In addition to making me want to drink warm tea, autumn brings out my cooking and baking impulses more than almost any other season. And certain foods always beckon this time of year. Two favorites (and just the right color to celebrate fall!) are pumpkin and sweet potatoes.
There's something about squashes and root vegetables, especially when they're orange or orangey-brown, that just make me feel connected to the earth. These are good, filling foods. They seem to soak up spices. They clamor for spices, for butter, for crust.
On Saturday evening I decided I would make sweeet potato "fries." Couldn't be hard, I thought, and nope, it wasn't. I remember going through a phase a year or two ago when we would buy these fancy frozen sweet potato "french fries" in packages at the grocery store. No longer! They taste better when made from scratch, it's cheaper, and there's something really satisfying about making your own.
Here's how I did them: take one big sweet potato (which was plenty for our little family of three for one meal, though of course you can do more as needed), wash, scrub and peel. I think peeling helps to get rid of any of those "woody places" that sweet potatoes are prone to. I wasn't particularly fastidious about peeling, however, choosing to leave on a bit of peel here and there since I knew it would be nutritious.
Cut the potato into thin sticks. I halved it, then cut lengthwise down the half, then did it again a few times. With the smaller chunks that didn't seem to want to be cut that thinly, I did slices, more like chips.
Put the pieces in a bowl and toss with olive oil till they're well coated. Sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper and toss again. Then put on a big baking sheet coated lightly with veggie oil spray. If they seem a bit too oily (mine did) then pat with a clean paper towel to take up any excess oil.
Bake at 400 degrees for about twenty minutes (though keep a watch toward the end so they don't burn) turning at least twice.
Enjoy them warm from the oven! Yummy!
I was amazed by how good these were. On Sunday we went to nearby Ohio for a fall festival we've gone to just about every year since the year before Sweet Girl was born. It's called "Christmas in the Woods" and is one of the Shaker Festivals. Craft booths, wonderful bluegrass music, clog-dancing, good food -- all in a beautiful autumnal woods. Doesn't get much nicer than that. When it came time for lunch, I suddenly realized that one reason I'd probably been craving sweet potato fries the night before was that I usually eat some from one of the booths there. So I got some more. Were they good? Yep. But not as good as the one's I'd made for supper!
Pumpkin-butterscotch cookie recipe coming soon...I think they've become our family's new favorite cookie.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
I've Found My Autumn Tea
Sweet Girl has been asking for fruit leather (just about her favorite snack) so yesterday we set off to run some errands and ended up at our town's little health food store, about five blocks away. While I was poking among all the good and yummy things in the back aisle, I came across a kind of Celestial Seasonings tea that I'd never seen before. I don't think it's new, but it's new to me. "Can we get it, Mommy?" asked S., to which I usually reply "not this time." But I was in the mood to splurge, and I'm so glad I did!
"Black Cherry Berry" tastes just like it sounds...a sweet, dark, juicy cherry with just a hint of tart berry. It smells like cobbler warm from the oven. You don't have to add any sweetner to it and it tastes just wonderful. It's caffeine free, and the longer you steep it, the better it tastes.
A great tea for autumn!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Flowers in the Wintertime
We had to turn our heat on today, for the first time -- both at the office and here at home. It's not terribly cold yet, but even the 40s (especially with a biting wind) sure feels cold when you're not used to it anymore!
I love autumn, but I find myself starting to work up to an "inner fret" about the oncoming onslaught of cold grayness that will wrap our little corner of the world as it always surely does between November and March (or April).
So I was happy beyond words to find this excellent post over at the Wittingshire blog: Planning for Paperwhites I've often wanted to try this: forcing narcissus or crocus bulbs to bloom indoors during the winter months. I remember reading a little sidebar article about it in a glossy magazine a few years back and thinking "I should try that." But the article made it seem intimidating and hard, especially for someone like me who doesn't have much of a green thumb.
In contrast, the instructions here are well-written and make the project seem easy and doable. I really think I'm going to try it this year. Wouldn't it be something to have beautiful paperwhite flowers blooming inside when the paperwhite snow is blowing around outside?
I love autumn, but I find myself starting to work up to an "inner fret" about the oncoming onslaught of cold grayness that will wrap our little corner of the world as it always surely does between November and March (or April).
So I was happy beyond words to find this excellent post over at the Wittingshire blog: Planning for Paperwhites I've often wanted to try this: forcing narcissus or crocus bulbs to bloom indoors during the winter months. I remember reading a little sidebar article about it in a glossy magazine a few years back and thinking "I should try that." But the article made it seem intimidating and hard, especially for someone like me who doesn't have much of a green thumb.
In contrast, the instructions here are well-written and make the project seem easy and doable. I really think I'm going to try it this year. Wouldn't it be something to have beautiful paperwhite flowers blooming inside when the paperwhite snow is blowing around outside?
HP7: Well, It Wasn't Snape Under That Cloak
A few weeks ago I posted a long, rambling reflection, speculating on the importance of the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter 7. I've been remiss in noting here that J.K. Rowling debunked as "rumour" one of the ideas that I happened to muse on in my blog post -- I hadn't claimed it as completely original thought (I converse with so many HP lovers I often have no idea where some ideas started) and apparently lots of other people had the same idea!
In late September, she posted the following to the "Rumours" section on her website:
Well, that, as they say, is that. I say it cheerfully, because I wasn't totally invested in the "Snape under the cloak" theory, though I thought it should be raised. I raised questions then about the plausibility of such a scenario, and I guess it turns out it was even less plausible than I thought.
So we're back to the original question of the invisibility cloak's importance to the plot, and especially (potentially) to the night of Harry's parents' death. I think I'm going to stick by the possibility that Hagrid may have used the cloak in some fashion, on Dumbledore's orders.
Just watch: that one will show up debunked in Rowling's Rumours next! ;-)
In late September, she posted the following to the "Rumours" section on her website:
Snape was hiding under the Invisibility Cloak on the night the Potters died
No, he wasn't.
Well, that, as they say, is that. I say it cheerfully, because I wasn't totally invested in the "Snape under the cloak" theory, though I thought it should be raised. I raised questions then about the plausibility of such a scenario, and I guess it turns out it was even less plausible than I thought.
So we're back to the original question of the invisibility cloak's importance to the plot, and especially (potentially) to the night of Harry's parents' death. I think I'm going to stick by the possibility that Hagrid may have used the cloak in some fashion, on Dumbledore's orders.
Just watch: that one will show up debunked in Rowling's Rumours next! ;-)
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Has LOST lost me?
No-oo-oo. Not quite yet at any rate.
After what I felt was a really disappointing season 3 opening episode, a week ago Wednesday, I'm happy to say that LOST had me on the edge of my seat again last night, clutching my husband's hand and happily watching through the static-y haze of our awful television reception.
LOST is actually the only television show we watch anymore. Without cable, a luxury we've not been able to afford for a while (time or money wise) we can get almost no reception in our area. Yet we've discovered that if we wiggle the knobs and adjust the rabbit ears on the old t.v. set in the bedroom, we can, wonder of wonders, get in a mostly discernable ABC. Sometimes when the weather outside is stormy, like it was last night, the images flicker once in a while as well as appearing in a snow-like static. Of couse, all of this just increases the fun of watching a show that thrives on dark jungle scenes and mysterious nano-second glimpses of creatures or monsters that reeeallly shouldn't be on a tropical island at all.
Either our reception is improving or I'm just getting used to it, but sometimes I hardly remember that we're challenged viewers...until there's an emergency in the hatch or it starts raining buckets in the jungle, at which points we both find ourselves moving several feet closer to the set and muttering things to each other like "Did I just see what I think I saw?" and "What did you see?" "No, wait -- I'll tell you what I thought I saw at the commercial!"
So oddly enough, the bad t.v. reception is part of the fun for us now. We're grateful to my oldest sister and her husband, who actually tape the shows and send them to us now and again (it's great! We can catch up on weeks' worth, and actually see action that we could only guess at before!) but Wednesday night at 9 has become a standing "date" for us. So I'm relieved beyond measure that season 3 looks to be shaping up after a shaky beginning.
Maybe it was just me though. I've had my doubts and perplexities from the beginning of season 2 onward, as to whether or not the writers of the show really know where they're going with this story or are just winging it as they go. What makes me stick with it is the characters, whom I've actually begun to care about (in that vicarious compassion we all feel for fictional characters from time to time...for me, usually far more intensely in books than in movies or television).
From a writing point of view, this show is a dream. You've got a fairly intense but ordinary situation to start out with: plane crash, survivors needing to cope on a deserted (or so they think) island. The characters are very definite "types": the doctor, the con man, the soldier, the spoiled rich girl, the struggling married couple, the addict, the ex-convict, the pregnant woman, the overweight guy who likes to play the class clown... and as time progressed, a few other tried and true type characters emerged as well, like the ex-cop and the priest. But because each week gives the writers a chance to discover more layers of one of the character's story through flashbacks (see what I mean about it being a writer's dream!) none of these characters feel typical or "stock" at all. In fact, most of them have rather complex back stories...which is probably true of most of us in real life if you stop to think about it. And the situation of being on a mysterious island, an island that turns out to be inhabited after all (though we're still not entirely sure by how many people, how many groups, and who they all are/what they're doing there) and dangerous, brings out the best and worst in these characters. They find surprising strengths when the need arises, but they also find themselves stumbling into their worst weaknesses and fears.
The writers have played all that brilliantly: how the struggle to survive on the island brings out the dominant traits and engrained habits in these people, for better or for worse. Everything gets magnified: Jack's ardent need for control; Kate's tendency to run; Sawyer's instinct to con; Locke's hunger for mystery and meaning; Sayid's war-time training, and on and on.
If I were writing this show, or writing this as a novel, I know I would have taken it a far more theological direction. What struck me as interesting from the start was how the dangers and mysteries they encountered on the island forced these people to deal with their inner struggles, their sins, their weaknesses, to come face to face with losses and deferred dreams in their lives. And since the writers have made much of some of the seemingly strange "coincidences" that brought some of them to be on the plane in the first place, and even some odd connections between the characters (or between people the characters knew) in "real life" off the island, it all just had the scent of Providence. These characters were on the plane because they were supposed to be, and because they needed to be in this particular time and place to work out their lives, perhaps for some of them even their salvation (in fear and trembling).
Well, that's how I'd write it, anyway. It's not how it's being written, which I guess is pretty much to be expected. When the show does try to tackle issues with any spiritual depth, they often stumble. But I had hoped they would at least retain more of a sense of the mystery of the island. Instead, as time goes on, it's become more science-fiction-like, with "rational" or "scientific" explanations for almost everything (though with lots still to be explained). Welcome to the reductionist, materialist world of the 21st century (she says with a sigh).
Still, it's a good and creative show. Despite the fact that I kept thinking intelligent, talking apes or possibly storm troopers might show up in this season's first episode, I'm going to hang with it. It's interesting storytelling, and it keeps me thinking about what makes written characters really work and not work -- what makes us care about the fate of "fictional people." For now, LOST hasn't lost me -- even when I have to watch it through the snow!
After what I felt was a really disappointing season 3 opening episode, a week ago Wednesday, I'm happy to say that LOST had me on the edge of my seat again last night, clutching my husband's hand and happily watching through the static-y haze of our awful television reception.
LOST is actually the only television show we watch anymore. Without cable, a luxury we've not been able to afford for a while (time or money wise) we can get almost no reception in our area. Yet we've discovered that if we wiggle the knobs and adjust the rabbit ears on the old t.v. set in the bedroom, we can, wonder of wonders, get in a mostly discernable ABC. Sometimes when the weather outside is stormy, like it was last night, the images flicker once in a while as well as appearing in a snow-like static. Of couse, all of this just increases the fun of watching a show that thrives on dark jungle scenes and mysterious nano-second glimpses of creatures or monsters that reeeallly shouldn't be on a tropical island at all.
Either our reception is improving or I'm just getting used to it, but sometimes I hardly remember that we're challenged viewers...until there's an emergency in the hatch or it starts raining buckets in the jungle, at which points we both find ourselves moving several feet closer to the set and muttering things to each other like "Did I just see what I think I saw?" and "What did you see?" "No, wait -- I'll tell you what I thought I saw at the commercial!"
So oddly enough, the bad t.v. reception is part of the fun for us now. We're grateful to my oldest sister and her husband, who actually tape the shows and send them to us now and again (it's great! We can catch up on weeks' worth, and actually see action that we could only guess at before!) but Wednesday night at 9 has become a standing "date" for us. So I'm relieved beyond measure that season 3 looks to be shaping up after a shaky beginning.
Maybe it was just me though. I've had my doubts and perplexities from the beginning of season 2 onward, as to whether or not the writers of the show really know where they're going with this story or are just winging it as they go. What makes me stick with it is the characters, whom I've actually begun to care about (in that vicarious compassion we all feel for fictional characters from time to time...for me, usually far more intensely in books than in movies or television).
From a writing point of view, this show is a dream. You've got a fairly intense but ordinary situation to start out with: plane crash, survivors needing to cope on a deserted (or so they think) island. The characters are very definite "types": the doctor, the con man, the soldier, the spoiled rich girl, the struggling married couple, the addict, the ex-convict, the pregnant woman, the overweight guy who likes to play the class clown... and as time progressed, a few other tried and true type characters emerged as well, like the ex-cop and the priest. But because each week gives the writers a chance to discover more layers of one of the character's story through flashbacks (see what I mean about it being a writer's dream!) none of these characters feel typical or "stock" at all. In fact, most of them have rather complex back stories...which is probably true of most of us in real life if you stop to think about it. And the situation of being on a mysterious island, an island that turns out to be inhabited after all (though we're still not entirely sure by how many people, how many groups, and who they all are/what they're doing there) and dangerous, brings out the best and worst in these characters. They find surprising strengths when the need arises, but they also find themselves stumbling into their worst weaknesses and fears.
The writers have played all that brilliantly: how the struggle to survive on the island brings out the dominant traits and engrained habits in these people, for better or for worse. Everything gets magnified: Jack's ardent need for control; Kate's tendency to run; Sawyer's instinct to con; Locke's hunger for mystery and meaning; Sayid's war-time training, and on and on.
If I were writing this show, or writing this as a novel, I know I would have taken it a far more theological direction. What struck me as interesting from the start was how the dangers and mysteries they encountered on the island forced these people to deal with their inner struggles, their sins, their weaknesses, to come face to face with losses and deferred dreams in their lives. And since the writers have made much of some of the seemingly strange "coincidences" that brought some of them to be on the plane in the first place, and even some odd connections between the characters (or between people the characters knew) in "real life" off the island, it all just had the scent of Providence. These characters were on the plane because they were supposed to be, and because they needed to be in this particular time and place to work out their lives, perhaps for some of them even their salvation (in fear and trembling).
Well, that's how I'd write it, anyway. It's not how it's being written, which I guess is pretty much to be expected. When the show does try to tackle issues with any spiritual depth, they often stumble. But I had hoped they would at least retain more of a sense of the mystery of the island. Instead, as time goes on, it's become more science-fiction-like, with "rational" or "scientific" explanations for almost everything (though with lots still to be explained). Welcome to the reductionist, materialist world of the 21st century (she says with a sigh).
Still, it's a good and creative show. Despite the fact that I kept thinking intelligent, talking apes or possibly storm troopers might show up in this season's first episode, I'm going to hang with it. It's interesting storytelling, and it keeps me thinking about what makes written characters really work and not work -- what makes us care about the fate of "fictional people." For now, LOST hasn't lost me -- even when I have to watch it through the snow!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Sisters, Daughters, Cousins
It's wonderful to have a chance to be with extended family, especially when you haven't been able to do that for a while. Yesterday my sister and her husband and four of their six children (the other two married now with children of their own) came to be with us for the day. They're travelling and seeing family and friends -- a marathon of travel! -- while they await news of a new job.
It was so much fun to be with all them. My four nieces and nephews who were here range in age from 3 to 24 (my sister's family really stretches out!) and the house was full of laughter and lots of other fun noises, especially when their three year old and our four year old both got ahold of recorders and began tootling all over the house.
It was the first time my Sweet Girl had really had a chance to play with her only younger cousin. She has oodles of cousins -- 18 of them to be precise -- but with the exception of this one little cousin, all the rest are older, most of them much older. That's what comes of having a Mommy who was both the youngest in her family, and a late bloomer to boot!
I admit to a strange sensation watching these two precious little girls playing together. My daughter. My sister's daughter. It doesn't seem that long ago that my sister and I were playing, when I was about the age of my daughter now, and my sister was -- well, looking remarkably like her ten year old daughter, the one who was curled up in our living room rocker reading Encyclopedia Brown.
On most days, I've come to some sense of peace that our Sweet Girl will likely be our only child...if the Lord seems to be calling us to what he's calling us to, and if other circumstances don't change. Most of the time, I'm just fine with that. It's only once in a while, when I see these sisters together, these cousins together, when I think of all my sisters and my brother have meant and still mean to me -- that I get a little wistful.
Still, I'm not really feeling that pensive today. Mostly just very grateful!
It was so much fun to be with all them. My four nieces and nephews who were here range in age from 3 to 24 (my sister's family really stretches out!) and the house was full of laughter and lots of other fun noises, especially when their three year old and our four year old both got ahold of recorders and began tootling all over the house.
It was the first time my Sweet Girl had really had a chance to play with her only younger cousin. She has oodles of cousins -- 18 of them to be precise -- but with the exception of this one little cousin, all the rest are older, most of them much older. That's what comes of having a Mommy who was both the youngest in her family, and a late bloomer to boot!
I admit to a strange sensation watching these two precious little girls playing together. My daughter. My sister's daughter. It doesn't seem that long ago that my sister and I were playing, when I was about the age of my daughter now, and my sister was -- well, looking remarkably like her ten year old daughter, the one who was curled up in our living room rocker reading Encyclopedia Brown.
On most days, I've come to some sense of peace that our Sweet Girl will likely be our only child...if the Lord seems to be calling us to what he's calling us to, and if other circumstances don't change. Most of the time, I'm just fine with that. It's only once in a while, when I see these sisters together, these cousins together, when I think of all my sisters and my brother have meant and still mean to me -- that I get a little wistful.
Still, I'm not really feeling that pensive today. Mostly just very grateful!
Friday, October 06, 2006
Intimations of my mortality
Not that I'm likely to ever forget that I'm getting older, but just in case, my daughter (currently fascinated with the whole notion of age) provides me friendly little reminders from time to time.
Like this conversation last night, as I was making dinner.
Sweet Girl: Mommy, when will you be 39?
Mommy: Next March.
SG: Why?
M: Because that's when my birthday is.
SG: (thoughtfully...) 40 comes after 39...
M: (sighing...) Yes, it does.
SG: Mommy, why doesn't 100 come after 39?
M: (laughing!) Because it doesn't. 100 comes after 99.
--pause--
SG: Will you live to be 100?
M: I don't know.
SG: Why don't you know?
M: Because none of us knows how old we'll get to be.
Hmmm...takes "teach us to number our days and so gain a heart of wisdom" to a whole new level!
Like this conversation last night, as I was making dinner.
Sweet Girl: Mommy, when will you be 39?
Mommy: Next March.
SG: Why?
M: Because that's when my birthday is.
SG: (thoughtfully...) 40 comes after 39...
M: (sighing...) Yes, it does.
SG: Mommy, why doesn't 100 come after 39?
M: (laughing!) Because it doesn't. 100 comes after 99.
--pause--
SG: Will you live to be 100?
M: I don't know.
SG: Why don't you know?
M: Because none of us knows how old we'll get to be.
Hmmm...takes "teach us to number our days and so gain a heart of wisdom" to a whole new level!
"Saving love is in the heart of everything..."
Brian McLaren has written a really beautiful and interesting tribute to Steve Irwin, the Australian "crocodile hunter" of television fame who died in early September of a stingray sting. McLaren calls the audacious conservationist an "unlikely missionary."
I confess I've never really watched Irwin. For several years, we've either had no television reception or (when we briefly did have cable) our lives were very full as we had an infant at the time. Still, I know many people found his program on "Animal Planet" fascinating and fun, and many people were shocked and grieved by his death. My attention was brought to it by my good friend (and faithful blog-reader!) Erin.
And now that I've read McLaren, I find myself wanting to go watch one of Irwin's shows. They must be available somewhere on video...?
McLaren (theologian and author) was a fan of Irwin's. Here's the heart of his piece, for me:
The whole piece is worth reading. It can be found here: McLaren tribute
Saving love for creatures that most need love. This does indeed sound like a resounding echo of the gospel!
I confess I've never really watched Irwin. For several years, we've either had no television reception or (when we briefly did have cable) our lives were very full as we had an infant at the time. Still, I know many people found his program on "Animal Planet" fascinating and fun, and many people were shocked and grieved by his death. My attention was brought to it by my good friend (and faithful blog-reader!) Erin.
And now that I've read McLaren, I find myself wanting to go watch one of Irwin's shows. They must be available somewhere on video...?
McLaren (theologian and author) was a fan of Irwin's. Here's the heart of his piece, for me:
I know this might sound strange, but I think the man was a kind of missionary. He knew why he was put here on this planet; he knew his mission, and he knew it was more than a job. It was a vocation, a truly spiritual calling, an invitation and solemn duty to join in the care of God’s sacred creation.
What characterized Steve’s mission? Saving love – and especially for the creatures that are often misunderstood, despised and hated - crocs, sharks, snakes, spiders, and their kin.
Saving love, I’ve noticed, is at the heart of most good things in the world – musicians with a saving love for an almost forgotten genre of music, archeologists with a saving love for the artifacts of ancient civilizations, citizens with a saving love for their city, doctors with saving love for at-risk patients, teachers with saving love for at-risk students, social workers with saving love for at-risk families, pastors with saving love for at-risk sinners.
There seems to be a clue there, perhaps even a revelation, that saving love is in the heart of everything.
The whole piece is worth reading. It can be found here: McLaren tribute
Saving love for creatures that most need love. This does indeed sound like a resounding echo of the gospel!
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Prepared Hearts
I've been trying to wrap my mind around the lead in a NY Times article on the recent tragedy in the Amish community. Here it is:
Here's what I'm grappling with. It's true that within such a close-knit, rural community, a community that has chosen to not "keep step with" the times, violence of this sudden and ravaging nature is thankfully rare. I think it probably makes sense to say that the community is "largely insulated" from violence. But "singularly unprepared" to respond to it?
Um, no. With all due respect, that's just what this community was not. They were neither singular nor unprepared. In fact, you might say that in their forgiving, loving and communal response, what they're modeling for all the rest of us is how we can be "corporately prepared" to respond to violence. And I actually think that the rest of the Times article mostly gets that, as you can see from the sentence that follows immediately after the "singularly unprepared" line.
Maybe what's confusing to the secular world is that such a quiet response, a communal coming together to weep and hold one another, to take food to one another's homes (and to the home of the widow and children of the shooter), to quietly but actively forgive, doesn't look like a "response" as we're conditioned to understand response. (I think we tend to confuse "response" with "react.") Note that "act" is a big part of the word "react." We don't always understand what can look like passivity (but note that "passivity" and "passion" are connected words too).
But I think this community is acting. Not hastily, not out of the heat of the moment, but slowly and groundedly out of a deep rooted understanding of life and God. They are living out their response to horrifying tragedy based on hearts that are prepared: prepared to yield, to trust, to mourn, to forgive.
It's amazing to see the marvelling going on as people try to grasp how someone could be willing and able to forgive in a circumstance like this. One Amish woman explained simply that she could not do it if she didn't have Christ in her heart. I'm glad people are marvelling, because what we're witnessing is the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit on hearts that are willing and yielded, and that is indeed a beautiful thing. And perhaps more rare than it should be in our world.
There's also something that seems fundamentally sound, sane and healthy about the fact that these people really are mourning. The mothers who lost children in this attack will wear black for a year, according to one story I read. That may seem old-fashioned and odd to those of us who are slaves more to fashion sense than to heart sense, but one has to wonder if that outward, visible sign of what's going on inside will not be a real help to those grieving mothers. Among other things, it makes their lives signs for the whole community, reminding them of the fragility of life and the necessity to grieve. I know we don't know even a fraction of the story of the man who killed these children, but from all accounts at least one small part of his spiritual and emotional breakdown came about because he once lost a child himself. One wonders if he was ever able to properly grieve the loss of that little one. One wonders if he had ever been taught to grieve. So many of us are just taught to stuff it down, or to acknowledge it only fleetingly or with some embarrassment or guilt if we go on too long without "getting on" with life.
There is a time to weep and mourn, as Eccelesiastes reminds us. And yes, time for comfort and laughter too. I would imagine the Amish community will be more ready to comfort and to find joy in the weeks and months ahead because of their ability to grieve and forgive today.
The Amish whose children were executed by a milk deliveryman in their rural Pennsylvania schoolhouse had, until Monday, lived in a world where they were largely insulated from violence and singularly unprepared to respond to it.
But their strong faith and community ties may prepare them unusually well to cope with it, experts on the Amish say.
Here's what I'm grappling with. It's true that within such a close-knit, rural community, a community that has chosen to not "keep step with" the times, violence of this sudden and ravaging nature is thankfully rare. I think it probably makes sense to say that the community is "largely insulated" from violence. But "singularly unprepared" to respond to it?
Um, no. With all due respect, that's just what this community was not. They were neither singular nor unprepared. In fact, you might say that in their forgiving, loving and communal response, what they're modeling for all the rest of us is how we can be "corporately prepared" to respond to violence. And I actually think that the rest of the Times article mostly gets that, as you can see from the sentence that follows immediately after the "singularly unprepared" line.
Maybe what's confusing to the secular world is that such a quiet response, a communal coming together to weep and hold one another, to take food to one another's homes (and to the home of the widow and children of the shooter), to quietly but actively forgive, doesn't look like a "response" as we're conditioned to understand response. (I think we tend to confuse "response" with "react.") Note that "act" is a big part of the word "react." We don't always understand what can look like passivity (but note that "passivity" and "passion" are connected words too).
But I think this community is acting. Not hastily, not out of the heat of the moment, but slowly and groundedly out of a deep rooted understanding of life and God. They are living out their response to horrifying tragedy based on hearts that are prepared: prepared to yield, to trust, to mourn, to forgive.
It's amazing to see the marvelling going on as people try to grasp how someone could be willing and able to forgive in a circumstance like this. One Amish woman explained simply that she could not do it if she didn't have Christ in her heart. I'm glad people are marvelling, because what we're witnessing is the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit on hearts that are willing and yielded, and that is indeed a beautiful thing. And perhaps more rare than it should be in our world.
There's also something that seems fundamentally sound, sane and healthy about the fact that these people really are mourning. The mothers who lost children in this attack will wear black for a year, according to one story I read. That may seem old-fashioned and odd to those of us who are slaves more to fashion sense than to heart sense, but one has to wonder if that outward, visible sign of what's going on inside will not be a real help to those grieving mothers. Among other things, it makes their lives signs for the whole community, reminding them of the fragility of life and the necessity to grieve. I know we don't know even a fraction of the story of the man who killed these children, but from all accounts at least one small part of his spiritual and emotional breakdown came about because he once lost a child himself. One wonders if he was ever able to properly grieve the loss of that little one. One wonders if he had ever been taught to grieve. So many of us are just taught to stuff it down, or to acknowledge it only fleetingly or with some embarrassment or guilt if we go on too long without "getting on" with life.
There is a time to weep and mourn, as Eccelesiastes reminds us. And yes, time for comfort and laughter too. I would imagine the Amish community will be more ready to comfort and to find joy in the weeks and months ahead because of their ability to grieve and forgive today.
Ah, for a Day in Monet's Garden...
I was glad to finally have this confirmed... :-)
| You Are Impressionism |
 You think the world is quite beautiful, especially if you look at it in new and interesting ways. You tend to focus on color and movement in art. For you, seeing the big picture is much more important than recording every little detail. You can find inspiration anywhere... especially from nature. |
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
"Our Heart is Restless..."
There's a cynical part of me that keeps wondering if some journalist will come up with the headline "trouble in paradise" regarding the terrible tragedy at the Amish school-house in Paradise, Pennsylvania yesterday. There does seem to be a terrible, twisted irony that death and destruction can wreak their well-known havoc in a small town with such a beautifully innocent name.
I am grieving every time I hear or read about this story. Five young girls dead, several others wounded. A man who loved his own wife and children suddenly jumping off a precipice of despair when no one even realized he was anywhere near the edge, and taking all those young and beloved lives with him.
I'm feeling grateful that we don't have a television. I don't think I could bear to hear the heartbreak in the voices of the people of the Amish community and their near-by neighbors, people who thought they had given their children a safe and secure and beautiful place and way to grow up, only to see violence slam its way into even that "refuge."
All of which leads one to the sobering realization that there is no physical refuge anywhere on earth. We can plan, we can protect, we can try as hard as we can to bring up our children wisely and to build a loving community. We can do those things and we must keep doing them because frankly it's the only way to live here in the land of now and not yet, when the kingdom of God gets glimpsed only in glimmers but hasn't yet come in its fullness.
But we fool ourselves if we think there is any "safety" even in the most idyllic and ideal seeming circumstances, like a one-room Amish schoolhouse. The only safety we can really know is that our ultimate refuge lies in God, in Christ our "solid rock."
The Enemy is crafty. He can pervert the real, deep longings of the human heart (see posting below). He can deepen the void that someone already feels. He can take grief and pain and anger, all of which the killer apparently felt deeply, and twist them inside someone until they're a total mess. Until they can't tell truth from lies. Until they're ready to kill others and themselves.
The only thing that can give us hope in times like these is not a thing but a Person. "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4) Come, Holy Spirit, and rule this broken, disobedient world. We cry out for your mercy.
"Our heart is restless until it rests in you." (Augustine) I'm not sure I ever realized until today that the phrase is "our heart" -- plural but singular -- just as it is in the prayer book confession, when we confess "We have not loved you with our whole heart..."
I am grieving every time I hear or read about this story. Five young girls dead, several others wounded. A man who loved his own wife and children suddenly jumping off a precipice of despair when no one even realized he was anywhere near the edge, and taking all those young and beloved lives with him.
I'm feeling grateful that we don't have a television. I don't think I could bear to hear the heartbreak in the voices of the people of the Amish community and their near-by neighbors, people who thought they had given their children a safe and secure and beautiful place and way to grow up, only to see violence slam its way into even that "refuge."
All of which leads one to the sobering realization that there is no physical refuge anywhere on earth. We can plan, we can protect, we can try as hard as we can to bring up our children wisely and to build a loving community. We can do those things and we must keep doing them because frankly it's the only way to live here in the land of now and not yet, when the kingdom of God gets glimpsed only in glimmers but hasn't yet come in its fullness.
But we fool ourselves if we think there is any "safety" even in the most idyllic and ideal seeming circumstances, like a one-room Amish schoolhouse. The only safety we can really know is that our ultimate refuge lies in God, in Christ our "solid rock."
The Enemy is crafty. He can pervert the real, deep longings of the human heart (see posting below). He can deepen the void that someone already feels. He can take grief and pain and anger, all of which the killer apparently felt deeply, and twist them inside someone until they're a total mess. Until they can't tell truth from lies. Until they're ready to kill others and themselves.
The only thing that can give us hope in times like these is not a thing but a Person. "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4) Come, Holy Spirit, and rule this broken, disobedient world. We cry out for your mercy.
"Our heart is restless until it rests in you." (Augustine) I'm not sure I ever realized until today that the phrase is "our heart" -- plural but singular -- just as it is in the prayer book confession, when we confess "We have not loved you with our whole heart..."
"When You Taste It For Real..."
In his book Engaging God's World, Cornelius Plantinga writes:
"In several of his writings the Christian author C.S. Lewis explores this phenomenon of human longing or yearning -- what the Germans call Sehnsucht (ZANE-zoocht)...Lewis observes that when we have it, we are seeking union with something from which we are separated. For example, we want to be reunited with a happy time or a lovely place or a good friend...What's remarkable is that these longings are unfulfillable. We cannot merge with the music we love. We cannot climb inside nature...We may want a good career or a family or a particular kind of life, and these things may come to us. But if so, they will not fill all our niches because we want more than these things can give...something in us keeps saying "not this" or "still beyond..."
The truth is that nothing in this earth can finally satisfy us. Much can make us content for a time, but nothiing can fill us to the brim. The reason is that our final joy lies "beyond the walls of the world," as J.R.R. Tolkien put it. Ultimate beauty comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but only through them. These earthly things are solid goods, and we naturally relish them. But they are not our final good...
God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what lies behind them.
(--Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God's World)
"In several of his writings the Christian author C.S. Lewis explores this phenomenon of human longing or yearning -- what the Germans call Sehnsucht (ZANE-zoocht)...Lewis observes that when we have it, we are seeking union with something from which we are separated. For example, we want to be reunited with a happy time or a lovely place or a good friend...What's remarkable is that these longings are unfulfillable. We cannot merge with the music we love. We cannot climb inside nature...We may want a good career or a family or a particular kind of life, and these things may come to us. But if so, they will not fill all our niches because we want more than these things can give...something in us keeps saying "not this" or "still beyond..."
The truth is that nothing in this earth can finally satisfy us. Much can make us content for a time, but nothiing can fill us to the brim. The reason is that our final joy lies "beyond the walls of the world," as J.R.R. Tolkien put it. Ultimate beauty comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but only through them. These earthly things are solid goods, and we naturally relish them. But they are not our final good...
God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what lies behind them.
(--Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God's World)
Look there's the world. What a luscious sight, what a candy dream. I want my fill. Let me have a piece, let me take a dive....Every day is the same, I choose life in the flames. And it seems that I can't escape. When I eat of this world I'm left hungry again.
You can take a sip, but you'll be thirsty again. You can drink with your tongue, you can taste with your lies. You can take a sip but you'll be thirsty again. When you drink with your heart, when you see with your eyes, All your casual talk, all your glorious lives. When you taste it for real then He will quench it away.
--Derrick Harris, "Cup of Life"
Monday, October 02, 2006
Literary Dates to Celebrate (from Late September)
I've been remiss in posting some important literary anniversaries and birthdays -- I was much better about doing so in the earlier months of the year!
And the last week of September had several dates worth noting and celebrating. September 26 was the birthday of both T.S. Eliot (b. 1888) and George Gershwin (b. 1898). I often remember that date because almost twenty years ago, when I lived with my oldest sister in Connecticut, she and I celebrated it with a candle, and a reading from Prufrock while listening to Rhapsody in Blue! I keep meaning to try to repeat the fun of that afternoon, but have yet to do it! Maybe some year when she and I are together together (I say wistfully...)
September 30th also marked the "first edition" anniversary of Louisa May Alcott (published 1868). I've been re-watching the 1994 film version of Little Women in honor of that (though I didn't realize the date at first...autumn just always feels "Alcott-ish" to me) and enjoying it immensely, though I am having to watch it in snippets of time.
A very 19th century/early 20th century feel to the last week of September!
And the last week of September had several dates worth noting and celebrating. September 26 was the birthday of both T.S. Eliot (b. 1888) and George Gershwin (b. 1898). I often remember that date because almost twenty years ago, when I lived with my oldest sister in Connecticut, she and I celebrated it with a candle, and a reading from Prufrock while listening to Rhapsody in Blue! I keep meaning to try to repeat the fun of that afternoon, but have yet to do it! Maybe some year when she and I are together together (I say wistfully...)
September 30th also marked the "first edition" anniversary of Louisa May Alcott (published 1868). I've been re-watching the 1994 film version of Little Women in honor of that (though I didn't realize the date at first...autumn just always feels "Alcott-ish" to me) and enjoying it immensely, though I am having to watch it in snippets of time.
A very 19th century/early 20th century feel to the last week of September!
Celebrating God's Goodness
The final weekend in September brought some wonderful moments to celebrate the gift and beauty of life. First, late Thursday night there was the birth of my great-nephew Peter, the second child of my very dear niece Rachel. Welcome to the world, precious one!
Then on Saturday we had an opportunity to be at the 2nd birthday party of Lydia, the youngest daughter of a dear family that has done a wonderful job taking care of our own daughter one morning each week for the past several months (since I had to go back to work in the mornings). Lydia is one of the loveliest little people we know, a tiny little girl with bright eyes and a smile that lights a room. She was gravely ill when just a few weeks old, and so each time I see her, I see not just beautiful Lydia but the beautiful God who shines through her -- a sure and certain sign of God's grace and power to heal. Watching her bat at a butterfly balloon, smear yellow icing all over her face, and climb happily into the big tub of uncooked rice that some of the other kids were playing with (including my own Sweet Girl, who must've spent an hour or more funneling rice into a cup!) was a privilege and a joy.
There are days when you really do remember how precious each moment of life is, when your heart lifts and you rest in love, aware of God's goodness and the fragile but awesome beauty all around. I think our whole family was a bit giddy with autumn this evening. We took a walk and Sweet Girl, perched up on her Daddy's shoulders, positively beamed up at the changing colors of the leaves and the blue and white expanse stretched like a tent above them. And she asked us: "What would you need to sit on to touch the sky?"
Later this evening we took a picnic to the park where I got about twenty precious minutes of alone time to walk, marvel at the setting sun, and even stand briefly beneath one of my favorite tree for miles around -- an oak tree on a hill with branches that bend so low to the ground you can hide under them and peer out as though through a curtain. Early autumn colors have their own distinct beauty, even though they've not flamed into the brighter "peak" colors. When we think of autumn we think of brilliant red, gold, orange...but tonight I saw greyish-lavendar, mauve, saffron, pale burgundy, pink, cantelope (the setting sun behind the clouds!) and everywhere, dots of white weeds on the roadside -- wild daises, queen anne's lace, dandelions gone to seed.
"Thank you, God, for most this amazing day...."
Then on Saturday we had an opportunity to be at the 2nd birthday party of Lydia, the youngest daughter of a dear family that has done a wonderful job taking care of our own daughter one morning each week for the past several months (since I had to go back to work in the mornings). Lydia is one of the loveliest little people we know, a tiny little girl with bright eyes and a smile that lights a room. She was gravely ill when just a few weeks old, and so each time I see her, I see not just beautiful Lydia but the beautiful God who shines through her -- a sure and certain sign of God's grace and power to heal. Watching her bat at a butterfly balloon, smear yellow icing all over her face, and climb happily into the big tub of uncooked rice that some of the other kids were playing with (including my own Sweet Girl, who must've spent an hour or more funneling rice into a cup!) was a privilege and a joy.
There are days when you really do remember how precious each moment of life is, when your heart lifts and you rest in love, aware of God's goodness and the fragile but awesome beauty all around. I think our whole family was a bit giddy with autumn this evening. We took a walk and Sweet Girl, perched up on her Daddy's shoulders, positively beamed up at the changing colors of the leaves and the blue and white expanse stretched like a tent above them. And she asked us: "What would you need to sit on to touch the sky?"
Later this evening we took a picnic to the park where I got about twenty precious minutes of alone time to walk, marvel at the setting sun, and even stand briefly beneath one of my favorite tree for miles around -- an oak tree on a hill with branches that bend so low to the ground you can hide under them and peer out as though through a curtain. Early autumn colors have their own distinct beauty, even though they've not flamed into the brighter "peak" colors. When we think of autumn we think of brilliant red, gold, orange...but tonight I saw greyish-lavendar, mauve, saffron, pale burgundy, pink, cantelope (the setting sun behind the clouds!) and everywhere, dots of white weeds on the roadside -- wild daises, queen anne's lace, dandelions gone to seed.
"Thank you, God, for most this amazing day...."
Friday, September 29, 2006
Poor Ribsy!
A few days ago I got out several "chapter books" and let the Sweet Girl choose what we would read next. She's been very excited lately about the notion of "chapter books" -- which in this context simply means bigger kid books divided into chapters -- since she seems to realize it's a sign of growing up. The other day she asked me if we could read "Wilbur" again sometime (i.e. Charlotte's Web) and of course I said yes. Then she asked, a little worriedly, "Are you big enough for Wilbur?" (referencing herself with the "you" there). I had to laugh. She was, of course, "big enough" this past summer even before she turned four. She practically hung on every word.
This time around she chose Ribsy by Beverly Cleary. I was very happy about that as I always seem to get a yen to read Cleary in the fall, maybe because so many of her stories seem set around back-to-school time. I think the cover illustration of Ribsy in the bathtub is what really snagged her attention, and thus far the bathtub scene has been her favorite. Who wouldn't get the giggles when listening to a story about a dog in a bath with lots and lots of violet scented bubbles?
It's always fascinating to guage her growing interactions with stories. We read a bunch of Cleary a couple of years ago, on road trips -- sort of "road testing" these books that neither of us had read in years, seeing if they were as good as we remembered (they were) before our daughter got old enough to read them. At that time, she was a toddlerish two, a sort of sweet lump of cuteness sucking her fingers in her carseat and falling asleep if I read too long (we'd just keep going and finish the stories ourselves). Now I can hardly read a paragraph (sometimes more like two sentences!) before she interrupts with questions. She's been a bit worried about ol' Ribsy this time around, asking anxiously "WHY can't Ribsy find Klickitat Street?" I made a parental decision to forgo the gifts of suspense and anticipation this time around in order to allay her fears. I told her Ribsy would find Henry again, and I used the opportunity to teach her the word "perseverance" as in "Ribsy perseveres; he keeps trying and trying to get home to Henry!"
It's interesting what words she picks up on too. One begins to realize how much of the vocabulary that seems most foreign to her is old-fashioned vocabularly we don't use much these days. She's asked me why some people call Ribsy "fellow" and was curious about the "cloakroom" in the classroom. She gets the giggles almost every time someone refers to poor lost Ribsy as "pooch" too.
I love Beverly Cleary, but this is definitely the most fun I've ever had reading one of her books. I love having a growing and learning listener right beside me!
This time around she chose Ribsy by Beverly Cleary. I was very happy about that as I always seem to get a yen to read Cleary in the fall, maybe because so many of her stories seem set around back-to-school time. I think the cover illustration of Ribsy in the bathtub is what really snagged her attention, and thus far the bathtub scene has been her favorite. Who wouldn't get the giggles when listening to a story about a dog in a bath with lots and lots of violet scented bubbles?
It's always fascinating to guage her growing interactions with stories. We read a bunch of Cleary a couple of years ago, on road trips -- sort of "road testing" these books that neither of us had read in years, seeing if they were as good as we remembered (they were) before our daughter got old enough to read them. At that time, she was a toddlerish two, a sort of sweet lump of cuteness sucking her fingers in her carseat and falling asleep if I read too long (we'd just keep going and finish the stories ourselves). Now I can hardly read a paragraph (sometimes more like two sentences!) before she interrupts with questions. She's been a bit worried about ol' Ribsy this time around, asking anxiously "WHY can't Ribsy find Klickitat Street?" I made a parental decision to forgo the gifts of suspense and anticipation this time around in order to allay her fears. I told her Ribsy would find Henry again, and I used the opportunity to teach her the word "perseverance" as in "Ribsy perseveres; he keeps trying and trying to get home to Henry!"
It's interesting what words she picks up on too. One begins to realize how much of the vocabulary that seems most foreign to her is old-fashioned vocabularly we don't use much these days. She's asked me why some people call Ribsy "fellow" and was curious about the "cloakroom" in the classroom. She gets the giggles almost every time someone refers to poor lost Ribsy as "pooch" too.
I love Beverly Cleary, but this is definitely the most fun I've ever had reading one of her books. I love having a growing and learning listener right beside me!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
And the winner is...Jack Prelutsky!
A week or so ago I posted a little item about the naming of the first American Children's Poet Laureate. I hadn't heard the names of anyone under consideration, but my first instinct that they might name Jack Prelutsky (who is, incidentally, alive and well and still writing and publishing!) proved to be right!
Prelutsky is actually only 66. I was thinking of him as older, perhaps because I associate him with Shel Silverstein. Turns out that Silverstein was only born eight years before Prelutsky, though he passed away in 1999.
We've only begun enjoying Prelutsky's poems in the last year or so, but he's been writing funny and imaginative poems since 1967.
Here's a stanza from a Prelutsky poem we like:
I also really like
Both of these are taken from poems from his rhyme collection The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders, published by Greenwillow in 2002.
Prelutsky was awarded $25,000 and gets to spend the next two years promoting children's poetry. Sounds like a lovely way to spend two years!
Prelutsky is actually only 66. I was thinking of him as older, perhaps because I associate him with Shel Silverstein. Turns out that Silverstein was only born eight years before Prelutsky, though he passed away in 1999.
We've only begun enjoying Prelutsky's poems in the last year or so, but he's been writing funny and imaginative poems since 1967.
Here's a stanza from a Prelutsky poem we like:
Ten brown bears with big bow ties
gobbled plates of apple pies,
and with every pie they ate,
they piled up an empty plate.
I also really like
In her garden, Sarah Small
grows galoshes, short and tall.
Shirts of yellow, hats of red
beautify her flower bed.
Both of these are taken from poems from his rhyme collection The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders, published by Greenwillow in 2002.
Prelutsky was awarded $25,000 and gets to spend the next two years promoting children's poetry. Sounds like a lovely way to spend two years!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The Sweet Girl Wants to Know
"Does a bug hug a bug?"
"Does a squid sneeze?"
"How many years until I'm 100?"
"Does a squid sneeze?"
"How many years until I'm 100?"
Yielding
"So it seems the most important starting point for prayer is yielding: laying down our defenses, taking off masks, recognizing that God has already called us and is already waiting for us to come to him. Yielding is putting aside our self-importance, our cares and schedules and undertakings, in order, very simply, to be with God. It is the yielding up of everything that keeps us from the Lord, letting go of anxiety and restlessness. It is the gift to him of time, the only coin we have to spend: the gift of ourselves, one we find all too difficult to give." (Emilie Griffin, Clinging)
I keep going back to this paragraph in Griffin's little book. How many times I think "I don't have time" to just rest in the stillness and wait upon God. How many times I use the excuse of busyness, or don't really even try to make excuses. And how often, I wonder, is it because it can just be so hard to quiet my soul, to rest, to wait, to listen, to yield? Because it goes against the grain of so much of the rest of the tenor of my rushed and crammed-with-thinking kind of day. Because I might be afraid of what I hear?
Remember Michael Card's song "In Stillness and Simplicity": Is the reason we're not still, to hear you speak, because we don't believe you will? and then In stillness and simplicity, I lose myself in finding thee...
All of this weaving together with this line I read recently from Evelyn Underhill:
"Try to arrange things so that you can have a reasonable bit of quiet every day and do not be scrupulous and think it selfish to make a decided struggle for this. You are obeying God's call and giving Him the opportunity to teach you what He wants you to know, and so make you more useful to Him and to other souls.” (Evelyn Underhill’s letters, p. 141)
I will keep trying, even if for only a few minutes a day (and often late at night, when I seem to need it most and can move most easily into it) to put myself in a place of resting and listening.
Monday, September 25, 2006
It's a Small (Blog) World, After All...
Hmm. Jim Wallis, over at Sojourners, has started a new blog. It's called God's Politics (named after his recent book by that same title). Sojourners, of course, tries to engage in political discussion from what I think one could term "progressive evangelicalism" or "evangelicals on the left." And while I may not always agree one hundred percent with their perspectives, I always find the perspectives of Wallis and company thoughtful, thought-provoking and worthwhile. Link, if interested: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/
One of the intriguing things on "God's Politics" right now is an on-going conversation Jim Wallis has been having with Ralph Reed. I confess I've been too busy to read their full exchange, but I have enjoyed skimming it. Today, for some reason, I decided to click on the comments section attached to Reed's latest. I don't know why I did this -- comment boxes on political and religious blogs often worry and frustrate me far more than the articles posted, because lots of folks "take the gloves" off and forget how to be charitable when "conversing" via comments. Still, once in a while you can find something worthwhile and refreshing in the comments.
Let me just say this: I never thought I'd hear Ralph Reed quote Robert Kennedy (which he did in the final paragraph of his article!). Then again, I never thought I'd hear anyone quote folk singer Dar Williams to Ralph Reed, as happened in the comments. Hee!
The blog world certainly is an interesting one!
One of the intriguing things on "God's Politics" right now is an on-going conversation Jim Wallis has been having with Ralph Reed. I confess I've been too busy to read their full exchange, but I have enjoyed skimming it. Today, for some reason, I decided to click on the comments section attached to Reed's latest. I don't know why I did this -- comment boxes on political and religious blogs often worry and frustrate me far more than the articles posted, because lots of folks "take the gloves" off and forget how to be charitable when "conversing" via comments. Still, once in a while you can find something worthwhile and refreshing in the comments.
Let me just say this: I never thought I'd hear Ralph Reed quote Robert Kennedy (which he did in the final paragraph of his article!). Then again, I never thought I'd hear anyone quote folk singer Dar Williams to Ralph Reed, as happened in the comments. Hee!
The blog world certainly is an interesting one!
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Deep Peace...
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the gentle night to you,
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you,
Deep peace of Christ the light of the world to you.
(A Gaelic Blessing adapted from an old Gaelic rune)
I'm listening to an absolutely lovely CD this evening: Gloria: The Sacred Music of John Rutter. It's a new discovery and I'm basking in some of the wonderful arrangements of beautiful praise.
The sweet girl is beginning to want to sing. I think because she learned to talk so late, she was extra shy of ever joining in with songs...although we've always been a singing family, and D. and I have both sung to her a lot for years. She loves music and has always enjoyed it, been soothed by it, loved moving to it. But it's only been in recent months that she's begun to join in and trying to sing. I especially love hearing her on praise songs, when she gets excited and raises her hands and looks up with a shining light in her eyes. Some of her favorites right now: "I Love You, Lord" and "As the Deer" (which she makes us all hold hands to sing, including her dolls and bears, because as she earnestly says "it's a very special song").
I too love to sing, and need to do it more! And this Rutter music is definitely feeding a music and praise hunger in me right now.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Two Thoughts on the Heart
"When we have met our Lord in the silent intimacy of our prayer, then we will also meet him...in the market, and in the town square. But when we have not met him in the center of our own hearts, we cannot expect to meet him in the busyness of our daily lives." (Henri Nouwen)
"If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
I came across these two quotes a number of pages apart in Cornelius Plantinga's book Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living. (Hat tip to the wonderful Hearts and Minds Booknotes for putting me onto this fine book. I can't seem to get hyperlinks working, but they're at heartsandmindsbooknotes@blogsppot.com)
I'm still thinking through both quotes, and they're trying to spin/weave themselves into something that feels suspiciously like a poem but hasn't really become one yet.
The Solzhenitsyn quote feels particularly sobering on a day when we've learned that the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan now equals the death toll from September 11.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
HP 7: The Invisibility Cloak (Some Speculations)
Okay, I have to engage in at least a little bit of speculation here regarding JKR's recent comment about Harry's invisibility cloak. Not only because it's fun (and I keep kicking around ideas, so I may as well write them down) but because I find myself not wanting to go over to the HogPro boards until I've thought through my own ideas first. I'm sure far more savvy HP readers will be way ahead of me. So forgive me if I plod.
Let's start with some basic parsing. Rowling said we should have asked why Dumbledore had James' cloak "at the time James died" which is a very interesting statement. When Harry first receives the cloak, anonymously, on his first Christmas morning at Hogwarts, the note reads
Hmmm. "Left this in my possession before he died." Had it "at the time James died." I know, they're really close, but there is just a teeny weeny bit of difference in emphasis. And it's interesting that in both cases, James' death is referenced.
So many things keep pointing us back to Godric's Hollow and the night of Harry's parents' death, the night Voldemort tried to kill baby Harry, only to have the AK curse rebound and send him into involuntary un-embodied exile (which we now know was as close as someone could come to killing him, given the dark and twisted steps V. had taken to try to ensure his own immortality).
I keep trying to piece together that night, as well as we can, given what Rowling has given us in the first six books. There are sizeable holes in our information, but it does seem clear that an awful lot of people were at (or nearby, or watching over) the Potters' house that night. Voldemort was there, of course, and Peter Pettigrew had to be closeby. We know that much because he was the Potters' secret keeper, and only by divulging where they were (and breaking the Fidelius Charm -- interesting to note that he was "breaking Fidelius" or "breaking faith") could V. have found them in the first place. James' best friend and Harry's godfather Sirius Black was their first choice for secret keeper, but apparently (?) Sirius thought he seemed the obvious choice, and convinced James and Lily to use Peter instead, a decision he regretted the rest of his life. We can also speculate that Peter had to be around in order to retrieve Voldemort's wand -- someone had to take care of it and get it back to him later, and P.P. seems the likeliest candidate.
But we know Sirius had to be somewhat nearby too, or at least close enough to rush to the scene once he heard what happened -- and how did the word get out so quickly? -- because Sirius shows up in time to loan Hagrid his flying motorbike. Sirius had come with the intention of rescuing Harry -- we know that from PoA when Hagrid is recounting the evening to Fudge and McGonagall and tells them that Sirius had said "give me Harry" but Hagrid was already there under Dumbledore's orders to take Harry away. Presumably Sirius loaned him his bike, Hagrid flew off to get baby Harry to Dumbledore (meeting him on the wall outside 4 Privet Drive in one of the first scenes of the first book). Back at Godric's Hollow, by this time the muggles have come round to see what's happening (Hagrid described the house as almost destroyed) and Peter runs into Sirius, accuses him of the crime he himself has just committed, and fakes his own death in front of witnesses (taking a number of innocent muggles with him). This leaves an enraged and unhinged Sirius behind to be taken into wizarding custody for a crime he didn't commit.
Does this sound right? I feel like I'm patching together a quilt!
And how did Hagrid get there so quickly? It's clear Dumbledore was watching Godric's Hollow. He knew the Potters' lives were in danger, perhaps better than anyone (because he knew the prophecy) so he was clearly standing guard or had someone else standing guard. Maybe the Potters' kept a portrait of Dumbledore at their house? (Sorry! Highly unlikely, but I couldn't resist.) My guess is that Dumbledore had set careful watches/guards on both the Potters' and the Longbottoms' homes since at the time that the prophecy was made, he wasn't sure which child it meant and which one Voldemort was most likely to go after. I really need to go look at the end of OotP again and revisit that whole conversation Dumbledore has with Harry about that time period. (Also I'm unclear if we know from the patched together quilt of past events exactly when Alice and Frank Longbottom were tortured into insanity. And do we know WHY they were tortured? Beyond the fact that they were on the right side, I mean? Could they have been tortured because they wouldn't reveal the Potters' whereabouts?)
Back to Hagrid. How did he get there so fast? Does he know how to appararte? His wizarding training was never completed because he got expelled, but I'm guessing he's gotten a bit of extra training on the side from Dumbledore. But if he COULD apparate, why didn't he just do so with baby Harry instead of borrowing Sirius' motorbike --unless he knew how to apparate himself but had never practiced "side by side" appartion and was too scared to do so with the baby? Could Hagrid have been on the spot at Dumbledore's orders? Dumbledore was worried; so worried about the Potters that he himself wanted to be their secret keeper. And we know how much he trusts Hagrid. I would trust Hagrid with my life. But if you were going to station Hagrid somewhere nearby, how would you hide him? Would the invisiblity cloak work for this? I know it's not big enough to cover Hagrid, but I think something similar to an "engorgement charm" might be used to make it temporarily larger.
The only problem I have with Hagrid being in the vicinity that night is that I can't imagine him just staying put and watching everything unfold without losing his temper, rushing in, bellowing like anything, and trying to take out that ruddy Voldemort all by himself. The only thing that makes sense is if he purposefully was told to stay put no matter what -- and did so out of obedience to Dumbledore's orders. We know that Voldemort can apparate, and I think it would have been relatively easy for him to do so into the Potters' house once the Fidelius Charm had broken. The Fidelius was the strongest protection -- any other magical protection on the house was likely easy to breach once the Fidelius had been breached. So perhaps Hagrid, hidden in the vicinity, didn't see anyone go in and didn't know anything was going on until he suddenly saw green, flashing light and heard screaming and shouting. And by then, of course, it was too late.
Yes, I know...Snape is another candidate for having been there that night, under Dumbledore's orders. Snape himself knew the prophecy, or at least part of it. But would Dumbledore have sent Snape, knowing how Snape felt about James? What would be the point? (Unless he also knew how he felt about Lily, but now I'm *really* reaching into the realm of speculation...) And could Snape, even though he's a brilliant actor, have seen what happened that night at Godric's Hollow (and known his own role in the unfolding of the tragedy) and remained so outwardly cold and unfeeling to Harry (for six years!) regarding his parents and his loss? If he had been there that night would that night not have become one of his worst memories, or (if you still believe Snape's bad through and through) at least a memory that he would definitely need to safeguard from Harry ever accessing? And if so, why wasn't it one of the memories he placed in the pensieve for safe keeping before he had his occlumency lessons with Harry? (Unless we assume it was there, and Harry just didn't have time to see everything.)
When I start to think about why Snape might have been there that night, one of the only things I think of is that it had something to do with trying to block the making of the final horcrux. I would bet that Snape, drenched as he was in the dark arts during his formative years, might know a thing or two about horcruxes. But did he know Voldemort was trying to make seven of them? Did Dumbledore even know that much at that point in time? I am feeling really muddied about the timeline here! Can anyone else (please!) come up with a reason why Snape, or for that matter anyone else, might have been present under the invisibility cloak?
I'm not saying that the invisibility cloak had to play a role that night, but it seems likely given JKR's words that Dumbledore's possession of it "at the time James died" is "significant" even "crucial." I've frankly wondered why Dumbledore had it and not, say, Sirius. If you had a valuable treasure like that and wanted to ensure your child would have it one day, in the event of your own likely death (considering there was a war on and the Potters were on the frontlines) who would you give it to? Seems to me you'd give it to your child's godfather. So why Dumbledore, especially since Dumbledore, of all people, wouldn't ever need it, as JKR has helpfully pointed out to us here again (and first pointed out in the chapter on the Mirror of Erised in Sorcerer's Stone, when Dumbledore tells Harry straight out that he doesn't need an invisibility cloak to be invisible)? Unless James entrusted it to Dumbledore because Dumbledore told him someone else in the Order of the Phoenix needed to use in, perhaps in part to help protect the Potters. Just how rare are these cloaks, I wonder?
A couple more notes and then I'll wrap this up. It does seem interesting when we consider other times we've seen the invisibility cloak in action. Once in PoA -- Harry carelessly leaves it at the base of the Whomping Willow, Snape puts it on and thus is able to get into the Shrieking Shack unnoticed (where he hears all the stuff Lupin and Sirius are saying about Pettigrew, etc...although I need to go back to that sometime and figure out just where Snape must have begun listening). Secondly, we see it at the end of HBP when Dumbledore instructs Harry to wear it -- then immobilizes him so that he's both invisible and not able to move during the scene where he witnesses Dumbledore's death. It seems clear here (and indeed early on in Sorcerer's Stone, when he first gives Harry the cloak) that Dumbledore is providing protection but also encouraging Harry to move forward in his daunting task of facing evil, and in some ways schooling him in some very hard and difficult lessons. I can't help but think Dumbledore, by choosing the manner of his death (at least in part) also chose to have Harry witness it for a reason. All of which leads me back to the probability that asking someone to be in a difficult and dangerous place, under the protection of the cloak, is something Dumbledore would have been prepared to do that night at Godric's Hollow if he truly felt it was necessary. Was it? And if so, who did he ask? At any rate, we know Dumbledore did ask Harry to wear it in a a difficult and dangerous place 16 years later on the night of his own death, in the same ongoing battle...and perhaps that image is a kind of full circle pattern.
So interesting this all has to do with an invisibility cloak, of all things. The end of Rowling's story seems "cloaked" for now. Although I suspect what we need to unlock it is more visible than we realize, if only we could figure out what pieces are most important and how to fit them all together!
Let's start with some basic parsing. Rowling said we should have asked why Dumbledore had James' cloak "at the time James died" which is a very interesting statement. When Harry first receives the cloak, anonymously, on his first Christmas morning at Hogwarts, the note reads
Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well.
Hmmm. "Left this in my possession before he died." Had it "at the time James died." I know, they're really close, but there is just a teeny weeny bit of difference in emphasis. And it's interesting that in both cases, James' death is referenced.
So many things keep pointing us back to Godric's Hollow and the night of Harry's parents' death, the night Voldemort tried to kill baby Harry, only to have the AK curse rebound and send him into involuntary un-embodied exile (which we now know was as close as someone could come to killing him, given the dark and twisted steps V. had taken to try to ensure his own immortality).
I keep trying to piece together that night, as well as we can, given what Rowling has given us in the first six books. There are sizeable holes in our information, but it does seem clear that an awful lot of people were at (or nearby, or watching over) the Potters' house that night. Voldemort was there, of course, and Peter Pettigrew had to be closeby. We know that much because he was the Potters' secret keeper, and only by divulging where they were (and breaking the Fidelius Charm -- interesting to note that he was "breaking Fidelius" or "breaking faith") could V. have found them in the first place. James' best friend and Harry's godfather Sirius Black was their first choice for secret keeper, but apparently (?) Sirius thought he seemed the obvious choice, and convinced James and Lily to use Peter instead, a decision he regretted the rest of his life. We can also speculate that Peter had to be around in order to retrieve Voldemort's wand -- someone had to take care of it and get it back to him later, and P.P. seems the likeliest candidate.
But we know Sirius had to be somewhat nearby too, or at least close enough to rush to the scene once he heard what happened -- and how did the word get out so quickly? -- because Sirius shows up in time to loan Hagrid his flying motorbike. Sirius had come with the intention of rescuing Harry -- we know that from PoA when Hagrid is recounting the evening to Fudge and McGonagall and tells them that Sirius had said "give me Harry" but Hagrid was already there under Dumbledore's orders to take Harry away. Presumably Sirius loaned him his bike, Hagrid flew off to get baby Harry to Dumbledore (meeting him on the wall outside 4 Privet Drive in one of the first scenes of the first book). Back at Godric's Hollow, by this time the muggles have come round to see what's happening (Hagrid described the house as almost destroyed) and Peter runs into Sirius, accuses him of the crime he himself has just committed, and fakes his own death in front of witnesses (taking a number of innocent muggles with him). This leaves an enraged and unhinged Sirius behind to be taken into wizarding custody for a crime he didn't commit.
Does this sound right? I feel like I'm patching together a quilt!
And how did Hagrid get there so quickly? It's clear Dumbledore was watching Godric's Hollow. He knew the Potters' lives were in danger, perhaps better than anyone (because he knew the prophecy) so he was clearly standing guard or had someone else standing guard. Maybe the Potters' kept a portrait of Dumbledore at their house? (Sorry! Highly unlikely, but I couldn't resist.) My guess is that Dumbledore had set careful watches/guards on both the Potters' and the Longbottoms' homes since at the time that the prophecy was made, he wasn't sure which child it meant and which one Voldemort was most likely to go after. I really need to go look at the end of OotP again and revisit that whole conversation Dumbledore has with Harry about that time period. (Also I'm unclear if we know from the patched together quilt of past events exactly when Alice and Frank Longbottom were tortured into insanity. And do we know WHY they were tortured? Beyond the fact that they were on the right side, I mean? Could they have been tortured because they wouldn't reveal the Potters' whereabouts?)
Back to Hagrid. How did he get there so fast? Does he know how to appararte? His wizarding training was never completed because he got expelled, but I'm guessing he's gotten a bit of extra training on the side from Dumbledore. But if he COULD apparate, why didn't he just do so with baby Harry instead of borrowing Sirius' motorbike --unless he knew how to apparate himself but had never practiced "side by side" appartion and was too scared to do so with the baby? Could Hagrid have been on the spot at Dumbledore's orders? Dumbledore was worried; so worried about the Potters that he himself wanted to be their secret keeper. And we know how much he trusts Hagrid. I would trust Hagrid with my life. But if you were going to station Hagrid somewhere nearby, how would you hide him? Would the invisiblity cloak work for this? I know it's not big enough to cover Hagrid, but I think something similar to an "engorgement charm" might be used to make it temporarily larger.
The only problem I have with Hagrid being in the vicinity that night is that I can't imagine him just staying put and watching everything unfold without losing his temper, rushing in, bellowing like anything, and trying to take out that ruddy Voldemort all by himself. The only thing that makes sense is if he purposefully was told to stay put no matter what -- and did so out of obedience to Dumbledore's orders. We know that Voldemort can apparate, and I think it would have been relatively easy for him to do so into the Potters' house once the Fidelius Charm had broken. The Fidelius was the strongest protection -- any other magical protection on the house was likely easy to breach once the Fidelius had been breached. So perhaps Hagrid, hidden in the vicinity, didn't see anyone go in and didn't know anything was going on until he suddenly saw green, flashing light and heard screaming and shouting. And by then, of course, it was too late.
Yes, I know...Snape is another candidate for having been there that night, under Dumbledore's orders. Snape himself knew the prophecy, or at least part of it. But would Dumbledore have sent Snape, knowing how Snape felt about James? What would be the point? (Unless he also knew how he felt about Lily, but now I'm *really* reaching into the realm of speculation...) And could Snape, even though he's a brilliant actor, have seen what happened that night at Godric's Hollow (and known his own role in the unfolding of the tragedy) and remained so outwardly cold and unfeeling to Harry (for six years!) regarding his parents and his loss? If he had been there that night would that night not have become one of his worst memories, or (if you still believe Snape's bad through and through) at least a memory that he would definitely need to safeguard from Harry ever accessing? And if so, why wasn't it one of the memories he placed in the pensieve for safe keeping before he had his occlumency lessons with Harry? (Unless we assume it was there, and Harry just didn't have time to see everything.)
When I start to think about why Snape might have been there that night, one of the only things I think of is that it had something to do with trying to block the making of the final horcrux. I would bet that Snape, drenched as he was in the dark arts during his formative years, might know a thing or two about horcruxes. But did he know Voldemort was trying to make seven of them? Did Dumbledore even know that much at that point in time? I am feeling really muddied about the timeline here! Can anyone else (please!) come up with a reason why Snape, or for that matter anyone else, might have been present under the invisibility cloak?
I'm not saying that the invisibility cloak had to play a role that night, but it seems likely given JKR's words that Dumbledore's possession of it "at the time James died" is "significant" even "crucial." I've frankly wondered why Dumbledore had it and not, say, Sirius. If you had a valuable treasure like that and wanted to ensure your child would have it one day, in the event of your own likely death (considering there was a war on and the Potters were on the frontlines) who would you give it to? Seems to me you'd give it to your child's godfather. So why Dumbledore, especially since Dumbledore, of all people, wouldn't ever need it, as JKR has helpfully pointed out to us here again (and first pointed out in the chapter on the Mirror of Erised in Sorcerer's Stone, when Dumbledore tells Harry straight out that he doesn't need an invisibility cloak to be invisible)? Unless James entrusted it to Dumbledore because Dumbledore told him someone else in the Order of the Phoenix needed to use in, perhaps in part to help protect the Potters. Just how rare are these cloaks, I wonder?
A couple more notes and then I'll wrap this up. It does seem interesting when we consider other times we've seen the invisibility cloak in action. Once in PoA -- Harry carelessly leaves it at the base of the Whomping Willow, Snape puts it on and thus is able to get into the Shrieking Shack unnoticed (where he hears all the stuff Lupin and Sirius are saying about Pettigrew, etc...although I need to go back to that sometime and figure out just where Snape must have begun listening). Secondly, we see it at the end of HBP when Dumbledore instructs Harry to wear it -- then immobilizes him so that he's both invisible and not able to move during the scene where he witnesses Dumbledore's death. It seems clear here (and indeed early on in Sorcerer's Stone, when he first gives Harry the cloak) that Dumbledore is providing protection but also encouraging Harry to move forward in his daunting task of facing evil, and in some ways schooling him in some very hard and difficult lessons. I can't help but think Dumbledore, by choosing the manner of his death (at least in part) also chose to have Harry witness it for a reason. All of which leads me back to the probability that asking someone to be in a difficult and dangerous place, under the protection of the cloak, is something Dumbledore would have been prepared to do that night at Godric's Hollow if he truly felt it was necessary. Was it? And if so, who did he ask? At any rate, we know Dumbledore did ask Harry to wear it in a a difficult and dangerous place 16 years later on the night of his own death, in the same ongoing battle...and perhaps that image is a kind of full circle pattern.
So interesting this all has to do with an invisibility cloak, of all things. The end of Rowling's story seems "cloaked" for now. Although I suspect what we need to unlock it is more visible than we realize, if only we could figure out what pieces are most important and how to fit them all together!
Monday, September 18, 2006
HP 7: The Invisibility Cloak
Hmmm...couldn't resist a Harry Potter posting this evening, as I just took a break and hopped over to HP blogland for the first time in a while. Turns out JK Rowling has updated her site again, as of September 13, with a question she says she's never been asked, but should have been asked. Surprisingly, here it is (and it wasn't anything I was expecting):
And here's another intriguing bit: her "answer" (if you could call it that) is that there IS an answer, which she claims is "significant" and one could even say "crucial."
Hmm....plot to book 7 thickens.
Accio thinking caps!
Why did Dumbledore have James’ invisibility cloak at the time of James’ death, given that Dumbledore could make himself invisible without a cloak?
And here's another intriguing bit: her "answer" (if you could call it that) is that there IS an answer, which she claims is "significant" and one could even say "crucial."
Hmm....plot to book 7 thickens.
Accio thinking caps!
First Children's Poet Laureate in U.S.
From U.S. Newswire, I just read this:
What great news! I confess I had not ever thought about whether or not there was a poet laureate for children in this country. Now that I'm thinking about it, I definitely think there should be one. Glad it will come to be. I wonder who's being considered? Is Jack Prelutsky still alive? (I think so...)
How about Nikki Grimes? She'd be great.
The Poetry Foundation will inaugurate the nation's first Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, as part of the third annual Pegasus Awards ceremony in Chicago on Sept. 27.
The Children's Poet Laureate award will be given to a living American writer in recognition of a career devoted to writing exceptional poetry for the young child. The award aims to raise the general public's awareness that children have a natural receptivity to poetry written specifically for them which, when nurtured, can grow into a lifelong love for poetry.
What great news! I confess I had not ever thought about whether or not there was a poet laureate for children in this country. Now that I'm thinking about it, I definitely think there should be one. Glad it will come to be. I wonder who's being considered? Is Jack Prelutsky still alive? (I think so...)
How about Nikki Grimes? She'd be great.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
I Was Just Wondering....
The sweet girl came up with another really great question for me today. She was in the bathroom and I was in the kitchen, and suddenly I heard a bump followed by a yell. Startled, I glanced up and then heard her shout in an agitated and indignant voice: "I FELL OFF the potty!" This is not (thankfully) something she does every day. I called back "what happend?" and she shouted "I was TRYING to count my toes!"
At this point D. and I (he was also in the kitchen) were having a hard time swallowing our laughter. Chuckling, I headed into the bathroom where I said teasingly "You were counting your toes? You still have ten!" And sweet girl, rubbing her head somewhat ruefully from the bump against the sink, looked down at her feet and asked thoughtfully "Will you still have ten toes when you're eleven?"
I really am beginning to think she might end up writing science fiction...
At this point D. and I (he was also in the kitchen) were having a hard time swallowing our laughter. Chuckling, I headed into the bathroom where I said teasingly "You were counting your toes? You still have ten!" And sweet girl, rubbing her head somewhat ruefully from the bump against the sink, looked down at her feet and asked thoughtfully "Will you still have ten toes when you're eleven?"
I really am beginning to think she might end up writing science fiction...
Friday, September 15, 2006
First Frost Notes
No, I'm not giving a weather report here. Certainly no sign of frost yet! In fact, today's been a bit warm and muggy, reminding me that no matter how much most of us feel as though fall's already here, we're actually in the last few days of late, late summer.
My "first Frost notes" refer to what I suspect will be my first post of many on Robert Frost's poems in the coming months. I've begun my straight read-through of New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost's Poems, the beloved paperback that has been my favorite Frost companion for years. I've read "at" it again and again, but I have a bad habit of going mostly to the poems I know and love and not always venturing into the poems that don't immediately grab my attention in their first few lines. But Frost is one of the poets of my heart (among other things, he and I share a birthday) and I've decided this book merits slower, more methodical attention. Thus I am beginning at the beginning and plowing through, over, around and under all kinds of poems: beloved, strange, unfamiliar, not-read-that-one-for-years and more.
And my "Frost notes" here will be just that: jottings of lines that particularly grab my attention for whatever reason. I may or may not always add accompanying commentary. But I do want to use this blog as a repository for the Frost lines that speak to me with particular resonance.
Thus far, I've found (or re-found) these gems:
That last line, from "Home Burial" is one that I've always found particularly poignant. I don't think it's true, by the way, that since we cannot go the whole way with someone in their grief, we shouldn't try to go at all. But I think it feels deeply true to the person travelling through deep grief, as is the woman in this poem. Therefore the line has a solid ring of realness to it, a way of making me emphatically nod my head whenever I get to it. I'm frequently in awe of how Frost captures voices, not just that they sound interesting or quirky, but that the lines of dialogue in his poems have such authenticity. It's all the more astounding when you realize how carefully metered his dialogue is. Perhaps that's not as astounding as it seems; I suspect that most of our conversation is more rhythmic than we realize. Frost must have had an uncanny ear for that though. I wonder if he found it hard to make art seem so artless.
My "first Frost notes" refer to what I suspect will be my first post of many on Robert Frost's poems in the coming months. I've begun my straight read-through of New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost's Poems, the beloved paperback that has been my favorite Frost companion for years. I've read "at" it again and again, but I have a bad habit of going mostly to the poems I know and love and not always venturing into the poems that don't immediately grab my attention in their first few lines. But Frost is one of the poets of my heart (among other things, he and I share a birthday) and I've decided this book merits slower, more methodical attention. Thus I am beginning at the beginning and plowing through, over, around and under all kinds of poems: beloved, strange, unfamiliar, not-read-that-one-for-years and more.
And my "Frost notes" here will be just that: jottings of lines that particularly grab my attention for whatever reason. I may or may not always add accompanying commentary. But I do want to use this blog as a repository for the Frost lines that speak to me with particular resonance.
Thus far, I've found (or re-found) these gems:
I had a lover's quarrel with the world. --from "The Lesson for Today"
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight...
"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."
--From "The Tuft of Flowers"
It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really they're ebony skinned:
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.
-- From "Blueberries"
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
--From "Home Burial"
That last line, from "Home Burial" is one that I've always found particularly poignant. I don't think it's true, by the way, that since we cannot go the whole way with someone in their grief, we shouldn't try to go at all. But I think it feels deeply true to the person travelling through deep grief, as is the woman in this poem. Therefore the line has a solid ring of realness to it, a way of making me emphatically nod my head whenever I get to it. I'm frequently in awe of how Frost captures voices, not just that they sound interesting or quirky, but that the lines of dialogue in his poems have such authenticity. It's all the more astounding when you realize how carefully metered his dialogue is. Perhaps that's not as astounding as it seems; I suspect that most of our conversation is more rhythmic than we realize. Frost must have had an uncanny ear for that though. I wonder if he found it hard to make art seem so artless.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Evening Prayer
Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.
~from Daily Devotions (In the Early Evening) from the Book of Common Prayer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
What Kind of Weather Are You?
I spent late afternoon saying good-byes, then singing and dancing in the rain with my daughter. Then listening to a new Art Garfunkel CD (well, new to me) that I picked up at the library sale on Saturday, and realizing how much I liked the song "What I Love About Rain." And tonight I took this weather quiz. Why am I not surprised by the results?
I DO love rain; it's always been my favorite weather. Still I wonder if the quiz results might have come out differently if this had been a different kind of day...
| You Are Rain |
 You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing |
I DO love rain; it's always been my favorite weather. Still I wonder if the quiz results might have come out differently if this had been a different kind of day...
Reading Round-Up (Several Months Overdue)
I can't remember the last time I did a "reading round-up." I'm fairly certain I didn't do one all summer. Ah well. I'll do my best now to capture a few of the books/authors I've been enjoying, though I suspect I will not recall them all and may need to update as certain books come back to me. (My memory is truly not working well of late...I think I'm too tired!)
Inwardly, I've jokingly referred to one part of my reading list as "Christian radicals." But there's something about that category that actually seems to fit a small group of books I've been reading for the past several weeks. I noted it here when I read Life as I Remember It by Rich Mullins. I actually still have a few reflections in that book to finish. I recently finished Mike Yankoski's Under the Overpass (Multnomah) the true account of a young man's experiences from a period of time when he chose to live on the streets in several U.S. cities, to experience firsthand the life of the homeless and poor. This book sets up some interesting contrasts to another book I'm currently reading, The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne (Zondervan). Shane's radical activism has deeper roots. I confess one reason I wanted to read Shane's book is that we know him, at least a little: in his undergraduate years at Eastern University, our alma mater, Shane was a student worker in the admissions office where my husband supervised student workers, and he also worked on a drama ministry team that D. was still connected to in an advisory capacity. So we've followed Shane's passion and the life of his inner-city community (the Simple Way in Philadelphia) with interest, received their newsletter from just about the very start, and kept him in our prayers (his picture currently resides in our family's "missionary book" which we use at family prayer times).
C.S. Lewis reminds me that it's important to read "old books," not just new; in fact, he recommends that at least every other book we read be an "old" one, so we can try to overcome chronological snobbery (and cultural myopia). It occurs to me that I would do well to turn to some older radicals in the faith. I've yet to find and read a really good biography of St. Francis of Assisi, something I've been meaning to do for years. If anyone has any recommendations...
In the category of children's literature, I've read so much that there's no way I can come close to recounting everything. Probably my best "find" this year has been Elizabeth Enright, a novelist who wrote from the 1930s-1960s. I've enjoyed three of the Melendy books (stories about a family of siblings named Melendy). I think there's a fourth but I'm not sure. This past weekend I hit the jackpot at a used book sale at the library and found all three of the Melendy books I've read bound in one volume; despite some yellowing to the pages and cover, it was in good shape and I suspect will make delightful rainy day reading for the sweet girl one day, so I snapped it up. Mostly recently I finished Enright's Gone-Away Lake, which garnered her a Newbery honor in 1958. I've yet to tackle her 1939 Newbery Medal winning Thimble Summer, but plan to read both that and the sequel to Gone-Away Lake sometime in the coming year.
My James Herriot phase has been a long one this summer. I read Animal Stories and Every Living Thing and all eight of the collected pictures books in his Children's Treasury (this last with my daughter). A couple of weeks ago I started the biography of Herriot written by his son, James Wight: The Real James Herriot. I've also been losing myself in Herriot's lovely travelogue reflections (and even moreso in the pictures) of James Herriot's Yorkshire.
I'm yawning...it's a very rainy afternoon and the sweet girl is napping. I was up way too late last night, working with my class, so I think I will go curl up on the couch for a bit and rest while the rain falls. More soon on other books I've enjoyed!
Inwardly, I've jokingly referred to one part of my reading list as "Christian radicals." But there's something about that category that actually seems to fit a small group of books I've been reading for the past several weeks. I noted it here when I read Life as I Remember It by Rich Mullins. I actually still have a few reflections in that book to finish. I recently finished Mike Yankoski's Under the Overpass (Multnomah) the true account of a young man's experiences from a period of time when he chose to live on the streets in several U.S. cities, to experience firsthand the life of the homeless and poor. This book sets up some interesting contrasts to another book I'm currently reading, The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne (Zondervan). Shane's radical activism has deeper roots. I confess one reason I wanted to read Shane's book is that we know him, at least a little: in his undergraduate years at Eastern University, our alma mater, Shane was a student worker in the admissions office where my husband supervised student workers, and he also worked on a drama ministry team that D. was still connected to in an advisory capacity. So we've followed Shane's passion and the life of his inner-city community (the Simple Way in Philadelphia) with interest, received their newsletter from just about the very start, and kept him in our prayers (his picture currently resides in our family's "missionary book" which we use at family prayer times).
C.S. Lewis reminds me that it's important to read "old books," not just new; in fact, he recommends that at least every other book we read be an "old" one, so we can try to overcome chronological snobbery (and cultural myopia). It occurs to me that I would do well to turn to some older radicals in the faith. I've yet to find and read a really good biography of St. Francis of Assisi, something I've been meaning to do for years. If anyone has any recommendations...
In the category of children's literature, I've read so much that there's no way I can come close to recounting everything. Probably my best "find" this year has been Elizabeth Enright, a novelist who wrote from the 1930s-1960s. I've enjoyed three of the Melendy books (stories about a family of siblings named Melendy). I think there's a fourth but I'm not sure. This past weekend I hit the jackpot at a used book sale at the library and found all three of the Melendy books I've read bound in one volume; despite some yellowing to the pages and cover, it was in good shape and I suspect will make delightful rainy day reading for the sweet girl one day, so I snapped it up. Mostly recently I finished Enright's Gone-Away Lake, which garnered her a Newbery honor in 1958. I've yet to tackle her 1939 Newbery Medal winning Thimble Summer, but plan to read both that and the sequel to Gone-Away Lake sometime in the coming year.
My James Herriot phase has been a long one this summer. I read Animal Stories and Every Living Thing and all eight of the collected pictures books in his Children's Treasury (this last with my daughter). A couple of weeks ago I started the biography of Herriot written by his son, James Wight: The Real James Herriot. I've also been losing myself in Herriot's lovely travelogue reflections (and even moreso in the pictures) of James Herriot's Yorkshire.
I'm yawning...it's a very rainy afternoon and the sweet girl is napping. I was up way too late last night, working with my class, so I think I will go curl up on the couch for a bit and rest while the rain falls. More soon on other books I've enjoyed!
Monday, September 11, 2006
Remembering...
Here in the United States, I know we're all remembering the events of five years ago this morning. Remembering with love, with prayers, with tears. With gratitude and with pain.
It's odd, remembering moments from an exact date so clearly. That morning has become a kind of "frozen snapshot" for many of us, although I realize how important it is that we recall that it was not yet a snapshot that day, but a real and tragic event that deeply affected the lives of so many people.
When I was younger, people would often ask "where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot?" and I would wonder about the events of that day, which happened four and half years before I was born. In my lifetime, I think there have only been two historic national events that come close to having that evocative power for me: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001.
Sweet Girl, of course, will not ever remember the events of 2001. She was not yet born; in fact, not quite conceived (she was conceived just a few weeks later). In many ways, her conception was a deeper source of joy and gratitude for me that perhaps it might have even been otherwise, coming on the heels of my miscarriage that June and then the events of 9/11. I felt as though that tiny person growing inside me was a gift, a real gift, a tiny seed of hope. And now I see her lovely face and hear her tinkling laughter and feel the strength of her skinny arms when they wrap round my neck to give me a "biiiiggg huuuugg" and I know that she really is a gift and a blessing, and that her sphere of blessing is widening as her world widens. May she grow more and more into gifts of wonder, compassion and peace-making.
And may we all remember too that for many places around the world, "9/11" kinds of days, days of displacement and suffering, happened before and have happened since. The crisis in Darfur has worsened again in recent weeks, just as one example. The Sudanese governement has launched another offensive, and in the past three years hundreds of thousands have died and literally more than 2 million people have become refugees. May our hearts ache with pain over the suffering of our brothers and sisters there and elsewhere, even as we remember the aching hearts of fellow Americans.
It's odd, remembering moments from an exact date so clearly. That morning has become a kind of "frozen snapshot" for many of us, although I realize how important it is that we recall that it was not yet a snapshot that day, but a real and tragic event that deeply affected the lives of so many people.
When I was younger, people would often ask "where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot?" and I would wonder about the events of that day, which happened four and half years before I was born. In my lifetime, I think there have only been two historic national events that come close to having that evocative power for me: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001.
Sweet Girl, of course, will not ever remember the events of 2001. She was not yet born; in fact, not quite conceived (she was conceived just a few weeks later). In many ways, her conception was a deeper source of joy and gratitude for me that perhaps it might have even been otherwise, coming on the heels of my miscarriage that June and then the events of 9/11. I felt as though that tiny person growing inside me was a gift, a real gift, a tiny seed of hope. And now I see her lovely face and hear her tinkling laughter and feel the strength of her skinny arms when they wrap round my neck to give me a "biiiiggg huuuugg" and I know that she really is a gift and a blessing, and that her sphere of blessing is widening as her world widens. May she grow more and more into gifts of wonder, compassion and peace-making.
And may we all remember too that for many places around the world, "9/11" kinds of days, days of displacement and suffering, happened before and have happened since. The crisis in Darfur has worsened again in recent weeks, just as one example. The Sudanese governement has launched another offensive, and in the past three years hundreds of thousands have died and literally more than 2 million people have become refugees. May our hearts ache with pain over the suffering of our brothers and sisters there and elsewhere, even as we remember the aching hearts of fellow Americans.
"So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12, ESV
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Old Friends
September always brings so many changes...in routines, in the weather. This year it's bringing one more huge change, unique to this year. One of my oldest and dearest friends is moving next week to Australia.
I met Shoshana just a couple of weeks or so after we moved here nine years ago. For four plus years, I worked for her as the administrative assistant at the synagogue where she was rabbi. After I left that job, we remained very good friends.
When I met her, she was engaged to be married. I remember hearing the stories of their cyberspace meeting, their subsequent long-distance romance, and finally of her wedding. I remember meeting Bobby, kind and gentle and a great science fiction writer. I remember her morning sickenss when she was pregnant with her first son, and how (before she she had made knowledge of the pregnancy public) she would wear sea bands in the office and then whip them off surreptiously whenever a member of the congregation came in. I remember when she fainted on the bimah because of low blood pressure, and how she worried about being able to make it up and down during high holy day prayers when she was pregnant. I remember making something like eighty phone calls to help announce Yonatan's birth. I remember his bris; what a beautiful baby he was. And I remember too all the times I carried him around with me at the synagogue, showing him the stained glass windows and singing songs to him, or playing with him on the floor of the office while his Ima worked at the computer. We used to joke that he'd become part of my job description. I didn't mind -- holding that little one during the first few months of his life was very healing for me in ways that are difficult to explain. It was in holding Y. that I realized, finally, that I really did feel ready for motherhood myself, after a long unsure journey toward that destination.
I still remember all the boxes and boxes from their move -- from a town several miles away to a little house here in our town, just a few blocks from us. We were amazed that B. had coded every box with a letter and number so that they knew exactly what was in every box and where it would end up going. We stayed late at their old apartment the night before the movers arrived, helping to pack the last things.
I remember all the luna bars S. ate during her second pregnancy. She used to joke that the next baby would be partially made of luna bars. And maybe he is! Nadav's always had a sweet face and sweet personality, so perhaps it had something to do with those sweet nutrition bars! And how many trips to DeWalt's health store did I make to buy S. her favorite lunch -- Amy's broccoli and cheddar potpies! Sometimes I'd get one too, and we'd chat in the big, silvery synagogue kitchen while they cooked in the microwave.
I've always loved Shoshana's parents. Devoted grandparents that they are, they've made countless trips here, for birthdays but also just to spend ordinary day to day time with their daughter and her family. I was able to recommend the wonderful bed and breakfast place (owned by my former seminary professor and his wife) that they stayed in every time they came. I will miss their visits, their zestful energy and enthusiasm.
And so many other memories -- sharing in the boys' early birthday parties (they were both born in January, but two years apart, so they celebrate jointly) and in this last one, when my own sweet girl went bowling for the first time. Hearing about B's latest project -- his varied interests and creative ideas seemed to know no bounds! Meals shared, books borrowed, phone calls and emails and countless "drop-in" visits to their small home and garden. Caring for that garden last summer when they went on their annual Montana vacation. Getting to know their wonderful tuxedo cat, Shavit, whom they rescued from the streets -- and whom they heartbreakingly gave to a new home just this past week. S' 40th birthday last year, which they combined with fourth of July festivities.
My sweet girl's second birthday when the boys came to share cake and ice cream, to play with her toy kitchen, and to give her the lovely ballerina bear peek-a-boo pillow she still plays with. Last year's Halloween party when Sarah was the only girl among seven kids -- Shoshana's boys, Sheila's boys, and Deb's boys, the six of them looking goofy and fabulous in their various superhero and other boyish costumes, ranged on the stairs, and Sarah, giggling in the front, wearing her ladybug outfit. (Sheila and family moved in March...)
These memories are just the tip of the iceberg. Suffice it to say, we will miss them and their whole family very much. The movers came on Friday so the family was exhausted and we took them lots of vegetarian Chinese food for dinner. We all sat on their front lawn on their old fouton (which hadn't fit on the truck after all) covered by a plastic tarp, and we ate and drank and enjoyed a picnic together. I looked around at the boys -- who will soon be 6 and 8 -- and at my own precious girl, now 4 -- and I realized what an awful lot of living we have all been through together, as neighbors and as friends.
And on Wednesday, they will leave for the land of kangaroos and koalas half a world away. The leaves will begin turning here on Maplewood; some of the prettiest autumn trees in town are right in their block. They'll be heading into spring at their new place.
Change is hard. It's good, it means we're growing and alive, but oh yes, sometimes it's hard.
Blessings on old friends for a good journey into new growth and green.
I met Shoshana just a couple of weeks or so after we moved here nine years ago. For four plus years, I worked for her as the administrative assistant at the synagogue where she was rabbi. After I left that job, we remained very good friends.
When I met her, she was engaged to be married. I remember hearing the stories of their cyberspace meeting, their subsequent long-distance romance, and finally of her wedding. I remember meeting Bobby, kind and gentle and a great science fiction writer. I remember her morning sickenss when she was pregnant with her first son, and how (before she she had made knowledge of the pregnancy public) she would wear sea bands in the office and then whip them off surreptiously whenever a member of the congregation came in. I remember when she fainted on the bimah because of low blood pressure, and how she worried about being able to make it up and down during high holy day prayers when she was pregnant. I remember making something like eighty phone calls to help announce Yonatan's birth. I remember his bris; what a beautiful baby he was. And I remember too all the times I carried him around with me at the synagogue, showing him the stained glass windows and singing songs to him, or playing with him on the floor of the office while his Ima worked at the computer. We used to joke that he'd become part of my job description. I didn't mind -- holding that little one during the first few months of his life was very healing for me in ways that are difficult to explain. It was in holding Y. that I realized, finally, that I really did feel ready for motherhood myself, after a long unsure journey toward that destination.
I still remember all the boxes and boxes from their move -- from a town several miles away to a little house here in our town, just a few blocks from us. We were amazed that B. had coded every box with a letter and number so that they knew exactly what was in every box and where it would end up going. We stayed late at their old apartment the night before the movers arrived, helping to pack the last things.
I remember all the luna bars S. ate during her second pregnancy. She used to joke that the next baby would be partially made of luna bars. And maybe he is! Nadav's always had a sweet face and sweet personality, so perhaps it had something to do with those sweet nutrition bars! And how many trips to DeWalt's health store did I make to buy S. her favorite lunch -- Amy's broccoli and cheddar potpies! Sometimes I'd get one too, and we'd chat in the big, silvery synagogue kitchen while they cooked in the microwave.
I've always loved Shoshana's parents. Devoted grandparents that they are, they've made countless trips here, for birthdays but also just to spend ordinary day to day time with their daughter and her family. I was able to recommend the wonderful bed and breakfast place (owned by my former seminary professor and his wife) that they stayed in every time they came. I will miss their visits, their zestful energy and enthusiasm.
And so many other memories -- sharing in the boys' early birthday parties (they were both born in January, but two years apart, so they celebrate jointly) and in this last one, when my own sweet girl went bowling for the first time. Hearing about B's latest project -- his varied interests and creative ideas seemed to know no bounds! Meals shared, books borrowed, phone calls and emails and countless "drop-in" visits to their small home and garden. Caring for that garden last summer when they went on their annual Montana vacation. Getting to know their wonderful tuxedo cat, Shavit, whom they rescued from the streets -- and whom they heartbreakingly gave to a new home just this past week. S' 40th birthday last year, which they combined with fourth of July festivities.
My sweet girl's second birthday when the boys came to share cake and ice cream, to play with her toy kitchen, and to give her the lovely ballerina bear peek-a-boo pillow she still plays with. Last year's Halloween party when Sarah was the only girl among seven kids -- Shoshana's boys, Sheila's boys, and Deb's boys, the six of them looking goofy and fabulous in their various superhero and other boyish costumes, ranged on the stairs, and Sarah, giggling in the front, wearing her ladybug outfit. (Sheila and family moved in March...)
These memories are just the tip of the iceberg. Suffice it to say, we will miss them and their whole family very much. The movers came on Friday so the family was exhausted and we took them lots of vegetarian Chinese food for dinner. We all sat on their front lawn on their old fouton (which hadn't fit on the truck after all) covered by a plastic tarp, and we ate and drank and enjoyed a picnic together. I looked around at the boys -- who will soon be 6 and 8 -- and at my own precious girl, now 4 -- and I realized what an awful lot of living we have all been through together, as neighbors and as friends.
And on Wednesday, they will leave for the land of kangaroos and koalas half a world away. The leaves will begin turning here on Maplewood; some of the prettiest autumn trees in town are right in their block. They'll be heading into spring at their new place.
Change is hard. It's good, it means we're growing and alive, but oh yes, sometimes it's hard.
Blessings on old friends for a good journey into new growth and green.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Autumn Reading Challenge
I've wandered far afield in recent months from my pledge to keep track of what I'm reading via this blog. Some of it is due to lack of discipline, but more of it is due to the fact that life's been so busy that this has become, in the main, more of a general journal than I ever expected it to. As much as I love books, life is full of other experiences too, many of which I enjoy "reading" (or letting read me!) and reflecting on!
I do plan to do some sort of a round-up to reflect a bit on what I've been reading in recent months. Until then, however, I thought I would challenge myself with the "Autumn Reading Challenge" found at a blog called "Seasonal Soundings."
I'm sure I'll tweak this list a bit -- because I tend to follow fairytale breadcrumb trails from book to book, I often end up reading lots of things I didn't plan to read. But here's at least some of what I'm challenging myself with in the coming autumn months (and perhaps a bit of the winter too).
The Irrestible Revolution by Shane Claiborne (I'm part-way through this and want to finish it)
I just started Jim Wight’s biography of his dad The Real James Herriot and also James Herriot’s Yorkshire.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Because I've never read it, and I promised myself after reading A Tale of Two Cities (last summer) that I would read more Dickens!
Miniatures and Morals – The Christian Novels of Jane Austen by Peter Leithart (this has been on my wishlist forever; haven't been able to get it via library and can't afford to buy it...but if I can find a copy, by golly, I plan to read it!)
Essays from Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness compiled by Rowell, Stevenson and Williams; and Glorious Companions: Five Centuries of Anglican Spirituality bu Richard Schmidt. These are both on the reading list for a course called Anglican Way of Theology, which I'm being allowed to sit in on as an online guest. I consider this enrichment reading which will help me in the course I'm teaching online (Episcopal Ethos).
I've decided to revisit Robert Frost this fall; my favorite edition of the poems has Louis Untermeyer's intro. and notes. I have favorites in that collection that I've read over and over, but I'm not sure I've ever attempted a read-through of all the poems in it from start to finish. I started last night right before bed.
I'm also adding the following to my list: The Sense of the Call - A Sabbath Way of Life for those who serve God, the Church, and the World, by Marva Dawn. I really like her work and I think this book might be very appropriate for this season of our family's life. I'm hoping the seminary library has a copy or I can get it via loan!
Historic Parallels: Rauschenbusch and Cabrini?
Books and Culture's e-letter today contained a review by Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom. Jenkins, with his emphasis on Christianity as a global movement, is always fascinating and thought-provoking.
I've had an exhausting day and am still wending my way through his review of the new, multi-volumed (some still in process) Cambridge History of Christianity but this little bit struck me as especially interesting food for thought:
This seems like an obvious "duh" observation, but to my tired mind it seemed pretty profound. We do tend to study movements, especially denominational/sectarian ones, in isolation. I have spent some time studying the Pietist movement, for instance, and I've got more than a passing familiarity with Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart (since I spent almost five years working for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) but I don't think I ever thought to connect their roots/beginnings. Worth exploring I should think.
I do wonder how often this is true in Christian history...the church, in its varied forms and traditions, responds to key cultural and world events, and those responses naturally look different, coming as they do from such diverse traditions, but perhaps share a deeper core than the traditions might realize.
I am thinking, of course, of my own personal favorite historic era in American history -- the early 1900s, specifically prior to 1925. I've spent a lot of time in company with two almost larger than life religious figures from that era: Walter Rauschenbusch, male, Protestant, Baptist, father of the Social Gospel (about whom I wrote my thesis) and Frances Xavier Cabrini, female, Catholic, Roman, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart (and about whom I wrote an essay, among other things). On the surface, they were seemingly very different people, but I've often wondered what interesting comparisons might surface if one pushed a bit at their unique responses, as missioners/missionaries especially, to the effects of industrialization in America. Both had a real heart for the poor, though I think all in all Cabrini's activism was more vital (and more theologically healthy) and her legacy more long-lasting. Rauschenbusch's Victorian sensibilities about the family and Cabrini's Marian devotion both seem to be a part of the overarching climate Jenkins' references too.
I need to think more about this.
I've had an exhausting day and am still wending my way through his review of the new, multi-volumed (some still in process) Cambridge History of Christianity but this little bit struck me as especially interesting food for thought:
Equally, Christian movements and trends often transcend the boundaries between Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, though this fact is lost when movements are studied in isolation. In the 1670s, for instance, German Protestantism was transformed by the Pietist movement, which stressed personal devotion and heart-religion in a tradition that overemphasized clericalism and scholarship. At exactly the same time, Roman Catholic mystics elevated the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Protestant-Catholic parallels and connections emerge time and again in the chc volume on the 19th century, inevitably since the various countries were dealing with similar political issues in the aftermath of the European revolutions, and to varying degrees were experiencing modernization and industrialization. In response, Protestants, Catholics, and (later) Orthodox formulated innovative strategies and evolved similar responses—fideistic and devotional movements, missionary enthusiasm, calls for moral purity. The well-known feminization and domestication of Victorian Protestantism finds a close parallel in the complex of Marian devotions in contemporary Europe.
This seems like an obvious "duh" observation, but to my tired mind it seemed pretty profound. We do tend to study movements, especially denominational/sectarian ones, in isolation. I have spent some time studying the Pietist movement, for instance, and I've got more than a passing familiarity with Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart (since I spent almost five years working for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) but I don't think I ever thought to connect their roots/beginnings. Worth exploring I should think.
I do wonder how often this is true in Christian history...the church, in its varied forms and traditions, responds to key cultural and world events, and those responses naturally look different, coming as they do from such diverse traditions, but perhaps share a deeper core than the traditions might realize.
I am thinking, of course, of my own personal favorite historic era in American history -- the early 1900s, specifically prior to 1925. I've spent a lot of time in company with two almost larger than life religious figures from that era: Walter Rauschenbusch, male, Protestant, Baptist, father of the Social Gospel (about whom I wrote my thesis) and Frances Xavier Cabrini, female, Catholic, Roman, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart (and about whom I wrote an essay, among other things). On the surface, they were seemingly very different people, but I've often wondered what interesting comparisons might surface if one pushed a bit at their unique responses, as missioners/missionaries especially, to the effects of industrialization in America. Both had a real heart for the poor, though I think all in all Cabrini's activism was more vital (and more theologically healthy) and her legacy more long-lasting. Rauschenbusch's Victorian sensibilities about the family and Cabrini's Marian devotion both seem to be a part of the overarching climate Jenkins' references too.
I need to think more about this.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
A Four Year Old's Questions
Lately the sweet girl has been a veritable fount of questions. They come faster than I or her Dad can answer them. "Why?" "How come?" "What if?" are her especial favorites.
Sometimes it's exasperating, but sometimes it's also precious and funny -- and more often than not, I'm in awe of her insatiable curiosity.
She comes up with some good ones too.
The other evening we had our atlas out, looking up countries from our prayer calendar. We've done this for a couple of years and the child loves maps. This time around we happened to be looking at Europe, and down at the very bottom of the map, not far under Greece, you could just see the beginning of Turkey. We were naming all the countries and when we got to Turkey she looked very thoughtful and then asked with a giggle "Are there any turkeys in turkey?" A very good question, especially considering we'd just seen wild turkeys at the zoo! This question got such a chuckle out of both D. and me that she's been asking it with increasing giggles in the days since -- she's figured out it's funny.
Then there was the other night at dinner. We were eating peas and corn and all she wanted to talk about was how they grew. Corn grows on cobs and peas in pods. We talked about this for quite a while, and then she wanted to know why we didn't eat the peas in their pods. "Sometimes we do," I said. "Remember snow peas?" She paused, then asked in her planitive little voice, "What color are snow peas?" With some surprise (because I thought she remembered them) I said "They're green, sweetie. Just like regular peas." Another pause. Then: "Why aren't snow peas white like snow?"
Yet another good question!
She's also been on a kick lately about height. She's been wondering if people grow and grow their whole lives, and we've been trying to explain that people only grow to be so tall and then stop (usually somewhere between 15 and 20). We've explained that people keep growing in other ways, but they don't just keep getting taller. (If I didn't know she couldn't read yet, I'd be worried that she'd been reading science fiction by Orson Scott Card...) But this is still a tough concept for her grasp. The other day she kept worrying at it like a dog with a bone. "What if we got to be 100?" she asked doggedly, and I said, "well, some people do live to be 100. They're very old." -- "But would they be really, really tall?" she persisted. I do think she's starting to get it though. This morning, sitting in her room in her little Sleeping Beauty nightgown (her new haircut making her look oh so grown up) she suddenly glanced over at D. and said "is Daddy as tall as he's gonna get?" :-)
Of course, it's not all curious questions. Sometimes it's just interesting observations. I love some of these most of all, especially for their totally "out of the blue" quality. Like this morning at breakfast, as she sat there spooning her cereal, and suddenly announced: "Lions don't roar really well when they have hiccups."
You know, that's probably true. And thanks to my sweet girl, I think I have the genesis of a new story!
Sometimes it's exasperating, but sometimes it's also precious and funny -- and more often than not, I'm in awe of her insatiable curiosity.
She comes up with some good ones too.
The other evening we had our atlas out, looking up countries from our prayer calendar. We've done this for a couple of years and the child loves maps. This time around we happened to be looking at Europe, and down at the very bottom of the map, not far under Greece, you could just see the beginning of Turkey. We were naming all the countries and when we got to Turkey she looked very thoughtful and then asked with a giggle "Are there any turkeys in turkey?" A very good question, especially considering we'd just seen wild turkeys at the zoo! This question got such a chuckle out of both D. and me that she's been asking it with increasing giggles in the days since -- she's figured out it's funny.
Then there was the other night at dinner. We were eating peas and corn and all she wanted to talk about was how they grew. Corn grows on cobs and peas in pods. We talked about this for quite a while, and then she wanted to know why we didn't eat the peas in their pods. "Sometimes we do," I said. "Remember snow peas?" She paused, then asked in her planitive little voice, "What color are snow peas?" With some surprise (because I thought she remembered them) I said "They're green, sweetie. Just like regular peas." Another pause. Then: "Why aren't snow peas white like snow?"
Yet another good question!
She's also been on a kick lately about height. She's been wondering if people grow and grow their whole lives, and we've been trying to explain that people only grow to be so tall and then stop (usually somewhere between 15 and 20). We've explained that people keep growing in other ways, but they don't just keep getting taller. (If I didn't know she couldn't read yet, I'd be worried that she'd been reading science fiction by Orson Scott Card...) But this is still a tough concept for her grasp. The other day she kept worrying at it like a dog with a bone. "What if we got to be 100?" she asked doggedly, and I said, "well, some people do live to be 100. They're very old." -- "But would they be really, really tall?" she persisted. I do think she's starting to get it though. This morning, sitting in her room in her little Sleeping Beauty nightgown (her new haircut making her look oh so grown up) she suddenly glanced over at D. and said "is Daddy as tall as he's gonna get?" :-)
Of course, it's not all curious questions. Sometimes it's just interesting observations. I love some of these most of all, especially for their totally "out of the blue" quality. Like this morning at breakfast, as she sat there spooning her cereal, and suddenly announced: "Lions don't roar really well when they have hiccups."
You know, that's probably true. And thanks to my sweet girl, I think I have the genesis of a new story!
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Are You Blue Too?
| You Are a Blue Flower |
 A blue flower tends to represent peace, openness, and balance. At times, you are very delicate like a cornflower. And at other times, you are wise like an iris. And more than you wish, you're a little cold, like a blue hydrangea. |
I took this quiz the other day and decided then not to post the results because I wasn't sure how I felt about being a blue flower. It sounded so...melancholy.
Then today I had an email from my oldest sis, who's getting married in just a couple of weeks. She was asking my advice on flowers to go with her light blue dress. I got to thinking about flowers...including all the bluish flowers I love (especially delphiniums and irises) and then I spent a while online looking up more blue flowers, and you know what? There are some lovely ones. Cornflowers, for instance. And phlox, and bluish (well, lavender at any rate) roses. Put any of these together with some creamy whites or blush pinks, and you've got a beautiful bouquet...
I even like hydrangeas. Yes, I do! I don't think they're cold at all, although they do bloom in "snowball" kinds of clumps.
Turns out I don't mind being a little blue after all. Are you blue too?
"Something Tells Me It's All Happenin' At the Zoo"
"A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish."~~ G.K. Chesterton
Amen to that! We spent much of yesterday at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium downtown. We've had no vacation time at all this summer, and I think every one of us in the family is feeling that loss. So D. and I decided we should at least try to get in one or two short "family outings" of the day trip variety before fall fully arrives. The sweet girl has been longing for the zoo (as well as the beach, and a yard, and her grandparents, and a tricycle...but hey, we can't do much about the rest of those right now, so off to the zoo we went!).
Every time I visit the zoo -- and I think this was the third time in four years -- I come away more amazed than ever by the creativity and sheer diversity of creation. To know that we're looking at just a tiny sliver of what's out there, and to see such a plethora of interesting, odd, funny, beautiful and sometimes downright absurd looking animals and fish (not to mention plants) is breathtaking. I love the Chesterton quote above, and it's particularly apt for yesterday as we spent time gawking at both crocodiles and elephants.
The crocodiles were four of the "dwarf" variety. At first I thought they were babies, but the sign next to their enclosure read "dwarf crocodiles" so I guess they were full size. They were just a few feet long, but oh so menacing. Two of them sunned lazily in the water, their bodies mostly submerged and their heads and eyes protruding just above the surface. The other two lay on the banks; one was asleep but the other had his jaws wide open and his listless hooded eyes never blinked. They were both so still you couldn't see them breathe. They looked like bronze statues. People beside me were wondering if they were real at first, and after a while I think most of us felt a combination of eerie admiration and thankfulness that there was a concrete wall between us and the water. I got the distinct impression that the jaws and eyes wide open crocodile was trying to bluff us all so he could find a way to lure us in. Kind of bizarre.
The elephants were something else again. There were a few outside we got to watch, but then we got to see two of them close up in an enclosure. We watched them eat their dinner (well, my daughter insisted it was still afternoon so they were having lunch) and those long, sweeping trunks, so leathery and wrinkled and yet so elegant and almost delicate in their sniffing, shuffling and lifting, were a wonder to behold. The biggest elephant was really hungry; we watched him sniff out and sweep up a large pile of "salad" on the floor of the pen, mostly apples, carrots and lettuce. His nose would sniffle along, oh so delicately, find what it wanted, and then curl around it and swirl it up to his mouth (often a whole head of lettuce at a time!) just as elegantly and fastidiously as an experienced diner might swirl spaghetti on the tines of a fork.
A lovely day. Even though my back is still aching from all the walking we did!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
"Step by Step"
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days
--Rich Mullins
Monday, August 21, 2006
"Tearipifymome"
No, you're not seeing things. You have probably never heard of the word "tearipifymome" because it wasn't a word until this afternoon, when the sweet girl and I invented it.
We were playing with refrigerator magnets, and it started out as a quick phonics lesson in the middle of dinner-time preparations. "T" followed by "E" -- "what word does that make?" my daughter asked. I explained that it didn't make a word exactly, but that we could still sound it out and see what sounds the letters made together. So we did. Then I added an "a" to make the word "tea" (she loves to drink tea) and an "r" to show her how to make the word "tear." And the next thing I knew she was pulling letters at random, adding them to the end, and asking "what does it sound like now?" Before you could blink, we'd built a long, skinny bridge of letters more than half-way across the refrigerator and we both had the giggles.
And we ended up with a humdinger: "tearipifymome." I'm pronouncing it thus: "tear-ih-PIF-ee--mohme."
My dear husband got a big kick out of this when he got home. We told him we'd made up a word, and sweet girl kept repeating it with great gusto (and more giggles!). But I confessed we'd not yet decided what our new word should mean. D. decided it sounded like a poetic device. As in: "if you can use tearipifymome, you can write good poetry." Hmmm. Maybe so.
I sure hope I'm not mixing up sweet girl too much before we get to official reading lessons. :-) Which, I might add, I'm hoping to start trying soon. I've just about decided on using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I've been trying to establish a light-moderate homemade homeschooling curriculum to use in conjunction with her two days of preschool per week this fall. I know my time will be extremely limited, given the fact that I'm still having to work mornings and I'm also teaching online again for the seminary. But I'm still getting excited about schooling possibilities and want to do what I can (without making any of us too crazy).
We were playing with refrigerator magnets, and it started out as a quick phonics lesson in the middle of dinner-time preparations. "T" followed by "E" -- "what word does that make?" my daughter asked. I explained that it didn't make a word exactly, but that we could still sound it out and see what sounds the letters made together. So we did. Then I added an "a" to make the word "tea" (she loves to drink tea) and an "r" to show her how to make the word "tear." And the next thing I knew she was pulling letters at random, adding them to the end, and asking "what does it sound like now?" Before you could blink, we'd built a long, skinny bridge of letters more than half-way across the refrigerator and we both had the giggles.
And we ended up with a humdinger: "tearipifymome." I'm pronouncing it thus: "tear-ih-PIF-ee--mohme."
My dear husband got a big kick out of this when he got home. We told him we'd made up a word, and sweet girl kept repeating it with great gusto (and more giggles!). But I confessed we'd not yet decided what our new word should mean. D. decided it sounded like a poetic device. As in: "if you can use tearipifymome, you can write good poetry." Hmmm. Maybe so.
I sure hope I'm not mixing up sweet girl too much before we get to official reading lessons. :-) Which, I might add, I'm hoping to start trying soon. I've just about decided on using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I've been trying to establish a light-moderate homemade homeschooling curriculum to use in conjunction with her two days of preschool per week this fall. I know my time will be extremely limited, given the fact that I'm still having to work mornings and I'm also teaching online again for the seminary. But I'm still getting excited about schooling possibilities and want to do what I can (without making any of us too crazy).
Monday, August 14, 2006
On the Writing Front
Rats. I just got word today that a magazine that had held a story of mine for possible publication has decided not to use it. They returned it with a nice note, told me how much they liked it, and even suggested I try re-submitting it next year once I've checked their theme list in case I think it might fit with any of those themes. All very kind, and I'm grateful for all encouragement, but I'm feeling a bit discouraged right now because I seem to get these kinds of notes from editors a lot -- we like it, but we don't quite like it enough, or we don't think it quite fits what we're trying to do.
This seemed like particularly hard timing because I'm actually submitting -- ironically enough, TODAY -- another story to this same magazine. Their fiction contest is closing out tomorrow so I have to get the story postmarked this afternoon. It's ready to go; as soon as sweet girl gets up from her nap we shall head over to the post office. But now I'm feeling kind of hesitant about sending the story. I had been thinking I should definitey submit again to the contest this year, since I got such positive feedback from the editor last year (in addition to holding on to it for possible publication, they told me it finished in the top ten among 400 entries). I know I should "strike while the iron is hot" so to speak, and keep my work out there, in front of people -- especially people who tell me they like it. I never intended to wait this long and cut the deadline so close, but between busyness and computer woes, and then a yukky case of writer's block with the first attempt (a story that I finally gave up on, after deciding it was probably more of a picture book than a short story for a magazine) I'm really glad I managed to get anything done for it at all. So I should probably go on and send.
But I'm not sure it's as good as last year's. At least my heart doesn't feel like it is. Maybe I'm just tired.
Anyway, all I can do is keep trying, keep writing in the cracks and crevices of a life that sometimes feels so full that writing could easily get squeezed out completely if I didn't keep on pushing. So push on I will. I have the rough notes of an essay ready to work up for a submission soon, and I'm working on a set of poems for another submission. I got a lovely note back from someone at Eerdmans in reply to my oh so confident inquiry and they're actually going to send me a free review copy of one of their new kids' books so I can review it on Epinions! It feels like it takes chutzpah for me to sell myself as a reviewer, but I love review work and think I've gotten much better at it in the past two years. Wish I could get a journal or newspaper to agree...
Enough whining. :-) My class starts soon, and I really need to rewrite my opening lecture. I know once I'm teaching again, I will likely find even less time to give to any other kinds of writing until the semester is over. So I'll keep on while I can. I'm grateful, I really am, for every inch of writing life I can enjoy. And I'm going to keep on trying. On to the post office!
This seemed like particularly hard timing because I'm actually submitting -- ironically enough, TODAY -- another story to this same magazine. Their fiction contest is closing out tomorrow so I have to get the story postmarked this afternoon. It's ready to go; as soon as sweet girl gets up from her nap we shall head over to the post office. But now I'm feeling kind of hesitant about sending the story. I had been thinking I should definitey submit again to the contest this year, since I got such positive feedback from the editor last year (in addition to holding on to it for possible publication, they told me it finished in the top ten among 400 entries). I know I should "strike while the iron is hot" so to speak, and keep my work out there, in front of people -- especially people who tell me they like it. I never intended to wait this long and cut the deadline so close, but between busyness and computer woes, and then a yukky case of writer's block with the first attempt (a story that I finally gave up on, after deciding it was probably more of a picture book than a short story for a magazine) I'm really glad I managed to get anything done for it at all. So I should probably go on and send.
But I'm not sure it's as good as last year's. At least my heart doesn't feel like it is. Maybe I'm just tired.
Anyway, all I can do is keep trying, keep writing in the cracks and crevices of a life that sometimes feels so full that writing could easily get squeezed out completely if I didn't keep on pushing. So push on I will. I have the rough notes of an essay ready to work up for a submission soon, and I'm working on a set of poems for another submission. I got a lovely note back from someone at Eerdmans in reply to my oh so confident inquiry and they're actually going to send me a free review copy of one of their new kids' books so I can review it on Epinions! It feels like it takes chutzpah for me to sell myself as a reviewer, but I love review work and think I've gotten much better at it in the past two years. Wish I could get a journal or newspaper to agree...
Enough whining. :-) My class starts soon, and I really need to rewrite my opening lecture. I know once I'm teaching again, I will likely find even less time to give to any other kinds of writing until the semester is over. So I'll keep on while I can. I'm grateful, I really am, for every inch of writing life I can enjoy. And I'm going to keep on trying. On to the post office!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The Wisdom of a Ragamuffin
I recently placed an order with Christian Book Distributors for a book I'm hoping to utilize with my sweet girl during some schooling times this coming fall (more on that soon...I need to do a bit of reflecting and "thinking out loud" about some terrific homeschooling resources). I ordered that book and one other that D. and I had both been wanting to get, and then I did something that perhaps no bibliophile should do...especially not one as broke as I am. I actively looked for bargains. CBD will sometimes throw books into their bargain bin that I think are incredible finds for just a couple of dollars. And I struck gold (per usual) this time with a small, hardback copy of reflections by the late songwriter Rich Mullins.
If you knew Rich Mullins' name early on in his career (in the 80s) you probably knew it in the small type of the liner notes on Amy Grant's albums. I think I first noticed his name as the writer of "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" on her 1983 album "Age to Age." He also penned other songs she sang, including one of my very favorite songs from the album "Straight Ahead," a ballad entitled "Doubly Good to You." But Rich really came into his own as a singer and songwriter in the late 80s, early 90s. He wrote a couple of songs that became standards in Protestant evangelical worship, including "Awesome God" (which has a very catchy chorus but otherwise is not, I don't think, a very good example of his usually excellent songwriting skills...though perhaps his skills deepened as he aged) and "Step by Step."
I love so much of his work, but the albums that have spoken the most to me over the years are "Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" (1988, and the first of his albums I ever owned); "A Liturgy, A Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band (1993, and a CD I fear that I will actually wear out one of these days); and finally, "The Jesus Record" (a posthumous recording of the last songs he ever wrote -- one CD contains the homemade demos of the songs as he performed them, and the other CD contains the songs arranged and produced by his bandmembers and performed by many people who loved him, missed him and wanted to pay him tribute). One day I would like to spend some time writing more about the songs on "The Jesus Record" because so many of them have worked like contemporary Psalms in my life, speaking my ragged heart in times of struggle and difficulty.
But today I just wanted to note how lovely it is to be reading some of Mullins' written reflections, captured in this little book The World As I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin. It's primarily a compilation of some columns he wrote for a magazine in the early 90s. The book itself, published by Multnomah, is beautifully designed...small and easy to hold, with sepia toned pages that almost look as though they've been dipped in steeping tea, and full of gorgeous sepia toned photographs by Ben Pearson, a close friend of Rich Mullins. Many of the photos are of Mullins himself, and while I wonder how he'd feel about that, since he was not one to crave the limelight, the photos are such a creative and beautiful study of one man's varying expressions through seasons of life that it's hard not to enjoy them.
Rich was a simple soul, and yet "rich" as his name indicated, rich in the things that mattered most, especially love of God and life in Christ. Just a couple of years before he died at the age of 41 (in a 1997 car accident) he'd moved to a Navajo reservation in Arizona to teach music to children. Although he was an amazing artist -- a good musician and most of all, a fine poet -- clearly the center of his life was not art but God. He practiced art not for the sake of art, but art as an expression of his love for God and his love for the life God had given him.
All of his reflections here are thoughtful and worth chewing on, and I will continue to meditate on them as I go. Some seem especially poignant in light of the fact the he died just a few years after writing the words. Lines like:
"Someday I will rise up like the sun in the morning -- someday I will shine like the saints who watch from cathedral windows. I know this, not because of any evidence I have produced of myself, but because of the witness of His Scriptures, because of the evidence of His grace, and because of the testimony of this sky that washes over me at dusk."
And here's another favorite quote thus far:
"Faith is not a denial of facts -- it is a broadening of focus. It does not deny the hardness of guitar strings, it plucks them into a sweetness of sound."
If you knew Rich Mullins' name early on in his career (in the 80s) you probably knew it in the small type of the liner notes on Amy Grant's albums. I think I first noticed his name as the writer of "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" on her 1983 album "Age to Age." He also penned other songs she sang, including one of my very favorite songs from the album "Straight Ahead," a ballad entitled "Doubly Good to You." But Rich really came into his own as a singer and songwriter in the late 80s, early 90s. He wrote a couple of songs that became standards in Protestant evangelical worship, including "Awesome God" (which has a very catchy chorus but otherwise is not, I don't think, a very good example of his usually excellent songwriting skills...though perhaps his skills deepened as he aged) and "Step by Step."
I love so much of his work, but the albums that have spoken the most to me over the years are "Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" (1988, and the first of his albums I ever owned); "A Liturgy, A Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band (1993, and a CD I fear that I will actually wear out one of these days); and finally, "The Jesus Record" (a posthumous recording of the last songs he ever wrote -- one CD contains the homemade demos of the songs as he performed them, and the other CD contains the songs arranged and produced by his bandmembers and performed by many people who loved him, missed him and wanted to pay him tribute). One day I would like to spend some time writing more about the songs on "The Jesus Record" because so many of them have worked like contemporary Psalms in my life, speaking my ragged heart in times of struggle and difficulty.
But today I just wanted to note how lovely it is to be reading some of Mullins' written reflections, captured in this little book The World As I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin. It's primarily a compilation of some columns he wrote for a magazine in the early 90s. The book itself, published by Multnomah, is beautifully designed...small and easy to hold, with sepia toned pages that almost look as though they've been dipped in steeping tea, and full of gorgeous sepia toned photographs by Ben Pearson, a close friend of Rich Mullins. Many of the photos are of Mullins himself, and while I wonder how he'd feel about that, since he was not one to crave the limelight, the photos are such a creative and beautiful study of one man's varying expressions through seasons of life that it's hard not to enjoy them.
Rich was a simple soul, and yet "rich" as his name indicated, rich in the things that mattered most, especially love of God and life in Christ. Just a couple of years before he died at the age of 41 (in a 1997 car accident) he'd moved to a Navajo reservation in Arizona to teach music to children. Although he was an amazing artist -- a good musician and most of all, a fine poet -- clearly the center of his life was not art but God. He practiced art not for the sake of art, but art as an expression of his love for God and his love for the life God had given him.
All of his reflections here are thoughtful and worth chewing on, and I will continue to meditate on them as I go. Some seem especially poignant in light of the fact the he died just a few years after writing the words. Lines like:
"Someday I will rise up like the sun in the morning -- someday I will shine like the saints who watch from cathedral windows. I know this, not because of any evidence I have produced of myself, but because of the witness of His Scriptures, because of the evidence of His grace, and because of the testimony of this sky that washes over me at dusk."
And here's another favorite quote thus far:
"Faith is not a denial of facts -- it is a broadening of focus. It does not deny the hardness of guitar strings, it plucks them into a sweetness of sound."
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Feast of the Transfiguration
"The all-important thing about this glorious feast is that it marks the point in time when three of the disciples, for a millioneth of a second, saw Jesus as he really was."
-- Canon Edward Nason West
As he really was. All the time. Remember how Moses had to veil his face after he'd been in the Presence? Because people couldn't bear the shining. How much more did Jesus have to "tone down" the glory, and only let it shine forth in flashes, fragments, glimpses here and there, when He walked the earth? He knew what his followers were ready for. He knew how much they could bear to see revealed. What a joy it must have been for Jesus, for just one brief moment on that earthly mountain, to hold nothing back, to shine forth in the fullness of his eternal glory! Even though it left the disciples dumbstruck, except for stammering Peter who gasped out the first words that came into his head...
And John. I think John must've remembered this moment, its incredible shining beautiful clarity, when he looked upon Jesus on the cross. I think perhaps John might have realized that he was seeing it again, the fullness of the glory, revealed this time not in light but in suffering.
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