I'm Trying to Imagine...

I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like for William Wilberforce, as he lay dying (during this July week one hundred and seventy-seven years ago) to receive word that slavery had been abolished in Great Britain.

The abolition of the slave trade, and eventually the institution of slavery itself, had been a major part of Wilberforce's life work. When he experienced his Christian conversion as a young man, he was already a rising star in parliament, and his immediate reaction was to think he should leave politics for some other more spiritual field. With the encouragement of his good friend William Pitt (then the youngest PM in British history) and his spiritual mentor John Newton (former slaver ship captain, then pastor, who penned the beloved hymn "Amazing Grace") Wilberforce was convinced that God could indeed call him to stay in parliament, and even use him there.

And oh, how God used Wilberforce's gifts as an orator, and his seemingly tireless passion for justice! I'm trying to imagine what it must have felt like, after years of weary work and toil, for Wilberforce to receive the news that righteousness was dawning and justice rolling down like a river.

But even that sweet and blessed news, after a lifetime of toil and even suffering, must have faded in comparison to the amazing moment of seeing his Savior and hearing "well done my good and faithful servant."

I'm trying to imagine what it was like for Miss Eleanor to enter into glory this week. Miss Eleanor was the oldest member of our church, 95 years old to be precise, a vibrant, joyous African-American lady who loved her Lord and loved others. She lived a life of service...to her country (she was with the Medical Corps in WWII) and to her brothers and sisters. Well into her 90s, she worked as a volunteer with various ministries in town. My husband used to wheel her down the street to the office of the mission organization where he works, where Miss Eleanor would hold court, blessing everyone with her joyous smile while she busily folded envelopes.

This was a woman who radiated joy and peace. When I went to the viewing at the funeral home last night, I was immediately struck by the fact that she still did. Everyone seemed struck by it: her body lay in such tranquil repose, the hint of a smile on her face still so sweet, that it was impossible not to know that she had passed from this earthly life into the presence of her Lord. And she too heard "well done, my good and faithful servant."

I'm trying to imagine what that move, from earth to heaven, must feel like for those who are ready, who slip from one dimension to the next with the fluidity of light or water, so ready are they to lay down their journey here and continue it there. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. No wonder we celebrate a saint's feast day on the day they die (something I've been talking about lately with my eight year old). As joyous as a birth is, how much more so the passing into new and fuller life! Higher up and further in! Pressed in close to Jesus! Cup overflowing!

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul...

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

(From A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; you can go here to read the poem in its entirety.)

Multitude Monday

Yes, it's Monday again! And I'm feeling especially thankful today...

56. For God's mercies, new every morning.

57. For a lovely note from friends, with a gift to help with our livelihood and support.

58. For other encouraging notes and emails from friends in the past week, including those who have sent me job and writing leads in this challenging time.

59. For the life of Miss Eleanor, a beloved member of our parish, and a great saint of God, who went home to Jesus this past weekend (she was in her 90s).

60. For the ways in which the sweet girl and I were able to talk openly, from the heart, about Miss Eleanor's life and death.

61. For my precious Daddy's recent 78th birthday. How thankful I am that he is still on this earth, able to celebrate his life and the many wonderful things the Lord has done to sustain him in the health crisis of the past months.

62. For writing time...reviews, an article proposal, and some preliminary thinking (creative, collaborative brainstorming with my dear husband) on the juvenile mystery novel I began and deserted a few years ago. It may yet get written!

From the archives: Saint Macrina

When I first began blogging, back in 2006, I posted about Saint Macrina on July 19, her feast day. In honor of the day, I thought I'd re-post it.


On the Episcopal calendar, today is the day we celebrate Saint Macrina. Macrina was the oldest of ten children born around the year 327 to Basil the Elder and his wife Emmelia, a prominent Christian couple in Cappadocia (a mountainous district east of Asia Minor, where the Christian Gospel took early root). She's best known as the sister of two of the great Cappadocian fathers, Basil and Gregory, who along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus were important defenders of Nicaean orthodoxy during the height of the Arian controversy.

Macrina is also sometimes credited with the founding of what's usually known as "Basilian monasticism" because she undertook monastic life early on and influenced her brother Basil in his formation of monastic communities. Although it was the men in the family who took center stage at a crucial time in church history, Basil's letters and Gregory's Life of Saint Macrina (a beautiful meditation on his sister's holy life and death) make it clear that they were very shaped by the deep Christian teaching and example of sister, mother and grandmother.

I became rather fascinated by Macrina several years ago when I took a course in Patristics. I ended up writing a paper about her, which I've dug out a few times over the years, including today, to refresh myself on the particulars of this amazing woman's life.

I had hoped to include a picture or an icon with this posting, but I'm still getting the hang of how to post graphics and where I can get them without either copyright infringement or stealing someone's bandwidth. I know that the "flickr" site has plenty of photos usable for blogs, so I thought I'd check there today...though it turns out they primarily feature very contemporary photos. Ironically, the name "Macrina" brought up numerous photos of rich and delicious looking rolls, breads and pastries, all apparently made at a well-known bakery named Macrina's in Seattle, WA.

Why do I say ironic? Well, my first reaction was to think how strange it was to go looking for images of an ascetical saint (who lived and ate very simply and owned almost no posessions) and find all these images of rich, gooey, fattening desserts. What a contrast in eras, cultures and values! That was my immediate somewhat cynical inner response.

But then I thought some more. Saint Macrina was actually well-known as a breadmaker. (I might add that this fact apparently didn't escape the Seattle bakery owners...yes, I googled the word Macrina and came up with the bakery's website...in fact, it was the first hit, ahead of an encylopedia article on Saint Macrina.) Macrina's father died when she was quite young and she helped her mother raise all the younger children in the family as well as caring for her mother. Later Macrina formed a community of women, and her mother lived in the community with her, along with a number of other women (many of whom had been poor or abandoned, some of whom had once been the family servants). Among her other prayerful concerns and activities, Macrina and presumably some of the other women in the community baked bread for Holy Communion.

So perhaps it's not so ironic that I would be looking at images of rich and glorious food. Macrina lived a life of holy detachment from things, but a life rich in the inner spirit and one focused on the joys and realities of the coming heavenly banquet. In life, she had only a cloak, veil, sandals, a cross necklace and ring. She had no other clothes. But as we know from the Life of Saint Macrina, her brother Gregory helped prepare her body for burial by dressing her in a beautiful wedding gown. We who believe in bodily resurrection can only imagine the rich sumptuousness of heaven. It's hard for me not to reflect on the possibility that Macrina might be smiling at the notion that when I went looking for her today, the "icons" I saw were of cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake.

Links I Love: Preparing the Day

I've not shared any links lately, and thought I'd pop into today with this thoughtful post entitled "How to Prepare the Day for Our Children."

What I liked about this post was the way it focuses, not really on preparing the day or preparing a perfect looking life/house/meal, etc., but on preparing our own hearts as we head into the day. This is something I think all of us need to stop and think about from time to time, whether we're parents or not, but I think when you are a parent, especially of a young child, the need for some heart-time and prayer-time before the day begins feels even more necessary.

I've been feeling this need a lot lately, and noticing what happens when I lack that time. When I rush full speed ahead into a day, filled with anxieties, frustrations, or even just plain old busy-ness, the whole household knows it and feels it. So I'm praying for more time to enter the day intentionally and well, for myself and for my family. I like the way this author suggests that 5 minutes can do it, as well as two hours. That's a practical bit of discipline I can understand even attempt to put into practice!

Sister Lit

Earlier today I posted a review of Laura Ingalls Wilder's By the Shores of Silver Lake, the fifth book in the Little House series. And one that I always forget how much I love until I read it again.

As I was writing, I found myself thinking about the way Laura and Mary's relationship shapes the narrative. This is the book in which we discover that Mary has become blind, the consequence of scarlet fever. It's also the book where Pa tells Laura, more than once, that she needs to "become Mary's eyes." And so Laura, ever dutiful, truly takes that task on. She describes everything she sees out there on the Dakota prairie to her sister, often in incredible detail.

As the sweet girl and I were reading the book through, we talked about that -- about the way in which Laura learned to describe things vividly and with such care. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that the real-life experience of being a companion to her blind sister probably helped to shape the kind of writer that Wilder became, the writer who loves to pour on detail after detail so that we "see" right along with her.

The Laura-Mary relationship of Little House has always been one of the cores of the series for me. It colors so much, from the way Laura compares her own mischievous behavior to Mary's ladylike behavior when they're little girls, to the ways in which Laura tends to ally herself with Pa's adventurous wandering spirit over against the gentler, more domestic instincts of Ma and Mary, right down through their deepening friendship as Laura "becomes her eyes" and later works hard as a school-teacher to help provide Mary the opportunity to study in a special college. I've often felt that Mary's patient forbearance always seemed almost too good to be true, and wondered if Laura didn't overly-sentimentalize this portrait of her sister...though maybe not. Maybe Mary really did have those deeply-engrained virtues. And certainly Laura's loving respect for this sister, so different from her herself, shines through.

I'd never made the connection until this evening, but it struck me that the Laura-Mary relationship has a prelude in the Jo-Beth relationship of Little Women (with perhaps a dash of the Jo-Amy relationship sprinkled into the earlier books). Beth too suffered through scarlet fever, and though it didn't leave her blind, it left her heart so weak she became an invalid. Beth too is portrayed, far more than Mary even, as a real saint, especially in the midst of such suffering. Her loss is the turning point in Jo's character development and story. And of course, like Wilder's stories, Alcott's were based on her real family and growing up years, with her sister portraits based on her real sisters.

Sister literature is powerful, isn't it? Austen delved deeply into it too, though her stories were much less overtly autobiographical. But Jane too had a sister she loved deeply, Cassandra, and I've sometimes wondered how much of their relationship seeped into the storied relationships of Elizabeth-Jane and Elinor-Marianne. So many people see romance as the beating heart of every Austen novel, but to me, it often seems as those the sister relationships are the real core, especially in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.

When you contemplate sister lit, what fictional sister pairings come to mind for you?

Wonderful Storytellers: Pixar

We've always been a Pixar watching family. In fact, my husband and I laugh because the first movie we got out to see after we became parents (our first date after the sweet girl was born eight plus years ago) was Finding Nemo. We chuckled a bit sheepishly over the fact that we got a baby-sitter for our newborn so we could have some grown-up time...and then went to see an animated movie. But ah, what animation!

As amazing as Pixar's animation skills are, however, what has always set their movies apart is their amazing storytelling. They give us characters we really care about and compelling tales for them to walk (or run, swim, fly, or "fall with style" through).

We were reminded of that again this weekend when we went to the theater to see Toy Story 3. We don't get to the theater often; this was a belated birthday gift to the sweet girl, and our whole family was blessed by it.

The sweet girl has only become a Toy Story fan in recent weeks. When we realized the third film was coming up, we dug out our old library-sale VHS copies of the first two films and played them for her. (In general, she's more a book-girl than a movie-girl, and somehow we'd just never gotten around to them.) She fell for the characters and stories right away, and has become a particularly ardent fan of Buzz Lightyear. She especially likes to watch the second movie over and over...when she does fall for a story, she tends to like to inhabit it for a while, something I completely empathize with.

What's been particularly fun is watching how the well-crafted story shapes of these films are helping her become more aware of narrative art. She caught on right away to some of the "formula" elements of the tales, noting with great enjoyment how certain things seemed to repeat themselves (like the toys leaving Andy's house and needing rescue) but also got inverted (Woody saves Buzz, then Buzz saves Woody). She noticed more of those elements in Toy Story 3, which does a brilliant job of repeating those old motifs but keeping them fresh and lively. It also does an excellent job of paying off some story moments from the earlier films, including a couple I wasn't expecting.

She's had interesting questions that have actually led to some family discussions about story-telling, especially story-telling in the movies. She wondered why movies get so loud and exciting near the end, commenting on the extended sequences where that happened and where all the problems seemed to get solved. We actually got to introduce the words climax and denouement into dinner-time conversation!

She's also picking up on the joys of good characterization. This morning (the morning after our big Toy Story 3 in the theater moment) she made me laugh. She told me she'd been imagining a new Toy Story scene, this one involving a big bear with sharp claws. "And I know just what all the different toys would say," she said. Buzz would say "LOOK OUT!" The aliens would say "The CLAW!" Rex would say, "That's not just ANY claw, that's a bear claw! We're going to get stepped on!" and Woody would say "NOBODY is going to get stepped on!"

All of which seemed pretty spot-on to me (fan fiction writer in the making? or perhaps just fiction?)!

As for me, I realized yesterday just how far I trust Pixar's storytelling. I won't go into details (in case you've not yet seen the movie) but there's a scene of intense peril toward the end. It looks like all the beloved toys we've come to know are going to die for certain. I heard a plaintive "Mommy!" and turned to see the sweet girl looking thoroughly alarmed. I'm not sure, but I think she was actually physically trembling ~ and it was that intense. I leaned in close and squeezed her hand and whispered "It's all right. Keep watching. It's all going to come out all right," all the time my brain was working on another level. I was trusting that the outcome would be a satisfying one, praying that John Lasseter and the whole creative Pixar team was going to come through again! And on another level, I'd fallen completely into the story myself and was inwardly fretting about the potential outcome for Woody, Buzz and the gang, not seeing any conceivable way out.

It struck me anew how important it is to me to be able to trust a storyteller. That doesn't necessarily mean to trust a storyteller to always deliver a happy ending, or even the ending I exactly expect/hope for. But yes, I need to be able to trust that the storyteller knows what he or she is doing and is going to deliver an ending that's coherent, meaningful and satisfying.

It all makes me grateful, again, that we live in a world whose Storyteller we can trust, and that in the ultimate sense, we inhabit a Story of great coherence, meaning and sense, one we know is heading for a conclusion beyond all we can ask or imagine. And all the best stories echo that big Story, in ways big and small.

Wonderful Storytellers: Bob Hartman

I'm finding myself loving good storytellers these days, especially those who are particularly adept at retelling old stories in ways that make us hear them anew. Storytellers and writers who manage fresh but faithful re-tellings of Bible stories are at the top of my list, inspiring me to want to dive again into some Bible story re-tellings myself this summer.

I thought I'd introduce a couple of my favorite Bible storytellers here. And I thought I'd start with Bob Hartman.

He currently lives and writes in England, but he used to live in our area, and I had the privilege of attending a storytelling workshop he did at our seminary about a dozen years ago. As much as I enjoyed it then, I had no idea how much his books would come to mean to our family, and especially to my daughter. She loves his stories and could listen to them by the hour. She doesn't mind listening to them over and over, which is a good thing because I find myself wanting to read them over and over, since they lend themselves readily to repeated readings and tellings.

Our all-time Hartman favorite is probably Early Saints of God, a collection of saint stories from the first several hundred years of the church. We read it during the month of November every year, as a way of celebrating All Saints. Just lately, however, we've been reading and re-reading Angels, Angels All Around, a wonderful collection of Bible stories involving angels. Based on Biblical accounts, and on the marvelous diversity of God's creation, Hartman decided to make each angel unique and especially suited to its particular calling, which makes the stories shine with creativity.

Thus the angel who ministers to the despairing prophet Elijah in the desert is a maternal, spoon-wielding angel in an apron, whose recipe for cake is...well, heavenly. The angel who holds up a sword in Balaam's path is properly fierce, and practically rolls his eyes at the stubborn, donkey-ish behavior of the prophet. The angel who slips into prison to rescue Peter is a slender, boyish imp with a mischievous grin (think Peter Pan or Puck) who doesn't mind at all pulling a fast one on the jailers. The angel who ministers life to Hagar and Ishmael in the desert comes in the guise of a vulture (who drives all the real death-preying birds away). The angel in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego has a literally blazing smile and fiery-bright hair. The angel who answers Daniel's prayer and shuts the mouths of the lion's in the den is himself large and leonine, able to distract and wrestle with big cats. And Gabriel's visit to Mary -- well, it's full of surprises, mostly because the young girl is not at all like the angel expects.

Those are just a few of our favorites from the book -- there are several more stories we love too!

What I enjoy about Hartman's saint and Bible stories is the way he manages to sustain attention and interest, through creative uses of repetition and appropriate bits of humor, but how he always manages to hone in on an important truth about God's nature and character. You can tell this is a man who has wrestled, lovingly and faithfully, with the stories he's presenting. We love these stories and we learn from them too.

Hartman has also written a number of folk story and animal story re-tellings. We love his Lion Storyteller Bible and The Lion Storyteller Christmas Book (some re-tellings of the nativity, but also some stories based on traditional Christmas folktales from around the world). And I was really excited to find out that he has a new collection forthcoming, Mr. Aesop's Story Shop, based on the ancient stories of Aesop. I discovered that through this brief but very good online interview someone did with him this past spring. He talks there about the art of storytelling and also mentions some other exciting projects he has in the works, including a book he described as "Tom Wright for 8 year olds." I can't wait!

Book Notes: Christian History Musings

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a good bit of reading in general Christian history. It started when I decided to revisit Mark A. Noll's Turning Points, a book I'm considering using to teach a student in the diocesan deacon formation program this fall. Right when I was starting to read through Noll's book, a book I'd put on hold made it to the library shelf, and I found myself beginning Gerald Sittser's Water from a Deep Well. Then another little book seemed to fall into my lap, Justo Gonzalez' The Changing Shape of Church History. It's small but packs a wallop, and I swallowed it over the course of about two days, then found myself backing up to re-read bits and ponder more thoroughly. It's been providing an interesting lens for the other reading I've been doing since.

In the midst of all that, I began reading Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Medieval World (volume 2 of her general history survey, which has some interesting tie-ins, here and there, to church history, and also provides helpful background/context). And then I saw a blog recommendation for Diana Butler-Bass' A People's History of Christianity, which sounded like it had the potential to tie in, at least in some ways, to the ideas presented by Gonzalez. So I put it on hold, thinking I'd have a wait, and was surprised (delighted? dismayed?) when the library got it in right away.

Suddenly I'm in the midst of several "tomes" (no other word will do for some of these hefty volumes) but finding a need to go back and forth between them all as I read and think.

And it really is Gonzalez' little book that's providing the most thoughtful lens for thinking through the rest of it. Not that he hasn't written tomes himself. I was blessed indeed to have his two-volume Story of Christianity as my introduction to the discipline and study of Christian history (thirteen years ago this fall!). I still think those two volumes are some of the most fascinating and readable narratives on Christian history out there, and I'm glad they're on my shelves. I'm also glad that I was familiar enough with his work to pick up Changing Shape, even though it's such a slim, unassuming looking book.

I'm working on a longer review, but in a nutshell, what Changing Shape provides is a reflection on the way the changing map of Christianity (from a Christendom "centralized" in the western world, i.e. the North Atlantic in recent years, to a "decentralized" global Christianity, with multiple centers ranging all over the world) affects how we read Christian history.

History, Gonzalez reminds us, is not simply "what happened" but an interpretation of what happened. And depending on who is doing the seeing, and telling, the story that gets told can change shape. That's exciting; it can also be a little disorienting.

When we look back from the vantage point of our present, the way we see things, even the topography, can change. By topography here, he means those centuries and events that have "pushed up" like mountain ranges in the standard study of Christian history, the sorts of "everyone knows these are the most important things that happened and are worth our serious attention" moments.

I think his concluding insight, the one the book really pushes toward the whole way, is perhaps the most exciting. It's the one that's stayed with me. His point is that we in the west (or global north) don't have to look upon the marginalization of Christianity as a calamity or something to bemoan. Instead of mourning a loss of political, economic or cultural power, we can understand that our power lies in a different way of living (a way that at its best has always been counter-cultural). We can instead choose to focus upon it as an opportunity, an opportunity for the church to live out of a new paradigm (not the triumphalist paradigm of Christendom or an overly spiritualized paradigm where we downplay what's happening in the world). This new paradigm is what he calls "incarnate marginality," a phrase I love because it seems to speak so much out of the story of Jesus himself.

"...Christians must acknowledge that our proper place, both as individuals and as the church, is not necessarily a the center," he writes. "Without condemning Eusebius or Constantine, without declaring the entire Middle Ages apostate, without rejecting the inheritance that we have received from so many centuries of official and extraofficial support by the state and society at large, we must affirm that the proper place for those who follow Jesus Christ is the margin rather than the center; it is the valley rather than the hilltop; it is the cross rather than the throne."

I think this lens of "incarnate marginality" becomes a helpful one as we look at the history of the church, particularly those movements and people who have lived that kind of witness. And there have been so many. It's one reason I've found myself revisiting the stories of the early martyrs, and the work of Athanasius.

I think, though I'm not sure (having only read intro and first chapter thus far) that Butler-Bass is going for something similar when she discusses what she terms "generative Christianity" or "great command Christianity" -- a faith that "transforms the world through humble service to all." But I'm still wrestling with her thoughts.

Building Vocabulary the Beverly Cleary Way

I've talked about Beverly Cleary's books on this blog quite a bit. That's because the sweet girl (now eight! gulp!) loves them to pieces. Sometimes literally.

She's particularly a fan of the Ramona books, and we've been reading our way slowly through the series, doling them out like chocolate-covered read-aloud treats in between other books. Just today we finished Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (sweet girl's pick, just in time for her own 8th birthday!) the Newbery honor winning Ramona that was first published in 1981.

I've been thinking for a while about ways to begin to do some natural vocabulary building. Well, I'm a big believer in the fact that vocabulary does get built, quite naturally, the more we read -- and listen and converse. I've just wanted to find some more intentional ways of calling attention to word meanings, beyond the bit we do in spelling each week during the school year (where we often discuss word meanings or look a couple of the spelling words up in the glossary at the back of the spelling book). I'm also wanting to encourage more use of the dictionary, and to that end, we recently purchased a beautiful one: the DK Merriam-Webster Children's Dictionary. We snagged a used copy from my favorite bookstore, Half-Price Books. I must say it's amazing what a couple of dog-eared corners can do to bring the price way, way down on a big hardback book like this.

My bright but obvious idea is to have the sweet girl think about words she comes across, especially in the books we read aloud together, that she's not familiar with. Then we can write them down together, in a lovely little composition book, and look them up. I say "we" not in the royal sense; for now this is a joint activity, but I foresee a time when it will become more independent.

I'm not pushing too hard on this -- not making her tell me every word she doesn't know -- because I don't want to take the joy and spontaneity out of our read-aloud time, and because I do think we learn a lot just by seeing and hearing a word in context. But this seems like a natural extension of that kind of learning. We often discuss what we read, which has led to some fun exploration of various topics (like leaning more about animals mentioned in the Little House books, or finding pictures of old automobiles when we read the Betsy-Tacy books). Reading always opens doors to explore further the things we don't know about, the subjects that intrigue us. Why shouldn't it open doors to learning about words that intrigue us too?

Cleary seemed like a golden opportunity to dive into this activity, both because her work is so beloved around here and because she uses such rich vocabulary. And so it was today that we found ourselves looking up feeble and indignant, inspiration and nag. Aren't those great Ramona words?

And it was fun! I planned for us to look up two words. It turned into four because the sweet girl got very enthusiastic. She asked me to just open the book to any page and read her a paragraph (we'd just finished the whole thing) and she'd stop me when she got to a word she wasn't quite sure she knew the meaning of. I have a feeling this exercise is going to be a keeper, and not just with Cleary books. Though I'm glad that's where we started.

Related post (from 2008): Teaching Nouns with Beverly Cleary

Wordplay: Cento

I've not had much time lately for wordplay, but last evening I found myself just needing to spend some time with language...not organizing anything with it, not planning out my next writing projects (though I did that yesterday too) just enjoying it.

I always enjoy the Monday stretch over at the Miss Rumphius Effect, but I hadn't popped over there in a while. The stretch that intrigued me most last night was one she posted a couple of Mondays ago, a challenge to write a cento.

For those who have never heard of this form (I hadn't) a cento is defined as "a poem made entirely of pieces from poems by other authors. Centos can be rhymed or unrhymed, short or long." (Copying Miss R's attribution, this definition comes from The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms.)

Although I'd never heard the name of the form, I've seen similar ideas played with through "found poetry," and through the book A Stone, A Leaf, A Door (essentially prose by Thomas Wolfe that's been arranged into poems by another author).

Last night, tired as I was, this seemed just the right kind of exercise to get me reading, reflecting on, and writing poetry. I quickly pulled two books from my shelf: The One Year Book of Poetry: 365 Devotional Readings Based on Classic Christian Verse, and The Roar on the Other Side: A Guide for Student Poets. Both good books in different ways, and both crammed with lots of poems I could peruse and borrow words, lines and phrases from.

One of the enjoyable things about this creative stretch was the way it freed me to read poetry, at least the first time through, not so much for meaning as for sound. Sometimes I get caught up from the start in trying to discern what a poet is saying, and I lose the opportunity to simply fall into the poem as an artifact for the eye and ear. Last night I let myself fall, though I found that when a line grabbed me, as one almost inevitably did, I usually wanted to back up and find out why. Where did the line fit in the grander scheme of the whole poem? What would happen if I lifted it out of its context? What would happen if I lifted it out of its context and put it next to something completely different from it, written by someone else in a different time and place altogether?

The result was exhilarating. Not only for the joys of finding similar sounds and images that seemed to run through wildly disparate poems (like recurring wild flowers in amazingly different gardens) but for the ways those sounds and images began to weave together in my mind to create something entirely new.

Here's the result: the poem I assembled, followed by notes that tell you where the various lines came from.

Let this day's air
praise the Lord --
for ne'er saw I,
never felt, a calm
so deep!
Rinsed with gold,
endless, walking the fields,
the beauty of the morning;
silent, bare --
Let this day's air
praise the Lord
for strange treasures
lodged in this
fair world appear.
I cannot drift beyond
his love and care.
Let this day's air
praise the Lord --
his praise shall tune
my voice.

(EMP, 6-30-10)

"Let this day's air praise the Lord," which became my recurring line, is the first line of Robert Siegel's poem "Rinsed with Gold, Endless, Walking the Fields," printed on page 147 of The Roar on the Other Side.

"Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!" comes from William Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge," the poem for July 3 in The One Year Book of Poetry.

It seemed to be that returning to Siegel's poem, with the line he draws from his title, "Rinsed with gold, endless, walking the fields" provided the perfect description for that deep calm.

And then it made sense to return to Wordsworth again for "the beauty of the morning; silent, bare..."

As I kept going back to the Siegel refrain, I kept thinking of reasons why the very air around us praises the Lord (and oh it does). And so I moved to "strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear" from Thomas Traherne's poem "The Salutation," the poem for June 30 in The One Year Book of Poetry.

Both the sound and sense of that line seemed to move naturally to the more individual and personal gratitude of the line "I cannot drift beyond his love and care" from "The Eternal Goodness" by John Greenleaf Whittier (poem for May 25 from the One Year Book).

And as I repeated Siegel's line one more time, I wanted to try to tie it into a different (and again more personal) line involving praise, and so borrowed "his praise shall tune my voice" from William Cowper's poem "Joy and Peace in Believing" (the poem for May 14 in the One Year Book).

*******

This was a fascinating exercise. The poem I ended up stitching together somehow felt greater than the sum of its parts, more like a choir of voices singing to me of similar themes. I found myself grateful to remember that everything that has breath praises the Lord, and that my own breath, my own voice, can be "tuned" by listening to the praise all around me...in the air, in the strange treasures of the world, and in the poems of those who have gone before.

I'll definitely be adding cento poems to my regular repertoire of wordplay. If you're inspired to give it a try, let me know how it works for you!

As Far as the East is from the West...

so far does He remove our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12

The sweet girl and I were reading Psalm 103 the other evening, talking about each verse as we came to it. When we got to verse 12, I stretched out my hands and said something like: "Think about a map and how far apart east and west can be. It's like God puts our sins so far away from us that we can't see them or reach them anymore."

The sweet girl thought for a few moments. And then she said, "It's sort of like he puts them away in a drawer. And then we never wear them again."

I love that image, and I've been pondering it ever since. (It reminds me of how good it is to really meditate on the Scriptures with my daughter.) Think about it. When the Lord forgives us, he doesn't just put away our sins. He puts them away for good, and doesn't ever expect or want us to "wear them" again.

And we do sometimes wear them, don't we? I know I do...sometimes pridefully, but often as not unconsciously. I trot the old stuff out, including sometimes the transgressions I've already confessed and been forgiven for. I should be free of these, free so that I don't put them on and live out of them ever again, but sometimes I forget. I wear the old clothes instead of remembering that he has dressed me in new robes of righteousness and love. Those days when I am wearing tatters instead of the beauty he's designed for me, it's especially good to remember his graciousness and mercy.

I'm also reminded of clothing ourselves in God's armor, and of the Celtic tradition of dressing prayers...prayers prayed during ordinary, daily activities such as putting on your clothes or kindling the morning fire. St. Patrick's breastplate is related to the Scriptural admonition to put on the whole armor of God, but also seems to partake of that Celtic tradition. "I bind unto myself today..." is a prayer for protection, as one takes up the the shield the Lord has provided, but it's also a girding for battle, and it's a very specific prayer for this particular day. Maybe as we dress each day, we should remember who we belong to and what he has asked us to wear as sons daughters of the King. And we can be thankful that he has put away our old ragged and stained clothes forever.

Multitude of Thanks on This Monday

It's been a while since I've done a "multitude Monday" posting. But I am feeling so deeply thankful for so many blessings today!

51) The sweet girl turned 8 yesterday. 8! Where did the time go? She's been wanting us to revisit stories of her babyhood -- she particularly loves to hear about the day before her birth and the story of her actual birth. For her, it all seems like ancient history, but to me it still feels about as fresh as last week. I am so thankful for our precious daughter: her creativity, her humor, her love, and all the ways God is growing good things in her heart.

52) A fun celebration of her birthday. We had a good time yesterday with a number of S' friends at the seminary family center. This year's theme (the sweet girl loves themes!) was "under the sea" and the kids had fun playing "pin the tail on the whale." S. and her Dad created the game together, and the whale was colorful and creative! Hugs, well-wishes, cards, and gifts from other friends and family members also blessed her day and our's.

53) The amazingly good and encouraging news about my dad's health. Those of you who have been following my posts in recent weeks know how sick he has been, and how this turn in his health was quite sudden. Because of the weakness of his heart (congestive heart failure) he's been unable to have some procedures done to clear up a heart blockage. But thanks be to God, he is definitely improving. The doctors are encouraged: his ejection fraction has improved to 37 (from a low of between 10-20 at the hospital just several weeks ago). That means they will be able to go ahead, Lord willing, and do some of the procedures -- like a new kind of pacemaker and maybe even stents -- that just a few weeks ago they were saying were impossible. Our whole family is feeling profoundly grateful for this news!

54) The return of our computer, with most of our data intact. After our big computer crash a couple of weeks ago, we thought we'd lost everything for good. But a friend who is also a computer expert was able to recover a lot of things for us. I'm still finding out what made the transition and what didn't (some files corrupted) but there's more here than I dared hope, and we're just so thankful for our friend's willingness to spend so much time and wisdom helping us out. Not only is the computer a blessing to our lives because it helps us to stay in touch with friends and family, it's a huge part of our livelihood.

55) Summertime. It's just so good to have moved into a slower rhythm. I'm grateful to be getting some time to read, write and think, as well as organize and clean. Projects that have been simmering on the back burner are finally getting moved toward the front of life's stove. Although it's really too hot to do much cooking these days -- so perhaps I should change the metaphor. But I'm feeling too almost-July-lazy to do it.

Poety Friday: Rain in Summer

I love rain. When I was a little girl, I was sure that rain in the summer smelled differently than rain at any other time of year. In fact, I still think that even now. I think some of it has to do with certain other smells we associate with summertime, like the sulfurous scent of thunderstorms or, to pull on some of the predominant summer smells of my childhood, melting street tar or blooming magnolias.

To me, rain smells and sounds are often associated with colors. There can be green rains (often in spring) blue rains (especially in certain mountains, or near twilight) and brown rains (some I've experienced in the desert, or in autumn). Silver-grey rains (the misty kind) and crystal-clear rains (the pouring kinds).

I just love rain. The way it refreshes the world. The way it refreshes me. The way it makes things grow. Its beauty when it falls. The way it fills rivers up and sends streams rushing. The puddles we can play in with great abandon when it's over.

I thought I'd celebrate the first week of summer with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Rain in Summer.

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;
He can feel the cool
Breath of each little pool;
His fevered brain
Grows calm again,
And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

~~~
You can read the rest of the poem here. And all of the Poetry Friday posts this week can be found at The Art of Irreverence. This is my first time joining in with an official post for Poetry Friday, but I've enjoyed so many of the poems I've found there over the past year or so.

Notes from a Learning Life: Earth Science (Grammar 2)

Rumors of my venerable computer's demise have been exaggerated. Apparently it still lives, and thanks to the help of a computer savvy friend, we may actually soon have it up and running again, with documents intact and increased memory. Among other things, that means I haven't lost all my school-year notes -- the "things we learned" types of documents from second grade (which I'm still working on turning into a portfolio) and my tentative book lists and plans for third grade. Hallelujah!

I've been planning to write some school notes for awhile. I thought I'd start today with science, and share a few ideas (and resources) regarding what worked for us during the grammar 2 year.

Grammar 2 Science: Exploring the Earth!

Although I loosely follow the Well-Trained Mind recommendations for science, I was glad I decided to branch out a bit this year. Most of the earth science recommendations had to do with reading books and having the child narrate back to you, and while we did a good bit of that (across the curriculum) we did a few other things too.

Here are some of the resources I found most helpful:

A Child's Geography: Explore His Earth by Ann Voskamp (Knowledge Quest/Bramley Books)

~Don't let the title fool you; although this is a geography book (and the place where we picked up most of our geography studies this year) it also works well as an elementary earth science text. I thought the text might be a bit over the sweet girl's head, and parts of it were, but she "got" a lot more of it than I expected. And she loved it. A week didn't go by without us using this book, and we actually finished it near the beginning of second semester, which surprised me.

The main topics covered: atmosphere (upper and lower); continents; oceans; seasons, climate and weather; the structure of the earth and plate tectonics; earthquakes and volcanoes; latitude and longitude. Besides the very engaging text by Ann Voskamp, which does a wonderful job of painting pictures in young minds, and providing examples they can grasp, we also utilized the book lists provided in each chapter.

We didn't get to into some of the notebooking ideas (the little "postcards" for sharing facts seemed small, and didn't capture S's imagination very well) and we didn't do a lot of the supplemental activities provided in each chapter, some of which I plan to go back to in the next few years. But we read the main text cover to cover and did some of the experiments and main activities, and it turned out to be an excellent spine book for earth science and geography.

Scholastic's True Book series on the planets

~Here's something fun! The link above is to my review of one the books in this series, the one on Mercury. And I just found it "accidentally" on Google when I went look for a page link to provide an example. I thought the title was catchy -- forgot it was mine!

At any rate, we loved these Scholastic books on the planets in our Solar System. Not only are they very up to date and colorful, they're highly readable (and can be read in one sitting). S. liked the "true/false" statements at the beginning, which helped her stay attentive to figure out which statement was which. We read every single one (including the one on Pluto, the "new" dwarf planet) as well as the books in the same series on the Sun and the Moon. We did narrations from these, and at the end of our planet studies, the sweet girl created a planet poster.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

~There are a lot of excellent space websites out there, some of which we found exploring the notes on current space missions in the back of the True Books. This website, however, simply provides a beautiful, often stunning picture of something in the heavens each day. The explanations for some of the photos were sometimes above the sweet girl's head (mine too, for that matter) but they always inspired awe. "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy hands..."

Find the Constellations by H.A. Rey

~Yes, *that* H.A. Rey, the author/illustrator of Curious George. This book has been updated from his original (to include current information) so make sure you find the 2008 edition (there are still lots of older used copies available from online vendors). We were blessed to have the full use of a library copy for several weeks. It includes terrific introductory descriptions and drawings of constellations, along with star charts for different times of the year, and intermittent "quizzes" where a kid can test her knowledge. It turned out to be our "go-to" spine book for astronomy, although I'd already purchased the Usborne Guide to the Night Sky which I'm glad we own, but we didn't use much this year.

The sweet girl does like Usborne Books, and we ended up using The Usborne First Encyclopedia of Space to supplement some of our studies. It's got bright pictures and incredibly simple text, and is really more of a jumping off place to find topics you want to explore. I decided to use it to encourage independent reading in science, which seemed to work.

We also really liked Glow-in-the-Dark Constellations by C.E. Thompson, a book we pored over on many a cloudy morning while snuggled under the dining room table (one of the darkest spots in the house) a flashlight in hand.

Things To Ponder

Here are a few lessons I learned while teaching earth science to an inquisitive second grader.

~Do try to give your child some field trip time. We didn't do a very good job of that this year, though we made it to the National Air and Space museum for a brief visit the day after Christmas. It was overwhelmingly crowded, with what seemed like the whole world on vacation in D.C., and we forgot to take snacks (shudder) and couldn't afford to buy any. Still, I'm glad we went.

We really wanted to visit a planetarium this spring, our main time to study astronomy, but we couldn't afford ticket prices for the local one. A family membership to the Carnegie Museums downtown costs $130 per year, an utter bargain given regular ticket prices. I've been salivating over that membership page all year. While I'm grateful that we can sometimes tag along with friends, and that there's about a week of various free days to local museums and cultural events around here each fall, if I could tack one thing onto our almost non-existent homeschooling budget, some memberships would be it, especially this one. It would be wonderful to be able to schedule trips that work with our family's schedule and coordinate with things we're learning. (Suggestion: if you know a struggling or even not-so struggling homeschooling family you'd like to bless, ask them if they might not enjoy museum memberships or magazine subscriptions. I'll bet they'll say yes!)

~Don't buy "toy" equipment. We purchased a nice looking beginner's telescope at a toy store as a Christmas present, and it's hardly been used. We knew it probably wouldn't be very good, given its price, but the packaging fooled us into thinking it would work a lot better than it did. Save your pennies for the real stuff or go without.

~ I also learned that it's good to try to cut across the curriculum wherever possible, blending disciplines. So we did reading practice in the Usborne book, narration work with the picture books and True Books, art time with the planet poster, etc. I had good intentions about bringing more copy work into science, but it fell by the wayside partway through the year, mostly because I was trying not to push it...S. already seemed to be doing a lot of writing, and was balking at doing more (though in retrospect I think I could have pushed her on it a little bit more).

~ Go hands-on as much as possible. With earth science, that was a bit trickier, though we managed some good projects. I'm looking forward to doing more hands-on experiments in grammar 3 science, where we'll be focusing on introductory chemistry (and I think also doing a few units in biology/life sciences again). But that's a post for a different day!

N.D. Wilson to Write "The Great Divorce" Screenplay

Well, here's a bit of interesting news: children's author and professor of classical rhetoric, N.D. Wilson, is on board to write the screenplay for the film version of The Great Divorce.

Tell me how you feel about this, Lewis fans!

I found it interesting news on two fronts: 1) I had no idea they were planning to make a film of The Great Divorce and 2) I'm intrigued by the choice of Wilson for the screenplay.

Wilson, in case you're scratching your head, is the author of the 100 Cupboards trilogy I mentioned in my Book Notes post last week. I just posted my review of Dandelion Fire, the second book in the 100 Cupboards trilogy.

It's been quite a while since I've revisited The Great Divorce. It came up quite a bit in the Hogshead conversation regarding the finale of LOST, which inspired me to put it on my TBR-R ("to be re-read") list. Now I think it's just moved to the top of the re-read pile.

Hooray for Biblical Literacy

During our Virginia trip, my mother-in-law passed on a water-squirt toy to the sweet girl. It was a little one she'd gotten from a box of Cheerios: a plastic version of the donkey from the umpteenth Shrek movie, and S. has been having a good time playing with it in the bathtub.

The sweet girl isn't familiar with the Shrek films, but she's quite enamored of movies these days, especially the first two Toy Story films. (We're hoping to make a family outing for the third in the theater.) So she was asking about the donkey. I've only ever seen the first Shrek film myself, and that was long ago when it was first released. I couldn't remember much beyond the fact that the donkey was voiced by Eddie Murphy, which I knew wouldn't mean a thing to her. So I told her that the movies were sort of funny fairy-tales and that Shrek was a friendly ogre and the donkey was his friend. "He's a talking donkey," I said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as light dawned in her eyes. "Sort of like the donkey in the Balaam story!"

I'm sure there's an essay or sermon illustration in there somewhere...

Summer Gratitude

We got back late last night from our whirlwind trip to Virginia. I sometimes use the word whirlwind to describe any trip that seems particularly busy and/or fast, but this one really was...we couldn't leave until dinner-time Friday evening and had to be back in time for D. to get to work this morning.

Actually the trip was an odd combination of fast and slow. It moved so swiftly when we were spending time with loved ones, but the travel in between destinations sometimes literally crawled. On Saturday, going from my mother-in-law's to my mother's, what should have been a two hour trip turned into well over four (with a stop in there for food, when we desperately needed such a stop). The traffic was bumper to bumper for much of the way, and moving slowly when it finally did getting moving. And this on a day when the heat and humidity were astonishingly high -- the heat index was around 105 -- and of course we have no air conditioner in our car. Despite having grown up in Virginia heat and humidity, I didn't bear it well, and ended up having to douse myself with ice from the cooler a couple of times (ice and cold water bottles on the neck help immeasurably!) when I started to feel sick.

The sweet girl traveled like a trooper for most of the way, except for a rough beginning on Friday evening for all of us (it suddenly occurred to us, amidst sharp and stressed words to one another before we managed a stop for dinner, that we had not prayed before starting out, which we always do). We remedied that and decided to do a sit-down meal in air-conditioned comfort, which got us to Grandma's even later than we expected -- we didn't pull in until about midnight -- but all of us felt better for it.

I had not realized just much I needed to see my parents until I actually saw them. Despite the detailed reports from all of my siblings on their recent visits (we've been spacing the visits out) and my mother's wonderful almost-daily "updates on her beloved" as she calls the emails she sends to family about Dad's well-being, the last time I saw my father he was still in the hospital. Though I knew he was home and doing as well as could be expected, I think I needed to see that with my own eyes. I am so glad I did!

"As well as can be expected" about sums up Dad's physical well-being right now. His heart is weak and he has very little stamina or energy, a frustrating thing for a man who loves to be active. The suddenness of the development of his heart problems, especially given his very good health history, is a mystery the doctors can't seem to solve. The shock of that has worn off a bit now, and my folks have settled into the daily, long-haul of doing what they can to make sure that whatever time my father has, be it short or long, is as good and rich and precious as they can make it.

Both my parents shared with me, together but also separately, how they feel they are doing emotionally and spiritually. And even though I was prepared to be impressed (given everything I've been hearing from them and from my siblings) I still wasn't quite prepared for the *depth* of their steadfast, faithful trust in Jesus and their peace. Gratitude has deep, deep roots in my parents' hearts, and it doesn't seem to be leaving any room for fear or anxiety. I am so utterly grateful to see that. My mother even told me, completely sincerely, that although this has been the hardest month of her life in so many ways, it's also been oddly exciting. They've learned new levels of trust, they've experienced a profound realization of how deep their faith is and how much they love each other, and their experiences have opened up countless doors for them to share their faith with other people, including some they've been keeping in prayer for quite some time.

It gives me pause, especially when I consider how easily I give into stress and anxiety about the small, daily things. Even when I sometimes legitimately feel I have reason to feel those things (and when I know the Lord patiently listens and loves me through it) I find myself wanting to walk more closely in my parents' footsteps. They are majoring in the big things and finding joy in the little things as they walk through this season of their lives. Make it so in my life too, Lord!

Getting to celebrate Father's Day with my dad was also such a privilege. I made a big tossed salad and we had lemon cake and orange sherbet (Dad really wanted that sherbet) and mostly just had a wonderful time being together, talking and laughing.

Our trip back was pretty tiring -- another hot day and no way to avoid traveling in the worst part of the heat -- but we had some good time with D's family yesterday morning and afternoon, so again that made it worth it.

We even got in some good reading time in the car. We finished By the Shores of Silver Lake and re-read All-of-a-Kind Family (one of the sweet girl's utter favorites) and Jenny and the Cat Club. Then home to our own beds, a good night's sleep, a rainstorm that cancelled the second day of Sports Camp (yesterday was the first, but S. missed it) but not indoor Arts Camp in the afternoon. D. is at a VBS planning meeting this evening and on a Misionero deadline, and I've begun my summer-time cleaning and organizing extravaganza. Our computer crashed last week (in a big way) but I'm provisionally set up with another one, so at least I can tackle some of the writing projects that have been on the back burner for months.

The sweet girl's 8th birthday is coming up this Sunday, which means shopping and baking later this week.

Definitely summer.

Book Notes from a Reading Life

I've almost given up on the idea of posting a reading round-up that actually reflects what I've read so far this year. It works when I do it quarterly. When I get behind, and suddenly discover the year is half-over(!) then the backlog feels overwhelming.

And I don't want to feel overwhelmed about doing something I love to do: talk about books.

So I think I may just dive in with some book notes on my current reading and see where it takes me.

********

A couple of weeks ago I read Linda Sue Park's A Single Shard. Have you read anything by Linda Sue Park? If not, may I humbly suggest that you head to your library and find something by this marvelous author as soon as you can?

The first book I ever read by Park was Keeping Score. It's a mid-grade novel about a young girl growing up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s. It had me from the cover blurb, mostly because I'm from a family of baseball fanatics, and my Dad loved that Dodger team (he was actually offered a try-out with the Brooklyn organization, but had to decline because of back problems...which led him to the hospital...which led him to meet a very lovely nurse...who became my Mom. But I digress.)

As much as I enjoyed Keeping Score, however, I was unprepared for just how much I was going to love A Single Shard. (My dear friend Tara has been telling me for months that I should read this book...oi, I should've listened sooner!) It's set in 12th century Korea and follows the life of Tree-Ear, a young boy who lives under a bridge with a lame and homeless man who goes by the moniker of Crane-Man. Tree-Ear and Crane-Man genuinely love each other. They're family. But Tree-Ear dreams of life beyond the bridge, particularly the life of an artist-potter. How he ends up apprenticed to Min, the best of the local potters, and what happens as a result, is a beautiful story.

And it's beautifully told. Once in a while, you read a book that you can't put down because it feels like a luminous pearl. You hold it in your hand and marvel over its perfection, turning it over and over in your fingers, amazed by the smoothness, the roundness, the evenness of the colors. A Single Shard was that kind of book for me. It had such clarity of vision, and Park never seemed to falter, from first page to last, in telling the story the way it just felt it should be told. I loved it. The link above is to my longer review on Epinions.

**********

A few days after reading the pearl, I turned to the dandelion. That is, Dandelion Fire, the second book in N.D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards trilogy. No link yet, because I'm still wrestling with the draft of my review. It's one of those books I find hard to write about, partly because I'm not sure of my own response to it.

If you're a 100 Cupboards fan, maybe you can explain the allure of the series. I find myself feeling grumpy because I think I'm supposed to like the books more than I do. This is, after all, intelligent, coherent, fantasy writing for the mid-grade/young adult crowd. It's written by someone who clearly loves fantasy of all sorts, and who lets fantasy writers like Lewis and Baum sneak all over his narrative and leave their giant footprints. He's also willing to take some pretty giant leaps across the fantasy landscape himself. And yet...

I struggled with the original 100 Cupboards partly because it felt like mostly set-up. I liked Henry York, the main character, and his quirky Aunt, Uncle and cousins who lived in Kansas. I liked the 100 Cupboards lurking in the wall of his attic bedroom, and was intrigued when Henry discovered they were portals to other worlds. Henry seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time in that book chipping at the cupboard walls and trying to find a way in. And I kept waiting for the story to really start. When it finally did, it exploded in a few scenes of intense action, set up a cliff-hanger, and poof! ended. Most of the book felt like set-up for what I was expecting would be big pay-off in book two.

And did it get paid off? Well yes, in a big way. In fact, in such a big way that I felt as thought I had whiplash. If the first book could be critiqued for slow pace and not enough action, this one makes up for it in spades. So much happens, and so quickly, that I had a hard time keeping up. Many new characters are introduced. We zoom in and out of worlds that I feel like I barely have time to glimpse. Although I continue to be impressed by Wilson's writing, there's also still something about it that keeps elbowing me in the ribs, like someone trying to push past me in a crowded room. Sometimes I find myself reading a sentence and then reading it again and then trying one more time, and I'm still not sure if I'm visualizing what he's describing.

Granted, I liked Dandelion Fire. I had a hard time putting it down, especially in its second half. I felt compelled to find out what happened to Henry...and also to Henrietta, his cousin...and to his Uncle Frank (my favorite character) and the rest of the family. They get split up early on, so you actually follow those three characters on different arcs/journeys. It's not an easy narrative to keep up with. I'm sure it was a challenge to write.

But it just felt a little ragged. I'm beginning to realize there are at least two kinds of writing styles/sensibilities when it comes to novelists/storytellers. There are the neat and tidy tellers, like Park, where every line feels purposeful, as though it's building toward a beautiful whole you can almost envision as you're seeing it and hearing it built, page by page. And there are the creative but ragged tellers, who seem to craft with great abandon and imagination, who sometimes follow rabbit trails (taking their readers with them) and who eventually get back on track and find themselves providing an ending. But it may not be the ending you expect. It may not be the ending they expect. It may not, in fact, entirely fit with the beginning and the middle, but they had a great time getting there. It's sort of the LOST style of writing, and it tends to leave me a bit breathless, if not fully satisfied.

For me, I think it's Austen vs. Bronte. Process affects and maybe reflects sensibility and style. Cultivated gardens, traditional country dances and two inches of ivory? Or ruined buildings in a pouring rain on a ghost-haunted moor? I love them both, but it's the carefully tended gardens and well-learned dance steps I go back to, the fine-brushed artistry on the tiny canvas that tends to make me gasp. And I suspect that this is the kind of artistry I've aspired to as a story-writer over the years, though I've never really managed it.

Of course (she says cheerfully) I could be all wrong about this. It's possible that someone like Park may have a much looser and intuitive way of composing than I imagine, or that Wilson plans out every single scene before he commits it to paper. I only know what resonates with me mostly deeply at heart levels when I read the results of all their labor.

And Thus Ends Second Grade...

I almost wrote "not with a bang, but with a whimper..." Except really, it's been a very good last week of school.

I had thought we'd wrap up our school year last week, but the sweet girl has been going strong, especially in math. She wanted to keep going a little longer. And since I felt like we hadn't really had a chance to do a lot of review and wrap-up, I agreed.

It turned out to be a good week for review. It's poured rain -- often! -- and we've had some true humdingers of thunderstorms. S. is terrified of electrical storms at the moment, so even a hint of one makes her want to stay in. And staying in, at least most days, wasn't a bad thing at all this week.

I'm having some slight pangs of "I wish I'd made us keep better notebooks" across the board, especially with our art and music appreciation studies. We essentially didn't notebook for art and music this year, which is fine, except when we got to the end of the year we didn't have that neat little stack of pictures to go through and I missed it. Wait till next year (the mantra of many a baseball fan works for homeschooling parents as well!).

It was fun hearing what the sweet girl especially remembered and enjoyed from her studies. In science, she named our studies of the atmosphere her favorite. In history, she chose Magellan and Queen Elizabeth I as her favorite historical figures. In Language Arts...well, this completely knocked me over, but she told me that this year she especially liked spelling. She liked spelling!! After the spelling debacle that was first grade, I felt like throwing my apron over my head (if I owned one) and yelling "Glory be and the saints be praised!" And she really is becoming a better speller. She's not an intuitive one (and I am, which makes learning to teach it a challenge) but she's getting there.

I was so proud of the leaps in her reading skills this year. She progressed from reading picture books and readers on her own to reading longer chapter books. Though she will always be a picture book girl. Me too.

In math, she told me she especially liked Roman numerals. And she continued to love our daily read-aloud times. Those and math will both continue, albeit in highly relaxed form, as we head into summer.

And here it comes! We've got so much coming up: a visit to my parents in Virginia soon; the sweet girl's 8th birthday with an "under the sea" theme (for which we made the invites today); the beginning of summer camps; VBS planning.

I've been on a writing deadline and have been having major computer problems, but I hope to return you to your regularly scheduled blog posts soon. Happy summer!

What Would Your Childhood Memories "B"?

Years ago, my husband and I instituted a late-night word-association game. We tend to play it more during certain seasons of our life together, when one or both of us is having a hard time getting to sleep. (The sacrificial love comes in when one of us is exhausted enough to be dropping off but the other is having a hard time sleeping, so the sleepy one wakes up enough to enter into the game...thus often waking up more fully than the other one!)

It's an "easy-peasy" kind of game, as my seven year old would likely tell you -- we play a version of it with her before she goes to bed sometimes too. We pick a letter of the alphabet and a category, and try to think of things that fit the category that begin with that letter. We've tried all kinds of categories over the years, from food to books to movies to intangibles to adjectives...and on and on. We've instituted a few basic guidelines along the way, especially in the categories we tend to play a lot, like movies. In that case, we always count first names for characters and last names for directors/actors. For example, if we were playing "H" in the movie category, we could say both Hagrid and Harry Potter, but we couldn't say Helena Bonham-Carter: she'd come under "B."

My husband is great at coming up with new, creative categories. The most recent one he suggested was "childhood." We decided it could mean any sort of association with childhood, but as you might expect, it's turned out to be more specific to our own childhoods/youth. Last night we were doing the letter "B" and we ended up laughing a lot over some our associations. Here are just a few:

bubbles; balls; books; banana popsicles; Batman; Barbie; Bazooka bubble gum; Bonanza; Brady Bunch; Bee-Gees; Betsy-Tacy; Benji; bicyles; baseball games

There were lots more (including a lot I don't remember because they came in that hazy, blurred horizon between awake-asleep) but that gives you a flavor of the game. It might even give you a flavor of when we grew up ~ albeit several years apart!

So what would some of your childhood memories/associations "B"?

A Good Dose of Laughter

Today was just one of those days. Yep. Just one of those days. (And that's all I'm gonna say about that...)

When I have a day like this one, I sometimes just need some laughter. So I asked my husband if we could read for a while.

Just a few nights ago, we started reading Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars. Actually I've read it before, but as is the case with many books I truly love, I eventually get around to reading it aloud to my dear D. I remembered it was funny, but I had forgotten just how funny: laugh-aloud, sometimes too choked up to read kind of funny, at least in parts.

If you haven't read this Newbery Honor winning book, I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so much that I'm going to do something I rarely do, and quote from my own review, which I penned back in 2008:

"Holling Hoodhood is pretty sure that seventh grade is not going to be a banner year for him. That's because he's convinced from Day One that his teacher, Mrs. Baker, must hate him.

Every Wednesday, half of his class heads to Hebrew School while the other half heads to Catechism Class. But Holling, the only Presbyterian in a sea of Jewish and Catholic classmates, has no where to go. That means that Mrs. Baker must keep him in her classroom, a time-wasting prospect that both of them look forward to with gritted teeth.

But after Holling has cleaned every eraser in Camillo Junior High...and after he has accidentally let escape the class's pet rats while cleaning their cages...Mrs. Baker (perhaps a bit unnerved by the escape of the rodents) hits upon the perfect solution.

Holling is going to read Shakespeare. Every Wednesday. Sometimes with Mrs. Baker. And she is going to quiz him about it, to make sure he has done the reading and to make sure that he understands it. Until he's read a few plays and showed his mettle, at which point she begins to make him write full-blown essays.

Did I mention that seventh grade is not turning out to be a banner year for Holling?"


I hope that little intro might make you want to read the rest of the review, but most of all I hope it makes you want to read the book. Especially if you need a dose of laughter too.

Laps Around the Track

I keep having these good ideas about finishing one project before I dive in on another one. I know, I know...life doesn't usually work that way, but I find myself wishing it was that tidy! I keep thinking how nice it would be if I could finish one lap before the next one started. Instead, I often feel like there are three or four of me running around the track at the same time (waving to myself as I pass by...yes, I've definitely been pondering LOST too much this week).

My goals over the last couple of weeks seemed simple enough. I was going to finish reading and responding to seminary student papers and submit my grades. THEN I was going to spend a few days doing all the paperwork for the school district and for the sweet girl's insurance renewal. (Read: I'm a PA homeschooler with a kid heading for the magic number of 8 years old; and I'm a thankful recipient of state assistance for my child's health care but that means every year I have to prove again just how poor we are so we requalify.) So yes, this paperwork is all necessary and important, but it's still officially paperwork, with all the attendant drudgery of gathering and filling out forms. THEN I was going to do wrap-up notes for our grammar 2 year, for my own evaluation purposes. And THEN I was going to do some work on writing projects and start hunting for more writing and editing work. And THEN I was going to figure out precisely what I need to order, curriculum-wise, for grammar 3 and how we were going to pay for it. And THEN I was going to start planning the sweet girl's birthday party. And THEN...

Okay, you get my drift. It's all the "and THEN's" that are turning out to be impossible, because I can't seem to sustain enough time or momentum on one project before I have to go on to at least part of another one. Some of this is due to the fact that more projects keep coming up. First there's all the daily ongoing stuff of life (housework, cooking, schooling)! But there have also been ministry commitments: finishing up Alpha, coordinating the missions prayer stations for our church's Pentecost service, pulling together the monthly church newsletter. I had to try to re-find my review reading and writing rhythm at Epinions, since my income share has been down. I also decided it was worth the effort to try to submit a guide to Shopping.com (Epinions' sister site) in an effort to try to win some more cash that will help us buy said curriculum. And given my love of planning a new school year, I've done a bit of diving into that already.

We're also trying to plan another trip to see my folks. Dad is stable but not strong. He has another echocardiogram scheduled for tomorrow. And continuing to process all the emotions about his illness is taking inner time (again important and necessary, but not anything I foresaw going into this month).

We also realized we were long overdue getting out our family's regularly (supposed to be quarterly) prayer and support letter, something we feel is very important. So I spent much of the last week working on that and the church newsletter, with the end result being that it's Memorial Day and I've yet to submit all my grades. I'm really hoping to finish those up tonight!

And THEN... :-) I need to dive headfirst into the insurance renewal papers, since the deadline is fast approaching. If I can get through those things, and make at least a decent start on the homeschool paperwork, I will consider this week a completed lap.

For at least one of me...

Wilder Land

We've been languishing a bit in read-aloud time recently. After the sublime heights of The Magician's Nephew, we came down with a prosaic thud. I let the sweet girl choose our last book, and she went with one of the Boxcar Children sequels.

Now I don't mind the Boxcar Children on principle, and even thought the first one was a pretty good story. I also think kids should be able to indulge in a little light pulp reading now and again, just like grown-ups. But as read-alouds the sequels are mind-numbingly boring. Benny and Henry are particularly grating on my nerves; I begin to have sympathy for readers who found Bobby Belden's character so thoroughly annoying. Puh-leeze (as Bobby would say) let these kids grow up!

But today we moved back into literary territory, brighter and wilder terrain. Literally Wilder terrain: we're up to the fifth book in the Little House series with By the Shores of Silver Lake.

And I'd forgotten what a whammy those first two chapters give us. A couple of years or so have passed for Laura and family, still living on Plum Creek in these opening pages. Pa has that wild glint in his eye which can only mean one thing: time to pack the wagon and head west again! The family has weathered scarlet fever and Mary is now blind, a sad and sobering fact that seemed to hit the sweet girl hard. We talked a bit about how Laura "became Mary's eyes" (as the story tells us) and how that might be one reason why she grew up to be such a fine writer of description.

And then came the death of Jack. Dear old Jack, the family bull-dog, the one who has stood by Laura and the rest of the Ingalls through wolves and fires and grasshoppers and who knows what all else. I always forget this is coming, and I always have the hardest time in the world reading the description of Jack's last hours over the lump in my throat. How poignant that he lay down and died on the night before the wagon was to pull out and head west again, after all the many miles he walked.

When it comes to read-alouds, I like being back in Wilder Land. Even when it makes me cry.

Pentecost Sunday

"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."
~Acts 2:1-4 (ESV)

The whole passage from Acts 2 is such an exciting one. As our preacher said this morning, upon reading the next part when the people gathered together all hear the Gospel preached in their own native languages, "Wow." And then he repeated "wow," and again "wow." Yes.

We are so blessed to be loved by a God who loves all people everywhere, loves them so much that he longs for them to hear and know him, loves them enough to speak his Word to them in the languages of their hearts.

Isn't the incarnation itself about God finding a way to speak to us in a language and a way we could understand?

And today was a blessed day at church as we celebrated this story and the ongoing story of God's love for the world.

We processed around to prayer stations for each of the six countries where we support missionaries or where we focus our prayers for the persecuted church. We prayed for Brazil, Mexico, Uganda, Nigeria, Belize, and the United States. (And I was blessed, as missions committee chair, to have put together the prayer stations). And after church, my dear husband got to make a presentation about the new Catechesis/Mentoring program for young people in our parish, into which he's been pouring so much of his his heart and soul lately.

Indeed a day to celebrate. And a day to be grateful for the life of the Holy Spirit poured out in our hearts.

LOST in Thought...One More Time

Since my husband and I watch LOST episodes a couple of days behind the rest of the world (you could say we’re untethered from time!) I always feel behind the curve posting my thoughts and reflections. By the time I can get anything up, much wiser and creative minds than mine have already weighed in. And yet… it’s so much fun. I’ve so enjoyed thinking and conversing about this show, I can’t quite resist the opportunity to put my thoughts down one last time before we reach tomorrow night’s finale.

And yes, we will miss it, not watching it until probably around Tuesday night. I am pretty sure I am putting myself on a media blackout until then, including not checking Facebook (I know too many of our friends will post status updates with their reactions). It’s not unlike what I did when Deathly Hallows was published. I basically went offline the day before the book came out, taking special care to avoid any HP related websites for even longer beforehand, and I didn’t go back on until I’d finished the book. Once again, I find myself not wanting to be spoiled in any way.

D. and I keep talking about what we think will happen, what we hope will happen, what might happen. We’ve actually compiled a list of things we think the show’s writers need to do. We split the page in two, making separate lists for what needs to happen in Sideways world and what needs to happen in Island world. When you put the lists together, it all comes to about three dozen items, which sounds like a lot. But they do have a couple of hours (feature film length!) and we’ve agreed that some of these things don’t need to be given a whole lot of time, but could be hinted at. In fact, we figure some of them will need to be given that sort of treatment, given what’s left to accomplish to bring this amazing and convoluted story to a satisfying conclusion.

D. keeps joking that the writers have a dream assignment – they get to kill lots of characters off in heroic battle, and yet they also get to write them their happy ending (in sideways reality). I think he’s on to something there. Although most of my energy at this point is moving toward mining this story for grace moments and character transformation (and has been tending that way for a long time…see my earlier LOST posts) I do find myself still really intrigued by the whole conceit that has made this last season so interesting, the two branches of reality.

And that’s what I’m seeing them as right now – two branches, one tree (or river, whatever metaphor works best for you). The Jughead moment at the end of last season was far more crucial than ever we realized. “It worked” said Juliet, from the grave, and that’s a pretty amazing thing for them to have told us right off the bat. Our castaways, those who heard that news, couldn’t comprehend it. How could it “have worked” and yet “not worked” at the same time? For obviously there they were, still on island, still struggling with the same old stuff. I still don’t understand it myself, but the way I look at it now, when Juliet (the true heroine of this epic in many ways) detonated the bomb, the explosion seemed to accomplish the splitting of reality. Remember that our castaways were actually fugitives in a time in which they did not belong. So the explosion, on the one hand, jarred them from one record groove to another (to use yet another Daniel Faraday expression) and at the same time, shut down the 1970s reality and changed that timeline from that time forward, so that their plane accident never happened. Reality, for these people, moved in two directions, and we’re going to see those directions meet back up and merge.

But first there’s the matter of unfinished island business. I think one reason that my hubby and I feel confident the writers can pull off most of what they need to in the short time left is that really only two big things need to be accomplished (though in bits and pieces) in the two realities. I looked back over our lists and realized what they each boiled down to. In Island reality, we need to see a victory over Smokey. In Sideways world, we need to see resolution – major resolution within characters (as they become Island enlightened, their current stories merging with the stories/relationships/wisdom gained in their Island reality) and between characters. In fact, almost our whole Sideways list had to do with characters resolving relationships, or at least us being given glimpses that such resolution was on the way.

The victory over Smokey will not come without great cost. Desmond the “fail-safe” is going to be key (pun intended) as I think we all agree. But I think what will turn the tide for the side of right is the willingness of the characters to do whatever they need to in this battle. Choice has always been a big LOST theme, and it’s been shining like a lighthouse beacon lately.

Can I tell you how proud I was of Jack when he stepped up and said “I’ll do it” when Jacob finally came square on what he was asking the candidates to consider? My friend Erin talked about what a wonderful Frodo moment that was, and I loved that comparison, since I’m pretty sure Frodo’s “I will take the ring” would figure into one of my top ten most loved story moments of all time. And I certainly see the comparison. (I also liked her idea that the cave of light is going to be our “Mt. Doom.” Who might be our Gollum, hmm?)

But for me, Jack is so Harry right now. I think it’s partly because both Rowling and LOST are working out of post-modern frameworks, though Rowling’s single-author epic vision seems a lot more cohesive and thankfully a lot less monistic. But consider if you will, with your spello-taped Harry glasses on:

--Jack’s willingness to step up and meet his destiny, even though he has no clue if he’ll survive (and probably doubts he will)

--Jack’s growth from loner guy with a “saving people thing” complex to a man who understands his need for community and family

--Jack’s struggle to have faith, especially when not given complete (or fully honest) information from a mentor figure who has, at times, infuriatingly kept his distance

--Jack’s anger at Jacob for not telling him what Jack thought he needed to know and when (remember the Lighthouse smashup? That immediately called to mind Harry in Dumbledore’s office)

--Jack’s mentor being a wise and powerful yet flawed and broken man who has spent years trying to make up for past mistakes, hoping and praying he’ll find someone who will be the “better man” and be able to do what he can’t

--Jack’s walking away from “ordinary” love and life (in the Oceanic Six storyline, when he sabotaged the good relationship he had going with Kate) and realizing he has a destiny

--Jack constantly being looked to as the leader, and yet powerless in some situations and having to watch the people he loves die

Like Harry, I think Jack is going to have to be willing to sacrifice himself. My husband thinks that the cut on his neck – the one we’ve seen getting worse in Sideways world all season, the one Sideways-Jack doesn’t seem to have a clue about? – is the mark of the fatal wound he’ll receive from the ceremonial knife. He’s the island protector now, and that seems to be the only way a guardian of the island can die.

I think Jack will die, but like Harry, there’s protection in place, a safeguard, something that “tethers him to life” (to use the Rowling phrase) and in this case, it’s the reboot, along with the willingness of the other castaways to do what they need to do, especially Desmond.

In case you can’t tell, I’m loving that there’s not just one hero in this piece. The more we unpack what’s been going on, the more we’re “enlightened” as to the overall story, the more we see how crucial so many people’s actions have been. Jack and Desmond are our key players now (not surprising we lingered so long over their meeting, is it?) but so many others have played crucial roles. Juliet and Daniel, yes, but others too. Sayid, who gave the castaways one more day with his heroism. Ben, broken as they come, and yet I still think deep-down on the side of right, and conning Smokey right up to the finish. Even Kate, whom I know has not gotten a lot of fan-love, has been there at crucial times. Let’s not forget she saved Ben’s life in one reality. I’m also thinking especially of the many times she has been there when Jack, needing reassurance that whatever crazy thing he was about to do was the right thing (or at least that he wasn’t alone in doing it, even if it wasn’t) turned to her. How many times did Kate say “I’m with you,” or “I’ve always been with you” right at the crucial moment, looking him right in the eyes? I can’t help but want them to be soul-mates in the end, mostly because of that.

Oh and John Locke. Beautiful, real John Locke, flawed and lovable. John who wasn’t right about everything, who got played by the Smoke Monster (who seems to thrive on holding people in his thrall – I do so hope that in defeating him, the tortured soul of MIB, used all these years, will finally be able to rest in peace) but John who was right about more than anyone might have guessed. While it’s true that John’s own destiny was not as he wished, and that he made a lot of mistakes based on listening to the wrong voices, John’s simple and unwavering trust that life must have meaning and purpose (despite all evidence in his own life to the contrary) was a huge witness to Jack. It’s what got Jack back to the island, when all was said and done. And if Jack hadn’t gone back – no reboot, no Sideways world, no final battle with Smokey. So John too had his role to play, and I’m so glad that in Sideways world he and Jack can finally like and respect each other, and Jack can do something beautiful to help John heal.

I think it will be fascinating, when this whole story is over (except for the conversations!) to look back over the epic and pull out central pieces. In other words, to look back over the story and ask ourselves, what would it have been like if ______ had not been part of the story. Fill in the blank with the character of your choice! I think we will discover just how important they each were in the unfolding of events.

Ah…so much more I could say. So many questions I still have about the theological ramifications of all this (particularly pertaining to fate and free will and providence) and so many questions about how all this might play out. I find myself curious to know (and a bit worried) about the protection extended to the candidates. Does it vanish when Jacob does? Of course, if Jack gets to make? inherit but bend? the rules now, then I think it’s likely all his friends are still safe, because he’ll do anything to protect them. Yes, I know…I love Jack and it shows. I always have, and I’ve always resonated most profoundly with his struggles and journey, so I’m glad this has turned out to be more his story than anyone else’s – perhaps not too surprising given that our opening moments were literally seen through his opening eyes. (Has this whole story been about Jack’s eyes opening? I think I read that somewhere, and I love the thought.)

I am hoping that Jack will be like Harry in one other profound way too – that he will get his chance at ordinary life and love.

I’ll stop for now. And like I said, I’ll be tuning out a bit until I’m able to tune back in (hopefully unspoiled) a couple of days after the finale.

See you in another life, brotha.

Pachunga

With everything that's been happening in my extended family of late, plus just one of the busiest few weeks I can remember, I've fallen out of my regular blogging rhythm. I'm hoping to remedy that beginning now.

One of the most overdue of my posts (and I've got more in the pipeline) is the exciting news that Pachunga has been published. What is Pachunga? Glad you asked! It's a mid-grade Christian fantasy-adventure novel written by my friend and seminary colleague John MacDonald. A true labor of love, John has been working on this novel for many years -- it had its genesis back in the 1980s when he was teaching a class of sixth graders. He was finally able to bring it to fruition/completion, and it was published via iUniverse just a few weeks ago.

My involvement with Pachunga came late but was a happy one. Beginning last December, I was able to work with John in the final stages to help edit the book. That included copy-editing but also some development/story editing, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed, and one I'd love to repeat.


Pachunga is an interesting tale set in an African landscape. Readers 9-12 will especially enjoy it. John plows some familiar ground -- the Lewisian echoes are quite strong in places -- but he puts his own special spin on things, especially drawing on his cross-cultural experience. I especially like the ways he was able to make this as much (or more) an inner adventure as an outer one...the most important journeys are the heart journeys of the characters, especially Pachunga himself. You can read my review of the book on Amazon. I especially think Pachunga could be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of homeschooling families!