Thinking About War

I'm doing a lot of thinking about war at the moment. That's because I've been watching this:



and reading this:



The film is My Boy Jack, the story of Rudyard Kipling's son Jack who was killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915. It was the day after his eighteenth birthday, and he was the lieutenant of a platoon. His father had pulled major strings to get him into the army despite the boy's severe myopia. It's a haunting and beautiful film (David Haig, who stars as Rudyard, wrote the original play and also the screenplay, and Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame, turns in a solid performance as Jack). Perhaps what is most haunting about it is not the understandable guilt that Kipling felt for what he had done, but the realization that he did what he did out of a desire to see his son a "success." He truly thought that fighting in the war would provide his son a noble calling and a chance at glory. How empty such sentiments seemed to him, and to Jack's mother and sister, after Jack is killed.

No war, even a "just" one, ever really seems glorious, but the more I read of World War I, the more horrified I am by its brutality and its meaninglessness. One of the most painful moments in the film comes after the family receives the initial telegram that Jack is missing and presumed wounded. That leaves them just enough hope to cling to, and Jack's mother, reacting in a way I think many mothers would, becomes obsessed with trying to find any word she can of her son's possible whereabouts. Since the Kiplings were well-off and well-known, they had connections, and the mother convinces the head of the Red Cross to send her thousands of pictures of wounded men who have passed through their care. She and Rudyard sit up late into the night, plowing through the pile of photos. It's heartbreaking, both for the mother's dogged determination in the face of such awful odds, and because you realize (though it's never said aloud, and never needs to be) that every picture they look at and lay aside is yet someone else's son.

The book is the 2006 Pulitzer prize winning novel March, by Australian author Geraldine Brooks. I wasn't sure what I was expecting from this book, but it was a powerful and disturbing read. Brooks is both an excellent historical novelist and a beautiful wordsmith. March tells the imagined story of what might have happened to Mr. March, the father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, during his year-long chaplaincy with the Union Army in the Civil War. Given how important Alcott and Little Women were to me in my childhood, I found this "creative riff" a fascinating one, but truly didn't know what to expect. It's very much an adult novel, despite taking flight from a classic novel for young people. Brooks draws on the history of the actual Alcott family in Concord (on whom Alcott based her fictional March family) and on the history of slavery and abolition. It's a sad and sobering novel, and while it is not at all how I would have imagined Mr. March's story, I nonetheless found myself moving fully into the world Brooks imagined and believing that this could easily have been his story. I was also amazed at the seamless way she was able to weave in moments from Little Women itself (through Mr. March's letters and flashbacks mostly) and I especially loved one scene she gave to the desperately shy Beth, connected to the family's imagined involvement in the Underground Railroad.

The two books converge more toward the end of Brooks' narrative, when Marmee goes to Washington to nurse her ill husband. We hear only the tiniest of snippets about this in Little Women, of course, because the real action of that novel is taking place in the lives of the girls back home. Here we follow Marmee into the squallor of 1861 Georgetown and the mess of a hospital for convalescing soldiers, and we enter into Mr. March's complete and utter despair over what he has seen in the war (and either been unable to stop, or actually feels culpable because his own moral choices are bound up in the suffering of others).

As Marmee looks at her husband, so pale and ill and so changed, she reflects, in spite of her understanding of the importance of the cause for which the Union was fighting, with real bitterness on when he chose to go to war -- at the unheard of age of 40.

When I saw him stand up on that tree stump in the cattle ground, surrounded by the avid faces of the young, I knew that as he spoke to them, he was thinking that it was unfair to lay the burden so fully on that innocent generation. I could see the look of love for those boys in his eyes, and I saw also that the moment was carrying him away. I raised my arms to him, imploring him not to say the words that I knew were forming in his mind. He looked me full in the face, he saw my tears, and he ignored them and did as he pleased. And then I in my turn had to pretend to be pleased by my hero of a husband. When he stepped down, and came to me, I could not speak. I took his hand and dug my nails into the flesh of it, wanting to hurt him for the hurt he was inflicting upon me.

I am not alone in this. I only let him do to me what men have ever done to women: march off to empty glory and hollow acclaim and leave us behind to pick up the pieces. The broken cities, the burned barns, the innocent injured beasts, the ruined bodies of the boys we bore and the men we lay with.

The waste of it. I sit here, and look at him, and it is as if a hundred women sit beside me: the revolutionary farm wife, the English peasant woman, the Spartan mother -- "Come back with your shield or on it," she cried, because that was what she was expected to cry. And then she leaned across the broken body of her son and the words turned to dust in her throat.

Thank God that I have daughters only, and no sons. How would I bear it if Meg were now a soldier at sixteen, and the prospect of this war stretching into years, so that Jo, too, might come of age while it yet rages?...

What is left of him? What remains, now that war and disease have worked their dreadful alchemy? I could see the change in him, even before I heard the mutterings of his delirium. When they directed me to him this afternoon, I thought they had sent me to the wrong beside. Truly, I did not know him."

Numbers and Letters

The sweet girl was drawing on the white board this afternoon. I paused as I was walking by and contemplated this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
W T T F F S S A N T


The numbers seemed straightforward enough, but I wasn't sure about the letters, so I asked.

"They're the beginning letter sound of each number," she explained simply.

Given the words won/one and ate/eight, I thought this was pretty impressive!

Making Croutons

In the midst of a busy first week of school (our homeschool journey continues into first grade, and students got access on Monday to the seminary class I'm teaching in Anglican history this semester). Lots of good things happening, and I'm trying to be very disciplined to keep on top of things despite tiredness and my worsening (recurring) hearing problem.

In the midst of busyness, sometimes it's the really simple things that bring us pleasure. Pleasure for me today came in making croutons.

Yes, croutons! I'm not, alas, very creative in the kitchen or very domestic in general. I love baking, and I'm an adequate cook, but I'm not the type of person who dreams of ways of making things from scratch (I sometimes wish I was).

But our grocery budget is so tight right now it's almost non-existent, and I've been trying very hard to not throw away anything if I can help it. I suddenly realized that I had two small chunks of butter left from the sticks of butter I usually use for baking, and 4 slightly stale pieces of rye bread that no one wanted to eat (and were either heading for the sidewalk to feed birds, or to the trash if I was in a hurry the next time I cleaned the fridge). It occurred to me that I should probably make croutons, especially given the fact that I love them and we haven't been buying them lately (every time I put them on the list, I cross them out as a non-necessity because we need to stretch the budget for other things).

I whipped out my handy Super Baby Food Cookbook (a great book, and useful for much more than making baby food) and found a quick and easy recipe for making croutons. I modified it slightly to accommodate what I had on hand and my aging oven which always needs to be set a good 25 degrees lower than recipes called for. Then I melted the butter, sprinkled in some Italian spice mix I keep on hand, and cut up the stale bread pieces into small squares. Tossed them all in a plastic baggie and then baked them for about 20 minutes at 275.

Result: really delicious smells wafting through my house and a deep sense of pleasure that we have croutons that I actually made myself and that used up food that otherwise might have been wasted.

Strange, but sometimes simple pleasures mean a lot!

Madeleine L'Engle's Austin Books Reissued

The wonderful Austin family stories by Madeleine L'Engle are being reissued in what look like lovely (and affordable) paperback editions by Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan. You can see the cover of the first one at the publisher's website here. They're calling the books the "Austin Family Chronicles" and assigning each a volume number. Volume 1, Meet the Austins, has an availability date of September 2 on Amazon; Moon by Night (volume 2) and The Young Unicorns (volume 3) can both be pre-ordered. I'm assuming they will bring out A Ring of Endless Light as volume 4. Perhaps they'll even extend it on to a volume 5 with Troubling a Star.

These lovely books are some of the best stories L'Engle penned for young people and would make great gifts for any voracious 12 and up readers you may know. The first book actually can work for even younger readers (and I suspect would be a terrific read-aloud for even younger listeners). There are also three shorter Austin family stories that have appeared as very long picture books. Two are set at Christmas time. A Full House just came out in that format several years ago. The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas is one of our favorite family Christmas books. The Anti-Muffins is another great one, a very long short story published in a picture book format. I wonder if that one's still in print? I used to get together with a group of women friends in my college dorm, now oh so many years ago, and we briefly called ourselves the Anti-Muffins, inspired by this story!

Pride and Prejudice: The Musical

I've been on a major Pride and Prejudice kick in the past few weeks. I re-watched the 2005 film version (which I'm still planning to review) and as always, that made me snicker in all the wrong places and made me long for the real thing. So I took the book down from the shelf, intending to just read a couple of favorite scenes, and instead got sucked into the delight of page one and read the whole lovely book again. I love beloved books that feel like old friends who never cease to amaze you with their wit and insight.

Loving the book made me go back to the great film adaptation from 1995. I've been having to do a lot of cutting and pasting this week on projects for VBS, so watching the movie felt like a real treat.

In the midst of all that, I paid a quick visit to Austen Blog, where I read a post that referenced Pride and Prejudice...the musical. Surely, I thought, someone is joking. But apparently not. If you click here, you will discover the web page for P&P on Broadway. Still in the works; looks interesting and a bit giggle-worthy. I rolled my eyes over the fact that it was called a "compelling investment opportunity." Huh...Jane Austen, for all her preoccupation with economics, would likely smile enigmatically over that one.

I even downloaded a snippet of one of the songs (called "Lizzy's Song"). With my ancient computer, I only got to hear about two lines. Hmm...it can't be much more over the top than than Bride and Prejudice, right?

At any rate, P&P the musical kept playing in my mind. As I was falling asleep that night, I kept coming up with potential titles for musical numbers. I must have worked on it in my dreams because when I woke up the next morning, there they all were, ready for me to jot down in my journal. I've only come up with potential numbers for the first half of the show so far. Here they are...enjoy!

POSSIBLE MUSICAL NUMBERS FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: "THE MUSICAL" (totally tongue in cheek list)

Opening number: "Netherfield is Let at Last" (ensemble piece with all Bennets, some townspeople acting as the chorus. Their refrain could be "Five thousand a year!")

"I've Grown Acquainted With Your Nerves" (acerbic Mr. Bennet sings of his relationship with his wife, a la Henry Higgins. My title pays homage to Higgins' final ballad, but I'm thinking the tone of this one would be more akin to "I Shall Never Let a Woman in My Life!" A fine sentiment for Mr. B, who has a half-dozen women in HIS life...)

"He's an Amiable Man" (Jane sings of her first impressions of Mr. Bingley)

"What Do the Country Folk Do?" (Darcy and the Bingley sisters snidely speculate about the local folk in Hertfordshire following the opening ball)

"Let Her Ride in the Rain" (Mrs. Bennett shows off her matrimonial scheming for her girls)

"Never to Dance with Mr. Darcy" (brief interlude sung by Elizabeth, in a spirited style)

"Extensive Reading" (Darcy's first big solo number...I wanted to call this "Fine Eyes" but alas, the real production seems to actually have a song by that name!)

"The Most Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh" (Mr. Collins gets his big number, a la Gilbert and Sullivan, in honor of his noble patroness)

(Don't Like to Complain, But...) "That Man Has Done Me Wrong" (George Wickham sings the blues)

"Red Coats, Red Coats!" (a fun little ditty sung by Lydia and Kitty)

"Almost as Soon as I Entered This House/My Feelings Forbid It" (a duet by Lizzy and Collins)

"All I Ask is a Comfortable Home" (a quiet, wistful ballad by Charlotte Lucas)

"He's Quit the Neighborhood" (the neighborhood chorus shares their surprising news about Bingley)

"Decided Opinions" (Lady Catherine's warbling solo...I'm sure if she had studied music, she would have been a proficient!)

And the big finale...."It Will Not Do" (a Darcy/Lizzy duet, where they sing their way through the first proposal scene)

Who knows...I may yet get inspired to come up with possible titles for the second half. Or even try my hand at lyrics!

100 Species Challenge (#1): The Sycamore Tree

I decided that I had to start my list of 100 species with this:

1) Sycamore Tree (platanus occidentalis)

For all the years we've lived in an apartment in an urban setting, my green-hunger has been mostly fed by the ten beautiful sycamores across the road. We can see them from our front windows, beyond the asphalt parking lot that runs between us and the parallel road. When the sweet girl and I sometimes borrow the nearest public bench for read-aloud time, it's under the shade of one of those sycamores. We've come to think of them as our special trees.

I'm not sure I even knew what they were when we first moved here eleven years ago. I grew up amongst maple, oak and pine in Virginia. If there were sycamore trees in the neighborhood, I don't recall them, and I think I probably would given their sheer size, the beauty (and largeness) of their leaves, and the fascinating way they "shed" their bark in the summertime. I love the mottled look of the trees as the bark peels away, their beautiful shades of brown, tan, cream and palest gray-green forming lovely designs and the dry, heavy "scrolls" of bark that fall to the ground. It was only through reading done for this challenge that I learned that what the tree is doing when it loses its bark really is akin to shedding, or perhaps more accurately, molting (like a caterpillar that's outgrown its skin). It has something to do with the fibers of the sycamore bark not being able to "stretch" to accommodate the growth of the tree inside.

I've also learned that sycamores belong to one of the oldest tree families on the planet (platanaceae) and that individual trees can grow to be hundreds of years old.

The sycamores in our neighborhood are probably a hybrid breed, called the London planetree, which was developed from the American sycamore. I don't know that for certain, but from what I read in an article in about.com's forestry section, those are far more common now, especially in urban areas, as they're able to resist certain forms of illness that sycamores are prone to.

I also learned that the biblical sycamore was probably the sycamore fig (ficus sycomorus). Good to know, as I was never quite sure how on earth a "wee little man" like Zacchaeus could have ever managed to clamber up one of the sycamores in our neighborhood. With their huge trunks, they're not exactly easy-to-climb trees!

The 100 Species Challenge

In recent years, I've spent far too much time feeling green-starved and yard-and-garden-hungry here in the post-industrial town that time forgot. Being called to urban ministry is a challenge as well as a blessing, and one of the challenges for me has definitely been green-hunger, especially since we're yardless.

One thing I've done to nourish my sanity and surrender to some more contentment is to begin to notice the created beauty that's around us, even in a small decaying city in the rust belt. I've been better at finding "pockets" of beauty, noticing things (with my eyes, my camera, sometimes my pen) growing between the cracks, sometimes quite literally. The sweet girl and I have taken a lot of nature walks, and I've tried to learn a bit about the plants and trees in our neighborhood.

So when I saw The 100 Species Challenge, I was intrigued, delighted (and yes, a little intimidated). My thanks to Melissa Wiley for posting this on her blog, where I originally saw it.

And what a great idea this is, to identify species within walking distance of where you live! Although I suspect my list will grow slowly, I'd like to give this a try -- if for no other reason than I'd love to continue to notice (and begin to name) more of the plants and trees around me. Like I said, it helps to measurably build my gratitude and contentment. Not to mention it helps me to be a better observer, and teach the sweet girl to be one too.

So here goes. The 100 species challenge! If you think you might like to participate too, see the link above. In accordance with the guidelines set out by the originator of the challenge, I'm also posting the rules here:

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The 100-Species Challenge

1. Participants should include a copy of these rules and a link to this entry in their initial blog post about the challenge. I will make a sidebar list of anyone who notifies me that they are participating in the Challenge.

2. Participants should keep a list of all plant species they can name, either by common or scientific name, that are living within walking distance of the participant's home. The list should be numbered, and should appear in every blog entry about the challenge, or in a sidebar.

3. Participants are encouraged to give detailed information about the plants they can name in the first post in which that plant appears. My format will be as follows: the numbered list, with plants making their first appearance on the list in bold; each plant making its first appearance will then have a photograph taken by me, where possible, a list of information I already knew about the plant, and a list of information I learned subsequent to starting this challenge, and a list of information I'd like to know. (See below for an example.) This format is not obligatory, however, and participants can adapt this portion of the challenge to their needs and desires.

4. Participants are encouraged to make it possible for visitors to their blog to find easily all 100-Species-Challenge blog posts. This can be done either by tagging these posts, by ending every post on the challenge with a link to your previous post on the challenge, or by some method which surpasses my technological ability and creativity.

5. Participants may post pictures of plants they are unable to identify, or are unable to identify with precision. They should not include these plants in the numbered list until they are able to identify it with relative precision. Each participant shall determine the level of precision that is acceptable to her; however, being able to distinguish between plants that have different common names should be a bare minimum.

6. Different varieties of the same species shall not count as different entries (e.g., Celebrity Tomato and Roma Tomato should not be separate entries); however, different species which share a common name be separate if the participant is able to distinguish between them (e.g., camillia japonica and camillia sassanqua if the participant can distinguish the two--"camillia" if not).

7. Participants may take as long as they like to complete the challenge. You can make it as quick or as detailed a project as you like. I'm planning to blog a minimum of two plants per week, complete with pictures and descriptions as below, which could take me up to a year. But you can do it in whatever level of detail you like.

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And that's it! Stay tuned...I'll let you know how it's going. All my posts related to this will be tagged appropriately.

Faith-Art Talk

With our Sunday evening youth "group" (I use the term lightly because lately we've primarily been meeting with only one young woman) we've launched a season of discussion about faith and arts. I thought of this not only because it's a topic near and dear to my heart, one I've spent a lot of time thinking about in the past twenty years, but because so many of the youth in our particular church seem gifted in and committed to the arts. We have singers, visual artists, dramatists, and writers, good ones. And yet I sense they don't always know the best way to connect their daily lives of faith with what they're doing as artists, or see how the two interconnect.

We're going to be looking at various excerpts and chapters from some books on how faith informs, inspires, and encourages art (and vice versa). This week we're reading a letter to young artists by Calvin Seerveld, a reformed thinker who works at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. He penned this letter in November 2001 for inclusion in Michael Card's excellent book on faith and art: Scribbling in the Sand.

Seerveld has a creative and not always easy way of writing, but there is much to be gleaned from his work. I thought I would jot a few of the insights that struck me most deeply as I read a few times through his letter. I'm paraphrasing and consolidating a number of his points.

1) The biblical injunction to "love our neighbors as ourselves" is for everyone. But when you hear that word as a Christian and an artist, it becomes "a guideline for blessing" particularly because "it extricates you from the moil of serving yourself..." Seerveld goes on to say that it also frees you from feeling like you have to jump into the midst of whatever art is elite, popular or current.

2) When we make our art, whatever kind of art that is, we should craft it first and foremost before God. He's our primary audience. "...craft it as psalm before the face and ear of the Lord and let your neighbor listen in."

I like that he uses the word "neighbor" here instead of the more common term audience. It's true that someone who is part of an audience is a listener (hence the connection to "aud" or "audio") but it's freeing and humbling to remember than anyone we hope to communicate with, touch, bless, or challenge through our art is a fellow member of the human race, a neighbor whom we are enjoined to love as we love ourselves.

3) Art is for celebration AND for lament. "...make merry before the Lord God, God's people, and even one's antagonists..." (THERE'S an interesting idea!) but "Also be as free as the biblical psalmists to cry out to God from the pits of despair" and on behalf of others and their despair.

He even suggests that churches, which move heavily in the realms of praise, might consider moving more into the realms of lament. We need to learn how to "weep with those who are weeping" and that means really trying to understand the depth of human need and sadness especially as we craft "elegies, memorials and sad songs that are authentic..."

Seeveld seems to classify almost every work of art made authentically from the depths of a believing heart as a "psalm" in a general sense. But he doesn't think these psalms are made or should be made only for the believing community. He encourages young artists to "make these psalms for settings outside the worshiping church door..."

4) Consider that not every person has been equally gifted with the ability to imagine or to articulate the joys and blessings that they see, hear and touch. For some people, the imagination is "underdeveloped." As a "professional imaginator" you can help your neighbor in need of such imaginative help. You've been called "to make such treasures known to those who walk past such creaturely blessings by fashioning a necklace of words...or the jewel of a melody..."

Later he suggests that people in our culture often experience "artistic alienation or displacement..." and that we need to "give the neighbors what they imaginatively need, not just what they want..." I find that perceptive, especially when we consider that sin (and just plain caught up-ness in the frantic pace of information and culture, be it good or bad) often corrupts our "wants" or makes us think we want things we really don't, or makes it hard for us to discern between needs and wants.

5) A Christian artist must not ignore the reality of sin. That would be hypocritical. But our treatment of evil within our art must not ever be "self-righteous" or filled with an "angry coldness." Our awareness of our own struggles with sin and of the "waste that sin brings into God's good world" should invest our works with an authentic sadness, not coldness.

6) If art is what we choose to do, then we should seek training to become skilled. Faithfulness (even when art is only shared with a small number) is more important than seeking after stardom. "The key thing is to be a reliable artist in the imaginative task you perform...so the fruit of our imaginative hands can be wholesome food for those who receive it." He encourages young artists to find talented mentors they can trust, and to "become a craftsmith worthy of hire."

7) Artists do have a redemptive task. It not necessarily to convert people or to do apologetics (though I would argue that artistic gifts and approaches can be brought to bear on the gifts of evangelism and apologetics). "A Christian artist simply needs to give away your imaginative insights to whoever crosses your path, and the Holy Spirit will take it from there."

8) You will know you have been a faithful trustee of your imaginative gift when you see disbelievers experiencing something deeper, perhaps even something unexpected, in your work. That might be a sense of "wrestling with God," a sense that your "trusting in God...(is) winsome" or that the celebration of passionate faithfulness that permeates your song (or characters, etc.) "sounds unusual" given the way our world usually looks at or celebrates love.

We can help people persevere, we can "dispense a simple joy and peace that surpasses understanding" through our art.

9) Artists need to offer hope. We ought "to be earthy with our redemptive cheer..." to bring hope to the dispirited.

10) The Holy Spirit is the artist's "true source (of) wisdom." We need the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit to discern our calling, and our place in society. That may mean (and often has to mean, given our culture) that we need to work with integrity at other work as well as our art, in order to put bread on the table. If I'm reading Seerveld rightly here, he prefers that artists do that than to giving in to art-making that is formulaic or overly commercial.

11) Good art is "a worthy living sacrifice of obedience in response to Christ's command" to follow him.

12) Guard against loneliness and isolation. Artists (like all human beings and all Christians) need community. When you're tempted to feel you're "the only displaced artist left faithful to the Lord" (a la the prophet Elijah) remember your heritage, both the living, local expression of your heritage (your church community) and the huge line of saints who have gone before, including many who exercised artistic gifts. Seerveld reminds us artistic saints have existed since Adam first sang his poem for Eve before the fall!

13) Find a specific example "of Christian artistry in history" and seep yourself in it. Love it, learn from it, and find ways to add to it or extend it through your own "new" work. Then freely give it away.

I call that connection with the art that comes before us a long, ongoing conversation or dance. And it's great joy to join it!

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Does any of this ring particularly true or potent for you? How do you wrestle (or have you wrestled) with any of these insights in your artistic life?

When You Give an Artsy-Craftsy Kid a Pancake...

Feeling Sheepish

I've not had time to blog for a while, for all sorts of reasons. August has turned out to be incredibly busy, especially as I slide the slippery slope toward school. The sweet girl and I begin first grade (year 2 of our homeschooling journey) on the 25th, and that's also the week the seminary class I'm teaching (Anglican Essentials) goes online.

In the meantime, I'm trying to coordinate the craft projects for our church's upcoming VBS, which will run next week. We're doing the Good Shepherd (Psalm 23) as the week's theme. Who knew how many lame lamb crafts were online? :-)

Seriously, I'm having fun but feeling a tad bit overwhelmed as I try to find "sheep" crafts that will work for various ages from pre-k on up to rising 6th graders. I've learned to felt wool this week (and the sweet girl had a lot of fun helping me with that) and I'm finding various types of coloring pages, puppets, paper plate crafts, etc. For the third day we'll be focusing on the shepherd becoming a sheep, so we'll focus on the birth of Jesus. It's been very interesting looking for manger crafts in August. I'm sure I'm throwing off all sorts of search engine statistics!

If anyone knows of any good sheep-y crafts, let me know...

When Story Brings History Alive

I've been thinking a good bit about how story often invites us into history, often by bringing "alive" a certain time and place in ways that textbooks just can't. And I came across a funny incidence of that just this morning.

I'm trying to read a certain amount of "church history" (in any form) every day, preparatory to teaching my class again in the fall. I'm not limiting myself to just re-reading the texts we'll use in class; I'm letting myself range wherever my interests take me. One of the books I'm reading is Paul Cavill's book on Anglo-Saxon Christianity. He provides commentary about the Anglo-Saxon period and then supports it with excerpts from primary texts from that period.

I was reading along this morning rather drowsily, mostly just trying to stay faithful to the discipline of reading a set amount per day. I was working my way through an excerpt from Tacitus, who was describing the Germanic tribes (the Angles and Saxons) who were coming into Briton. And then I got to these words: "On the field of battle it is a disgrace to a chief to be surpassed in courage by his followers, and to the followers not to equal the courage of their chief. And to leave a battle alive after the chief has fallen means lifelong infamy and shame. The chief fights for victory, the followers for their chief."

Suddenly I found myself awake and chuckling. I didn't have to stretch too far in my imagination to form a picture to accompany these words. I had the whole scene from Prince Caspian right at my fingertips. Remember when Lucy revives Reepicheep, and he stands before Aslan, dignified but mortified by the loss of his tail?

"Why have your followers all drawn their swords, may I ask?" said Aslan.

"May it please your High Majesty," said the second Mouse, whose name was Peepiceek, "we are all waiting to cut off our own tails if our Chief must go without his. We will not bear the shame of wearing an honour which is denied to the High Mouse."

"Ah!" roared Aslan, "you have conquered me. You have great hearts. Not for the sake of your dignity, Reepicheep, but for the love that is between you and your people, and still more for the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the stone table (and it was then, though you have long forgotten it, that you began to be Talking Mice), you shall have your tail again."

Reepicheep...honorable Anglo-Saxon warrior? Who knew?!

What's Up With Orphans?

I'm writing as many reviews at Epinions as possible this summer to earn some much-needed income. Among other things, that means I'm reviewing almost every longer book the sweet girl and I have read aloud together this summer.

So I just posted my review of The Boxcar Children and found myself chuckling as I described the incredible resourcefulness of the kids. I mentioned that realism wasn't high on the author's agenda, since the book is not only a series book for the younger set, but an orphan story, following in the tried and true footsteps of that literary genre. Which got me thinking...what IS it about orphan stories? Why do people love to write them? Why do we all love to read them?

I've thought about this before, of course, but it hadn't dawned on me quite as forcefully as it did today just how many orphan stories dot the landscape of children's literature. Harry Potter, I think, has become the undisputed king of orphan literature, but J.K. Rowling certainly draws heavily on her predecessors.

Besides Harry Potter, and of course the Boxcar Children, I can think of a number of other famous literary orphans. The Little Match Girl. The Lost Boys. Maria Merryweather in The Little White Horse. The Fossil girls in Ballet Shoes. Pippi Longstocking. Oliver Twist (if you count that as literature for children....) . Anne of the Green Gables. Gilly Hopkins. Sara Crewe in The Little Princess. Cousin Maggy Hamilton who comes to live with the Austin family (though Madeleine confessed that she had a hard time getting Meet the Austins published because of Maggie's orphaned state, showing that the idea must have gone out of vogue at some point in the 1950s). Ender Wiggin isn't precisely an orphan, but he's taken from his parents at the very beginning of Ender's Game to live in a kind of army barracks with other special children who are being trained to fight a war. And Bean, Ender's Shadow, is an orphan.

And a lot of literary characters in stories for children and young adults have lost one parent. The March girls haven't lost a parent exactly, but their father is away on the frontlines of a war for over half of Little Women. In the recent marvelous family stories The Penderwicks, the Penderwick girls have lost their mother (though the second book deals with their eventually getting a new mother). Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Nancy Drew. Jim Frayne in the Trixie Belden series is an orphan (I put him here because he does at least have a stepfather, albeit a nasty and abusive one...Jim is adopted by a very wealthy family by the end of the second book. He still has to deal with orphan "issues," however, and the stepfather turns up like the proverbial bad penny a few more times in the series.) Luke Skywalker is orphaned to all intents and purposes (and okay, I'm stretching a bit to call him a literary character, but Star Wars is a big part of our cultural story consciousness). The Herdmans, in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, have a mother, but she's a stressed single parent whose kids are so out of control that she's become a workaholic in self-defense and not just because the family needs the money.

And don't get me started on literary characters who have neglectful, hurtful or emotionally absent parents. (Dudley Dursley and Eustace Scrubb, anyone?)

I'm sure I'm missing more...

And I'm sure someone has explored this phenomenon in depth somewhere in a master's thesis. Still, it's interesting, isn't it?

I wonder how much of it has to do with the general loneliness of the human condition. Even those of us who come from families where we feel loved and secure have known times when we've been absolutely sure that we must have come from some other family (especially in adolescence, when we feel we're just far too different from anybody else)! Clearly someone left us on our parents' doorstep. And growing up is a lonely business in general. Sometimes we feel all "on our own" as we learn to master certain things or come to grips with our feelings and with the state of our broken world. Whatever adversities we face, it certainly helps us to have heroes, heroines, role models who have faced worse, and shown that life can be "gotten through" -- and not just gotten through, but finally lived abundantly, joyfully and victoriously. So many of the stories just mentioned also show the power of community (outside of one's family) in someone's life: the characters forge relationships that sometimes feel as close or closer than blood kin.

I also wonder deep down how much of the need to write/read such literature stems from a deep spiritual hunger. We long for a deep sense of family, a deep connection with our Heavenly Father. Those of us who know Jesus and have been adopted into the family of God have been blessed to have those hungers fed, but we still know others and can still remember ourselves what it was like to be "outside the fold." As people made in God's image, but who are fallen and in exile, we know deep deep down inside ourselves what it truly means to long for home, to long for family, to hope for adoption.

No wonder we get find ourselves tearing up as we stand behind eleven year old Harry when he sits, mute and hungry with longing, in front of the images of his family in the Mirror of Erised.

Happy Birthday, Harry! (And JKR too...)

Yes, it's Harry Potter's birthday today! It's not often that I find myself celebrating the birthdays of literary characters (how often do we even know when a certain character's birthday is?) and yet it's easy to remember Harry's. Not only because it's the same birthday as his famous author, J.K. Rowling, but because Harry's birthdays play such a central role in the opening chapters of the books. In fact, last night I was up late, and as it neared midnight, I found myself wondering if Harry was lying awake somewhere thinking about all of his birthdays, especially that very memorable eleventh one...

In honor of Harry's birthday, I thought I would post a reflection that I first wrote and posted exactly one year ago today. I posted it then on "Re-Reading Harry," a blog that my friend Erin and I had put together in the months leading up to release of Deathly Hallows. It was our place to reflect on and enjoy the books together.

Here's what I was thinking about this time last year, having finished my first read-through of DH. I was working on a second read-through (aloud, with my hubby) when I wrote this. It sums up at least some of the ways that I see Christian imagery and themes permeating the novel.

Harry's Walk Toward Death

My favorite image of Harry, and one that I’ve repeated over and over, is that he has been, all along "a beloved son worth dying for." That idea really colored my reading of Deathly Hallows.

It would be so easy to see Harry as the Christ figure of DH, and in many ways, with his sacrificial, surrendered walk toward death (with all the evil figures jeering and taunting him, so reminiscent of Aslan padding to the stone table) I think we are supposed to view him in that light. But it’s not a neat one-to-one kind of comparison. Harry is a type or symbol of Christ here, much in the way that each of us as Christians ("little Christs") is supposed to be. I think the deeper way to read this scene is to realize that Harry is still what he’s always been most deeply throughout the books: Every Man.

The verse that kept coming to mind for me is this one: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live..." I also thought of Bonhoeffer’s quote "When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die."

Harry is bid to "come and die," to give up his life. That he is ready to do so, and willingly puts himself in the place of sacrifice for those he loves, shows us how much he has learned from his mother. He has her eyes, and all along I’ve wondered, as I know so many others have too, if that did not mean he also had her willingness to die for others. It turns out he does. He sees that parallel too. When he’s talking to Riddle as they circle each other in the great hall, he tells Riddle that he’s just done for all of his loved ones what his mother did for him. He sees his sacrifice in that mold, that light.

What fascinates me and makes me realize that Harry is still "Every Man," a picture of a soul that is growing in holiness and sanctification (there’s that alchemical nod) is that it’s not Harry’s willingness to die that *saves Harry.* He is able to walk up to death (with the help and encouragement of his cloud of witnesses, the loved ones who have gone before him) and he is able to take death and essentially go through it and come out on the other side, because the ancient magic, the grace, the power of his mother’s blood refuge is STILL operating. I know we’re told that protection ceases when he comes of age and leaves his aunt’s house. But because that blood still runs in Voldemort’s veins (life running in the midst of death! darkness not being able to overcome it!) that protection is still kept alive. And so Harry lives. Dumbledore tells him that Voldemort's use of that blood tethers Harry to life. What a fascinating phrase. He is still dependent on someone else’s sacrifice (and it strikes me this makes Lily, not Harry or Dumbledore, the key Christ figure in the books).

Harry is healed by what he goes through there in the forest and in King’s Cross, especially when Voldemort’s curse seems to cast out/kill the evil bit of Voldemort that had attached itself to Harry all those years before. Or am I reading that aright? (I'm not sure if the twisted baby in King's Cross is supposed to be that bit of Voldemort that had lived in Harry, or is a picture of what Voldemort will be left as for eternity because of the choices he's made. Hard to know.) It's hard to understand fully what happened there, but it certainly seems as though evil/sin has been cast out of Harry, or that he has been, in a sense, healed of what almost amounts to demonic possession or at least oppression. That too seems to point to Harry as an every man figure.

I love that it was King’s Cross where he has the final big talk with Dumbledore: a train station, a journeying place, and the one that Harry has always known as a "liminal" place (a door between the muggle world and the wizarding world, and now a door into an even more real world than either of the other two). I suspect a lot of us had Lewis on our minds as Harry walked through the forest to meet his death, and King’s Cross reminded me of Lewis too – both the "Wood Between the Worlds" and also the train station in Prince Caspian where the kids are called back to Narnia.

I don’t think we’re to miss the sacrificial almost crucifixion like aspect of what Harry has just gone through. When he comes back to life and wakes on the forest floor, Narcissa’s nails pierce him. If I’m not mistaken, her nails were even described as blood red in an earlier book.

And I love how he emerges from the forest almost re-born, a new man, a new creature. When Hagrid carries him, weeping, in his arms, I think we’re supposed to think about the first time Hagrid carried Harry out of the wreckage of his parents’ house when he was just a baby. Unbeknownst to Hagrid, Harry has survived yet another killing curse. And he is still as dependent as a baby on outside help and grace. I think that’s one reason I love Harry’s character so much. He is a "savior" figure, a hero, but he is enabled to do what he does, to respond to his call, only because he himself is saved by a love deeper and more ancient than his own. His own sacrifice, his own ability to love, his own overcoming of temptations...all of them are born as a response to the love that is first shown to him.

Belated Literary Birthday: Beatrix Potter (July 28)

If you saw Google's homepage on Monday, you likely noticed it was decorated with a clever rendition of Mr. McGregor and Peter Rabbit. That's because Monday, July 28, marked the birthday of Beatrix Potter. She was born in 1866 and died in 1943. And among other remarkable achievements, she gave the world "a bunny book to conjure with."

That last is one of my favorite quotes from the lovely 2006 film Miss Potter. Part biography and part romance, it's the story of Beatrix's life and art. It gives special attention to the publication of her first book Peter Rabbit, the "bunny book" that publisher Norman Warne realized contained such wonderful promise and beauty. I love that at the same time he was falling in love with the book, he was recognizing similar things about the promise and beauty of the woman who had written and illustrated it.

Peter Rabbit is, of course, a true classic. Not just a children's classic, but a classic book in the English language period. I loved Peter when I was little, and am delighted that my daughter does too.

We celebrated on Monday by spending some time doing an online Peter Rabbit puzzle here. The puzzle is actually from a very fun website called jigzone. Whatever pizzle you choose, you can also choose the level of difficulty and "re-shuffle" the pieces of a new puzzle cut at any time. The sweet girl worked on the 6 piece "classic cut" and the 12-piece zig-zag, while I attempted the (harder than it looks) 16-piece block cut and the more relaxing 20-piece classic cut.

And peterrabbit.com also has a terrific page of fun and games related to Peter Rabbit. Coloring pages, dot to dots, word searches, e-cards and other fun activities, related to Peter and other Beatrix Potter characters (Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddleduck, Benjamin Bunny...) can be found there.

We're in a bit of a summer doldrum here: summer heat, no trip to grandparents in sight, arts camp over and Vacation Bible School still three weeks away (though since D is in charge of that, we've lots to do for it!) and me struggling with not feeling particularly well. Having a day to celebrate Beatrix Potter and her books was a great thing for us. I keep meaning to establish a literary celebration calendar so I can remember these dates from year to year. Next year, I'd love to celebrate with a homemade carrot cake...this year all we managed was some fresh carrots!

I Wonder If They Have High-Speed Access...

Last night we were reading Anne Rockwell's Becoming Butterflies as a bedtime story. The sweet girl has been loving this book, which contains a very clear description of metamorphosis.

I confess I was zoning a bit toward the end. It had been a long day and I was tired. I've been battling a sore throat, a recurring ear problem, and somehow strained my ankle yesterday and had to strap it so I could walk around with major limping.

There's a long "author's note" at the back of the book, which of course we're not allowed to skip. :-) I was reading through it on automatic pilot, especially the paragraphs that talk about where you can go to find out more information about monarch butterflies. Picture me reading along, trying to keep my voice bright and energetic:

"The California Monarch, however, doesn't migrate to Mexico, because the weather doesn't turn too cold for it to survive. A Web site that tells a great deal more about Monarchs is: www.MonarchWatch.org or you can E-Mail them at monarch@ukans.edu --"

The sweet girl suddenly perked up, like a puppy cocking her head.

"How," she said with wonder, "do you E-MAIL MONARCHS?"

More Evenings Like This

This is the sight that greeted us last Friday evening, right at the start of our long weekend in Erie. Our mini-vacation felt like it passed all too quickly, but I'm so grateful we had it -- it was most needed.

We didn't feel ready to leave the slow and steady rhythms of wind and waves. I think we would have all relished many more days of rest and beauty.

Planet Narnia Review

I don't usually rush to put up links to my own review, but I loved Michael Ward's book Planet Narnia. And rather repeat all the whys and wherefores here (though I may yet still reflect further or provide a few tantalizing quotes) I thought I would just go ahead and post the link here to my review at Epinions.

Any thoughts and comments appreciated...I'm eager to discuss this book!

First Journal

I used to be a prolific journal-keeper. In the past several years, although I do still keep a journal, I write in it much more sporadically.

But I've been missing private journal keeping. It's always been a soul-nourishing activity for me, and this summer I decided to try to get back to making it a regular habit. A few weeks ago I purchased a brand new notebook and I've been delighting in writing in it more often.

It hadn't dawned on me how closely my daughter was watching, both when I purchased the journal and as she began to see me tote it around each day. When I bought it, we had a conversation about what a journal is, and I more or less explained that it was a place where you could write about your thoughts and feelings and the things you do each day. She seemed intrigued.

Several days ago she began making casual comments about "her journal." Things like: "I stayed up till 2 in the morning writing in my journal!" (hmmm...where did she get that one, I wonder?) and "I need to remember what we did today so I can write it in my journal." Always after these comments, she would look somewhat self-conscious and add "I'm only teasing" or "I'm just kidding...I don't really have a journal," or sometimes "Maybe one day when I'm older and can write better I can keep a journal."

And then it dawned on me how foolish it was not to seize this lovely creative and reflective moment. Who cares that her letters are sometimes still tipsy and she sometimes writes them backwards? Who ever said that you have years of writing practice behind you to keep a journal? I remembered that in my own more creative years of journal-keeping, I would sketch, jot words I liked, paste pictures from magazines, and slide snipped quotes inside the pages. Couldn't the sweet girl begin to keep her own kind of journal?

So I asked her if she wanted one. I explained what I just said...how a journal could be a creative place for her, even if she didn't write much in it yet, though of course she could use it for writing too. I called it a "special notebook."

And when we went to the store this past weekend, we headed down the notebook aisle and stood in front of a vast array and she chose one. I found myself guiding her toward smaller notebooks (she liked that) but the first one or two I picked up and suggested she didn't take much interest in. Her eyes lit up when she saw a little notebook with a purple spiral and colorful dots on the cover. It even had a little cardboard pocket on the inside cover. "I like this one!" she said, and I knew right away that it was her first journal. I should have remembered how important it feels for me to choose my own notebook, and how certain notebooks for certain seasons of my life just "feel right."

So that's the one we got. And yesterday, she asked me to please write down the day and date so she could copy those words onto the first page of her journal. I suggested she put her name on the front inside flap. She did all that, and then spent half an hour happily drawing pictures with colored pencils inside her own special little notebook. She wants to keep her journal near mine.

What a lovely unexpected summer gift: my little girl has become a journal-keeper!

Icky Bugs

A few weeks ago we were at a library story hour. The group of kids just happened to consist of all girls that day. When the librarian asked, "who likes insects?" there were some squeals and "ewws!" and "not me's!" And then of course my daughter piped up with an enthusiastic "I do!"

Having a little girl who loves creepy crawly insects is, I think, a direct result of God's gentle sense of humor. He seems to delight in reminding me of the goodness of his creation, even the parts of his creation that have made my skin crawl for years. I went through a period of time (when I was much older than the sweet girl is now) where I took some active, academic interest in learning more about "bugs" -- and certainly I found some insects fascinating when I was younger and spending hours in my backyard. But I've never been too enamored of them overall and I've had a real phobia about spiders since I was about six (just ask my sisters).

But my kid is insect crazy. Maybe because she DOESN'T have a yard, and we have to do on insect watching when and where we can (I almost said "on the fly" -- ouch!) or maybe because we've tried to cultivate a love of carefully looking at things. Who knows why. Maybe it really is just part of who God made her to be. She's always loved tiny things.

Her favorite book at present, the one she's begging for repeated readings of, is Jerry Pallotta's The Icky Bug Counting Book. The only part of it she didn't really understand or like at first was the title. Why did they call these cool bugs icky? She's finally come around to the concession that some of them may be a little "icky" -- like the stinkbugs and the blister beetles, for instance.


Last night's dinnertime conversation was punctuated by her frequent forays into facts she's learned from this book. "What have YOU learned from the Icky Bug Counting Book?" she kept asking me and her Daddy too. I thought about making insect-talk off-limits at the table, but it's difficult because we encourage family talk about the things we really enjoy or have been doing/thinking about during the day. If she was really try to bring up gross topics, that would be one thing, but it's hard to nip joy in the bud when it's clear that she finds this stuff utterly fascinating and not at all gross. "I think they use parts of blister beetles to make medicines for people," she said earnestly last night. So last night we decided to grin and bear it and joined in with her enthusiasm, sharing about things we'd all learned from the book. (Did YOU know that pillbugs are actually crustaceans, not insects?)

Of course, when bedtime rolled around with its nightly "what shall we read?" question, there she was, all hopeful, Icky Bug book in tow. I've borne the brunt of the re-readings lately, so I pulled her Daddy aside in the hallway outside her room and asked him, in a low voice, if he'd mind pulling Icky Bug duty tonight. "Sure," he replied cheerfully. At which point I hugged him and exclaimed "Have I told you how much I love you lately?" "How much?" he teased. "I love you more than all the army ants in all the world."

That's a lot of love. And not at all icky!

Planet Narnia and Radical Orthodoxy

I'm two chapters from the end of Michael Ward's groundbreaking Planet Narnia, alternately wishing to gobble up the remaining pages and turning them extra slowly to try to make the enjoyment last just a little bit longer. But I can't turn them too slowly...I've got less than two weeks left before it's due back on inter-library-loan!

Reading a book like Ward's makes me wish I was a lot smarter than I am so I could say beautiful and erudite things about his thesis. I don't pretend to understand every fine point of his scholarly argument -- that would mean I understood medieval cosmology (not to mention Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare, and Donne) a lot better than I actually do. The fact that I have grasped as much of it as I have is, I think, a testament to the beauty and cohesiveness of his argument, much more than to any of my feeble attempts to unpack it fully. It's also probably due to the fact that I've inhabited the Narnia stories as long as I have.

I use the word "inhabited" consciously. I've begun to realize that there have been certain books and authors in my life whom I’ve read so often (usually though not always beginning in childhood) that I’ve absorbed their fictional worlds as a sponge soaks in water. You can’t tell where such stories begin and your own stories end, or vice versa, they’re just a part of who you are and they affect the way you see and process the world. Inhabiting such stories is a great joy. They become part of the inner landscape of your heart.

And since Narnia has been part of my inner landscape since I was about ten, I think there’s a good reason why I feel like I can drink deeply from a beautiful book like Ward’s, even though I’m not a trained literary scholar or critic. I’m grateful for the chance to breathe in the delicious and beautiful parts of Ward’s book that I do understand on a deep heart level, and the parts that challenge me are just that – parts that challenge me to go deeper. Among other things, he has almost convinced me that I am ready to tackle Lewis’ book The Discarded Image.

I hope to write more another time about why I feel his argument is so pervasive (and it has to do, in part, with its beauty and cohesiveness) but for now wanted to mention a subsidiary path my mind has taken while reading this book. By happy “coincidence,” I’m also reading the book Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe. This is a collection of essays (which mostly began life as sermons) which happens to be edited by Ben Quash and Michael Ward. I actually stumbled upon the book while doing a library catalog search on Planet Narnia.

Since Ward is one of the editors of the collection, perhaps it’s not surprising that I’m finding some synchronicity in the two books, although they’d appear to have very little in common other than his name on the cover. What struck me anew the other day, as I was going back and forth between them, is just how radical orthodoxy is.

That may sound strange, but I don’t often think about it. The orthodox (classical, historic, creedal) Christian vision is such a deep, deep part of my inner landscape (“by it I see everything else” as Lewis once wrote of Christianity) that I don’t often spend much time reflecting on what it “looks like” or “feels like.” But it is radical, usually far more so than any of the alternative visions we try to come up with on our own, even or especially those that are somehow a watered down or distorted version of the real thing.

As Ben Quash says, charitably and clearly, in the prologue to the Heresies book:

"...just as what we call dirt is often something capable of being useful except for the unfortunate fact that it has turned up in the wrong place – and just as what a mother calls mud on her child’s sports kit while reaching for the washing powder is something a gardener would call soil and grow things in – so heresies often had some good points to make. The problem is they didn’t always do so in the right way or in an appropriate context. Or in a good number of fascinating cases…they just didn’t go far enough. Heretics have often been shy of the full radicalness of orthodox Christianity...all of the first three authors in the book use words like ‘radical,’ ‘amazing’ and ‘shocking’ – and use them of orthodoxy not of heresy. This puts paid to any idea that orthodox belief is some sort of easy way out of intellectual hard work; heresy is more often the easier option."

This rings true. Why are we so surprised, I wonder, at the delightful radicalness of God? And why do we ever think we can “out-wild” the One who made the wild, who called his people through a wilderness?

These thoughts all meshed together for me as I continued to read Planet Narnia. One of the things Ward does so well is to show how many of the supposedly "controversial" issues in Lewis (such as death and sexuality, just to name two) cease to look all that problematic if one is viewing the Chronicles through the lens he proffers. If Lewis really did seek, as Ward persuasively argues he did, to soak each Chronicle in the atmosphere, characteristics and virtues assigned respectively to the seven planets in medieval and renaissance literature – well then, some of the creative and imagistic choices he makes in each book become much clearer and look far more purposeful. This is a relief to all of us who have responded intuitively for years to what feels like a radical, beautiful, cohesive Christian vision in these books, despite the fact that some through the years have charged Lewis with “haphazard” or sloppy creative process. Small wonder that the books continue to speak to so many minds and hearts, preparing people on all sorts of levels to understand (recognize/desire/long for) a God-soaked and God-loved world.

And small wonder that some critics like Pullman, steeped in a worldview diametrically opposed to the Christian worldview, cannot see the forest for the trees when he tries to make his way through Narnia. He hammers away at the parts of Lewis that he sees as anti-life or anti-sexuality, and then Ward comes along and shows the depths and layers of symbolic and imaginative richness that open those scenes up anew and show that they actually pulsate with a far deeper, and yes far more radical embrace of life, and a far more radical rejoicing in embodiment, fruitfulness, and love than a materialistic anti-gospel could ever account for or possibly embrace.

Reading Round-Up: Beginning of Summer Edition

I'm reading some really good books that I hope to post about in the coming week or two, but I thought the official beginning of summer (well, okay, that was a couple of weeks ago...) seemed like a good time to post another reading round-up.

So here's what I've read in the past few months. I'll try to categorize like I did last time. Any links are to my reviews at Epinions.

Church "History"

Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies are Reshaping Anglicanism, by Miranda K. Hassett

This excellent book will need to be revised and expanded soon, given the current state of flux and all the changes happening in the Communion. As one of the so-called "Episcopal Dissidents" she names in the title, I was very interested to read this book. Ms. Hassett is an anthropologist, and though theologically a self-confessed liberal-leaning Episcopalian, her book is a remarkably evenhanded look at the past decade as Anglicanism has begun to consciously identify itself as a global movement. So much I could say about this book: I especially found her reflections on globalization insightful (she very helpfully differentiates between the two global visions of conservative and progressive Anglicans: accountability globalism and diversity globalism). How have global relationships changed the way we look at one another, and how do those relationships continue to play out and challenge us on all sorts of levels? The only really major missing "chunk" for me in this otherwise terrific book was a deeper level of theological reflection. It's hard to see how one can discuss complex relationships within the church and across cultural divides and not spend time reflecting on the Biblical vision of unity and the church as "one body with many members."

Memoir

A Walk With Jane Austen: A Journey Into Adventure, Love and Faith, by Lori Smith

I think my expectations for this book were just too high. It didn't engage me on the heart level I thought it would. Nonetheless, worth reading if you're a Christian woman who loves Austen's work.

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, by Julie Andrews

I don't often read "celebrity" biography, but this autobiography of one of my favorite actress/singers caught my eye at the library. I checked it out thinking I'd enjoy the pictures if nothing else, then started reading and could hardly put it down. Andrews writes the way she speaks: elegantly, intelligently, and with a gentle sense of humor. Especially interesting for the picture she paints about her war-time childhood, though her anecdotes about working with Rex Harrison are also great!

Fiction

Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen, by Sybil G. Brinton

The grandmother of all Austen sequels! Published in 1913, a mere one hundred years after Austen published Pride and Prejudice, it's also the only book that author Sybil Brinton apparently ever wrote (or at least saw published). She was clearly way ahead of the trend on this one. And it was surprisingly good read: she "got Austen" far better than most of the current-day sequel-izers.

The Joys of Love, by Madeleine L'Engle

What a joy to hold a "new" L'Engle novel in my hand. She actually wrote it early in her career but it was never published. Not terrifically strong on its own, but a delight for long-time fans and an interesting addition to the canon of her early work. Especially poignant to read it in light of her recent passing; it drew so deeply on her youth in the 1940s theater.

Carrot Cake Murder, by Joanne Fluke

10th in the series. This is the kind of fluff that makes me long for the beach even more than I already am. Fluke is completely a formula writer, but what a fun formula! And I think I gained weight just reading the recipes.

Children's Classics
By "classics" here I really mean "old" (though some will have achieved classic status, or at least beloved author status). I'm attempting to catch up on some children's books I've been meaning to read for a while.

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (The sweet girl and I did this one together as a read-aloud...I think I read it years ago, but had forgotten much of it. Liked it better than we expected!)

Mid-Grade/Young Adult Fiction
I seem to have "sequelitis" at present...

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, by Jeanne Birdsall

What fun to visit the Penderwicks again. I hope Birdsall plans many more books about this delightful family!

The Calder Game, by Blue Balliett

Balliett's quirky juvenile mystery series continues...always fascinating to see how she approaches the interplay of language, life and art.

"Now We Are Six..."

Yes, the sweet girl turned six on Friday. Six!

And there are so many moments I could capture from the beautiful celebratory weekend just past (her beloved Aunt M and Uncle P were in town, and spoiled us all with a wonderful day at the National Aviary...more on that soon).

She is growing up so quickly, and she brings us so much joy.

Tonight at "candles" (our term for our evening family devotional time) she suddenly lifted a strand of her hair and said, in a very bright voice, "Maybe when we get to heaven one day we can ask Jesus how many hairs are on our heads!"

Last night on our way out of the restaurant (yes, M and P really spoiled us...they even took us out to dinner at the Olive Garden, a favorite for all of us) there was an amazing rainbow in the sky. It was drizzling rain right at sunset, and most of the sky was stained a lovely golden apricot color and suddenly we realized we could see an enormous rainbow arching through the sky. We hardly ever see rainbows around here, and it's very rare indeed we can see one that fully. We all stood in the restaurant parking lot and gaped for a while. I commented on how rare it was to see such a thing in our area. "It's the biggest rainbow I've ever seen in MY LIFE!" the sweet girl declared.

And that's a full six years now. A full girl-twirling, question-asking, beauty-remarking, laughter-inducing, keeping-us-on-our-toes six years. So thankful for every one of them, and each minute of every one.

Happy Birthday Charlotte Zolotow

Charlotte Zolotow's birthday was June 26, so I'm three days late to this online party, a celebration of her life and work hosted by Semicolon.

It's only been in recent years that I've come to know and enjoy Charlotte Zolotow's books. My daughter and I recently read Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, a lovely book! Our favorite, I think, is The Seashore Book.

But to really pay my respects to Charlotte Zolotow, I need to go back to my blog archives from two summers ago. In June 2006, I posted about a memory I had while reading Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus. The memory was of an encouraging letter I received from Charlotte Zolotow, then an editor at Harper's, when I was sixteen years old.

Allow me to pull a bit from my old post, which was originally titled "The Audacity of Youth."

Continuing my delicious read of Ursula Nordstrom's letters, and came across a bit of information that made me recall a wonderfully audacious moment from my adolescence.

Charlotte Zolotow started out in the world of children's publishing as Ursula Nordstrom's secretary. Later on she became a distinguished author and editor in her own right...

I happen to have a letter from Charlotte Zolotow in my files. An actual typewritten (yes, typewritten) letter with a signature. It was a reply to a query I sent to Harper's when I was sixteen years old. I actually wrote to Charlotte Zolotow to pitch the idea for a picture book I'd already written.

The book was called Homer and was the story of a leaf that turned red on a tree where almost all of the other leaves turned yellow. He was teased and got embarrassed about how different he was, but in the end, he became immortalized in a little girl's beautiful collage. It was, if I say so myself, a pretty good story. I wrote a lot during my high school years, and my love of children's literature had given me a pretty good story-telling sense and rhythm. My dad helped me reproduce the text (we actually enlarged my typewritten sheets on a photocopier... this was still a few years before everyone had a computer) and we pasted the words on cardstock. He did beautiful illustrations for it and we actually bound it by hand. I still have the book -- I've not yet shared it with my little girl because it's sort of fragile now and I think she will appreciate it more later and treat it more gently too.

I'm getting sidetracked. I did not send the book or even a whole typewritten manuscript to Charlotte Zolotow. I knew enough to know that I should simply send a query letter and share my idea, which I did. I don't have a copy of that original letter I wrote, but I do have her very gracious reply. I just re-found it in my files a few months ago...

CZ, as Ursula Nordstrom called her, took me seriously. She told me that she didn't think they could offer to publish my book successfully because the theme of someone mocked for being different but triumphing in the end was a tried and true one that had been done before, perhaps best in Hans Christian Anderson's "The Ugly Duckling," which had been one of my favorites in childhood. She told me I'd made an "impressive start" to my "writing career" (I still remember how much those few words meant to me) and encouraged me to read everything I could and to keep writing.

What a treasure of a letter. And what an audacious thing for me to do, to send a letter to such a respected editor at such an established publishing house. Of course, I had no clue then of what a part she had played in helping to publish renowned 20th century children's lit. I don't even think I knew any of her stories. If I'm remembering rightly, I picked her name out of a market listing because...I thought it was pretty!

My post went on to reflect on the audacity of youth, but what I wanted to highlight today is how much that letter meant to me, and how much it reminds me of how we can touch and encourage the lives of younger writers (and mothers, and teachers, and...fill in the blank) when they turn to us, whether that's in day to day friendships, or in more formal contacts via correspondence from someone we don't even really know. It's a wonderful thing to take the time to respond to someone with kindness. It was a blessing and a grace to me that an older, seasoned artist took the time to respond to me with such generosity, not condescending in any way, but gently and in a way that pushed me to think more about ways I could learn to do what I loved and do it better.

And when I see Charlotte Zolotow's books on the library shelf, I almost always think of it.

This Morning

Categorically proved: my kitchen floor gets a lot cleaner if I mop to Aretha Franklin's RESPECT.

Bible Translations for Children

I've been weighing the possibility of buying a Bible that's translated specifically for children. Does anyone have any thoughts/wisdom on this?

I ask because in some ways I think it's unnecessary. We have a number of Bible translations in our home already; we read mostly from the KJV or ESV at family devotion times. Like other books we read to the sweet girl, we know much of the Bible is still going to be "over her head," but we believe in the importance of reading it together. We can always spend time explaining, discussing and answering questions, and we also believe that there's richness in hearing the cadence and beauty of the language itself, especially in a beautiful translation.

But there's also much to be said for reading a version that's easier, more comprehensible for young people. We've used a number of Bible storybooks in the past few years, which are really collections of re-tellings of stories or passages from the Scriptures. There are some very good ones these days: we've especially liked Big Picture Story Bible and The Jesus Storybook Bible (which approach the Scriptures from an overall narrative/big picture perspective, relying on insights in Biblical theology). When the sweet girl was even younger, we used Lindvall's Tell-Me Stories books, which are marvelous for read-aloud (we still use them sometimes!). We also very much liked the now out of print "My Very First Bible" (by Sattgast) -- we've used both the Old and New Testament volumes, and still go back to them occasionally, though she's starting to remark that the stories are "too short." This year we've also been reading our way through Egermeier's Bible Storybook which has the advantage of being a very full collection with much longer and detailed re-tellings. I think it's been fairly effective, though I'm not wild about the illustrations. We're also using and liking the Young Reader's Bible by Standard Publishing for independent reading practice.

I'm now working on lesson plans for our first grade year, and one of my plans is to combine our ongoing study of the Bible with our new studies in Ancient History. I'm utilizing a curriculum guide called Biblioplan for Families and they emphasize reading a number of Biblical passages that correspond chronological with the history studies we're undertaking. For younger students in the K-3 range, they recommend The Step-by-Step Bible by V. Gilbert Beers. I've been trying to find a copy of this to look over (to see if I want to purchase it) but it's apparently out of print and not showing up in our county library system. I was not wildly impressed with the Early Reader's Bible that Beers did for the same publisher, which is why I'm hesitating to go on and buy a used copy (though there are some available on Alibris).

In the meantime, I've been researching into actual translations of the entire Scriptures for children. It seems there are a handful of fairly respected ones, primarily The International Children's Bible and the NirV (essentially the NIV but moved into an easier reading level). There are also other translations geared toward non-native English speakers or young/less fluent readers, including things like the CEV and Good News.

A bit mind-boggling, isn't it? And I don't mean to go crazy here. I'm thankful, very thankful, for the many rich choices we have when it comes to English translations of the Scriptures. I also know that the most important thing is that we're faithful in reading together each day and in teaching our daughter to love and listen to and obey these words. Still, I'd love to find a good article somewhere that fully compares/addresses some of the available options, particularly if it gives attention/care to the methodologies behind some of the translations. If anyone knows of any such resource, or if you'd like to share what you've used or how you've approached Bible reading and Bible study with your family/young children, I'm all ears!

Excavation of Creative Layers

For the past several days I've been going through old boxes and files, some of which I haven't opened in years. I am fairly certain that some of the things I'm going through I haven't looked at since we moved to this area almost eleven years ago. Other files I stuffed into cabinets and crates during the seminary years (as we now refer to them fondly).

Finding so many of my old papers has been eye-opening. By papers, I mean all sorts of things: papers I wrote during seminary, articles I clipped from newspapers or printed copies of from online sources, rough drafts of poems and short stories (some I spent long hours on and never went back to), notes and cards from friends, journals, favorite quotes and prayers. Seeing all of these things spill out of their haphazardly organized spaces (which I'm now trying to make sense of and really organize) has been a delight, but a bit overwhelming. It's a bit like excavating things in an archaeological dig, only the layers I'm discovering are layers of myself: my older (but younger!) self.

I'm beginning to notice certain trends in things I collected, kept, or wrote during certain seasons. My 20s and 30s were both very full decades, my 30s especially so, since those years included graduate school (seminary) and motherhood. The changing seasons of my life are easy for me to spot, like gradually changing colors in the layers.

And the one thing that stands out to me, with awe-filled gratitude, is that I've never lost my deep love for the written word. All those quotes and poems and articles and prayers I've collected, other people's words that inspire me, comfort me, challenge me...like a colorful bouquet of ribbons, like lifelines. And finding my own words has been eye-opening too, looking back on what I've written and what I've cared about over the years, and discovering afresh how deeply certain themes run in my life.

And then there's the surprise: I've written a lot. More than I realized, more than I remembered. Even seasons of my life when I thought I wasn't writing much, when time with the pen or the computer was precious and spare, I've still written. I almost cried re-reading some of the old short stories: some of these characters were near and dear to my heart, and still are (I'm thinking of making a creative return to a few of my unfinished projects). All these words I've spilled out over the years, even the acreage of rough drafts (and that's mostly what I find) are testament to how much I've needed and wanted to write, even during lean periods when all I could manage was writing in the cracks and crevices of seasons filled with other important and worthy things.

Some of the quotations and prayers I've re-found have spoken to me so deeply again. In weeks to come, some of them may pop up here. I think I'll likely title them "excavation quotations"!

Missing Harry

The Harry Potter world got a treat yesterday, when the 800-word "prequel" story J.K. Rowling recently penned for charity became available online. It took my old computer a while to load it, but it was worth the wait. What a pleasure to read (and laugh!) my way through this delightfully funny hand-written scene, in which adolescent James Potter and his good friend Sirius Black evade the Muggle police on a magic motorbike we've all grown very fond of through the years...

One of the things I found most fascinating was the casual mention of the name "Wilberforce" within the scene. I planned to post about it here, but it seems that Travis Prinzi over at the Hog's Head beat me to the punch, along with a number of other folks. I think almost everyone in the world -- well, the Christian literary world anyway -- caught the reference to the great Anglican social reformer and took extra delight in it!

Over at Hogwarts Professor, John Granger was speculating on the inner and outer pressures that might bring Rowling to begin to write again in Harry's world, despite her avowals (in times past) that she wouldn't return to that world as a fiction-writer. I remember Orson Scott Card speculating on this same thing not long after Deathly Hallows. I really do think that the pure joy of having created characters like these and a world like Harry's will eventually pull Rowling back into writing stories set there, either prequels or sequels. I know from my own limited work as a fiction writer how characters have a way of getting into my head and spending a lot of time "talking there" (sometimes to the point that I find myself dreaming conversations between them). I can't imagine how it would feel to have invested this much time, energy and creativity in a fictional world...and not allow myself to go back and play there from time to time. I'm sure Rowling wants to try other kinds of writing too, and certainly shouldn't limit herself to only writing HP-related fiction, but it also seems silly for her to make it completely off-limits for all time. I think she'll miss it too much in the end.

Heck, I know I do. That's the main thing that came home to me yesterday. Reading this tiny little snippet of fiction was delightful because it felt like Harry's world. The cadence was there, the humor, the action. James and Sirius, full of themselves and ever so slightly obnoxious, yet vibrantly alive, made me miss Fred and George especially, but Ron and Harry and the whole gang too. It seemed absurdly easy for Rowling to "fall back into" the story. You almost got the sense that the scene wrote itself -- and given what we know of James and Sirius' characters, and the gift of a marvelous magical object like the motorbike, that makes sense.

So I had to chuckle when I saw JKR's final line, where she wrote that this was from the prequel she was NOT working on, but that it had been fun. Of course it was fun. And she may not be actively working on anything Harry related, but I would guess her mind is playing with the characters and the before and after story-lines more often than even she may know. I wonder if it will be a dream that will get her writing in Harry's world again?

Writing About the Roaring Twenties

The hits just keep coming...meaning, we keep being informed of new and upcoming changes in our work and ministry situations that mean income loss for us in the coming months. So in addition to praying mightily for discernment and provision, I am also spending some time trying to drum up new avenues for freelance writing work.

One potential article popped onto my radar today. A history magazine for junior high/ high schoolers requests freelance articles on a number of topics, and I'm on their mailing list. A couple of years ago I submitted a piece to them which they didn't use, but I got a thoughtful note from one of the editors letting me know they liked it and saying they wouldn't mind seeing more of my work. I usually try to capitalize on such open doors, but I've been busy and none of their recent "calls for articles" had appealed to me much.

But today's did. They're working on an issue on the "Roaring Twenties" and hey -- that's one of my best decades! They're looking for informative articles on a number of people and things connected to the 1920's. So now I'm trying to decide a couple of things.

Given that there's no guaranteed income here (they pay only if they accept) how much time can I/should I invest in research and writing this article? The potential fee is $75 for an article of 1,000-1,400 hundred words plus discussion/activity suggestions. How much time would you put into a project like this, when time is precious and any and all income is needed? Is there a potential to sell an article like this somewhere else if they don't accept it? I never did anything else with the last one, though I often thought I should have tweaked it and tried it somewhere else...

Secondly, which topic should I choose? On something like this, I tend to go with my gut. Of the topics they hope to cover (and for which they still need articles) they included Babe Ruth (I love baseball history!), the Model T (and I recently finished reading some very interesting history about the Model T and Henry Ford in the book "1908"), and Charles Lindbergh. I've not read much on Lindbergh in years, but I went through a period of time where I found his biography quite fascinating. I actually read all of his wife's journals.

So, there you have it. Any creative consultants who want to advise, please feel free. :-) I need to make up my mind about this soon, as the deadline for submitting the article is less than two weeks away.

Quotes of the Week

From time to time, I just love to recount a few of the things our dear daughter has said recently. Sometimes they're profound, sometimes sweet, sometimes just funny.

Just bear with this Mama's occasional snapshot moments. The sweet girl is growing up so quickly...

"Mommy, what is your most ticklishest place?" (said while we were tickling each other one morning)

"Wouldn't you get sick if you ate nothing but a hound dog?" (actually said to her Daddy while they were listening to Elvis Presley)

And...(popping back in on Sunday afternoon to add a question from this morning, on our way to church): "What if food fell from the sky and we all carried plates around to catch it?"

Windowsill Gardening and the Nourishing Soil We Need

We've been growing several plants on the sweet girl's windowsill this spring. Right now she has a small plastic green house with impatiens (which frustrate her patience by their refusal to bloom!) and a pot with a lima bean plant which is flourishing.

We also have a medium sized pot with a grass plant. Yes, I said grass. Now the funny thing about this grass is that it was originally planted near the end of S' preschool year when she was four, so we've had it for two years. They uprooted a bit of grass and planted it in a plastic cup in her preschool classroom and she brought it home. We watered it faithfully for months and it grew pretty well, but the size of the cup limited how big it could get. Eventually, a few months ago, I realized belatedly that the poor grass plant was looking pretty peaked...pale leaves, drooping. The reason was obvious. Through the clear plastic of the cup, you could see the deep root structure which had become quite long and tangled up. The poor plant was reaching for deeper soil, deeper roots, but it had run out of space and richness.

So we transplanted the pale bit of grass this spring, right around Easter time. I know it was Easter because I borrowed the soil from the potted tulip plants we'd bought at church, in memory of D's grandparents. I wasn't sure how wise it was to borrow soil that had already been "used" and had other plant roots in it, but it was handy and the dirt still looked so rich and I hated to waste it. I also wasn't convinced that the grass plant would make it anyway, so figured we had nothing to lose.

Imagine our surprise when the plant immediately perked up and began to grow like gangbusters! It's doubled (maybe tripled?) its size, and become a gorgeous vibrant green. A few weeks ago it suddenly shot out a long, skinny shoot. Looked sort of weedy, but we let it keep going, curious, especially when it seemed to be launching another bit of grass at the end of the shoot. And then this week, much to the sweet girl's delight, the shoot BLOOMED! Tiny little white flowers, like slender stars, opening out from the shoot.

All of this makes me think about our spiritual lives. How often, I wonder, are we ready to deepen, ready to really push our roots deeper down so that we can grow, only to discover we don't have enough nourishing soil? Part of the richness of our daily disciplines is the way they help to break down/build up the soil that we need. We might think of our "daily grind" but it's a "grinding" that helps to take the stuff of our lives and works it into rich soil that helps us grow. Maybe it really isn't a coincidence that "human" and "humus" (the root word for "earth" or "soil") seem so closely related! We can't expect to make even a sudden spurt, much less sustain growth over a long time or manage to bloom, without being surrounded by the nourishing soil we need. Our roots need a real place to deepen, and our daily disciplines help God make that space and soil in our lives.

Summer! And The Blessing of "Ears to Hear"

I know that summer doesn't officially start for another few weeks, but I can't help but feel we had our unofficial start today. That's for two reasons: we finished up formal school routine/kindergarten year yesterday (hooray for us!) and because I finally turned a major corner health-wise.

I've been battling ear problems for well over six months now. It started back in November. I can still recall almost the exact moment when I felt that my ears suddenly "closed up" inside, and I began having difficulty hearing. For a long time I battled what felt like sloshing fluid in both ears, and varying levels of pressure and discomfort. It would get better for a while -- long enough that I would think it was going away -- but it always came back. I tried homeopathy (which I often find effective) and just flat-out ignoring it, not wanting to deal with doctor bills (given my current terrible insurance situation, always very high) or with antibiotics, which I don't deal with at all well.

In March, the discomfort and annoyance suddenly morphed into real pain. I had a day when I thought my head was going to explode from pain and pressure. I ended up in an emergency visit to the doctor and went on a huge round of antibiotics which helped my ears drain. It was a drag, but I thought I finally had the thing beat. I was a little dismayed that I still felt some pressure in my ears even after the round of antibiotics, but I talked myself into thinking it would go away. For several weeks, I struggled with that pressure again and with bouts of time when I wasn't hearing well at all, especially on my right side. Then two weeks ago, everything started getting really bad again in BOTH ears; by the end of last week I was finding it difficult to hear people talking, and I gave in and went to the doctor again. My regular doc didn't know what to do this time as she didn't see any infection, but she knew my eardrums didn't look normal, so she sent me to an ENT. Thanks be to God, the practice had a cancellation and got me in almost right away.

And that's where I spent yesterday, having hearing tests and finally getting my ears fully and completely drained. Apparently my eustachian tube is not functioning well and I'm prone to this kind of terrible fluid build-up. I've gone through this procedure one other time (when I was eight months pregnant) and believe me, it is a drag. It hurts. But the pain is relatively brief, and when it's over, there is the blessed and almost immediate relief of pressure.

I'd lived with that pressure so long this time that I'd almost forgotten what it felt like not to have it, and today I am slightly euphoric (though worn out and ear-sore and a bit disoriented, since I am perceiving every noise, even slight ones, at a much louder than usual volume). I am feeling utterly thankful that I sustained no nerve damage. If all goes well, I should return to completely normal hearing. And that is just an amazing blessing, as I'd begun (seriously) to fear that I'd never hear normally again.

When you haven't heard clearly in many months, tiny things are such a joy. The voice of my husband and daughter. Not needing to ask them to repeat themselves over and over! The patter of rain on our skylight this morning, the fizzing sound of carbonated bubbles in a glass of soda this afternoon, the ability to fully sing again -- I love to sing, but haven't been able to clearly gauge volume or pitch for a long time. I even slipped on earphones this afternoon for a little while -- though I suspect I should go easy on that for awhile -- and played the beginning of the disc that happened to be in the computer CD player. It was the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I almost cried at the clarity and beauty of the first rollicking, joyful notes of the opening track called "Fireworks."

Since it was pouring rain all morning, and I felt like I needed to take it easy and rest, the sweet girl and I spent a quiet morning together doing fun things (with no school routine). I got out a wonderful set of "Little House in the Big Woods" paper dolls I bought at a yard sale a few years back and had put away until she was older and we had such a rainy day as this one. We punched out dolls and sets and props and cut out clothes with tiny little tabs while we listened to the first 4 chapters of Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes read on CD. Ah, quiet mornings and a slower summer routine. And the blessing of being able to hear again. It doesn't get much better than that.