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All Along the Watchtower

~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

All Along the Watchtower

Tag Archives: Jessica Hoff

What is America for Mummy?

04 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by Neo in Church/State, Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on What is America for Mummy?

Tags

Declaration of Independence, history, Holidays, Jessica Hoff, United States

633701545The main part of this post is one of the first posts Jessica wrote for my blog. It’s still one of my favorites, and I think it explains why there is something a bit special about America, that has drawn so many to our shores.

Not long after wwe met, Jessica asked me in an email, 

Perhaps the parallel goes beyond just the early pilgrims? America is either a vision of what can be, or it is nothing.

That is the choice we face, and it’s a stark one. Either we are who we have always said we are, or we are just another slave state like Europe.The question must be answered by the American people, we already know what the government thinks, don’t we?

Churchill said, in the Grand Alliance

But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before—that the United States is like “a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is ignited under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.

That is true, we are Americans, we can do anything, if we choose to. Is the fire under the boiler lighted? If it is not, the dream is over. If it is, anything is possible for us.

It strikes me that we often become bogged down in detail, in theory, in the mundane day-to-day stuff that we deal with. We tend to forget what it’s all about, and we shouldn’t. Almost from the beginning, America has been a dream; a dream of freedom above all, but also of material prosperity.

It was such a potent dream that Italian peasants told each other that the streets were paved with gold, although they knew what really awaited them was hard work, and bias against them because of their language and religion but, they came anyway, and if they didn’t have much but hard work and cramped tenements, their children did. And that’s really what the dream has always been: for our children to have a better life than we did. In the nineteenth century, Russian immigrants who had never had anything but black bread, except maybe on holidays, wrote home ecstatically that “in America, we eat wheaten bread every day.” And that too was part of the saga of America.

That’s what we have built over the last 400 years, a dream of freedom, of individual liberty, yes, but also of freedom from material want by virtue of hard work. And you know, as Jess is going to tell you again here, that is really pretty damned heroic as well. Here is Jess’ post. Neo]


When I was ten, I lived in America for a year – in the mid-West. I remember when we got to O’Hare airport looking at its size and marvelling; it seemed bigger than the town in which we lived in Wales. I recall going to St. Louis and seeing the Arch, and going up it and looking across the vastness of the city and asking my mother: ‘What is America for mummy?’ I can’t remember what she answered – she probably thought it was me trying to be clever; but it was a real question, and one I came to ask a few times whilst I was there.

I think I asked it for the reason many foreigners ask – there is something different about America.  I remember going with my mother to a Kiwanis Club and being struck by the way everyone put their fist on their breast as they swore the oath of allegiance to the flag. Indeed, I was so impressed that I memorised it so that the second time we went, I could do it too. I remember a nice man smiling but saying that I couldn’t do it because I was not an American citizen.  ‘How do you get to be one of those’, I asked? ‘Well, little lady, you could always marry an all-American boy’, was the answer.  I think I said something about ‘smelly boys’ and never wanting to get married because I wanted to be a nun. But a bit later I recall thinking that maybe the kind man had a point.  America, the very idea, seemed Romantic.

My father was fifty when I was born, and his tastes in movies became mine. When other teenage girls were swooning about Kevin Costner (really???), I was dismissive. John Wayne was my hero – and remains so. He summed up America for me. Strong, but never boastful about it. I remember crying when I saw ‘The Man who shot Liberty Valance’ – it was so unfair – it was Tom Donovan, not Ransom Stoddard who shot Liberty Valance, so why did the latter end up with the girl? Huh, I remember thinking, if I had been ‘the girl’ there was no way I’d have chosen Jimmy Stewart over John Wayne – what was she thinking?  But, as Tom Donovan might have said: “Whoa, take ‘er easy there, Pilgrim”.

The film’s message, which passed me by in my indignation, was about the passing of the old West, and the place of myth in the making of a nation. America is a nation built around myths and legends. That is not to say they are wrong, it is to say that those movies told a bigger story about the making of a great nation and what made it that. All nations need myths, and the point about the American one seemed to be encapsulated in my second favourite John Wayne film – ‘She wore a Yellow ribbon.’ Captain Nathan Brittles was the quintessential quiet American. A man who, having lost his family, was married to the army, and who did his duty, no matter what. My teenage heart went out to him, and I was very sniffy about the heroine going off with those ‘boys’ rather than a ‘real man’.

What John Ford caught in those films – especially the great trilogy which began with ‘Fort Apache’ and ended with ‘Rio Grande’ – was the very idea of America.  Call me a Romantic (no, do) – but that idea of America remains with me to this day. God Bless America – the land of the free.


I think Jess is very right, America is romantic, and yes, you can call me one too. But if we take the romance, and yes the legend and the saga out of our history, we are left with a strip of dirt, and just another group of people. That’s not my America, either. Here’s a piece of the legend. Neo

Happy Independence Day

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An Anniversary and Congratulations

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Neo in Blogging

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

All Along the Watchtower, Chalcedon, Jessica Hoff, Watchtower

There’s no strong message here today, from me, anyway. This post is simply to thank the Chatelaine for putting up with us curmudgeons for two years now. I note with surprise that the anniversary of my blog is exactly two months from now, and my first comment here was in late June two years ago. How swiftly it has flown.

It seems like yesterday when Jess was thanking us for 6,000 views, and it wasn’t long after that when she passed my viewership. Not that I minded, then or now. I have probably spent more quality time on this blog than I have my own, and it has become an important and influential blog. I’m very pleased to be numbered amongst this company.

I should probably add that when I got here, there were only two contributors: Jessica and Chalcedon, and most amazingly they were maintaining two posts a day by themselves. All of us who write blogs know how ambitious that was. But they stuck to it.

And eventually some fugitives from one of the most stupid of UK blogs showed up after they were banned, and AATW had an all-star class of contributors. A couple of us long time commenters also came aboard as contributors last fall, which due to the vagaries of WordPress actually cost the site views. And now that charming little blog I found that day with 5000 some views has become a respected fairly large blog with well over 180,000 views, and 13 contributors, some active, and some not, but greatly missed.

I think that to be exceptional for a fairly special interest blog, especially one that doesn’t court controversy, and in which the contents are often really fairly serious. It has always fascinated me that while this blog is headquartered in, and concerned quite often with events in, the UK, it has always had a mostly American readership. And unlike so many enterprises, we Americans here have always respected the British part of the mix. Just like we do all parts of our Christian heritage and faith.  I think the reason is that we have all become friends over the months and/or years, and our friendship shows through on every post and all the comments as well. It’s become a very special place.

chivalry-e1325295151962I do want to say that one of the upshots of the first couple of comments I made here was the day that I received an email from someone named Jessica Hoff, and it wasn’t terribly long before we were referring to each other as ‘dear friend’ and then in a little while more as ‘dearest friend’. I know many think it rather silly, and if I wandered in today, I probably would as well but, it is quite simply the truth. We really are. We have supported each other through all sorts of things, both with the blogs, and in our real lives as well. Jess is probably the only person outside my family that if she advised me not to do something, unless I could convince her, I simply wouldn’t do it. And yes, since almost the beginning we’ve been quoting poetry at each other, especially Kipling, but she has broadened my horizons. She’s simply the best friend I’ve ever had.

One minor example of that is that when my internet went down for a time, at a time when she had much stress in her life, she very simply stepped right up and took on mine as well as hers, and if I recall, she increased my readership. And that’s the story of how she became my co-author at NEO, and I’m very proud that she still writes there when she can find time. Although sometimes we do tend to remind each other that Kipling did say

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears”

It further strikes on re-reading this that it sounds rather like a personal econicum to Jessica, and I guess in some ways it is. But you know, the things we build reflect who we are, and this blog has become a very true reflection of it creator, and chatelaine, Jessica herself

And that simple goodness has always shown through in this blog as well, in its intelligence, its candor, its tolerance, and above all in its kindness. All of those things were instilled in all of us by Jessica, and in some measure are reserved to this blog. Most of the contributors here are, in other fora, quite hard-headed, and opinionated indeed.

And as happy as I am to be amongst the contributors and commenters here (and even our pet clown)

Jess is:

Happy Second Anniversary to

All Along the Watchtower

and to its Chatelaine

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The Bell Society

Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester - Seeking Truth, Unity and Peace

ViaMedia.News

Rediscovering the Middle Ground

Sundry Times Too

a scrap book of words and pictures

grahart

reflections, links and stories.

John Ager's Home on the Web!

reflecting my eclectic (and sometimes erratic) life

... because God is love

wondering, learning, exploring

sharedconversations

Reflecting on sexuality and gender identity in the Church of England

walkonthebeachblog

The Urban Monastery

Work and Prayer

His Light Material

Reflections, comment, explorations on faith, life, church, minstry & meaning.

The Authenticity of Grief

Mental health & loss in the Church

All Along the Watchtower

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34

Classically Christian

ancient, medieval, byzantine, anglican

Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!

Stories From Norfolk and Beyond - Be They Past, Present, Fact, Fiction, Mythological, Legend or Folklore.

On The Ruin Of Britain

Miscellanies on Religion and Public life

The Beeton Ideal

Gender, Family and Religious History in the Modern Era

KungFuPreacherMan

Faith, life and kick-ass moves

Revd Alice Watson

More beautiful than the honey locust tree are the words of the Lord - Mary Oliver

All Things Lawful And Honest

A blog pertaining to the future of the Church

The Tory Socialist

Blue Labour meets Disraelite Tory meets High Church Socialist

Liturgical Poetry

Poems from life and the church year

Contemplation in the shadow of a carpark

Contmplations for beginners

Gavin Ashenden

Ahavaha

On This Rock Apologetics

The Catholic Faith Defended

sheisredeemedblog

To bring identity and power back to the voice of women

Quodcumque - Serious Christianity

“Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart.” ( Colossians 3: 23 ) - The blog of Father Richard Peers SMMS, Director of Education for the Diocese of Liverpool

ignatius his conclave

Nick Cohen: Writing from London

Journalism from London.

Ratiocinativa

Mining the collective unconscious

Grace sent Justice bound

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou

Eccles is saved

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34

Elizaphanian

“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.”

News for Catholics

Annie

Blessed be God forever.

Dominus Mihi Adjutor

A Monk on the Mission

christeeleisonblog.wordpress.com/

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few" Luke 10:2

Malcolm Guite

Blog for poet and singer-songwriter Malcolm Guite

Bishop's Encyclopedia of Religion, Society and Philosophy

The Site of James Bishop (CBC, TESOL, Psych., BTh, Hon., MA., PhD candidate)

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Reflections from the Dean of Southwark

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Happy. Southern. Catholic.

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thoughtfullydetached

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"...a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church..."

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A daily blog to deepen our participation in Mass

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