke

A sample page dealing with a specific quotation - in this case, Luke 2:23.

Another memorial service

Today there was a memorial service at the Dummerston Church for Winnie Vogt, a much beloved member who died last October at the age of 92. I had known Winnie for close to 50 years. She and her husband, Roy, moved to Dummerston just a year before our family moved back to Dummerston full-time in 1973 and we built the house I am living in now. A big connection with Winnie was Wellesley College: she graduated in 1950, just months before Shirley arrived as a freshman there. Back in 2010, when I embarked on my project of transcribing Shirley's letters to her parents from Wellesley, writing explanatory background notes and sending them to Katie, my granddaughter, who was just then entering college herself, Winnie took a big interest in the project. I really enjoyed sharing with her what I was doing, because she was so excited by it. Here is what I said about the project in my blog back in October, 2010: "I started a wonderful project about a month ago. It came about as the result of running across an archive of letters that Shirley (Katie's grandmother, who passed away in 1998) wrote home to her parents when she went off to college at Wellesley, fall of 1950, sixty years ago this fall. When I learned from Katie that she wished she could get more "snail mail" I got the idea of sending her annotated copies of Shirley's letters home. It's turned out to be a fascinating project for me, and I think Katie is really enjoying it too. Shirley was amazingly prolific in writing letters (or post cards) home. She wrote on average once a week, sometimes more. They are full of information about her courses, her dates, college life, her roommate, lectures and concerts, etc. I'm sending Katie a photocopy of the original letter, but in addition I am transcribing each letter and footnoting it to provide background information and explanations of allusions to people, places, things, etc. I'm sending them each at the time Shirley sent them originally. So far I've sent four and am up to October 15th. If I am given the time to complete this project I hope to turn it into a book. It should be a wonderful window into the life of an amazing woman as well as a glimpse of college life in the 1950s."*************************** Winnie Vogt was a passionate advocate for social justice, for racial equality, for the education of children, and especially for promoting reading in the lives of children. Pastor Shawn read a passage from Huck Finn in the service, a passage Winnie loved and often shared with children, in which Huck decides NOT to turn in his black friend, Jim, an escaped slave, to his owners and thus return him to slavery, even though he had been taught that that would be the Christian thing to do, and to fail to do it would send him to Hell. "I guess I'll just go to Hell," he says to himself in a moment of deep resolve. This is a famous passage, and it is the epitome of what made literature great for Winnie, and why she was so passionate about introducing children to great books. It was a lovely service. We sang four anthems as a choir, and three hymns as well - all chosen by Winnie before she died. That is the way to do it! They were all great choices and we enjoyed singing them: The Brother James' Air, which is a setting of the 23rd Psalm; Jerusalem, poetry by William Blake and music by Parry, a stirring anthem made famous by the movie Chariots of Fire; Over the Rainbow, in a harmonization that is very "bluesy;" and The Lord Bless You and Keep You, by Peter Lutkin, a very well-known piece (at least in my time). The hymns were Morning Has Broken, I Sing A Song of the Saints of God, and Be Thou My Vision, all favorites of mine as well. So - a very satisfyig experience. The only fly in the ointment was that I woke up with a VERY sore knee this morning, and could hardly walk. I managed to get there, sat on a stool while I sang, and got home, all without falling down. I hope it is better tomorow, which is a Savanna day.

Winifred Vogt (1929-2021).

Word Games on Paper

Ellen and I play Wordle and Quordle every day on our iPhones. It keeps our brains limber (I guess). But I would like to play them offline as well. When you play online, you are playing against an invisible entity (a person, or a computer? Who knows?). When you play on paper, offline, you know who you are playing against. It took a little effort to come up with paper versions, but you will find them below. You should be able to download them and print them out. Along with them are a set of rules. For anyone familiar with these games online, the rules will be very familiar, but there are a couple of things that are different in the paper version. The big difference is that in the paper version, you (or your playing partner) have to think up the original five-letter word or words that the other player then has to guess through the process of playing the game. Coming up with those original words is an interesting challenge, and I think also an added element of fun. The other advantage is that more than one person can play at the same time in the paper version, so it could be a party game, and that would add an element of fun as well. So - here they are:

Wordle game sheet

Quordle game sheet

RULES, Page 1

RULES, Page 2

Pride!

Yesterday was "Pride Sunday" at a Union service bringing together five churches at the First Congregational Church in West Brattleboro. It was a passionate affirmation of LGBTQ+ people. We all had rainbow flags to wave, there were powerful readings, there was a small choir we sang in, and the "sermon" was given by a high school freshman trans young man who spoke very candidly about his "coming out." This service hit home for us since we have loved ones in the LGBTQ community: my godson, Tom Mckean, is gay, our grandson is trans, and my sister-in-law is a lesbian. Given what is happening on the national level, it was very uplifting to have five churches making such a strong affirmation.

Rev. Audrey Walker, pastor of First Congregational Church, UCC, West Brattleboro, leading the service.**********************

Yesterday was very hot. Ellen left the service early to meet Julie and Tamar at Burdick's in Walpole for lunch. Julie and Tamar were on their way to see UVM as a possible college for Tamar. The fifth or sixth school she has visited. Bill McKim brought me home, and I changed into cool clothes and had a quiet day.