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Introduction
English Christian Movie "Deadly Ignorance" | Who Should We Listen to in Welcoming the Lord's Return
Zheng Mu'en is a co-worker at a Chinese Christian church in the US, has believed in the Lord for many years, and passionately works and expends for the Lord. One day, his aunt testifies to him that the Lord Jesus has returned to express the truth and do the work of judging and purifying man in the last days, news which greatly excites him. After reading Almighty God's word and watching the movies and videos of The Church of Almighty God, Zheng Mu'en's heart verifies that Almighty God's words are the truth, and that Almighty God might very well be the return of the Lord Jesus, so he begins investigating the work of God in the last days with his brothers and sisters. But when Pastor Ma, the leader of his church, discovers this, he tries time and again to intervene and stop Zheng Mu'en. He shows Zheng Mu'en a CCP government propaganda video that slanders and condemns Eastern Lightning in an attempt to make Zheng Mu'en abandon his investigation of the true way, and this video leaves him very confused: He can obviously see that Almighty God's word are the truth and the voice of God, so why do the pastors and elders of the religious world condemn Almighty God? They not only themselves refuse to seek or investigate, they try to stop others from accepting the true way. Why is this? … Zheng Mu'en fears being deceived and taking the wrong path, but also fears losing his chance to be raptured. In the midst of his conflict and confusion, Pastor Ma presents even more negative propaganda from the CCP and the religious world, producing many more doubts in Zheng Mu'en's heart. He decides to listen to Pastor Ma and give up his investigation of the true way. Later, after hearing testimony and fellowship from witnesses of The Church of Almighty God, Zheng Mu'en understands that in investigating the true way, the most fundamental principle is determining whether a way has the truth and whether what it expresses is the voice of God. Anyone that can express much of the truth must be the appearance of Christ, because no member of corrupt mankind could ever express the truth. This is an indisputable fact. If one does not focus on hearing the voice of God as they investigate the true way, and instead awaits the descent of the Lord Jesus on white clouds based on their imaginings, they will never be able to welcome the appearance of God. Zheng Mu'en finally understands the mystery of the wise virgins hearing God's voice spoken of by the Lord Jesus, decides to no longer believe the lies and absurd theories of the CCP government and the pastors and elders of the religious world, and escapes the constraints and bondage of his religious pastor. Zheng Mu'en experiences deeply the difficulty of investigating the true way. Without discernment or seeking the truth, there is no way to hear the voice of God or be raptured before God's throne. Instead, one can only be deceived and controlled by Satan and die in Satan's net, which entirely fulfills the words in the Bible, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hos 4:6). "Fools die for want of wisdom" (Pro 10:21).
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Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are a short distance away from Cavendish Mews, skirting Hyde Park, travelling southwest through the refined Regency era houses of Belgravia to the well-heeled borough of Knightsbridge. There, within a stone’s throw of Harrods, in a fine red brick five storey Victorian terrace house in Edgerton Gardens, Lettice is attending the wedding breakfast* of her friend and debutante of the 1922 London Season, Priscilla Kitson-Fahey to American Georgie Carter. The Carters are a good Philadelphian society family, although they do come from money made through the uniquely American invention of the department store. However, this has been graciously overlooked by Priscilla’s widowed mother, Cynthia, in light of the fortune Georgie stands to inherit and the lavish allowance he is willing to spend on she and her daughter. Hired at great expense from a brewer’s family who own several properties throughout Knightsbridge, the furbished terrace house has been decked out with a profusion of gay flower arrangements as befits the celebration, whilst Gunter and Company** who are catering the breakfast, have erected a red and white striped marquee over the front entrance.
It is in the Edgerton Gardens terrace’s first floor reception room overlooking the garden square, where the wedding gifts to the new Mr. and Mrs. Carter are being displayed, that we find Lettice with her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Lettice was supposed to have been escorted to the wedding by Selwyn Spencely, the eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, whom she has been discreetly seeing socially since having met him at her parent’s Hunt Ball in February. Unfortunately, Selwyn was called away on family business at the last moment, so Gerald has gallantly stepped in to accompany his best friend as he too has been invited to the wedding.
“I say,” whispers Gerald quietly to Lettice. “I shall never get used to a room full of Americans.” He looks about him. “They all speak so loudly.”
Lettice notes the voluble chatter washing about them, mostly voiced in strident midwestern American accents. Pricking up her ears momentarily, she catches snippets of conversations, for the most part about the wedding at the Brompton Oratory***, the bride’s wedding gown and what hats ladies were wearing, but also a man’s voice talking about buying Captain Cuttle**** from his owner, and one woman loudly and indiscreetly regaling some of her fellow Americans with stories about her presentation to the Prince of Wales***** in the Mayfair drawing room of a well-connected British friend.
“What is it they are saying now?” Lettice ponders quietly in reply to her friend. “Obtain a young heiress, or sell an old master.”
“Something like that.” Gerald muses. “Although in this case it’s a young heir.”
“So, we shall just have to get used to it as the Americans infiltrate our best, yet most penniless families.” Lettice pokes her friend in the ribs jovially. “Perhaps we’ll find you a wealthy heiress today.”
“Heaven help me!” Gerald throws up his hands in melodramatic mime.
“At least they are saying nice things about Cilla’s frock,” Lettice whispers with a smile as she catches her friend’s eye. “You’ll have a new flurry of women cloying for a frock or two from the House of Bruton when they see the going away outfit you designed for her.”
“Lord save me from Americans and their dry good store money.” Gerald mutters.
“I know you don’t mean that, Gerald.” Lettice scoffs, slapping his hand lightly with her own white glove clad hand. “Any money is good money for you, dry goods store or otherwise. At least this way you can enjoy American money without having to make a sham marriage to gain benefit from it. That will please your young musician friend, Cyril.”
“I think you are fast becoming a capitalist, my darling.” Gerald deflects, blushing at Lettice’s comment about his new companion whom she recently met in passing at his friend Harriet’s house in Putney on the south side of the Thames.
“Oh?” Lettice queries. “I thought you said I was a Communist.”
“Either way, they are both terrible, darling!” Gerald laughs.
Lettice titters along with him. She pauses for a moment and contemplates. “Gerald, what is a dry goods store, anyway?”
“No idea, darling.” He shrugs his shoulders. “However, whatever it is, it is strictly American, and they seem to make a great deal of money over there.”
“Thinking of money, I see old Lady Marchmont has given away another of her pieces of family silver.” Lettice discreetly indicates to a silver salver gleaming at the rear of a sideboard cluttered with wedding gifts and cards.
“Well, if she can’t afford to buy new pieces as gifts.”
“Yes, I suppose the death duties that had to be paid ate up most of the estate.”
“And with her husband, and all three of her sons killed in the war,” Gerald adds pragmatically. “Who is she going to leave what little she still has of the family silver to?”
“God bless Harrold, Morris and Vincent.” Lettice says.
“We need a drink if we’re going to toast our war dead.” Gerald says with a sigh. “I’ll go find us some champagne.”
Leaving Lettice’s side, Gerald wends his way through the beautifully dressed wedding guests, quickly disappearing from view amid the mixture of morning suits, feather decorated hats and matching frocks.
Lettice sighs and wanders over to the sideboard bearing Lady Marchmont’s silver salver and admires some of the other wedding gifts in front of it. Silver candelabras jostle for space with crystal vases and wine decanters. A very sleek and stylish coffee set she recognises from Asprey’s****** has been generously given by the Wannamaker family of Society Hill******* she discovers as she picks up the wedding card featuring a bride in an oval frame holding a bouquet in her hands. A Royal Doulton dinner service garlanded with boiseries of apricot roses and leaves is stacked up alongside Lady Marchmont’s salver and a pair of Meissen figurines also in shades of apricot and beautifully gilded hold court amidst all the other gifts.
“No Spencely today, Miss Chetwynd?” a well enunciated voice observes behind Lettice.
Gasping, she spins around to find the tall and elegant figure of Sir John Nettleford-Hughes standing before her.
Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her Hunt Ball earlier in the year, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Now, as he stands before Lettice, Sir John oozes the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows, and he wears it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut morning suit he is dressed in. The rather leering smile he gives her fills her with repugnance and Lettice shudders as Sir John takes up her glove clad right hand in his and draws it to his lips where he kisses it.
“Sir John,” Lettice says uncomfortably acknowledging him, a shudder rippling through her figure at his touch. “I didn’t see you at the church service.”
“Oh, I wasn’t there, Miss Chetwynd.” he replies flippantly, releasing Lettice’s hand, which she quickly withdraws. “I’m not much of a church goer myself,” Surprised by his blatant confession of not being particularly religious, Lettice falters, but Sir John saves her having to say anything by adding, “Especially since the war. Like Arthur Conan Doyle, I’m more into spiritualism these days than God********.”
“Indeed.” Lettice acknowledges. Changing the subject she continues rather stiffly, “I… I didn’t know you were acquainted with Priscilla, or is it Georgie you know.”
“Oh no, not the American. No.” he replies seriously. “I’m distantly related to Priscilla’s mother. We’re third cousins or some such,” Sir John sighs in boredom as he gesticulates languidly with his hand in which he holds a half empty champagne flute. “Which I suppose entitles me to an invitation to this rather vulgar show.” He looks with a critical scowl around the room full of rather beautiful, yet at the same time ostentatious, flower arrangements and all the guests milling about with glasses of champagne or wine in their hands chattering around them. He looks at the sideboard weighed down with expensive wedding gifts that Lettice had been inspecting. “Not that I’d imagine Cynthia paid for any of this, even if it is the bride’s family’s duty to host the wedding breakfast. I suppose the abrogation of such duties is one’s prerogative when as a virtually bankrupt widow, you have an American department store millionaire heir as a new son-in-law.” He cocks a well manicured eyebrow at Lettice to gauge her reaction, allowing it to sink with disappointment when she fails to respond. “Americans don’t tend to hold with tradition like we British do.” He nods and smiles at a passing acquaintance who catches his eye over Lettice’s left shoulder, raising his glass in acknowledgement. “No, I have no doubt that the Carters of Philadelphia have footed the bill not only for the wedding breakfast, but the European sojourn honeymoon for the young couple too. No doubt Cynthia, as my poor relation, wishes to show off her new found good fortune which isn’t even hers by rights. Why on earth should the couple go to Paris, when Edinburgh would have done equally as well. They do love splashing their rather grubby parvenu money about so, don’t they?”
“Who?”
“Why Americans of course, my dear Miss Chetwynd. Those from the New World are always so showy. I’m sure you agree.” Lettice is saved from having to give an answer when Sir John adds, “The Carters probably even paid for Priscilla’s wedding dress. It’s not one of your friend Bruton’s, is it?”
“No, Sir John. It’s a Lanvin********, I believe.” Lettice answers laconically, trying to avoid the scrutinising, sparkling blue eyed gaze of Sir John, which as at the Hunt Ball, runs up and down her figure appraisingly, making her feel as though he were undressing her before the entire company walking about them.
“Pity. He could have done rather well for himself grabbing at some of those shiny American dollars of Georgie’s.”
Lettice chooses not to mention the fact that Gerald has made the bride’s going away outfit as well as several evening frocks. “Well, Sir John,” she begins, smiling awkwardly. “It has been delightful to…”
“You know,” Sir John cuts her off, his eyes widening as his gaze intensifies. “You never did show me that portrait of Marie Antoinette that your father owns, like your mother promised at the Hunt Ball.”
“I’m quite sure that my mother would be only too glad to…”
“I was rather disappointed by your behaviour the night of the ball, Miss Chetwynd.” he interrupts abruptly.
“My behaviour, Sir John?”
“Your deliberate avoidance of me.” he elucidates.
“Sir John!” Lettice blushes at being so easily caught out. “I… I…”
“I think it is high time you made amends by you,” He adds emphasis to the last word. “Showing me that painting.”
“Well, I’m very sorry to disappoint you Sir John, but I am frightfully busy with a new commission here in London. I very much doubt I shall be back down at Glynes before November. Even then, it will be for my brother Leslie’s wedding. And then of course it is Christmas.”
“And you’ve had your head turned by young Spencely.” he utters, stunning Lettice with his knowledge of her and Selwyn’s recent involvement with one another. “Oh yes, I know.”
“Sir John!” Lettice gasps, blushing again at his flagrant statement.
“But as I noted when I saw you just now, he isn’t here today, is he?” His eyebrows knit as he speaks. Once again, he doesn’t wait for a reply. “And I know for a fact that up until a few days ago, his name was on the list of wedding guests, as your escort.”
“How can you know that, Sir John?” Lettice gasps in surprise. “We have been very discreet.”
“Because Cynthia isn’t my dear Miss Chetwynd. She has been trying, rather unsuccessfully I might add, to rub my nose in her new-found turn of fortunes by telling me about all the great and good of London society who will be attending her daughter’s wedding to the American. It’s quite a coup considering that were this not such a grand occasion thanks to her son-in-law’s family new money, none of those she was crowing about to me would have even considered accepting her invitation. Not that she could have afforded to invite them without the Carter’s money. As the widow of a rather insignificant man of an obscure and penurious parochial family, she was rather chuffed to have the eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford on her invitation list thanks to an advantageous connection with one of her daughter’s nightclub acquaintances – you, Miss Chetwynd. An invitation made at your request, Miss Chetwynd. Yet he isn’t here today, and you came on your own.”
Lettice’s cheeks flush bright red at Sir John’s insinuation. “I’ll have you know I came with Gera…” she begins hotly.
“Bruton was already on the list of invited guests, Miss Chetwynd.” Sir John interrupts her protestations. “I believe that like you, he is part of a coterie of Bright Young Things********* who attend the Embassy Club on Bond Street with Priscilla. That’s how you all come to be connected. Isn’t that so?”
Lettice nods like a chided child, with a lowered glance.
“And do you know why Spencely didn’t come today, Miss Chetwnd?”
“Yes I do,” she answers in a deflated fashion, Sir John’s question having knocked the bluster out of her. “He’s entertaining his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers at Clendon**********.”
“And do you know why that is?”
“Yes, because his mother, Lady Zinnia, organised it, so that Selwyn might reacquaint himself with his cousin after many years of separation. He is to be a chaperone to her when she debuts next year.”
Sir John chuckles to himself as he catches Lettice’s stare with his own and holds it for an unnerving few moments. “If you say so, Miss Chetwynd.”
“What are you laughing at? It’s true, Sir John. Selwyn told me himself.”
“Oh I’m sure he did, my dear. However, it was no coincidence that Pamela’s arrival at Clendon coincided with Priscilla’s wedding.”
“What do mean, Sir John?” Lettice asks warily. She thinks back through their conversation for a moment, her temperature rising as she whispers angrily, “Did you tell Lady Zinnia about Selwyn escorting me here today?”
“Now, now, Miss Chetwynd. Temper, temper.” He smiles lasciviously, the sudden spark in Lettice seeming to attract him even more to her.
“Did you?”
“You young people are rather tiresome with your intrigues.” he sighs. “No, I did not Miss Chetwynd. It would have done me no favours to put a wedge between you and Spencely.” He eyes her again before continuing, “Now look, I know you don’t like me, Miss Chetwynd. You’ve made that quite clear.”
“Sir John!” Lettice tries weakly to protest but is silenced by his raised hands.
“Don’t pretend my dear Miss Chetwynd. You loathe me, so therefore, I owe you no favours. Yet nevertheless, I feel you need to hear this. Perhaps it will be better received from me, someone you detest who has no vested interest in your happiness, rather than a friend whose kindness may be perceived as unwelcome interference.” He pauses for a moment, his mouth a tight line beneath his silver grey moustache. “Don’t tip your cap at young Spencely. You’re wasting your time. He isn’t free to make a marriage of his own choosing.”
Lettice utters a scornful laugh as she rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me that you believe that marriages are made by mothers, too, Sir John?” She folds her arms akimbo defiantly across her chest, suddenly filled with a sense of determination to stand up to this man who is obviously and ridiculously jealous that her head has been turned by a handsome young man, rather than by his wealth. “I’ve heard that enough from my own mother.”
“In this case it is true, although Lady Sadie has no more say in who Spencely marries than either he or you do. Lady Zinnia is the one who pulls the strings. Not even the Duke would dare go against her when it comes to matters of marriage. It was decided long ago whom he should marry.”
Lettice laughs again. “And who might that be?”
“Well, I should have thought that would have been obvious to a young lady of some intelligence like you.”
“Pamela Fox-Chavers?”
“Exactly!” Sir John sighs satisfactorily. “You’re finally catching on. You may not be quite as bright as I first assumed you to be, but you aren’t a complete dullard like so many other addle headed young flappers.” He indicates with a discreet motion to a young girl in lemon yellow giggling girlishly with another flapper in pale pink as they whisper behind their hands at the passing parade of young American men.
“But Pamela is Selwyn’s cousin!” Lettice retorts, her eyes growing wide.
“True, but she’s only a distant one, and you must confess that it isn’t unusual for cousins to marry cousins. Look at the Royal Family. It’s been happening for hundreds of years to help preserve blood lines and seal the lines of succession.”
“But he barely knows her.”
“Be that as it may, the decision has been made, my dear Miss Chetwynd.”
“You make it sound like a fait accompli, Sir John.”
“And so it is.”
“But you seem to forget, Sir John, although you are the one who is privy to the knowledge of it, that I am currently pursuing a romantic relationship with Selwyn Spencely, and he with me. I have no intention of giving way so easily, especially for a person whom he barely knows and whom he has no affection for.”
“And I just told you to forget about marrying him.” Sir John retorts loftily in a lowered voice. “He is not at liberty to marry you, whatever you and he may think or try to convince yourselves to the contrary.” He affixes her again, his blue eyes piercing her. “If you pursue young Spencely as you so gallantly claim you will, then best you sharpen your lance, Miss Chetwynd. Lady Zinnia is no-one to trifle with. You think you and Spencely have been discreet up until now, but I can assure you, discreet or not, Zinnia will already know all about you and her son, and she will put a stop to your budding romance,” The last two words are spat out in a derisive tone which makes Lettice shudder. “Sooner or later, when it suits her intentions best. And when she does, it will be a spectacular and painful fall from the lofty battlements of love’s tower, my dear Miss Chetwynd. Zinnia is a hard woman who enjoys inflicting hurt onto others. It, along with collecting porcelain, is one of her greatest pleasures in life.” He points his empty champagne flute at her. “Just don’t come crawling to me cap in hand after it happens.” He arches his elegant eyebrows over his cold blue eyes. “You have been warned.”
“Thank you for your warning, Sir John.” Lettice replies in a steely and cold manner, squaring her jaw and tilting her head haughtily.
“I wish I could say it was my pleasure.” he replies resignedly. “Goodbye, Miss Chetwynd.” He turns his back on her and walks away without another word.
As Lettice watches his slender figure glide between the milling groups, quickly disappearing amidst the sea of bobbing heads and hats, Gerald returns with two flutes of champagne.
“What did that old letch want?” Gerald asks, following Lettice’s gaze, noticing Sir John’s retreating figure.
“Oh nothing,” Lettice says with a shrug of her shoulders and a shuddering breath. “He was just spitting sour grapes and venomous lies at me because I spurned his affections at the Hunt Ball.”
“Really?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide. “How disgusting!”
As she sips her effervescent champagne and listens absently to Gerald chat, she quietly tries to dismiss all Sir John just told her from her mind, but she can’t quite manage it. A knot forms in her stomach and the thoughts running through her head sours the taste of champagne on her lips.
*A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War
**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berkley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.
***The Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The foundation stone was laid in June 1869; and the new church designed by Herbert Dribble was consecrated on 16 April 1884. The church is faced in Portland stone, with the vaults and dome in concrete; the latter was heightened in profile and the cupola added in 1869. It was the largest Catholic church in London before the opening of Westminster Cathedral in 1903. Catholic aristocrats who married at the church include John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, and Gwendoline Fitzalan-Howard in 1872, Lord William Beauchamp Nevill and Mabel Murietta in1889, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk, and Lavinia Strutt in 1937, Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, and Rosamund Broughton in 1938, Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, and Antonella Newland in1943), Anthony Noel, 5th Earl of Gainsborough, and Mary Stourton in 1947 and Julian Asquith, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, and Anne Palairet in 1947). Others who married at the church include Lord of Appeal in Ordinary Baron Russell of Killowen, traveller and landowner John Talbot Clifton and author Violet Clifton in 1907) and Australian rules footballer Joe Fogarty in 1916.
****Captain Cuttle, ridden by jockey Steve Donaghue won the Derby at Epsom racecourse in June 1922.
*****The Prince of Wales would later become Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20th of January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year when he married American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. As well as a penchant for married woman, David, the Prince of Wales, had a great fondness for Americans and enjoyed their more relaxed and modern attitudes.
******Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.
*******Society Hill is a historic upper-class neighborhood in Center City Philadelphia.
********By the end of his life, in 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, was a fervent believer in spiritualism, having spent decades researching ghosts, fairies and the paranormal. His fascination with the supernatural grew after his son Kingsley and his younger brother, Innes, battle-weary from service in World War I, died amid the worldwide influenza pandemic shortly after returning home.
*********Jeanne Lanvin (1867 – 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums. She became an apprentice milliner at Madame Félix in Paris at the age of 16 and trained with Suzanne Talbot and Caroline Montagne Roux before becoming a milliner on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889. In 1909, Jeanne joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The clothing she made for her daughter began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children. Soon, Jeanne was making dresses for their mothers, and some of the most famous names in Europe were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. By 1922 when this story is set, she had just opened her first shop devoted to home décor, menswear, furs and lingerie. Her gowns were always very feminine and romantic.
*********The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.
**********Clendon is the family seat of the Duke and Duchess of Walmsford in Buckinghamshire.
Any bride would be only too happy to receive such an array of wedding gifts, however, however real they may appear, these are all items from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The silver coffee set on the square tray, the egg cruet set, the condiments caddy, the champagne bucket and the two candlesticks are all made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The two hand painted Meissen figures are also made by Warwick Miniatures. The three prong Art Deco style candelabra in the sideboard is an artisan piece made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the piece was made in England by an unknown artist. The two silver water jugs were acquired from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The silver statue of the ballet dancers on the far right of the photo came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom. The sods siphon, the bulbous glass vase and the glass jug are made from hand spun glass and have been made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The floral edged dinner service I acquired from an online stockist of miniatures through E-Bay. Lady Marchmont’s silver salver is a miniature I have had since I was around six or seven years old. All the Edwardian wedding cards are artisan pieces. Each is a 1:12 miniature version of a real wedding card, and all have ben made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The sideboard that can be seen laden with wedding gifts is of Queen Anne design. It was given to me when I was six. It has three opening drawers with proper drawer pulls and each is lined with red velvet.
The very realistic floral arrangements in tall vases are made by hand by Falcon Miniatures in America who specialise in high end miniatures.
The paintings on the walls came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom.
The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Tiffany Light Fixture:
In 1887, following a much publicized period of discernment and debate concerning moving the congregation away from Shelton Square, Mrs. Trueman G. Avery, a faithful member of the congregation who lived at the site now occupied by Kleinhans Music Hall, donated a parcel of land across the circle at the corner of Wadsworth and Pennsylvania Streets in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen G. Austin. Thus begins the story of the present edifice, designed by the renowned architectural firm of Green & Wicks. Following a well published design competition the winning design by the architectural firm of Edward Brodhead Green & William Sidney Wicks stood out from the other three finalists, it was noted for its Romanesque exterior, Byzantine-revival styled sanctuary and tall central tower that would dominate the skyline of late 19th century Buffalo through the present day.
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the "passions") so that universal principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one's actions. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action. Synonyms include: sagacity, discernment, or insight.
On avait mis les morts à table
On faisait des châteaux de sable
On prenait les loups pour des chiens.
Tout changeait de pôle et d'épaule
La pièce était-elle ou non drôle
Moi, si j'y tenais mal mon rôle
C'était de n'y comprendre rien.
Louis Aragon
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice decamped to Penzance for a week where she oversaw the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting the rooms out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she had sent down weeks prior to her arrival from her London warehouse.
Now the rooms are finished, and under Lettice’s adept hands where once there was dark red paint, modern white geometric wallpaper hangs, and where formal, uncomfortable and old fashioned furnishings sat, more modern pieces dispersed by a select few original items give the rooms a lighter, more relaxed and more contemporary 1920s country house feel. To celebrate Margot and Dickie have organised a Friday to Monday, just as they did in January when they wanted Lettice to view the rooms of ‘Chi an Treth’ and give her interior redecoration suggestions. As Lettice is unable to drive and therefore does not own a car, Margot and Dickie have extended the weekend invitation, as they also did in January, to one of their other Embassy Club coterie, Lettice’s old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Gerald owns a Morris*, so he can motor both Lettice and himself back to London on Monday at the end of their stay. The quartet now sit in the house’s newly appointed drawing room, which is light and airy and very welcoming, just as Margot had hoped it would be. The fragrance of late summer roses freshly picked from ‘Chi an Treth’s’ garden by Mr. Treventhan, the gardener and odd job man, intermixes with the light waft of still fresh paint and the smell of the crashing ocean outside as it drifts in through the open French doors at the end of the room.
“I say Lettice darling!” Gerald enthuses as he looks around the newly redecorated drawing room of ‘Chi an Treth’. “You’ve transformed the old girl!”
“Isn’t it marvellous, Gerald! It’s so light and bright and thoroughly modern. Just what I wanted!” Margot purrs contently from the roomy confines of her sleek and modern eau-de-nil armchair. “No more dark red walls hung with ghastly maritime daubs. No more horrible old fashioned furniture.”
“Well,” Lettice says lowering her lids as she smiles and blushes at Margot’s evident happiness with her work. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, Margot.”
“Oh! Is it in here?” Gerald asks.
“It’s over there,” Lettice points behind Margot’s chair. “To the left of the fireplace, exactly where it was before the redecoration.”
Margot turns and looks over her shoulder at the small demilune table** covered in family photographs that sits beneath a pretty Georgian painting. “Oh no Gerald,” she remarks to him as he gets up from his seat on the end of the sofa that matches her armchair and walks across the room to the white painted demilune table. “You and Lettice are mistaken. That painting wasn’t here before the redecoration. There was a rather dull seascape hanging there in a frightful black frame. No. That painting comes from my old bedroom in Sloane Street. Mummy and Daddy said I could have it because I loved it so much.”
“I wasn’t talking about the painting, Margot darling.” Gerald corrects her.
“You weren’t, Gerald?” she questions, looking quizzically at the photos in gold, brass and silver frames on the demilune table, none of which were in ‘Chi an Treth’ prior to the redecoration.
“I was taking about the table.” he goes on to elucidate.
“Good god?” Dickie splutters from his place, smoking a pipe, his newest affectation as he plays lord of the manor, whilst leaning against the fireplace, a newspaper hanging limply in his empty left hand. “Is that the same half-round table that we used for port and sherry when we first came here?”
“It is.” Lettice confesses quietly. “It broke my heart just to fling all the house’s history out, just for the sake of modernisation.” She blushes at the last comment. “Sorry Margot.”
“You always were a sentimental thing, old girl!” Dickie laughs good naturedly as he carelessly tosses the Daily Mail onto the pile of newspapers and periodicals that sit atop a large eau-de-nil pouffe that matches the armchairs and sofa. “I wouldn’t have known it was the same table if Gerald hadn’t said something.”
“Well, it seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good table.” Lettice admits.
“But it wasn’t going to waste! I said you could do what you like with any of the furniture we weren’t going to keep, Lettice darling.” Margot says in surprise.
“And she did, Margot.” Gerald counters as he runs his hand idly along the smooth edge of the table.
“I spoke to my aunt about how best to repurpose it.” Lettice goes on.
“What does Lady Rostrevor know about repurposing furniture?” Dickie asks quizzically.
“Oh, not that aunt,” Lettice explains. “My Aunt Egg: Pater’s sister.”
“Oh, she’s the Chelsea artist, isn’t she?” Dickie confirms.
“Little Venice, but close enough.” corrects Lettice.
“I’ve been encouraging Lettice to apply her own artistic skills to her interiors and add a personal touch.” Gerald explains.
“So, I consulted Aunt Egg as how best to paint wood.”
“And the rest is her skills as an artist.” Gerald beams. “I was there, encouraging her every doubtful step of the way.”
“Doubtful?” Dickie asks.
“Lettice has doubts about her own abilities.” Gerald explains with a kind smile towards his friend sitting demurely on the sofa in the empty seat next to the one he has vacated.
“I say, old girl!” Dickie exclaims. “I don’t think you have anything to doubt, don’t you agree, my love?” he asks, addressing his wife.
“Rather, Lettice darling!” Margot smiles beatifically at her friend. “I agree with you, my love. I’d have scarcely recognised that old table myself!”
“I’d scarcely recognise this to be the same dark and old fashioned room we sat in, in January!” Gerald elaborates with a sweeping gesture at the papers, curtains, carpets and furnishings around them.
Just at that moment the door to the drawing room is forced open by a heavy boot, startling them all. Looking to the door as it creaks open noisily on its hinges, old Mrs. Trevethan, the housekeeper, with her wind weathered face with her unruly wiry white hair tied loosely in a bun, wearing a rather tatty apron over an old fashioned Edwardian print dress, walks in carrying a silver tray. Although weighed down heavily with a champagne bottle, four champagne flutes and a range of canapes for the Channons and their guests, the rather frail looking old woman, as usual, seems unbothered by its weight. She lowers the tray onto the low occasional table between the settee and armchairs with a groan and the disconcerting crack of bones.
“Oh, thank you Mrs. Trevethan.” Margot acknowledges the old woman.
“Omlowenhewgh agas boes!***” the elderly woman replies in a gravelly voice, groaning as she stretches back into an upright position before retreating the way she came, closing the door noisily behind her.
“Well,” Gerald corrects his lasts statement despondently. “I see some things haven’t changed.”
“Oh Gerald!” Lettice exclaims. “What do you have against old Mrs. Trevethan?”
“Is it because you think she was too slow binging you Aspirin the last time you stayed, old bean?” Dickie asks.
“Well there is that too.” mumbles Gerald, rubbing the toe of his shoe into the thick fabric of the green and blue Art Deco rug beneath his feet.
“She took very good care of me over the last week whilst I’ve been staying here on my own, Gerald.” Lettice defends the old woman. “And when I was down here a few months ago, Mr. Trevethan took me sightseeing.”
“She’s just an old Cornish witch, and you’ve fallen under her spell.” Gerald replies rather sulkily. When Margot and Dickie laugh at him he adds, “You all have!”
“It was the Aspirin.” Dickie chuckles knowingly as he puts down his pipe and walks over to the low table and picks up the bottle of champagne.
As Gerald blushes with guilt, his three friends laugh good naturedly at his expense.
“Well, the table isn’t the only piece of original furnishing I retained,” Lettice adds, reverting the subject back to her interior designs to spare her best friend any more embarrassment. “I did keep the two Regency gilt side tables and used those two matching stands that were in the reception room. I hope you don’t mind, Margot.”
Dickie pops the bottle of champagne expertly, the sound filling he and his guests with excitement and enthusiasm, rather like the effervescence of the golden champagne within the bottle.
“Oh I know I said I wanted a modern look, but I don’t mind the occasional piece, within reason.” Margot assures her friend as she hands a champagne flute to her husband to fill. “In fact I think they rather suit the room now you’ve redecorated it. It looks light enough with the pale wallpaper and the eau-de-nil suite that they don’t make the room look fusty or dark.” She passes the full flute to Lettice, who gratefully accepts it. “Besides, they complement Miss Rosvear’s presence.”
The quartet all pause and turn their heads to gaze upon the luminous portrait of the beautiful woman looking over her shoulder in the ornate gilded frame, hanging over a mirror topped Art Deco demilune table now used for the drinks tray, a dainty carriage clock and Lettice’s wedding gift to the Channons: a silver Regency tea Caddy from Asprey’s****.
“I am sorry that she wasn’t a Winterhalter***** after all, old bean.” remarks Gerald sadly.
“Oh I’m not!” Dickie laughs, resuming filling a second glass with champagne, which he passes over to Gerald.
“I’m not either.” adds Margot as she holds out a third flute to Dickie to fill.
“By her not being a Winterhalter, I have been spared the indignity of watching my father sell off yet another piece of our family history.” Dickie says, wiping the mouth of the champagne bottle against his wife’s glass. He smiles to himself as he goes on, “It was jolly good fun to see the old bully get his comeuppance for once. To see the colour drain from his face when the Bonham’s****** man told him that it was likely done by a local Cornish artist who was perhaps inspired by Winterhalter, was priceless!”
“Poor Mr. Fox.” Lettice remarks piteously.
“That was an ordeal!” Margot says as she releases a pent up breath that shudders nervously from within her. “But by finding out that she isn’t worth the fortune Lord and Lady Channon were hoping for, I am afforded the pleasure of having her hang here in my new drawing room.”
“Where she belongs.” Lettice smiles.
“Where she belongs.” the other three chime in, in agreement.
“Shall we propose a toast to Miss Rosevear?” suggests Lettice, raising her glass.
“Well, if you don’t mind, old girl,” Dickie says, raising his own glass. “I have a toast of my own that I’d like to raise first, that I think is more timely.”
“Well it is your house, Dickie darling,” Lettice concedes. “So as master, you may do as you wish.”
“What is the toast?” his wife asks, an expertly plucked eyebrow arching over her right eye, this revelation obviously unknown to her too.
“Well, I was chatting to Henry Tipping******* at my club earlier this week,” Dickie begins.
“Who is Henry Tipping, my love?” queries Margot.
“He’s a great authority on history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain.” Gerald clarifies.
“Quite so, old bean!” exclaims Dickie. “And he is also the Architectural Editor of Country Life, and he’s rather thrilled to come down and see Lettice’s sympathetic redecoration of ‘Chi an Treth’.”
“Henry Tipping is interested in seeing my interior designs?” Lettice asks in astonishment. “Mine?”
“Indubitably, old girl.” Dickie smiles proudly, full of self-satisfaction at his announcement. “So I’d like to propose a toast to my hopes for this room to be featured in Country Life. To your future success, old girl!”
“To Lettice’s success!” Margot says, standing up elegantly and raising her glass.
“To Lettice’s success!” Gerald and Dickie echo as they click glasses with Margot and the silently stunned Lettice.
“Just imagine Sadie’s face when she sees your interiors in her beloved Country Life, Lettice!” giggles Gerald mischievously. “How I should like to be a fly on the wall to witness that!”
But Lettice doesn’t reply, this surprise in Margot’s new drawing room robbing her of words. However, a hopeful smile plays on her lips as she sips the effervescent champagne from her flute, her eyes sparking with possibility as she considers what this could mean for her career as an interior designer.
*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
**Co-opting the French word for “half moon,” the demilune table is an accent table featuring an elegant, rounded front and a flat back. A demilune's flat back allows it to sit flush against a wall, making it a striking substitution for a standard console table or credenza.
***”Omlowenhewgh agas boes” is Cornish for “bon appetit”.
****Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.
*****Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 – 1873) was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).
******Established in 1793, Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale.
*******Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
This elegantly appointed drawing room with its modish Art Deco furnishings may not be all that you think them to be, for this scene is in truth made up with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the coffee table, he savoury petite fours on the white porcelain plate and the champagne flutes, which are made from hand spun glass, have been made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The ornamental glass bon-bon dish, also made from hand spun glass, was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The silver tray and the bowl of caviar come from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne is an artisan miniature and is made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The Statue of the nude Art Nouveau woman on the right-hand pedestal to the right at the back is based on a real statue and is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It has been hand painted by me.
The glass topped demilune table in the background is a hand made miniature artisan piece, which sadly is unsigned. On its surface, made of real glass are decanters of whiskey and port and a cranberry glass soda syphon made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. The hand spun Art Deco glass vase containing creamy yellow handmade roses are also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The silver Regency tea caddy is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, whilst the metal carriage clock comes from Melody Jane Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
The three novels on the occasional table next to the armchair come from Shepherds Miniatures in England.
The wedding photo in the silver frame on the mantlepiece and the photos in frames on the demilune table behind the armchair are real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frame comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers.
The Georgian style demilune table behind and to the right of the armchair is an artisan miniature from Lady Mile Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Painted white and then aged, it has been hand painted with a Georgian style design on its surface.
The hand spun Art Deco glass vase in the foreground containing white roses with yellow centres are made roses are also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The newspapers on the pouffe, except the copy of Country Life, are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The copy of Country Life was made by me.
The eau-de-nil suite consisting of armchairs, sofa and pouffe are all made of excellent quality fabric, and are very well made, as is the coffee table with its small drawer beneath the tabletop. All these pieces were made as a set by high-end miniatures manufacturer Jiayi Miniatures.
The Regency gilt swan pedestals and round tables are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
The fireplace is made of plaster, and comes from Kathleen Knight’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The stylised Art Deco fire screen is made using thinly laser cut wood, made by Pat’s Miniatures in England.
The paintings around the ‘Chi an Treth’ drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by V.H. Miniatures and Marie Makes Miniatures in the United Kingdom and geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series. The Geometrically patterned Art Deco carpet on the floor comes from a miniatures specialist store on E-Bay.
“In this new year, may you have a deep understanding of your true value and worth, an absolute faith in your unlimited potential, peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, the confidence to let go when you need to, acceptance to replace your resistance, gratitude to open your heart, the strength to meet your challenges, great love to replace your fear, forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you, clear sight to see your best and true path, hope to dispel obscurity, the conviction to make your dreams come true, meaningful and rewarding synchronicities, dear friends who truly know and love you, a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe, the humility to remain teachable, the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is, the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow, the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth, and the courage to learn to be still.”
― Janet Rebhan
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Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however, we have followed Lettice from her home to just a short distance away. Still in Mayfair, she is visiting Asprey* in Bond Street: jewellers to the royal family, silversmiths and goldsmiths and suppliers of luxury goods. With Dickie Channon and Margot de Virre’s engagement announced, Lettice is charged with finding a wedding gift not only of her own, but for her parents to send to the home of Margot’s parents. Leaving the busy shopping strip populated by suited men on their way to their offices and clubs and smartly dressed ladies enjoying a day of shopping, Lettice slips in through the beautiful full length glass doors of Asprey’s into the cossetted comfort of the light filled luxury shop. Leaving the bustle of London behind her with the quiet click of the doors closing, she breathes in the gentle waft of expensive perfume and leather.
“Ah! Miss Chetwynd!” a mature frock coated shop walker greets Lettice with a broad smile. “How do you do.”
Lettice greets the stout, smartly dressed man with the familiarity of the regular client that she is. “How do you do, Crosbie,” she addresses him as she does her family butler.
“And to what do we owe this great pleasure of your visit, Miss Chetwynd?” Mr. Crosbie asks obsequiously, clasping his glove clad hands together behind his back. “A finishing touch for one of your latest interiors, perhaps? I have some lovely silver tea services just in from our silversmiths.”
Lettice looks distractedly around the beautiful mahogany display cabinets filled with leather dressing cases and travel de necessaires, candelabras, coffee and tea services.
“Not today, Crosbie,” she flashes him one of her winning smiles, not fooled for a moment by the portly floor walker’s flattery and toady behaviour.
Lettice knows that when she walks into Asprey’s that she is a valued customer because of how much money she spends there and how much influence she has on others who also patronise the shop. Her mind slips back to her first visit to Asprey as a teenager before the war, when she accompanied her mother who was looking to buy some new jewellery for a court levee. The frock coated staff fawned over Viscountess Wrexham and her daughter noticed for the first time the deference paid not only to her mother, but to her as well as a member of a family held in such high esteem and a future patron of the shop.
“A new travel de necessaire for your next country house soirée, perhaps?” Mr. Crosbie asks attentively. “Or maybe some new pearls for the Season?”
“No, nothing like that today, Crosbie,” Lettice replies.
“Please,” Mr. Crosbie indicates with a sweeping gesture to a small mahogany Queen Anne style table decorated with a white vase filled with fragrant rose blooms, flanked by two dainty velvet seated salon chairs. “Some tea perhaps, Miss Chetwynd?”
“Oh Crosbie,” she sighs, sinking into one of the chairs, crossing her legs elegantly and propping her black handled green parasol against her thigh. “You are a brick!”
The older manager looks over and catches the eye of a junior member of staff to whom he nods almost imperceptibly. The younger man quietly slips away from behind a counter of silver salvers and trays and disappears into the back of the showroom.
“Then,” Mr. Crosbie asks, taking his place adjunct to Lettice. “What is your pleasure today, Miss Chetwynd?”
Lettice’s eyes the glittering shelves again. Champagne buckets, strawberry dishes, biscuit barrels, lidded chafing dishes, trophies and meat covers all polished to a gleaming sheen wink and glow against their mahogany housings or in glass display cases, under the morning light from the street outside and diffused light from crystal chandeliers overhead.
“Well, you would no doubt have read in The Times that my friends Margot de Virre and Richard Channon have recently become engaged.”
Crosbie’s gleaming brown eyes lift towards the ceiling and his mouth falls open ever so slightly as he considers the names of all the newly engaged couples of note announced in the London newspapers. “The Marquess of Taunton’s son and Lord de Virre’s daughter,” he remarks thoughtfully. “Yes, I did see that. Ah!”
The younger shop walker arrives with a silver tray laden with a sleek teapot, sugar bowl, milk jug, a cup and saucer and a selection of biscuits on a plate. He carefully places the tray on the table, next to Lettice’s crocodile skin handbag. Mr. Crosbie nods ever so slightly at the younger man and he retreats, walking quietly back across the carpeted floor.
“So, you see my dilemma Crosbie,” Lettice says. “I need a wedding gift.”
“Well, Miss Chetwynd,” the older man says in an assuring tone. “You aren’t the first person to visit Asprey to purchase a wedding gift for them.” He pauses. “However we have so many lovely things to choose from, that I feel sure we shall find the perfect gift from you.”
“Oh it isn’t just for me, Crosbie,” Lettice replies apologetically. “I also need a wedding gift for my parents.”
“Ah! How is his Lordship?” Mr. Crosbie asks. “And her Ladyship?”
“Quite well thank you, Crosbie,” Lettice states. “However, they are too ensconced in Wiltshire to come to London to select their own gift.”
“Well, I’m sure we can find a suitable gift for them too, Miss Chetwynd.” He smiles politely. “Shall I pour?”
“Oh, you are a brick, Crosbie!” Lettice says. “Yes please.”
As he pours, Mr. Crosbie artfully makes sure that the sleek body of the teapot and its elegant spout catches the light and the attention of his customer.
“That’s a lovely teapot, Crosbie,” Lettice remarks thoughtfully.
“It’s one of the new tea services we have just received from our silversmiths.” He adds hopefully, “It is Georgian Revival Moderne: very fashionable Miss Chetwynd. Will you take milk and sugar?”
“Yes, thank you, Crosbie. Oh, and the crockery?”
“Also in a new and very fashionable line, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Crosbie adds with delight that Lettice has noticed it. “Do have a chocolate or a vanilla Bourbon biscuit.”
“Thank you, Crosbie.” She picks up a chocolate cream Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit and munches daintily on it. After finishing her mouthful and taking a sip of tea she continues, “Now. I want something different. Something special for two of my closest friends: not just a tea set.” Crosbie’s face falls slightly at her words. “Anyone can give a tea set.”
“Indeed, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Crosbie acquiesces with a slight lilt of disappointment.
“No!” Lettice continues. “I want something, different. The Marquess is giving the newlyweds a house near Penzance as a country retreat. I am told it is a Regency house. I’d like to give them something suitable for there. What can you show me, Crosbie?”
The older man’s eyes light up again. “Ah! Well, Asprey’s do have a few rather lovely pieces that might suit. If I could beg your indulgence, Miss Chetwynd.”
Lettice nods in agreement as the man moves purposefully across the red carpeted floor to the mahogany display shelves where he fetches several pieces. She continues to enjoy the Bourbon biscuits and her tea whilst he searches for potential presents. Returning, he places two lidded boxes and a tray on the table before her.
“A Regency Revival letter tray, and two Georgian Revival tea caddies, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Crosbie says soothingly with a flourish of his hands worthy of a magician having produced a rabbit from a hat.
Lettice scrutinises each, carefully picking them up and considering them as gifts. Across the table from her, Mr. Crosbie quietly holds his breath as he watches, clutching his glove glad hands together beneath the table’s surface.
“Yes,” Lettice says at length. “Yes, I think the larger of the tea caddies, Crosbie.”
“Very good, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Crosbie enthuses. “And for your parents?”
“Oh, the tea service, definitely.” she replies with a wry smile. “They are very good at giving tea sets.”
“Very good, Miss Chetwynd. I’ll have the accounts drawn out. Shall I have the tea service and the tea caddy sent directly to Lord and Lady de Virre with a small note of compliments from you and the Viscount?"
“The tea set, yes,” Lettice says. “But the tea caddy, no. Please have that sent to me.”
“Certainly Miss Chetwynd. I can have it delivered to you this afternoon, if that suits.”
“Splendid Crosbie,” Lettice smiles and sighs, relieved that she has the perfect wedding gift for her friends. Finishing her tea, she grasps her parasol and handbag and prepares to leave. Then, as an after thought she adds, “Oh, and have another of those tea services sent to me as well.” She looks again at the sleek teapot glinting on the tray. “I quite like the way the pot pours.”
“Yes, Miss Chetwynd!” Mr. Crosbie says with undisguised pleasure.
*Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.
This luxury goods shop floor with all its silver may appear real to you, however it is fashioned entirely of 1:12 miniatures from my collection. Some of the items in this tableaux are amongst the very first pieces I ever received as a young child.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The panoply of silver items that full the shelves and cabinets were once commonplace items in both upper and middle-class households. These items include candelabras, candlesticks, a biscuit barrel, an egg cruet set, a lidded muffin dish, a punch bowl, a toast rack, vases, trophies, coffee sets, tea sets, a strawberry dish, lidded chafing and serving dishes, meat covers, gravy boats, a water jug, an ice bucket, a sweetmeat dish, silver trays and salvers, and tea caddies. Almost all of the silver pieces in this scene are exclusively made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The only pieces not made by them are the square tray and tea service in the foreground, and the three prong Arts and Crafts style candelabra which sits atop a stand in front of the mahogany cases. The square tray and tea service in the foreground, which come from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The three prong candelabra is an artisan piece of sterling silver made in Berlin and is actually only 3 centimetres in height and 3 centimetres in width.
The Queen Anne table and two chairs in the foreground were amongst the first miniatures I was ever given as a child. They were birthday presents given to me when I was seven years old.
Lettice’s snakeskin handbag with its gold clasp and chain comes from Doreen Jeffries’ Small Wonders Miniature Shop in the United Kingdom. Lettice’s umbrella also comes from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The Art Deco style teacup, saucer and plate come from an EBay stockist of miniatures, whilst the tiny chocolate and vanilla Bourbon biscuits from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. They specialise in miniature foods, and the array of items they have along with the fine and realistic detail of their hand made pieces is quite amazing!
The vase of roses on the Queen Anne table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas. She motored down to Wiltshire with her old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His family, the Brutons, are neighbours to the Cheywynds with their properties sharing boundaries. That is how Gerald and Lettice came to be such good friends. However, whilst both families are landed gentry with lineage going back centuries, unlike Lettice’s family, Gerald’s live in a much smaller baronial manor house and are in much more straitened circumstances.
It is Christmas Day 1922, and we find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where the Viscount is indulging in his favourite activity as lord of the manor on Christmas Day, handing out the gifts that have been stacked beneath the splendidly decked out Christmas tree to his family. At his feet, Lettice’s elder sister Lalage’s (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) children Harrold and Annabelle, squeal with delight as noisily, beautiful wrapping and carefully tied fat satin bows are torn asunder hurriedly to reveal wonderful toys. Lady Sadie sits in her usual armchair next to the fire, dressed splendidly in a pastel coloured crêpe de chine day gown with ropes of pearls about her neck and cascading down her front, not unlike Queen Mary, sipping champagne from a fine crystal flute, enjoying playing hostess to her family. Charles, Lally’s husband sits in a matching armchair diagonally across from Sadie, watching his children with delight as they open their presents, nursing a brandy in his right hand. Lettice’s eldest brother Leslie is snuggled up with his new wife Arabella on one of the two facing Louis Quinze sofas, whilst Lettice and Lally sit on the sofa opposite them, closest to the Christmas tree. The Viscount’s younger bohemian artist sister, Eglantine (known lovingly by Lettice and her siblings as Aunt Egg), always a restless spirit, wanders the room, smoking her favourite Black Russian cigarettes through a holder, never quite settling as she thinks her own thoughts whilst also engaging sporadically with her family when it suits her. None of the family’s faithful retainers are present, as the tradition is that servants are given Christmas Day off after breakfast until the late afternoon, when they return and prepare to serve the family’s Christmas dinner in the Glynes dining room.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” booms the Viscount jovially as he withdraws a long parcel wrapped in holly patterned paper tied up with a gold ribbon. “What have we here?” He shakes it slightly, making the contents rattle metallically. He squints as he reads the tag attached to the bow. “A present for Master Harrold from Auntie Tice!” He smiles magnanimously at his grandson and rubs his hair lovingly as he hands the parcel over to Harrold.
“Ripping!” cries Harrold as he opens Lettice’s gift and finds two beautifully painted jousting lead knights on horseback. “Thanks ever so, Aunt Tice!”
“You’re welcome, darling!” Lettice says from the gilded sofa next to the Christmas tree, accepting the big hug and kiss he bestows on her, carefully holding her glass of champagne aloft.
“Careful Harrold dear!” Lally chides her son softly as sitting beside her sister, she indicates to Lettice’s glass. “Auntie Tice doesn’t want her champagne to go all over Grandmamma’s sofa.”
“No indeed, she does not!” quips Lady Sadie crisply, champagne flute poised to her lips.
“Oh don’t be crabby Sadie,” scolds the Viscount with a crumpled brow as he settles back into the high backed gilded salon chair embroidered in petit point tapestry by his mother. “It’s Christmas!”
“Christmas or not Cosmo, my father gave us this set as part of my dowery.” Sadie retorts, sipping the champagne in a superior fashion in her glass.
“And don’t we all know it!” Cosmo rolls his eyes as he replies.
“I didn’t Pappa,” Lettice admits. “Until last Christmas, when we were decorating the tree in here and Lally told me so. And now I know why you like the Christmas tree in here to be decorated to match the furnishings.”
“Oh you girls! What nonsense!” Lady Sadie scoffs, but the awkward way she goes noticeably silent and turns to gaze into the roaring fire in the white marble fireplace tells everyone present that that that is the exact reason why she has the tree dressed in gold and cream every year.
“Here, hold this.” Lettice hands her glass to her sister before proceeding to envelop her eight year old nephew. “You’re welcome darling boy! Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas!” he replies joyfully. “How did you know that I wanted some knights, Auntie Tice?” Harrold asks, his voice full of enthusiasm as Lettice releases him and he sinks back down to the floor where he sets the jousting knights up.
“Oh, I keep an ear out.” she replies knowingly, giving him a mockingly serious look that makes him laugh.
“You can’t say anything around your Aunt Tice without her paying attention to it.” laughs Lally as she hands Lettice back her champagne flute. “She’s always been the most observant of us, hasn’t she Leslie?”
“Always.” Leslie agrees with a smile.
Turning to her sister Lally adds, making her own adroit observation, “Harrold’s getting a very nice collection of lead soldiers and the like between gifts from you, Pappa and Father Christmas.” She looks with an indulgent smile at the other cavalry lead soldiers her son has been given as he sets them up amongst the detritus of discarded brightly coloured paper and ribbons.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” booms the Viscount with gusto as he delves beneath the branches of the tree. “Who’s next then?”
“It was good of Pappa to put up a Christmas tree in the entrance hall for Harrold and Belle this year.” Lally remarks to Lettice as she smiles watching her father fossick through the beautifully wrapped gifts.
“Well, he could hardly refuse, could he?” Lettice replies. “With you joining the chorus from the children after we let it slip last Christmas.” She giggles as she puts her glass to her lips. “I don’t think Pappa could stand the din.”
“When the carol singers came up from the village last night and Pappa invited them in for brandy and to warm themselves by the fire in the entrance hall and enjoy the big Christmas tree all covered in tinsel, baubles and lighted candles, it was just like the Christmases before the war.”
“Yes, it was rather.”
“Oh! This is for Belle from Auntie Tice!” the Viscount announces.
“For me, Pappa?” Arabella pipes up, popping her head up queryingly from her husband’s shoulder where she has been contentedly snuggled next to him.
“No, not you, Bella,” Leslie says with an indulgent smile and a calming pat to her hands, encouraging her to lower her head back to where her had been snuggling lovingly against it. “Belle.” He nods in the general direction of his niece.
“No! It’s me, Auntie Bella!” exclaims Annabelle, spinning around excitedly in her pretty pale yellow Jean Lanvin* lace trimmed frock. “It’s for me! For me!”
“It really is too awful of you, Leslie, marrying a girl with a name so similar to Annabelle.” laughs Lally good heartedly.
“Oh, sorry Lally darling. I’ll pick a more appropriately named wife next time.” Leslie replies, the apology rewarded with a kittenish slap to his forearm from his giggling new wife who accuses him playfully of wanting a second wife when they have been married barely a month.
“They do look happy.” Lally remarks to Lettice as she leans in conspiratorially towards her. “I’m glad that Leslie finally decided to marry Bella.”
“Yes, as Gerald said at the wedding,” Lettice replies looking over at her brother and his new bride so deeply in love on the sofa opposite. “They are both country folk. She loves riding and is interested in, and I quote, ‘animal husbandry and all that awfully dirty estate business’.”
A peal of laughter erupts from Lally’s lips. “Oh Gerald does have a way with words. Is he up at the Hall?”
“Yes, with his parents and Roland.”
“Oh, that will be a rather dour Christmas I suspect. That wastrel Roland is almost as bad as Lionel.”
“And thank god Lionel isn’t here for Christmas, in spite of Aunt Egg’s protestations.” Lettice observes quietly. She looks to her beloved aunt drifting distractedly about the room, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke curlicues in her wake, her aqua satin gown cascading round her elegantly as she moves.
“And he didn’t create any more potential scandal whilst he was here, mercifully.” adds Lally, taking a gulp of champagne from her glass at the mere thought of their horrible sibling, detested by the whole family except for Aunt Egg.
“At least Leslie and Bella’s wedding seems to have taken the pressure off me, for the time being at least.” Lettice whispers quietly to Lally. “With so much attention on the wedding, Mater has hardly had time to focus on little old me.”
“Oh poor you!” mocks Lally sarcastically, her eyes glittering with mirth. “How are things going with the dashing young Selwyn?”
“Oh, you know,” Lettice answers, shrugging her shoulders. “Fits and starts.”
“You know,” Lally says kindly. “If the love isn’t there, you shouldn’t try and force it, no matter what Mamma says or wants. I’ve given her several grandchildren, and no doubt Leslie and Bella will add to the brood in no short amount of time.”
“Oh it isn’t that.” Lettice assures her sister. “Selwyn and I are very fond of one another.”
“There peals the chime of an unfinished thought.” Lally remarks knowledgably.
“A teddy!” squeals Anabelle shrilly in sheer delight, breaking the conversation between the two Chetwynd sisters.
Tearing aside the shiny gold paper the Harrod’s toy department Christmas wrappers had so carefully stuck around the soft caramel coloured bear, Arabella pulls out the large, floppy limbed toy and holds him up, scrutinising his smiling embroidered face and shiny amber glass eyes, before enveloping him in the embrace of her chubby arms and planting loving kisses on his cheeks and stitched mouth.
“Oh! What a grand choice, darling!” Lally approves. “You will be the favourite with both my angels today.”
“Oh what a lovely gift, Lettice,” Charles remarks from his armchair where he cradles a glass of port. Looking at his daughter cuddling the stuffed bear almost as big as herself he says, “What do you say to Auntie Tice?”
“Thank you Auntie Tice!” Annabelle says.
“You’re welcome darling! Merry Christmas!”
“I‘m sure Auntie Tice deserves a cuddle for such a splendid gift, Belle.” her mother adds.
“A perfect choice. I don’t know how you do it.” Charles remarks as Lettice is enveloped by her niece who gives her a big hug.
“It helps when you live around the corner from Harrods, Charles darling.” Lally remarks, looking to her husband. “Then you don’t have to rely on the Army and Navy Stores** catalogue.”
“My mother did perfectly well for Christmases for us out of the Army and Navy Stores catalogue when we lived in India!” Charles defends his choice of present sourcing.
“But we don’t live in India,” Lally laughs. “We live in Buckinghamshire, which is far more civilised, and within reach of London by rail. And anyway, nothing the children actually wanted was in that wretched old fashioned catalogue.” Turning back to her sister she continues. “And I’m very grateful for all your help, Tice, organising my requests for Christmas gifts for the children.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” says the Viscount. “Who’s next?” He delves into the slowly diminishing pile of gifts beneath the tree. “Oh! It’s for Grandmamma from Grandpappa!” he says jovially as he passes over a small square gift wrapped in red paper tied with an ornate cascade of white ribbons to his wife.
“Oh Cosmo!” Lady Sadie gasps, her face flushing with embarrassment at suddenly being the centre of attention as she gratefully accepts his gift from his extended hand.
“Merry Christmas my dear.” the Viscount replies kindly, giving her a discreet wink, which causes her to blush even more.
“Oh Cosmo! It’s beautiful!” Lady Sadie gasps as she removes an eye catching diamond spray brooch from a blue velvet lined box within the wrapping.
“Oh Mamma!” Lally exclaims admiringly.
“Oh, put it on Mamma!” Lettice adds enthusiastically.
“I… I don’t think I can. My hands are shaking too much.” her mother replies. “I’ll be all thumbs.”
“You put it on her then, Tice,” Lally prods her sister. “You’re always better at sort of thing than me. You have the right eye for how things look.”
Lettice gets up and crosses the thick old floral carpet, dropping to her knees before her mother, the russet coloured silk georgette of her day gown pooling about her. She takes the expensive bauble from her mother’s trembling hand and looks closely at it. Sparkling diamonds in platinum settings wink and glint in the drawing room chandelier’s light. She notices that the design is of pretty asters with elegant stems and leaves shaped in gold. “What a treasure Mamma!”
“Oh Cosmo!” Lady Sadie puts her fingers to her trembling lips as tears of delight create a sheen across her eyes.
“You never cease to be full of surprises, Pappa.” Lettice remarks as she unhooks the c-clasp on the back of the brooch and considers the floral pattern of her mother’s frock.
“So that’s why you had to go up to London that day last month.” Leslie remarks. “You old devil! Banking matters my foot! More like Asprey’s*** I’d say! What cheek! Leaving me to fend for myself, whilst you run off and get something for your lady love!”
“And you did admirably in my absence, my boy.” the Viscount replies proudly. “You’ll be taking over the estate sooner rather than later, and then you’ll need to always have your wits about you.”
“There!” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh, sitting back and admiring the sparking jewelled brooch now affixed safely to her mother’s left bosom. “Go and look in the mirror, Mamma!”
“Should I?” Lady Sadie gathers up her skirts after receiving an encouraging nod from her daughter, and with the soft rustle of silk she glides across the room full of joy and delight where she admires her new piece of jewellery in one of the gilt framed Palladian style pier mirrors on the wall.
“Come on Pappa,” Lally commands. “There are still plenty of gifts beneath the tree. Hopefully,” She looks to her husband. “There might even be one for me by the time you’re through.”
Charles merely smiles enigmatically in reply, but says nothing.
“Oh!” the Viscount announces grandly. “This is for Lettice,” He pauses for effect. “From me!” He chuckles and hands the large square parcel wrapped in pretty holly sprig patterned paper topped with an ornate red satin bow to his youngest child.
Lettice hands her champagne flute to her sister again. “Thanks awfully Pappa.” she replies, her voice thick with emotion as she accepts the gift from her father.
“Merry Christmas darling girl.”
She places it on her lap and runs her hands reverently around the parcel’s edges and momentarily toys with the bow.
“Well don’t just look at it, Lettice,” Charles cajoles from his chair. “Open it up!”
“That’s not Tice’s way.” his wife replies. “Not only is she the most observant of us all, she is also the one who perhaps appreciates her gifts the most.”
“We’d have torn all our presents free of their paper long before Tice had even opened half of hers.” Leslie adds.
“Rip it open! Rip it open!” squeals Annabelle excitedly, jumping up and down with exuberance.
“Belle!” Lally gasps. “Don’t scream and jump up and down like that. It’s most unladylike!” She shakes her head admonishingly. “Grandmamma will think we live in a zoo with you behaving like a screaming monkey.” She quickly adds before her mother can quip about the fact that she does think that or something else disparaging, “This is Auntie Tice’s gift. She can open it how she sees fit.” She eyes her young daughter. “I know you’re anxious to open your next gift, but you must be patient.”
“What do you think it is, Auntie Tice?” Harrold asks, peering with mild interest at the gift in her lap as he sits at her feet.
“Well,” Lettice lifts the present and inspects it closely as she turns it over in her hands. “It’s very heavy, so it must be that crystal chandelier that I want for my drawing room in London.” She gives her nephew a conspiratorial smile and screws up her nose in amusement as he chuckles at her absurd guess.
“A chandelier!” giggles Annabelle as childish peals of laughter burst forth from her upturned mouth. “It can’t be Auntie Tice! It’s too small.”
Lettice considers the parcel again. Looking directly at her niece, she replies, “You’re absolutely right, Annabelle darling! Of course, it’s far too small to be a chandelier. How clever you are. Silly Auntie Tice!”
Annabelle smiles proudly at her aunt’s admission that she is right, raising a finger coyly to her mouth.
“Oh, just open it, Tice!” Lally finally gasps in amused and intrigued exasperation. “Or I’ll do it for you. Don’t be a frightful tease, darling!”
Carefully removing the red satin bow, she runs her fingers under the lip of expertly wrapped paper, severing the tape with her well manicured nail like a letter opener. With a rustling sigh, the paper falls away, revealing a beautiful lapis lazuli blue leather book, decorated with ornate gilded tooling.
“Oh Pappa!” she gasps, taking the book out of its bed of paper, which Lally quickly whisks off Lettice’s lap and onto the floor where it joins the other tattered remnants of Christmas wrapping. “How lovely. Egyptomania…” she reads musingly as she run her hands over the title picked out in a striking red, made even more so by the deep blue and rich golds of the binding surrounding it. “Is this from Mahew’s****?”
“Where else my girl?” the Viscount settles back in his seat comfortably, a satisfied look on his face. “See Leslie. It wasn’t just a visit to Asprey’s I took in whilst I was up in London.”
“Which also explains why you didn’t visit me whilst you were there, Pappa.” Lettice realises.
Pointing at the book, the Viscount continues, “I remember your Great Grandfather Chetwynd talking about the Egyptomania***** that gripped the world after that Frenchman first deciphered hieroglyphs using the Rosetta stone. The illustrations in that book will put you in good stead for the next wave of Egyptomania coming. Everyone is going to want an Egyptian style drawing room.”
“Do you really think this renewed interest in Egyptian style will carry on past Christmas, Pappa?” Lally asks. “It’s just a passing phase, surely.”
“There hasn’t been a discovery like the boy king’s tomb****** in living memory, Lally. This ‘phase’, as you put it, will be a mania that will last. A symbol of the 1920s. You mark my words.” He taps his nose knowingly.
“That’s so thoughtful of you, Cosmo.” Eglantine says standing behind Sadie’s chair, taking a long drag on the Sobranie Black Russian******* through her amber and gold cigarette holder. Blowing out a plume of acrid, yet at the same time exotic, blue smoke, she adds. “A book like that will help Lettice keep ahead of the fashionable trends in design.”
“Don’t encourage her, Eglantine!” hisses Lady Sadie, flapping her hands as much in an effort to silence her bohemian sister-in-law as to drive away the cloying cigarette smoke enveloping her. “You’re as bad as Cosmo!” She shoots an accusing look over her shoulder at her husband, but he is too absorbed watching his youngest daughter’s rapturous enjoyment of his gift to notice her annoyance. “All this interior design nonsense.”
“Why shouldn’t I, Sadie?” Eglantine replies, folding her arms defiantly across the metallic thread embroidery of the bodice of her elegant reformist Paul Poiret******** gown. Staring the seated matron down with a steely and haughty look, she adds, ‘Someone must support the talent of your daughter, since you are obviously too blinkered to nurture it. Cosmo and I can champion her cause since you refuse to.” She smiles over to her older brother in his seat, still looking at his daughter. Turning her gaze to her niece she adds, “She is my favourite nice, after all.”
“I’m sure you say that about all our female cousins, Aunt Egg.” Lally laughs.
“And I keep telling you and your sister that you are all my favourites, Lally. However,” She lifts the long opera length strand of creamy white pearls between the fingers of her elegant left hand and toys with them thoughtfully. “You will never know until after I’m gone.” She laughs raspily. “For then the truth will be exposed through the disbursement of my jewels. To my favourite, or favourites, go the spoils!”
Lost in the beautifully engraved and hand coloured illustrations from the old Victorian volume, Lettice allows the conversation to wash over her, unaware that it centres around her.
“I wouldn’t wonder that Lettice is your favourite, since you are both such awful teases!” Lally laughs good naturedly. “Here Tice. Take your glass back darling. Pappa has more presents to dispense.”
“Before I do,” the Viscount clears his throat as he stands and starts walking across to the gilded table in the centre of the carpet upon which stand two bottles of champagne in wine coolers. “I should like to make a toast.”
He takes up the open bottle of champagne and proceeds to top up all the adults’ glasses, except for Charles who continues to nurse his brandy.
“What is your toast, Pappa?” asks Leslie as he and Arabella join the others in standing.
“To a very merry Christmas, one and all!” he replies, raising his glass.
“Merry Christmas!” everyone else replies enthusiastically, charging their glasses.
*Jeanne Lanvin (1867 – 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums. She became an apprentice milliner at Madame Félix in Paris at the age of 16 and trained with Suzanne Talbot and Caroline Montagne Roux before becoming a milliner on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889. In 1909, Jeanne joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The clothing she made for her daughter began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children. Soon, Jeanne was making dresses for their mothers, and some of the most famous names in Europe were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. By 1922 when this story is set, she had just opened her first shop devoted to home décor, menswear, furs and lingerie. Her gowns were always very feminine and romantic.
**Army and Navy Stores was a department store group in the United Kingdom, which originated as a co-operative society for military officers and their families during the nineteenth century. The society became a limited liability company in the 1930s and purchased a number of independent department stores during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1973 the Army and Navy Stores group was acquired by House of Fraser. In 2005 the remaining Army & Navy stores (the flagship store located on Victoria Street in London and stores in Camberley, and Chichester) were refurbished and re-branded under the House of Fraser nameplate. House of Fraser itself was acquired by Icelandic investment company, Baugur Group, in late 2006, and then by Sports Direct on the 10 August 2018.
***Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’
****A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.
*****Egyptomania refers to a period of renewed interest in the culture of ancient Egypt sparked by Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign in the 19th century. Napoleon was accompanied by many scientists and scholars during this Campaign, which led to a large interest after the documentation of ancient monuments in Egypt. The ancient remains had never been so thoroughly documented before and so the interest in ancient Egypt increased significantly. Jean-François Champollion deciphered the ancient hieroglyphs in 1822 by using the Rosetta Stone that was recovered by French troops in 1799 which began the study of scientific Egyptology.
******On the 4th of November 1922, English archaeologist Howard Carter and his men discovered the entrance to the boy king, Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, sparking a worldwide interest in all things Egyptian. The craze he started became known as Tutmania, and it inspired everything from the architecture of public building and private houses alike to interior design and fashion. Famously at the time, socialite Dolores Denis Denison applied one of the earliest examples of getting the media of the day to pay attention to her because of her dress by arriving at the prestigious private view of the King Tut Exhibition in London, dressed as an Egyptian mummy complete in a golden sarcophagus and had to be carried inside by her driver and a hired man. Although it started before the discovery of the tomb, the Art Deco movement was greatly influenced by Egyptian style. Many of the iconic decorative symbols we associate with the movement today came about because of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
*******The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.
********Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer and a master couturier during the first two decades of the Twentieth century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house. In 1911, he introduced "Parfums de Rosine," named after his daughter, becoming the first French couturier to launch a signature fragrance. Poiret's designs were groundbreaking and reformist for the time, and were sought after by fashionable avant garde women of society. He was the first designer to introduce trousers for women, producing harem pants in 1910. However, he was also responsible for the ‘hobble skirt’ which restricted women’s movements to a mere hobble (as the name suggests) by restricting movement of the ankles with the use of an exceedingly narrow hem. Despite his incredible vision, Poiret did not see the change of fashion that came after the Great War, being on the brink of bankruptcy by 1919 thanks to simple sleek designs of new Couturiers like Coco Chanel which he refused to adopt. In 1922, he was invited to New York to design costumes and dresses for Broadway stars, yet he hated America and returned to Paris within the year. In 1929, his fashion house was closed, its leftover stock sold by the kilogram as rags.
This fun Christmas tableau full of festive presents and wrapping may not appear to be all you think it is as first, for it is made up of pieces out of my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The Chetwynd Christmas tree, beautifully decorated with garlands, tinsel, bows and golden baubles is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Margie and Mike Balough also made all the beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts gathered around its base.
The beautiful teddy bear with his sweet, if slightly melancholic, face, the box of lead soldiers and knights jousting all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The lead cavalry and knights have been painstakingly painted by hand with incredible detail and attention paid to their livery.
The discarded blue and gold Christmas wrapping on the carpet of the drawing room are in reality foil wrappers from miniature Haigh’s Chocolate Easter Eggs.
The gilt salon chair is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.
The three piece Louis XV suite of settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.
The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.
"When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
Poem by Mary Oliver
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Returned from her Friday to Monday down at Dickie and Margot’s Cornwall country house, ‘Chi an Treth’, and all the excitement that ensued there, Lettice has settled back into her usual London routine of shopping, receiving and visiting friends and seeing potential clients. It’s a Wednesday, and an unusually quiet one, so Lettice is taking advantage of the gap between engagements and has just sat down in her comfortable white upholstered tub chair to continue reading her latest Georgette Heyer* romance novel when the doorbell to the flat rings noisily, shattering the relative quiet of the flat’s interior.
“I’m not expecting any clients,” she muses as she listens as Edith, her maid, walks across the entrance hall to answer the door. “I wonder who it can be.”
A few moments later the mystery is revealed when Edith walks in proudly announcing, “Miss Bowes-Lyon**, Miss.”
“Elizabeth, darling!” Lettice gasps in delight, casting her book aside. Standing up she embraces her friend who is dressed in a romantic pale pink chiffon moiré dress with a fashionable drop waist and draped in a thick fox fur stole. Elizabeth’s light scent of lily of the valley envelops her. “I didn’t know you were up at Bruton Street***. Please.” She indicates to the tub chair opposite her, which Elizabeth sinks into with a sigh as she places aside her matching pink parasol, and allows the fox fur to slink from her shoulders, snaking across the back of the chair.
“I’m up from Scotland just for a few days to have a fitting for Her Royal Highness’**** wedding and run a few errands before going back.”
“Oh of course!” Lettice gasps. “The wedding! I’d forgotten you were a bridesmaid.”
“Has Gerald finished your outfit for the ceremony yet?” Elizabeth asks as she withdraws a hatpin from her straw cloche decorated with silk roses and feathers and deposits the hat on the stool beside her.
“I do wish you’d let Edith take those, Elizabeth darling.” Lettice indicates to the parasol and hat.
“Oh I can’t stay for too long.” Eliabeth assures her hostess. “The fitting awaits.” She smiles sweetly, giving a brief view of her slightly crooked teeth.
“Well I hope you can stay long enough for a cup of tea,” replies Lettice. “And a biscuit or two. Yes, Gerald’s almost finished my gown. It’s oyster coloured satin, and very plain, with a drop waist and pearl buttons down the back. In fact, the only real decoration it will have will be the lace collar.”
“Sounds wonderful.” acknowledges Elizabeth. “When I get married, I only want a simple wedding dress. I saw the photos of Margot’s wedding dress in Vogue. Gerald must have clients pounding at his door now.”
“Yes,” Lettice remarks. “I said it would be the making of him, and so far, I’ve been proven correct. I’m so happy for him. Goodness knows he could do with some luck after all the hard work he has put in to setting up his business. Now, thinking of frock fittings and weddings, how does Her Royal Highness’ gown look.”
Elizabeth taps her nose in a knowing way, replying, “I’m sorry darling, but I’m not allowed to say.” She smiles apologetically.
“Oh! Of course! How foolish of me! I was forgetting that it’s a secret. Yours too, I should imagine?” Elizabeth nods discreetly. “Never mind. I’ll be happy enough to be surprised on the big day.”
“Have you settled on a hat yet?”
“Ahh, now there I really am in a quandary.” Lettice remarks.
Edith appears and walks across the threshold of the drawing room from the flat’s dining room carrying Lettice’s silvery tray from Asprey’s****** on which sits her Art Deco tea service with cups for two and a small plate of rather delicious looking biscuits. She carefully places the items on the black japanned coffee table between the two friends before dropping a bob curtsey and retreating through the green baize door on the far side of the dining room.
“Quandary?” Elizabeth asks. “I thought you were getting Madame Gwendolyn to make you a hat.”
“Yes. I mean, I know Madame Gwendolyn has made me some wonderful hats in the past.” She pauses.
“I sense a but,”
“But I wasn’t happy with what she made me for Royal Ascot*******. I think it looked dowdy and old fashioned.”
“Oh, I thought it looked lovely.”
“Thank you, Elizabeth darling, bless you.” She reaches out a hand and squeezes Elizabeth’s elegant, yet rather cold hand. “But ‘The Times’ agrees with me in their critique of the fashions last year, and it wasn’t exactly the roaring success I’d hoped for, or paid for, for that matter.” Lettice takes up the pot and pours hot tea into Elizabeth’s cup, passing it to her friend, before filling her own. “So, I’m going to see Gwendolyn next week, but I must confess I’ve seen hats I’d prefer to wear in Selfridges’ windows along the way.”
“Selfridges? You can’t be serious Lettice!” Elizabeth puts a hand to her throat and clasps the collar length string of pearls she wears. “Wear a shop girl’s hat to a royal wedding?”
“Well why not? No-one would know, except perhaps you and I. Besides, not all of Mr. Selfridges hats are shop girl material. He has some beautiful models, directly from Paris, and exclusive to his store. They are a fraction of the price, and are every bit as fashionable and well made as anything Madame Gwendolyn can produce.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind, Lettice.” Elizabeth picks up a pink macaron off the plate and pops it delicately into her little round mouth, her eyes closing with delight as it starts melting on her tongue.
“Divine aren’t they?” Lettice asks. “My last client, Miss Ward put me onto the most fabulous little baker in Pilmico.”
“She’s the moving picture star, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Anyway, I haven’t dismissed Madame Gewndolyn – yet. However, I have misgivings.”
“Well, I have misgivings too.” Elizabeth adds, her eyelashes trembling with a sudden concern as fear clouds her beautiful blue eyes. “I actually came to see you yesterday, but Edith told me you were still away.”
“Oh yes, I’d gone down with Gerald to stay at Dickie and Margot’s new house in Cornwall.” She pauses and ponders for a moment. “But you didn’t leave a calling card, and Edith didn’t tell me you’d called.”
“Oh, don’t be cross with her. I asked her not to say anything as I was still in town for a few days and knew I’d catch you between engagements. So, what’s the house like? You’re going to decorate a few of the rooms, aren’t you?”
“It’s quite lovely – larger than either Gerald or I expected – about ten bedrooms, and yes I am, but pooh to all of that right now. What misgivings? You can’t be having misgivings about being the Princess’ bridesmaid now, surely? Not after all the fittings and rehearsals and such.”
“Oh no, it isn’t that. No, I’m very happy to be her bridesmaid. No, it’s Bertie******** who concerns me.”
“Oh!” Lettice picks up a chocolate macaron from the plate and pops it onto her saucer where it nestles against the rounded bottom of the cup. “Of course he’ll be there.”
“He seems undaunted by my last refusal. Queen Mary visited Mummy just before Christmas.”
“Did she take any of the Glamis china collection*********?”
“Thankfully no, but Mummy told me that the Queen is quite convinced that I’m the only woman who will make Bertie happy, and that he’s refusing to consider any other marriage proposals.”
“And you think he may propose again?”
“Well, it is his sister’s wedding after all.”
“But surely he knows that you’re actively being courted by his equerry! What’s his name?”
“James. James Stewart.”
“That’s it! Well, surely His Royal Highness must know you’ve been seen with James.”
Elizabeth sighs, her elegantly plucked eyebrows arching high. “Apparently he thinks he can win me over.”
“More likely wear you down.” Lettice remarks disparagingly, taking a slip of her own tea.
“They equate to much the same thing.”
“Well?”
“Well what, Lettice darling?”
“Well, do you love him? His Royal Highness that is,” she clarifies. “Not James.”
“Oh, I do like him!” Elizabeth sighs, lowering her teacup into her lap, her shoulders rising and then slumping again as she looks away shyly, a blush filling her creamy cheeks. “He’s dashing, and sweet. I don’t even mind his stutter, which I find quite endearing.”
“Now it’s my turn to sense a but, Elizabeth. Come on! Spit it out.”
“Well, you know my misgivings about public life. I have my own definite thoughts and ideas. To never be allowed to express them again, to not be able to think or speak freely or act as I feel I really ought to,” Elizabeth sighs again. “Well, its intolerable really.”
“Yes, I can understand that. I think Mamma would be happier if I didn’t express my opinions or ideas, never mind act as I see fit. You are coming to the Hunt Ball, aren’t you?”
“Yes of course, Lettice darling. I’ll even dance with Jonty Hastings to save your feet from too much butchery.”
“Thank you. Well, the Prince isn’t really a significant royal. I mean he’s only the Duke of York, not the Prince of Wales, so he’ll never be the King.”
“King George was once the Duke of York, Lettice.”
“Times were different then, Elizabeth. Once the Prince of Wales settles down,”
“If he ever settles down. He shows no signs of it, Lettice, cavorting with other men’s wives. He’s shameless the way he flouts them.”
“Yes, I’ve seen him with Mrs. Dudley Ward********** at the Embassy Club on more than a few occasions at His Highness’ table. Well, he’ll have to settle down, eventually. And once he does, and has children, why you and the Prince would be even further from the line of succession.”
“Oh I don’t know.” Elizabeth toys with the pearl clip earring at her right lobe anxiously.
“Anyway, if you’re sweet on James, why are you even considering the Prince?”
“James is talking about going to America. He’s being wooed by an oil company over there, who pays more than the Royal Household does. Could you really see me living in America?” She scrunches up her nose. “I’d stay in Scotland forever with all my cousins and never leave if I could.”
“No, I couldn’t. Canada perhaps, but not America. They’re so… so…”
“American?” Elizabeth proffers.
“American!” agrees Lettice with a chuckle. “Well, it’s up to you. Just because he’s the Prince, doesn’t mean you have to say yes, Elizabeth. If you have misgivings, just refuse him.” She pauses for a moment and sips her tea again before continuing, “Although refusing a marriage proposal from a prince, however minor, isn’t quite as flippant as refusing a hat from Madame Gwendolyn.”
“Oh I don’t know,” Elizabeth chuckles, picking up another macaron. “Madame Gwendolyn can be quite fierce from what I know of her, not to mention she’s Lady Sadie’s milliner too. Refusing Madame would be tantamount to committing mutiny, wouldn’t it?”
*Georgette Heyer was an English novelist and short-story writer, in both the regency romance and detective fiction genres. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel, ‘The Black Moth’.
**Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as she was known in 1922 went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to"
***Number 17. Bruton Street was the London residence of the Earl of Strathmore and Kingholme (Elizabeth’s father), and was where she resided when in the capital prior to her marriage.
*****Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (1897 – 1965), was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the sister of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. She married Viscount Lascelles on the 28th of February 1922 in a ceremony held at Westminster Abbey. The bride was only 24 years old, whilst the groom was 39. There is much conjecture that the marriage was an unhappy one, but their children dispute this and say it was a very happy marriage based upon mutual respect. The wedding was filmed by Pathé News and was the first royal wedding to be featured in fashion magazines, including Vogue.
******Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.
*******Royal Ascot Week is the major social calendar event held in June every year at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is attended every year by the reigning British monarch and members of the Royal Family. The event is grand and showy, with men in grey morning dress and silk toppers and ladies in their best summer frocks and most elaborate hats.
********Prince Albert, Duke of York, known by the diminutive “Bertie” to the family and close friends, was the second son of George V. Not only did Bertie propose to Elizabeth in 1921, but also in March 1922 after she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Albert’s sister, Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles. Elizabeth refused him a second time, yet undaunted Bertie pursued the girl who had stolen his heart. Finally, in January 1923 she agreed to marry him in spite of her misgivings about royal life.
*********Queen Mary, wife of King George V was an avid collector of bibelots (small decorative ornaments) and decorative arts. She was also responsible for being the first member of the Royal Family to ever do an inventory of the Royal Collections, finding many items had been “borrowed” by the great families of England over the centuries to decorate their own homes. During her husband’s reign, she recovered a vast majority of these pilfered items, returning them to the Royal Collections. For this reason, she was feared when she came to visit, along with her voracious acquisition of other people’s bibelots. She was known to remark on something pretty and then expect that it would be gifted to her as the wife of the sovereign.
**********Winifred May, Marquesa de Casa Maury (née Birkin) (1894 – 1983), universally known by her first married name as Freda Dudley Ward, was an English socialite best known for being a married paramour of the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VIII, between 1918 and 1929. Known by him by the diminutive “Freddie”, she was supplanted in the Prince’s affections by Lady Thelma Furness, who in turn was supplanted by Mrs. Simpson.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures including items from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The cream straw cloche hat sitting on the Chippendale stool is decorated with pink roses has single stands of ostrich feathers adorning it. The latter have been hand curled. The maker for this hat is unknown, but it is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable.
The furled umbrella is a 1:12 artisan piece made of pink satin and lace with a tiny pink bow. It has a hooked metal handle.
You can just see draped across the chair on the right, Elizabeth’s fox fur stole. It is, in actuality, a mink tail attached to one of my vintage fur tippets. It is just the right size to be a thick fur stole that could have been worn by the future Queen Elizabeth, who loved furs.
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The strawberry and chocolate macarons are also artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. He has a dizzying array of realistic looking food and meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand. The green tinted glass comport on the coffee table , spun from real glass, is also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.
In front of the telephone sit two paperback novels from the late 1910s created by miniature British artisan, Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these books miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The Vogue magazine from 1922 sitting on the lower tray of the black japanned occasional table was made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.
The vase of yellow lilies and roses on the Art Deco occasional table is beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium, whilst the taller vase of flowers to the right of the photo was made by Falcon Miniatures, who are renown for the realism and detail in their miniatures.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The black japanned wooden chair is a Chippendale design and has been upholstered with modern and stylish Art Deco fabric. The mirror backed back japanned china cabinet is Chippendale too. On its glass shelves sit pieces of miniature Limoges porcelain including jugs, teacups and saucers, many of which I have had since I was a child.
To the left of the Chippendale chair stands a blanc de chine Chinese porcelain vase, and next to it, a Chinese screen. The Chinese folding screen I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug. The geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Validation, by those in the ministry and in the laity, of the experiences of Abba Ammonas and the members of his monastic network concretized and centralized discernment, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the cultivation of received spiritual gifts in a way that extended baptismal belief in the hope and promise of new life in the resurrection. Because these spiritual fathers and mothers had experienced subsequent, postbaptismal, graces they attested to the continual presence of the Holy Spirit as teacher and as guide in the life of the individual Christian. In the midst of the clerical and doctrinal formalization of the late fourth century, these monks upheld the experience on which such formalization rested. 65 As a result, they lived a theology akin to what Vladimir Lossky defines as a trinitarian theology, “a theology of union, a mystical theology which appeals to experience, and which presupposes a continuous and progressive series of changes in created nature, a more and more intimate communion of the human person with the Holy Trinity.” 66 By legitimating Abba Ammonas’ witness as an experience of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Serapion of Thmuis honored the role of discernment and its manifestation in the life of the local church community. The evidence of these relations between the ministry of the bishop and the stewardship of the monk, with the gift and exercise of discernment at its core, would have contributed to the expansion of Christianity in late antiquity.
As Norman Russell writes: This development had theological repercussions. An intellectualist idea of faith came to be replaced by one that was more “institutionalized,” the emphasis shifting from knowing God through the contemplation of the timeless cosmic order to encountering him through his historical revelation in Jesus Christ. The new emphasis was accompanied by a suspicion of intellectuals, a focusing more on the shared experience of the community. The first abbas, with their teaching on self-knowledge and spiritual ascent hearkened back to an earlier world. From the episcopal point of view it was important that the abbas’ authority and prestige should be harnessed to the ecclesiastical needs of the new era and that whatever seemed incompatible with those needs should be eliminated.
-Useful servanthood: a study of spiritual formation in the writings of Abba Ammonas / Bernadette McNary-Zak;
I like this new paint app I used here to transform a photo I took of my red Buddha statue.
“The color red transforms the delusion of attachment into the wisdom of discernment.”
THANK YOU FOR YOUR VIEWS, COMMENTS, FAVES AND INVITES!
I APPRECIATE IT!
In 1887, following a much publicized period of discernment and debate concerning moving the congregation away from Shelton Square, Mrs. Trueman G. Avery, a faithful member of the congregation who lived at the site now occupied by Kleinhans Music Hall, donated a parcel of land across the circle at the corner of Wadsworth and Pennsylvania Streets in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen G. Austin. Thus begins the story of the present edifice, designed by the renowned architectural firm of Green & Wicks. Following a well published design competition the winning design by the architectural firm of Edward Brodhead Green & William Sidney Wicks stood out from the other three finalists, it was noted for its Romanesque exterior, Byzantine-revival styled sanctuary and tall central tower that would dominate the skyline of late 19th century Buffalo through the present day.
Ground breaking took place and the first services were held in the newly built chapel on September 11, 1889, then on December 13, 1891 the first services were held in the newly constructed sanctuary. However the new building was not dedicated until after the completion of the tower on May 16, 1897
@wikipedia
Allentown Historic District NRHP #80002605
And the practice of discipleship—“ sequela Christi,” following Jesus—is precisely the traditional definition for Christian spirituality. Spirituality is not some immaterial realm pertaining to our soul but not our body, to our beliefs but not our actions. Rather, our spirituality is the comprehensive way in which we live out our faith. Spirituality moves in the field of praxis: there is no faith if there are no works (Jas 2: 17)...
...So in our spirituality it is supremely important that each of us refines the basis of our preferential option for the poor to say: I accompany them not because they are all good, or because I am all good, but because God is good. The on-going discernment necessary to see that this is a theocentric option—centered in God's love and life—is particularly suited to habits of communal and personal prayer, practices so central to Christian spirituality.
-In the Company of the Poor Conversations between Dr. Paul Farmer and Father Gustavo Gutiérrez Edited by Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block
Jay Maisel, a great conveyor of photographic widsom, once expressed his fascination with capturing moments that defied easy discernment. This sentiment resonated with me as I stumbled upon a frozen puddle on a plastic outdoor chair, as we exited a sandwich shop. I was fortunate to have my iPhone handy, allowing me capture this interesting visual abstraction.
Taken during a fair called the "Blind School Mela" in Delhi, which raises money for blind children during the festive season of Diwali. This man was one of the vendors who was selling 'chaat' at this fair.
This shot was very deliberate. When I saw him through these pre-prepared packs (in which they were serving some types of chaat), I thought it would make a great contrast to the portrait I wanted to shoot. He had to blend in perfectly as a part of the background. I waited for him to turn around and look at the camera. I knew I had only one shot because after he got conscious of the fact that he was being shot, he would start smiling - which I didn't want. As things turned out, he looked, I snapped and got what I wanted.
Delhi, India
2005
| Arjun Purkayastha • travel & fine art photography • | Facebook page |
After a long walk uphill for the Pamukkale travertine terraces , my daughter
had a dip in to cool down . I didn't , as the heat is scorching hot , I can't bear the heat
and the idea of my skin exposed and fried up for even few minutes .
Enough of the idea of catching a tan , I accept my colour and don't like
the agony. If you don't follow this silly excessive sun exposure to get the
tan , many probably would still retain and delay the aging process or look
10 yrs younger. I suppose ones genetics do play in it too .
There's less editing in this photo . The major thing I did is put the
watermark , reduced the photo to smaller size then adjusted just
a tiny bit of the levels.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<@
Proverbs 22:6
"Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<<~~~~~~~~<<~~~~~~~~~~<@
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
*Iran 6 month deal and the blood moon
*Cashless Society: Palm Scanning ATM Machines; pay with microchip implant
Time in Heaven ?
*Don Piper 90 minutes in heaven
*Ian McCormack , an atheist who was dead goes to hell, then to heaven, meets God • full testimony
*"Testimony of Heaven: Inside the Holy City" - Interview with Rev. Oden Hetrick (Official Version)
*Mary K. Baxter Describes Beauty of Heaven: Mansions, Throne of God, Babies In Heaven
I like thinking going home soon :))
*The Hagmann & Hagmann Report With Augusto Perez 11 25 2013
I find this confirming in my spirit and very interesting if you are watching the times.
I'm not all agreeing in everything said but in most of it .
There's no question for me to believe we are in the times of the birth pangs as
spoken in the Bible. The Birth pangs before the Tribulation .
As back 2011, along the series of events that woke
up in the Lord , I also heard extraordinary sounds, eerie in a way
it's so bizarre. Although before hand I was trying to convince myself
we are at the birth pangs but part of me is doubtful. Until what I believed
the Lord did to nail me by the sound. It runs 20 minutes
at approximately 02:00 , I should be sleeping at that time,
but I can't sleep , so I spent my waking time reading the Bible.
when this big truck or train sound coming from the distance, then
stayed in the air just above my house with a woman screaming in the air
as if she's birthing . I froze , not scared but get the goose bumps.
I just closed my eyes and prayed until it went away still with the birthing
sound echoing fading in the air. I didn't understand it until the Lord put it I my heart
for me to believe we are in the birth pangs time line.
The intensity and frequency of disasters will increase as we move on towards
Tribulation period, just like a woman birthing a child.
I do believe tribulation period is close, we don't know when
God may stretch the time again but we are very close.
Those who are not with the Lord should be very afraid
because if you don't have the seal of Christ -- it is scary thought.
For me I am getting excited , and keep praying bring it on Lord !!!
As time is so evil ... we don't even see it neither hear it from our
mainstream media, they hide it. But if you have discernments, you
know their fruits.
If you feel Jesus is calling you, answer the call for salvation .
Jesus is the only way . Make him your refuge !
Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/perilous-is-the-road-to-t...
Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
Christian Zhong Xin is a preacher in a house church in mainland China. He leads his brothers and sisters to investigate the true way and determines that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus</a. However, some are perplexed by the CCP government's and religious circle's mad resistance to and condemnation of The Church of Almighty God. By reading the words of Almighty God, and by listening to the fellowship of witnesses from The Church of Almighty God, they understand the root cause of mankind's defiance of God, they see clearly why the road to the kingdom of heaven is full of hardships, and they come to have discernment about the truth-hating, God-opposing essence of the CCP's satanic regime and the leaders of the religious world. At last, people such as Zhong Xin have resolutely accepted Almighty God's kingdom gospel.
Jesus is the only way the truth and the life ,who reconciles us to God.
Colossians 1 :15-20
"15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."
Our good works is nothing and of no credit if we haven't fully accepted Christ in our hearts . In fact, those good works are filthy rags by itself without Jesus in us in the sight God . Jesus's perfectness covers our iniquities and imperfections.
150K approx. people die everyday around the world. We never know if the next day, that's our final day. It's a scary thought to die without knowing for sure where we are going.
Few days ago on Valentine's day there was an accident on the same road we drove off. All in the car lost their lives. I'm not surprised, most of them regard that day as just another day for them, never thinking that's their end. Sad and tragic loose. What came to mind, had those people lived a life reconciled in Christ ? If not, it's hard to ponder ....as after death is judgement... meaning seconds after death - that's it !
I do believe their are two destinations, either to eternal glory or to damnation.
Speaking of eternal glory, I do consider other people's extraordinary experiences . Sure there are hundreds of claims out there but I have to narrow it down to just a few which I have no doubt , with some discernment are genuine. Take that of Reverend Oden Hendricks' confession of heaven , of Richard Sigmund's and few others out there who have witnessed revelations of other realms as heaven. According to witnesses , it's a huge , huge place beyond our imaginations. The Bible simply put it, we have to have child like faith to believe the word of God.
The Bible said there is a place called heaven and hell for the damned . Jesus also talked about mansions , and he is making them for us, dwelling made for each of believers.
A skeptic mind is already unbelieving, as everything believable is always based on measurable facts and of the set reality of what eyes can see.
Nowadays, what matters to me is living by the word of God. I may slip here and there as my human nature is still fallen, but
I know I have a savior.
Going back to this heaven topic, hmmn I don't mind just living in a tent along the river of life as long as I'm there :D
Imagine you can have your fav food in a speed of thought, you'll never go fat, you'll always be young like in the 20's aha, that cool ! There's no need of having toilets, as the mechanics of of gloried bodies is different than the biological "flesh and blood design" of the past. Picture it, there's no uglies in heaven, so we all be gorgeous then :) , we can shrink or increase ours heights , to what suits better, isn't it amazing ? There's super technologies there too, according to brother Elvi Zapata. We just need to have child-like faith, believing the promises of the Lord.
I'm not a pro writer or to prove I can write. But if you can put into one picture all the scattered pieces together . I'm doing it for the Kingdom of God, not gaining anybody's score of approval but of the Lord :)
Here are few people who have revelations of heaven :
My friends , be blessed and be encouraged :)
This world has nothing in it to compare to what awaits for us.
Just make sure you have the right passport to heaven, and that's Jesus , otherwise you will be refused entry.
*Ian McCormack - NDE - former atheist - near death experience
*Testimony of Heaven - Oden Hetrick
*The Millennium Kingdom and Heaven - Elvi Zapata (The Lord's Hour) Rapture Ready!
*A Place Called Heaven" by Richard Sigmund
*My Vision of Heaven - Marvin Ford (Heaven Testimony)
*100% Proof of What Happens When You Die: The Afterlife Revealed Through Near Death Experiences!!
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Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/perilous-is-the-road-to-t...
Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
Christian Zhong Xin is a preacher in a house church in mainland China. He leads his brothers and sisters to investigate the true way and determines that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus</a. However, some are perplexed by the CCP government's and religious circle's mad resistance to and condemnation of The Church of Almighty God. By reading the words of Almighty God, and by listening to the fellowship of witnesses from The Church of Almighty God, they understand the root cause of mankind's defiance of God, they see clearly why the road to the kingdom of heaven is full of hardships, and they come to have discernment about the truth-hating, God-opposing essence of the CCP's satanic regime and the leaders of the religious world. At last, people such as Zhong Xin have resolutely accepted Almighty God's kingdom gospel.
Once upon a time, and indeed, a very long time ago, there lived a tiny bird. He lived in a village surrounded by magnificent, fertile land. His presence throughout the village in which he called home, however, went entirely unnoticed. Everyday, the tiny bird woke up, and with renewed vigour set out to accomplish the sole task of trying to make the village people acknowledge him. Everyday, he failed. His tactics, though stellar, and quite unselfish, and well conceived, proved unsuccessful. The tiny bird never gave up though. Tomorrow was another opportunity to fulfill his quest.
Despite his insignificance, the tiny bird lived a validated life, and thus, happily, with much fulfillment amongst the village people. He loved them so.
The tiny bird resided in a particularly tall tree that towered high above the rooftops and from a small hollow, he could while away the hours of the day and watch with very keen interest, and growing admiration, the comings, and goings on of the bustling village.
There was always a flurry of activity down below. As time passed, the tiny bird was able to decipher different families, and learn their individual idiosyncrasies. He knew who belonged to who. He saw their routines, and could predict with accuracy the events that would unfold every day.
The regime began in the early hours of the morning.
The men, having had their fill of hot porridge and tea, would leave the sleepy village and with quiet stealth head for the fields.
Every night they would return, tired and bedraggled from the days labour. They jostled, and laughed with each other as they made their way back home, anticipating, with great eagerness, the satisfying meal that would be waiting for them.
The tiny bird watched as the women folk would gather in the courtyard every morning. They would trade their abundance of wares with each other. One woman baked pies; another bread; another bartered her exquisite quilts. Friendly, and polite conversation ensued as the women quickly negotiated. It was a finely tuned, orchestrated event, and the tiny bird marvelled at the speed in which it took place. Time was valuable, and there was much to do back at home before the men returned.
Everyone had a role in the community - even the children. They too, had expectations to fulfill in this wonderfully scripted performance. Daily chores included milking of the cows, and goats, gathering of eggs, sweeping, and collecting wood for the fire that would eventually greet their fathers home. After the chores were completed the children did what children do - they played.
The tiny bird took immense pleasure as a spectator during this time of the day. He sat high up in the tree, watching the noisy, liberated joy, and the camaraderie the children shared with each other. It was the best time of the day.
Everyone participated - except one. Her name was Maggie. He could not figure out why, but the children treated her differently, or rather, ignored her. She did not take part in the games. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The children neglected to include her and every time she made motions to join in, they rejected her. Consequently, Maggie would sit in quiet resignation, and watch with longing as her peers frolicked about.
It tore the tiny bird apart to see the same scenario replay everyday. It caused him much anguish as he witnessed the injustice that the children administered, and with such callous, flippant disregard. He could not understand how this could happen in his happy, perfect village. He grew to love Maggie and watched her in silent fellowship.
It was very early one morning when the tiny bird woke up. He recognized that he was losing the joy in his life, and that the reasons for getting up in the morning were slowly diminishing. Nevertheless, he was at a loss as to what he could do to make a difference in Maggie’s life. The tiny bird was tiny but he had great wisdom and discernment. He knew that he could not continue living with so much anger and resentment towards the children. They were foolish and ignorant as to the pain they inflicted on one of their very own. He looked down at his beloved village. It was so quiet. He watched as the smoke from every chimney silently curled upward, then merge, dancing as one ethereal plume and drift off into the early morn.
It did not take very much longer for the sleeping villagers to finish the last of their dreams, and as the sun heralded another day the village awoke. With purpose, the villager’s routine began to unfold.
The men left. The women attended to their trades. The children finished their chores, and began to congregate. One by one, they emerged from their homes, and filled the village square with much anticipation, and enthusiasm.
Maggie appeared. The tiny bird watched her, as she, like a hundred times before, tried to engage with the children in their playtime. Again, they snubbed her.
Downcast, Maggie walked away and leaned against a fence post, and once again, resumed her position as spectator.
The tiny bird was incensed. Enough was enough! He flew from the hollow in the tree. Like an angry lightening bolt, and with the same intent to inflict, he dove down into the children.
Up and down he pelted his rage upon them. Over and over he dove. However, it was to no avail! The children did not see him - after-all, he was just a tiny bird.
Utterly depleted, the tiny bird flew over to the fence post where Maggie stood alone. He looked at her. To his disbelief, Maggie looked back at him, and for the very first time, he knew that she could see him!
She clapped her hands in glee. The tiny bird was smitten. He was so elated that he took a deep breathe and puffed up his chest as much as he could. He opened his tiny beak and to his utter dismay the sweetest song came belting out from deep within the depths of his tiny heart. He could not believe it! His very first song! Oh such joy! Maggie stood, with wonder, and delight, as she watched the tiny bird sing - just for her.
In time, the tiny bird recognized that he could not make the village children accountable, nor could he change them. He knew in their ignorance they did not have the eyes to see, the ears to hear or possess hearts with the capacity for unconditional love.
Perhaps, one day, that would change…
So it was - everyday, as morning broke across the horizon, the tiny bird would rise up from the safety of his hollow, and perch himself on a tree just outside of Maggie’s bedroom window. He would puff up his tiny chest with as much tenacity as he could muster, and sing his tiny song to Maggie, and he did that, for the rest of his tiny life.
Dear Mr Christian
It's easy to get carried away to speak a message and I do in the post . Being a Christian I speak of my faith in Christ but I DON'T PUSH IT ON PEOPLE'S THROAT through posting pages of christian message on other people's comment boxes. Taking over someone's comment box is a disrespecful act . Is there any other way of doing it better ?
My faith is very personal , expressed only on my flickr channel or on Christian groups that allows exchange of ideas and freedom of expression.
Although you might be on fire to proclaim Biblical ideas, but don't allow yourself be blindly empowered by mere
self- pride and ego, bypassing boundaries of respect on other people's streams . There might be another way to put your fiery ideas across, as the spirit leads you to. Let friendship , love and meekness abound , with the power of prayers to draw people to the Lord if that's impressed in your heart. Let's not forget God works in mysteriously wonderful ways.
Not the least, finding a more gentle friendly way to do so.It warrants Godly wisdom to do God's work.
IF YOU ARE NEW PASSER BY AND SUDDENLY POSTING PAGES OF THOSE VERY LONG BIBLICAL MESSAGE, THAT WILL SURELY CATCH ME BY SURPRISE. AS THAT'S NOT THE NORM HERE. IF I don't know you and you suddenly appear with it, taking over the comment box of 10,000 essay words / message, it's kinda strange. Try to put yourself on other person's shoe.
I SUSPECT YOU MUST HAVE BEEN AWARE OF ME AS YOU ARE POSTING VERY LONG CHRISTIAN MESSAGES ON MY CONTACTS' COMMENT BOXES, EVEN TO THE NON-BELIEVERS with some with subjects relating to my previous topics. I wonder if that was by mere coincidence . Or was it craftily designed, so when I passed by my followings , I can read your long message. I wonder your messages to a non believer wasn't the basic gospel of salvation to Christ. But rather on topics probably for a non-christian to hardly understand , unless having the basic foundation of the gospel of Christ salvation it can be confusing.
If you happen to come by my post, PLEASE PAY RESPECT, ACT WITH LOVE, SEASONED WITH GENTLENESS WITH CARE AND DISCERNMENT ( Colossians 3:12 ).
IF YOU HAPPEN TO COMMENT ON MY POST , HIGHJACKING IT WITH VERY LONG PAGE OR PAGES OF COMMENTS ( THOUGH OF UNDERLYING CHRISTIAN MESSAGE ) TO ME IS STILL FAR TOO MUCH AND SIMILAR TO GATE CRASHING MY POST. I DO HAVE SOME "HOUSE- RULES " here in flickr. Please , take notice and be mindful.
YOU CAN BADLY CRITICIZE MY PERSONAL OPINION AGAINST YOUR ACTIONS. BUT LET GOD BE THE FINAL JUDGE. WE NEED TO DISCERN OTHER PEOPLE'S SENSITIVITY WITH CARE. YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF MY SENSITIVITY TOO . HIGHJACKING SOMEONE'S POST IS BAD BEHAVIOR.
Let the HOLY SPIRIT do the main work, he will convict people if by the will of GOD. It doesn't need pages and pages of pastoral messages shoving them on people's throat . One sentence or just one verse, if God use it to convict someone, it will do the work.
IF YOU PUSH YOUR MANY PAGES OF COMMENTS ON MY POST, I APOLOGIZE, I WILL VIEW IT STRANGELY AS STIRRING UP .
PLEASE , DON'T LET ME STUMBLE INTO SIN BY YOUR UNPLEASANT BEHAVIOR WHICH COULD TEMPT ME TO LABEL YOU HAVING UNCHRISTIAN SELF RIGHTEOUS PRIDE. THAT'S VERY MUCH OF LITERAL PRIDE ITSELF , AND THAT'S A FOUL SPIRIT, IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL IN DISCERNING.
If you have Godly love, please have patience and respect.
2 Corithians 13:4 " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. "
Philippians 2:3
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves."
Galatians 5:14
"For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
So if others value respect , please pay attention of others wishes all done under the banner of Godly love and praying for people.
DON'T GATE-CRASH and HIGHJACK others people's
photo streams with your long messages . Wait for God's timing and be of patience. Don't create increased animosity against Christians here in flickr.
AS MUCH AS I RESPECT PEOPLE'S COMMENTS , ANY POSSIBLE GATE-CRASHING / HIGHJACKING COMMENT OF SUCH NATURE FROM YOU, I WILL BE APOLOGETIC, THAT IT'S LIKELY PUTTING ME TO A CHALLENGE TO DELETE IT WITHOUT EVEN INFORMING YOU , GIVING ME A BAD HEART , BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE WISHED NOT TO IF ONLY BEING DONE NICELY/ RESPECTFULLY, AND ABIDING MY WISHES , ANYHOW, I WILL DO IT.
Dear Christian, THIS IS SIMPLY A WARNING WITH LOVE IF YOU HAPPEN TO PASS BY THIS POST .
I am aware the devil have been using also the Bible too and do the same- like rhetorics as Christians do, yet on intentions to dismantle other Christians by making them fall into sin and to destroy and humiliate them. Wolf in sheep's clothing , I hope you are not one.
SHOW RATHER HUMILITY , PATIENCE , CONSIDERATION TO OTHERS WITH THE LOVE OF CHRIST , THAT WILL DRAW THEM TO GOD, RATHER THAN RUN AWAY . THAT I WOULD KNOW FOR A SIGN YOU ARE A MAN OF THE MOST HOLY GOD.
I'LL SAY IT OVER AGAIN:
ACT NICELY, WITH GENTLENESS, MEEKNESS, WITH GODLY LOVE AND RESPECT, and consider individual differences and please take off that hat of self pride - that's from the devil, if yet you're not aware it's resting over your head .
Love in Christ
Elane
Here's one message from a brother in Christ :
lousy photo but wanted to document the day the sandhill cranes flew overhead - would have missed them had I not hear their strange call
Justices, longevity, feminine energies, gives proper focus in all endeavors. Crane shows you the wonder of creation through dancing, music, inner and outer beauty of the self and the world. Opportunities for social settings and activities that are done in large groups may appear. Groups may provide inspiration, creativity and mental/emotional support. Crane shows how to vocalize and express oneself eloquently. Crane shows truths and aids in personal discernment. He will show how to watch over and protect others by relying on your intuitional senses. A diet change may be needed. Are you eating a balanced diet? Crane shows the art of body language and how important of a role it plays in communication. Watch and listen. Be aware of what others are doing and not saying. He will help you examine your close relationships in order to create bonds or finally break them. It may 2 or 3 years for Crane's lessons, including relationships, to be fully mature.
I remember sneaking off to a Taco Bell on Buford Highway or a to the Dairy Queen over in Tucker to deep dive into this classic by Saint Louis de Montfort. It triggered all my anti-Marian bias, but as I read it alongside Newman's Mary, The Second Eve, I was able to keep pace. By the time I finished both books I was decidedly Marian in my beliefs. It would take me a couple more years to better understand beliefs like the Immaculate Conception, but i was well on my way. At this time I was still attending a Methodist Church and a fellow at a nearby Cokesbury store used to jokingly call me the Marian Methodist. In less than three years I would finally be confirmed. What amazing days those were.
Let's Consult the Architect
by Charles R. Swindoll
"One of the most beautiful blueprints ever designed has been God’s plan for marriage. Established before there was any sin in the world, marriage illustrates God’s perfect design for relationships.
Let’s consult the architect for three ways to live in this wonderful establishment called marriage. We’ll use Proverbs 24:3-4 as our home base:
By wisdom a house is built,
And by understanding it is established;
And by knowledge the rooms are filled
With all precious and pleasant riches.
God’s pattern for marriage is simple: wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.
“By wisdom a house is built . . .”
First, let’s lay the foundation. The word built comes from the Hebrew word that means “to restore.” It’s the same word God uses when He took the rib from Adam’s chest and rebuilt it into a woman. God says it takes wisdom to build this kind of house. Wisdom essentially means “seeing with discernment.” It’s the idea of seeing the broad picture of something. When you choose to look at the broad picture rather than the petty details, you build a strong foundation.
“By understanding a house is established . . .”
Established in Hebrew means to set in order something that is cluttered or to stand upright something that has fallen. If wisdom is seeing with discernment, then this second piece is responding to what you see with insight. How can you do that? With understanding.
In other words, an irritation I would normally take personally, I don’t take personally any longer. A conflict that cuts into my plan will not irritate me if I have wisdom and understanding. I will see it as God sees it, as good or necessary for me at this time.
“By knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.”
Knowledge implies “perception” here. It carries with it a sympathy that comes with learning. As I grow in knowledge of my wife, I increase in my perception of her. I say with my actions: I am listening. I am learning. I am open. Knowledge, when it’s combined with wisdom and understanding, Proverbs says, fills your home with precious and pleasant riches. What does that mean? It means your relationship will be filled with the things that won’t burn up if a fire strikes.
Man has turned it the other way! So many are mesmerized into thinking, “All we need, Honey, are more things.” But misery just increases as our rooms remain empty of God’s riches. God says, “By wisdom it can be restored. By understanding it can be set right. By knowledge those rooms can have those qualities that’ll never burn up.”
Now, before you pass this article on to your spouse with the instructions, “Here, Honey, read how you should change,” remember the place to start remodeling your marriage is with you. I have found that someone can be fulfilled in the most difficult circumstances if he has wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, or is working toward that end. But I have also found individuals who have a built-in, perfect opportunity for a happy home but lack wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and they’re miserable. It’s remarkable. Ask the Architect to build within you a heart of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding for your mate."
***Have a Beautiful Weekend! Hope your weather is gorgeous! We are certainly enjoying ours before the humidity hits! Keep on clickin' my very talented friends!
(Published in Photo Technique, Spring 2013)
If you're reading this as an active photographer, just what is it that captivates you about a particular scene and causes you to depress that shutter button? How do you then manifest and convey your message to the future viewer?
As a newly contributing photographer/author at landscapephotographymagazine.com/, this is something I've been musing over recently in the freshly created blog section - which is a subscription free area. If interested, you can read some of my thoughts on the subject at landscapephotographymagazine.com/2011/why-take-that-shot/. I'll spare you a word by word repetition here, but suffice to say I find myself rejecting far more potential images these days purely down to what is (I hope!) an increasing sense of discernment. Please note this doesn't necessarily mean I'm producing better final shots, but I do believe it leads me to take fewer mediocre and downright bad ones...
Remember the days when you first started out with your shiny new camera, how you could seemingly turn full cirlcle and fire off an image to all points of the compass? Admittedly I'm exaggerating a little here, but hopefully you too have found your photographic approach has slowed - at least in terms of that memory card filling at a rate of knots! The trade off for me, and many of you too I'm sure, is I now give much more consideration to precisely what it is I seek to commit to and draw from each image. This I think is where today's generation of digital photographers are perhaps at a disadvantage in learning the disciplines of photography. Before digital, film was a commodity that caused people to slow down - if only because there was an inherent financial cost (it doesn't matter how small - it's a psychological factor) to each exposed negative. People cut their teeth on film, and then embraced digital partly because, well, partly because we all like new toys... Today, the perception is that each click of the button is essentially free, hence it's all too easy to run amok like frenzied paparazzi at a premiere - finger permanently twitching! Now I'm not suggesting there isn't a pay-off in omitting the trials and tribulations of film altogether, far from it. There are many advantages, the most significant being it's much easier with digital to learn from your mistakes there and then on the spot.
Eventually, no matter what your platform, and if you care about your art and have a level of passion you arrive at an interesting stage - which brings me back to the questions I raised at the beginning.
One of the greatest satisfactions I draw from an image is having someone else view it, and that person being able to instantly identify why I shot it. This might be a profusion of line, a repetition of pattern, a certain perspective or symmetry, a quality of light or something more subtle altogether. Nuances, if you like. Can you guess what drew me to the scene above I wonder, or did I unfairly taint your perception with my title..?
On an unrelated note, I'm really excited to have my 'Teignmouth Speed' shot (elsewhere on my photostream) shortlisted - somewhere in the final 28 of this year's landscape section of www.photoradar.com/photographer-of-the-year. Please wish me luck!
I ask You neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that You may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for Your glory… You alone know what is expedient for me; You are the sovereign master, do with me according to Your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to Yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow You, and bad to offend You. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of Your providence, which I adore, but so not seek to fathom. - Blaise Pascal
William James Glackens (Philadelphia, March 13, 1870 - Westport, May 22, 1938) - anemones and oranges (1929-30) oil on canvas - SDMA San Diego Museum of Art
Glackens fu uno del "Gruppo degli otto" (The Eight), i fondatori della Ash Can School, movimento di pittura realistica (spesso confuso con il "gruppo degli otto" (The Eights) fondato da Robert Henri). Si interessò molto all'impressionismo, subendone palesemente l'influenza, e trascorse molto tempo in Europa. La sua conoscenza della pittura e il suo acuto discernimento fece di lui uno dei consiglieri influenti di Albert C. Barnes, per la sua collezione di quadri.
Glackens was one of the "Group of Eight" (The Eight), the founders of the Ash Can School, a realist painting movement (often confused with the "Group of Eight" (The Eights) founded by Robert Henri). He was very interested in Impressionism, clearly influenced by it, and spent much time in Europe. His knowledge of painting and keen discernment made him one of Albert C. Barnes' influential advisors on his collection of paintings.
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“Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.” – Stephen R. Covey
Finding a large enough stick always seems to help get one’s life balanced, and if not it can make a big splash.
I forgot that we entered the church during a Sunday service in April 2019 but obviously could not take photographs of the interior.
Notre Dame de Chicago was built from 1889 to 1892 at 1334 W. Flournoy St., replacing an earlier church constructed in 1865 at a different site. French Canadian architect Gregoire Vigeant designed the church in the Romanesque Revival style; its heavy French influence can be seen in its Greek cross layout, hipped roofs and square domes, and height suggested by its two cupolas and its lantern. Because of the declining size of its original French congregation, the Archdiocese of Chicago gave control of the church to the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament in 1918.
From 1994 to 2006, the rectory of the church housed Casa Jesus, a house of formation and discernment for Hispanic seminarians in the Archdiocese of Chicago. In July 2019, the parish merged with Holy Family Church as part of the Chicago Archdiocese's reconfiguration plan. A pastor for the new parish – Our Lady of the Holy Family – says Masses in both locations but is based in Notre Dame, with Holy Family available for special events and weddings.
oil painting on canvas panel; 5x7"; SOLD
Cheerful, bird of truth, mind mysteries, joy, heals/balances/opens perceptions, teaches about voicing impressions and expressions. Titmouse teaches to use our voice and the immense power of small things and with small ideas. Titmouse teaches courage and empowerment along with being bold with discernment. A natural curiosity awakens your senses and surroundings. Pay attention to social settings. He teaches the art of flexibility. Incubation for development is 6-8 weeks time. Are you sharing your thoughts and opinions right now? Titmouse can show how to express ideals with timing.
Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/perilous-is-the-road-to-t...
Follow God by the Way of the Cross | Gospel Movie "Perilous Is the Road to the Heavenly Kingdom"
Christian Zhong Xin is a preacher in a house church in mainland China. He leads his brothers and sisters to investigate the true way and determines that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus</a. However, some are perplexed by the CCP government's and religious circle's mad resistance to and condemnation of The Church of Almighty God. By reading the words of Almighty God, and by listening to the fellowship of witnesses from The Church of Almighty God, they understand the root cause of mankind's defiance of God, they see clearly why the road to the kingdom of heaven is full of hardships, and they come to have discernment about the truth-hating, God-opposing essence of the CCP's satanic regime and the leaders of the religious world. At last, people such as Zhong Xin have resolutely accepted Almighty God's kingdom gospel.
I realize that some people cannot stand the Light and the Heat....in my Eyes.......and they must disable comments.......but I love them anyway. 💞
I have come to realize......
Nobilities, indecencies, heroic impulses, cowardly ravings, good and bad, white and black — the mystery of mysteries, the central island of nescience in a sea of science, the dark spot in the lighted room of knowledge, the unknown quantity, the X in the universal problem.
Dr. Frank Crane
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.
~ Stephen R. Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)
Beautiful view of the river while on board a "floating restaurant".
Loboc River, Bohol, Philippines
Next day, on 12th of October, in the morning we visited Hemis Monastery again for a detailed study. This time I photographed many of the mural paintings and some fine wooden works inside the monastery. Many of the paintings reflected an unique mixing of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.
Aun sigo pensando en un titulo para esta foto,...
En fin, hoy fue un muy buen dia!(60F/15C en Enero! yuppi!) Disfrute mucho el sermon que predico el pastor Otto sobre Filipenses en la iglesia y siento que Dios me animo por medio de su Palabra a amar mas a mis hermanos y no fijarme en si ellos me están amando o no. Y al contrario orar para que podamos amar con discernimiento,conocimiento y con el concepto que Dios tiene de lo que es verdaderamente amar. Ademasssss de unos cambios en la musica (BATERIA!<3) y de poder ver a mis hermanos&hermanas en Cristo:). Despues tuvimos a unos nuevo amigos para comer y conocernos mejor. Me animaron mucho a seguir adelante cuando vieron mis pinturas y fotos y eso obviamente me animo mucho asi que de ahi, Dan & yo nos fuimos en un mini-viaje por la carretera siguiendo el atardecer:)! y esta fue una de las fotos que conseguí, taran!
El Fin:P
Twitter___________
I'm still thinking for a title for this photo...
Anyway, today was a really good day!(60F on January!!!wohoo!) I really enjoyed listening the sermon that Pastor Otto preached about Philippians & i feel like God encourage me through His Word to love my brothers&sisters more & to not put attention if they are loving me or not. On the contrary, to pray so that we can love with discernment, knowledge and the concept that God has of what truly love is. AND also....i really enjoyed the changes that we had in our worship music (DRUMS!<3) & to be able to see my brothers&sisters in Christ.:) After that we had a couple new friends over for lunch and we were able to get to know each other a little bit better. They encourage me a lot to keep going with photography & painting when the saw my art. And obviously that encourage me even more. So then, Dan & i took a mini-trip on the highway following the sunset! And this is one of the photos i got. :)
The End:P
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**If you are interested on getting a PRINTS and other things go to the link below:)
fineartamerica.com/featured/through-the-sunset-mariana-wa...
"Everyone needs a place to rest, a time to rejuvenate and restore your soul. A soul without rest is vulnerable to doubt, disease, and dread. Without soul care, you risk being ineffective for the long term. So, allow your soul to catch up with your activity through rest. A restless soul loses hope and perspective.
Stop right now and take an audit of your soul. Is it strung out and anxious? If so, rearrange your schedule for rest before it rearranges you. A non-restful pace is unsustainable, and a restful place is necessary to persevere. Do not fall for the false feeling that activity somehow equals progress or success. Without rest, you are going nowhere fast. If you intensify the pace, you are going nowhere, faster.
Rest allows you to re-calibrate your priorities and replenish your cistern of creativity. Your work rhythms may require a day with no scheduled appointments. Indeed, each resting place looks different, depending on your need. For example, your resting place may be the quiet screened porch, where you relax with a cup of coffee and a good book.
For someone else, a resting place may be a comfortable couch, where they nap to the steady beat of raindrops pelting the rooftop. It can be the park where you walk with your best friend, a secluded drive in the countryside, or an adventurous exploration of the great Pacific Northwest. Whether your resting place is the beach, the mountains, or in front of a good movie, make time to engage with it. God speaks to you in your place of rest. This is one of His favorite spots to shape your soul.
Furthermore, your resting place allows you to resist temptation. Fatigue causes you to stumble and fall through life. If you are working through exhaustion, you may be missing God. A lethargic life struggles to listen to God, and a heart worn down from weariness has a hard time hearing His voice. A depleted spirit is not primed for discernment, and decision-making during duress can be dreadful.
Therefore, go away to a resting place. Find God and find yourself under the canopy of His creation. A resting place is your protection from yourself, from evil influences, and from lost perspective. Above all else, your resting place reveals God in a refreshing way. His program takes on a new priority in His place of rest. Your confidence is resurrected. Your trust takes on a new level of intensity. Your patience leads to a deeper understanding of what it means to wait on the God.
A resting place is for your sake and His. It is necessary to experience God’s very best for you and your family. Discover your resting place in prayer, and go there often. Repentance follows rest, and robust relationships result from rest. Your best and most creative ideas emerge from relaxed meditation on God. Wisdom resides in rest."
“God will speak to this people, to whom He said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest” Isaiah 28:11 b
(from Wisdom Hunters by Boyd Bailey, )
Hope your weekend is filled with "fun and rest" and "rest in your fun", my very talented friends! Enjoy Him, cause' He sure enjoys YOU! : )
Photoshopped. Canvas textured.
Next day, on 12th of October, in the morning we visited Hemis Monastery again for a detailed study. This time I photographed many of the mural paintings and some fine wooden works inside the monastery. Many of the paintings reflected an unique mixing of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.
Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.
Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).
Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).
Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).
History
Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.
In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.
In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.
Hemis Festival
The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.
The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.
The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.
Source: Wikipedia and others.
Having grown up in the South (southern United States), it took a southern writer like Flannery O'Connor to peel the scales from my eyes. She showed me a different vision of spirituality and American belief. Although there are stand alone versions of Wise Blood, the one I read was in this edition, 3 By Flannery O'Connor.