On This Fateful Day

"Beware the ides of March."

  - Soothsayer, Julius Caesar, 1.2

The McGuffin of the 1942 Movie 'Casablanca'

A McGuffin is "an object, event, or character in a story that lacks intrinsic importance but serves to set and keep the plot in motion."

Here is question: What is the McGuffin in the movie?

Many have seen the 1942 movie, "Casablanca" one time or more. But how many viewers have actually seen the two 'letters of transiit' (i.e. the McGuffin.) These no question asked 'letters of transit' metioned many times in the movie, but never seen. The war resistance couple Victor Laszlo (Henreid) and Ilsa Lund (Bergman) acquired them from Rick Blaine (Bogart)to escape French-Morocco from the clutches of the Nazi.

What is this McGuffin looks like?   Here it is.

So long. We'll always have Paris.

♥ And Such A Love Was Never Seen ♥

My Love is neither young nor old,
Not fiery-hot nor frozen-cold,
But fresh and fair as springing briar
Blooming the fruit of love’s desire;
Not snowy white nor rosy red,
But fair enough for shepherd’s bed;
And such a love was never seen
On hill or dale or country-green.

- Robert Jones (1601)

Lunar New Year 2021

Year of the Ox

Daffodil’s Return

What matter if the sun be lost?
What matter though the sky be gray?
There's joy enough about the house,
For Daffodil comes home to-day.

Bliss Carman
1921

New Year's Day 2021

Another year has roll'd away,
With all its sorrows, joys and fears,
But still the light of hope's glad ray,
Yet beams within our heart, and cheers.

One year, one span of time has pass'd,
So swift to some, to others slow;
But it has gone, and we should cast
Along with it, remorse and woe.

T.F. Young

Love Came Down One Night

Dear Visitor:

Surely, year 2020 is one annus horribilis. And yet, things come not by chance but from the Father, COVID-19 notwithstanding. As exemplified by the saints and sinners in the Bible, salvation and spiritual growth can come to His people through sickness and affliction. God's love never begins and never ends. He always sustains. Nevertheless, at this blog entry may all go well with you in the Lord, health as well as the soul.

The treasure of God’s wisdom and Word is for His people. Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection is God’s will and promise to save His own. The ultimate salvation is accomplished by Christ who “delivers us from the wrath to come,”¹, and “reconcile to Himself all things.”²  Indeed, because of Christmas and later Christ’s victory over death, the redeemed can assuredly proclaim, “in Him we live and move and have our being.”³

For this Christmas and those that may later follow, let your soul magnify the Lord, and your spirit rejoice in God our Savior.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you,

L'

¹1 Thessalonians 1:10
²Colossians 1:20
³Acts 17:28

In the Silent Pause Till You Hear

Where the world does not reach with its clamour and cry
And there in the silence pause, till you hear
Your innermost self and the God that is nigh.
-Gustav Melbey

The Shadows,  (2000 compilation)
- Night in White Satin
(Hayward)

Click or tap here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Last Month of the Year 2020

Here we are in December 2020. The last month of the second decade of the 21st century.

I suppose some of us at a certain age or a frame of mind, might recall once read Villon's words, “Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?”

Tempus fugit.

The Loss of Beauty Is Not Always Loss

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf; 
Long have I listened to the wailing wind, 
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds, 
For autumn charms my melancholy mind. 

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge: 
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; 
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail 
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer, 
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree: 
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier 
These waiting mourners do not sing for me! 

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,--
The loss of beauty is not always loss!

- Elizabeth Stoddard (1823-1902) - "November"