Relaxed Friday: Art and Music

We're continuing our studies of Chopin and Van Gogh. Today we spent time looking at Van Gogh's painting titled Olive Trees With Yellow Sky and Sun. We enjoyed looking at it so much that we spent time looking at other Van Gogh tree paintings. Doesn't this one: Branches of an Almond Tree in Bloom, just make you crave spring? It did me!

I've come up with a good mnemonic device to help the sweet girl remember Chopin: we call him the "poet of the piano from Poland." Last week we found this beautiful version of his Polonaise Op. 53 "Heroique" on YouTube. Does anyone know what language the commentator on the video is speaking? I gather the pianist is Polish.

Presidential History

The official White House website has this marvelous slide show of all 44 American presidents. Worth viewing today (we just did!). You get a great close-up on old portraits and photographs. Notice all the incredibly different faces and expressions, especially the eyes.

2008: The Year in Books

I'm a bit late posting my list of favorite books in 2008, but there were a lot of good ones! Here's my brief take on those I loved the most in 2008. A few of them were actually published in 2008, but most of them were just new to me. Links are to my longer reviews on Epinions.

Favorite History Book of the Year: America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation, by Jim Rasenberger
-- I’m reading more history (and cultural history) than ever before. This was an excellent book, really capturing the ethos of one of my favorite eras in American history.

Children’s biography of the year: Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Mary Azarian
--I posted about this recently so won’t say much more other than to once again highly recommend this beautiful picture book. Azarian’s woodcut illustrations are superb and it’s packed full of good biographical information on W.A. “Snowflake” Bentley, a pioneer in micro-photography.

Favorite Biography of the year: Home, by Julie Andrews.
-- This one wins by virtue of the fact that it was the only biography I read in full in 2008 (must remedy that this year!). I did like it, however. A warm memoir, well-written, with some interesting anecdotes about war-time England.

Picture book author of the year: Mary Ann Hoberman
--I’m saying mostly on the strength of our family’s love for the Seven Silly Eaters, which has to be one of the best rhyming picture books ever penned. It also has illustrations by the very talented Marla Frazee. We’ve also loved Hoberman’s The Two Sillies (which has nothing to do with the first book except that they both allude to silliness in the title!). Hoberman was named the United States children’s poet laureate this year.

Best Devotional Book: Water My Soul, by Luci Shaw
--Shaw’s meditations on gardening and the inner life were quieting and strengthening.

Best Novel I Read This Year: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
--This book restored my faith in contemporary fiction for adults. I read it, laughed, cried, and read it again. Just a marvelous book in every important way I judge a good book.

Best Novel I Re-Read This Year: Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
--I re-read a lot a books each year so it’s actually not easy for me to assign a winner in this category. I chose P&P this year, not only because it’s one of my favorite novels of all time, but because I always forget how delicious it is until I pick it back up and lose myself in again. I didn’t even plan to re-read it this time; I picked it up to look up a quote and before I knew it, found myself eagerly turning to page one and starting the story all over again.

Favorite Book of Literary Criticism: Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward
--Just amazing in every way. I think it will be remembered as one of the most important books of Lewis scholarship every written. Its prose and presentation are completely elegant, and its thesis, that Lewis purposefully steeped each Chronicle in the ethos and literary characteristics of one of the planets of medieval cosmology, is brilliantly and cogently argued.

--I also thoroughly enjoyed John Granger’s The Deathly Hallow Lectures (longer review still forthcoming), a thought-provoking and intelligent analysis of the final book in the Harry Potter series. I especially loved the chapter on Dante’s influence on the Snape story arc and John’s further ruminations on the alchemical structuring of the final book and the epic as a whole. Sidenote: one of the literary highlights of my year came in November when I had a chance to hear John speak about this book. As much as I enjoy his written work, I think I enjoyed his intelligent, warm and witty presentation even more. It takes a great teacher to keep the attention and respect of an audience that ranges in age from 8-80, and John seriously did that!

Best "pop culture" book: Culture Making, by Andy Crouch
--I’m cheating a bit to put this book here, because it goes a lot deeper than a mere critique or engagement of popular culture or even culture in general. But Crouch offers some exciting ways to think about culture and our involvement in it: making it, responding to it, and finding God’s hand in it. Just terrific.

Favorite "new to me" children’s book, mid-grade reader (8-12 year old category): A Crooked Kind of Perfect, by Linda Urban
--What a marvelous novel. It almost “perfectly” captures the creative, wistful voice of an eleven year old with big dreams coming to terms with life (and people’s) imperfections. It also sensitively shows her discovery that good can still be found in spite of imperfection, and her growing awareness of the importance of courage in ways great and small.

I also loved The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt
--Funny, poignant, coming of age story which ends up being an homage to a lot of things, including families, the 1960s, Shakespeare and good teachers. Think “The Wonder Years” but with more real-life kinds of quirks and less sentiment. I’ll read this one again.

Favorite "new to me" young adult book (12-15 year old): The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale
--Shannon Hale is such a gifted writer. This was her debut novel from a few years back and I’m very glad I read it. A highly creative re-telling of the old Grimm tale of the same name. Pass this on to literate young teenagers who love fantasy and fairy-tale.

Best Children’s Book I Re-Read This Year: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
--I did this as a read-aloud with the sweet girl, and discovered how impossible it is to read Reepicheep’s journey through that wall of water at the end of the world without weeping. What a beautiful book. I never grow too old for Narnia.

Classic book I Can’t Believe I’d Never Read Before Now: Heidi by Johanna Spyri
-- The classic tale of the young orphan girl who goes to live in the Alps with her curmudgeonly old grandfather. I read it, then read it aloud to the sweet girl, and we both loved it. The writing is lovely and the story steeped in themes of redemption and prayer.

Favorite "new to me" picture book: The Growing Story by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
--This is actually a new edition, with new illustrations, of a book originally published in the 1940s. A simple story about a little boy’s growing awareness of growing thing all around him and of his own growth. Oxenbury’s pictures are beautiful. Her illustrations always leave me with a true yearning to draw, and the courage to believe that maybe I can.

Book I Wish I Hadn’t Wasted My Time Reading: Harry: a History, by Melissa Anelli

Book I Should Have Finished (and still plan to): Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Book That Surprised Me Most: Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia. I didn’t know one could be swept off one’s feet by the beauty of a cohesive, persuasive literary argument.

The Book That Made Me Laugh the Most: I chose two this year (to make up for not being able to choose even one last year!): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and The Wednesday Wars. Both books, though completely different in subject matter and audience, had a wonderful way of reminding me how close tears and laughter can be.

Book That Challenged Me the Most: (besides the Bible): Culture-Making, by Andy Crouch

Favorite “new to me” mystery writer: Jill Paton Walsh.
--She’s been around awhile but I just “discovered” her. I’ve been enjoying her Imogene Quy mysteries and plan to read her completion of Sayers’ unfinished novel once I finish my re-reading of all the Sayers Wimsey/Vane novels. This has been a good year for mysteries and me: lots of fun time spent re-reading Agatha Christie (all the Tommy and Tuppence books) plus my beginning re-read of Sayers.

Favorite "new to me" Spiritual Resource/Bible for Children: The Jesus Storybook Bible (longer review forthcoming)
--A good companion to the book I chose in this category last year, The Big Picture Bible. Like that resource, this storybook Bible focuses on the overreaching narrative of the Scriptures, which affects its story choices and the way it retells those stories. I love this one especially for its focus on God’s unending love for his people, the way each story points the reader to Jesus, and the amazing artwork.

Favorite book of theological reflections: Culture Making, by Andy Crouch. As I said, it’s not just a book about culture and people, but about the God who made both people and culture. Deep insights into the brokenness and yet the potential goodness (and redeem-ability) of human cultural activity.

Things I Learned from Our "Painting Like Van Gogh" Morning

1. Van Gogh must have used a ton of paint. We read that he sometimes squeezed it directly from the tube onto his canvas, and I believe it. When you look at closely at how his brush strokes look like small furrows in a river of paint, you begin to realize just how much he used.

2. Which makes me understand why he'd likely have no qualms about trading paintings for more paint supplies. There's such sad irony in the fact that Van Gogh never realized much money from any of his artwork, when you consider the millions of dollars an original Van Gogh fetches now. I'd always heard he never sold a painting in his lifetime, and while that's maybe stretching it a bit (at any rate, one book we read indicated that some of his paintings were sold during his lifetime, even if he wasn't the one profiting by the sale) he certainly never received the admiration and acclaim he would later receive. Apparently he traded many paintings for more paint supplies. Given how many hundreds of paintings he did in his lifetime (and the amount of paint he used!) I would guess that was a wise arrangement.


The sweet girl's painting in Van Gogh's style

3. You can thicken acrylic paint with craft glue. I was a tiny bit skeptical when I read this idea in the Usborne Art Treasury, but they were spot on. I used just a dollop of "tacky glue" per puddle of acrylic, and it definitely thickens the paint. Since the glue is very white, it also lightens the paint color a bit.

4. "Glue doesn't belong in paint!" At least not according to my scandalized first grader. "Glue is sticky. We use it to glue things together. We don't put it in paint," she said plaintively. But she grudgingly allowed that it did work to thicken the paint, though she wasn't wild about the mild scent of the glue. She definitely preferred to work with the regular acrylics sans paint. I agreed that regular acrylics were also less messy. (I recommend putting a big sheet down on the floor underneath whatever your painting surface is...we usually do anyway, but given how much paint and glue were involved in this activity, it was doubly necessary!)

5. Van Gogh had a marvelous imagination. Just attempting to paint at all "like him" makes you realize anew what a highly imaginative man he must have been. You also begin to realize how certain simple shapes and lines recur in his paintings, the importance of circles in his work, and the way he used swirls to show movement.

6. I'm still in love with Starry Night.


My Van Gogh homage.

7. One wonders if painting helped keep Van Gogh's depression and sadness at bay. The sweet girl wanted to know why he painted so many paintings, and I told her that was my best guess. "We know he was often sad," I told her. "Perhaps painting made him feel more peaceful." An over-simplified explanation, perhaps, but I'm pretty sure it's still true.

My Blogiversary

I was scrolling through the archives the other day, recalling that I first started this blog in January 2006. It turned out it was the 11th of January, which makes today my third blogiversary!

I had no idea then that I'd still be going strong three years later, nor that I would have written 500 posts, nor how much I would enjoy capturing not only my thoughts and reflections about books (my original, stated purpose for beginning a blog) but also many slices of life and ordinary days.

From time to time I've considered changing the blog name to more accurately reflect what I write about...I guess you might say that something to do with the wider category of "stories" rather than just "books" would fit the bill. But it's hard to give up on a title I've kept for three years, and that Lewis quote I've kept in my profile since the very beginning still rings true to my heart.

For any of you who have read this blog for all three of its years (thank you, Erin, and perhaps others I don't know) and to any of you who have found it somewhere along the way and discovered something here that's been in any way encouraging to your heart, mind, or reading life, thank you. Please stay around for more ordinary stories from the very ordinary life of a thankful writer and reader.

Elizabeth Goudge's "The Well of the Star"

One of my favorite things to do during the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons is to read short stories and legends from seasonal collections. We have several wonderful collections that we either own or check out of the library almost annually.

One collection I like is titled Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old. Published by Plough Publishing House in 2002, it contains a number of excellent stories from writers as diverse as Pearl Buck, Ruth Sawyer, Henry Van Dyke, and Katherine Paterson. One reason I like it is the number of good women writers represented.

One of the stories that I read for the first time this year was "The Well of the Star" by Elizabeth Goudge, perhaps best known for her children's fantasy novel The Little White Horse. That book has had a renaissance in recent years, partly because J.K. Rowling has spoken of it with such fondness. My reprint copy contains a blurb where she mentions how much she "adored" the book as a child.

Reading Goudge's beautiful Christmas tale, which follows the fortunes of a poor, ragged boy named David who comes across the wise men journeying from the east on the night of Christ's birth, was a pleasure on several levels. But I'm always interested in noticing literary echoes, or seeing literary antecedents, and it struck me that this might well be another Goudge story with which Rowling is familiar.

That's because the image of the title, "The Well of the Star," will look very familiar to readers of Harry Potter. When David, shivering, cold, and hungry, is wishing for a miracle to save his desperate family (his sick father is out of work, and the family is starving) he thinks of a legendary wishing well "far down below on the road to Bethlehem."

"It was a well of clear sparkling water and it was said that those who stood by it at midnight, and prayed to the Lord God Jehovah from a pure heart, were given their heart's desire. The difficulty, of course, was to be pure in heart. They said that if you were, and your prayer had been accepted, you saw your heart's desire mirrored in the water of the well -- the face of someone you loved, maybe, or the gold that would save your home from ruin, or even, so it was whispered, the face of God Himself."

A mirror that gives one their heart's desire...and the need to be pure in heart. Hmm. Where have I heard these themes before?

Goudge's beautiful story is worth reading for its own sake. The well first reveals the star (which the wise men have momentarily lost) to Gaspar, after David tells them how the well works. David finishes the journey with them and is so moved by the baby King that he gives him the only thing he possesses, a small shepherd's pipe. He ends up going home with the shepherds (his old friends) who have also been to pay the baby homage. Once the wonder of the stable begins to wear off, David realizes that he is still poor, needy and desperate, and now seemingly has even less than when he started out that evening...he no longer even has his pipe to comfort his family with music. He cries bitterly and then finally stumbles back to the wishing well one more time.

"He did not pray to be a rich man, he did not look into it for his heart's desire, he simply went to it to wash himself..."

And in that moment comes blessing, joy, and a true answer to his prayers. The King to whom he gave everything does not leave him empty-handed. He never does.

Oh What a Lovely, Gaudy Night

This afternoon I finished reading Dorothy Sayers' novel Gaudy Night. My excuse for lots of extra reading time today (after school with the sweet girl this morning and early afternoon) was the miserably cold and rainy weather outside and my returning congestion, sore throat and cough. But all physical misery and the need to be pulling together primary readings sources for my spring course aside, I really just couldn't make myself put the book down.

What an amazing novel this is. I've read Gaudy Night before -- in fact, I read all of Sayers' Wimsey novels about a decade ago, not just the Wimsey/Vane ones -- but I don't remember being so deeply moved by this one last time. It's a mystery, yes, but much more concerned with the mystery of human relationships than with any external kind of "who-dunit" (though of course there's still a puzzle to solve). It's also one of the most beautiful, authentic and unusual romances ever written. I found myself emotionally moved but also impressed by its craftmanship. I think sometimes you're just in the right, receptive place to read a certain book. For me, this was the absolute right time to re-read Gaudy Night.

What struck me with such great force this time, having just read in chronological order Strong Poison and Have His Carcase, was the progressive deepening of Harriet Vane's character as you moved from book to book. It's remarkable how the character changes and grows and how Sayers reveals more of the inner character to us as we go along.

In Strong Poison, Harriet is the center of the plot, meaning everything swirls around her. But that's pretty much all she is. She's almost, though not quite, a token character: you could almost label her "love interest" and see her primarily as a plot device. The case turns on her guilt or innocence -- or rather on Peter's ability to prove the latter, as her innocence is never really in doubt. What's interesting about Harriet is SP is her affect on Wimsey. We never expected the aristocratic old boy to fall so hard for any woman. And we don't entirely understand why he does here, though it's clear he's legitimately lost his heart to Harriet. It's not so much his dogged pursuit of justice -- Lord Peter Wimsey would be dedicated to that pursuit no matter what innocent person had been injustly imprisoned -- but the fact that he loses his emotional equilibrium and seems to flounder in this case. His usual humor and efficiency almost fail him at points, though of course he triumphs in the end.

Harriet is a difficult character to make out in Strong Poison, not only because so much happens around her, but because we see little interior or exterior movement. She's in jail the entire time; we only see her interact with Lord Peter during his visits or as a silent, suffering woman being tried before the judges' bench and the inquisitive eyes of curious spectators in the courtroom. We're also meeting her at a very difficult time and place in her life: she has moments of despair when (despite Wimsey's encouragement and continued show of bravado) she clearly thinks no one can save her from the gallows.

Harriet's also been deeply wounded in love and is practically drowning in bitterness over her own foolishness in having gotten involved with Philip Boyes (her late lover, whom she's accused of poisoning) in the first place. She feels like "damaged goods" and it's difficult for her to imagine that anyone will ever be interested in her again as a human being and not merely a news headline. It occurs to me that the "strong poison" of the title has a double meaning: not just the arsenic in Philip's soup, but the slow-acting poison of bitterness in the soul of the wrongly accused Harriet. Small wonder she's a bit put-off by Peter's honest declarations of devotion. Even here, however, we see glimmers of the much more complex relationship to come. One gets the sense that Harriet would love to put Lord Peter off as a glory-seeker or an eccentric whose passions have been aroused by pity and a sense of magnanimity toward a damsel in distress, but Peter really doesn't fit either of those profiles. Even from the depths of her deepest despair, one gets the sense that Harriet can't help but like Peter and take his declarations at face value, though she's in no position to respond to his overtures.

When we see her next in Have His Carcase, she's still a wounded soul, but at least she's a free woman, completely exonerated of all charges. Sayers first presents her on a solitary walking tour of the south-west coast of England. Basically she's running away: from her past mistakes, from the notorious reputation of the case, and from her own inability to cope with relationships. She's sure she's given up on love -- she's not going to let herself be open and vulnerable again, because where did it get her last time? She's thrown herself with a vengeance into her work: she's a detective novelist whose sales have ironically gone up since she's been tried for murder (another reason for cynicism and bitterness). In his ultra-gentlemanly way, Lord Peter has been persistent in his attentions, but she doesn't want to have anything to do with him if she can help it, partly because he reminds her of the time spent on trial for her life. She knows she should be grateful to him for saving her life, and deep down somewhere she is, but the need for such gratitude galls her and makes her feel awkward around him, as though there's some sort of debt she can't pay. I'll admit I found this characteristic odd at first, and slightly unbelievable, but as time and the books wore on, I came to understand it. Harriet has lost her joy, and with that loss genuine gratitude morphs into a mere feeling of servitude or inadequacy. At this point she doesn't seem able to accept anything gracefully.

She and Peter do work together on that case, and though many of their conversations are uncomfortable because of the very different places of their emotions, at least we do see that they can work together well. The best times they have together are the times when they forget their feelings toward one another and throw themselves unselfconsciously into the work of detecting, an interest they share. Harriet still feels like a half-developed character to me here, standing in Peter's shadow, unsure of herself and her abilities, and I find the ending of the novel far too abrupt.

But then comes Gaudy Night: and with it, the return of joy. This is the book where Harriet comes into her own. She ceases to be a plot device, a mere "love interest," someone whose main purpose is to affect the main character. She's not just a fictional extension of Dorothy Sayers' own autobiography (which based on what I read, one could argue is where she starts). She becomes a full-fledged protagonist, a woman who still has some unraveled edges but has at last begun to knit together her soul, or allow it be knit. She's still confused, still wary, still unsure, but she's become again a woman of decisive action, one who can let herself begin to consider how she will -- and should -- live the rest of her life. Part of her dilemma is that Peter still hovers in the background. He comes to represent "heart," and the academic life of Oxford, newly reopened to her, represents "mind." It's a false dichotomy, of course, but for much of the book, it's how the dilemma presents itself to Harriet. If she chooses to love Peter...to let Peter love her...to let someone in again...then she chooses danger. If she chooses the simple, quiet life of academic research, she chooses safety.

Of course the irony is that all the mess and mayhem of this particular case (no murder this time out, though it's a near thing a few times) comes in the hallowed halls and quads of her former college at Oxford. The very place and life that Harriet imbues with the characteristics of safety and peace is now under threat. It's a threat Harriet is asked to help overcome. She tries her best, but begins to realize she's in need of help. And the one person she realizes she can trust, not only for his expertise as a detective, but as the thoroughly decent and consistently loving human being he is, is Peter.

Well. I've waxed long enough. There's so much more I could say, but this will suffice: Harriet Vane is one of the more astonishing fictional characters I know, and it's her authentically real and gradual growth as a person that makes her so. I not only came to understand and like her, but to care deeply about what happened to her, with or without Peter -- that lovable, eccentric and utterly fallible hero. Though in the end, it's so incredibly clear that she needs to be with him, I don't see how Sayers could have taken the narrative any other way. I love it when a book feels so true to itself and to its characters and the story it needs to tell. What a rare gift.

Eve of Epiphany Book Recommendations

Byron Borger at Hearts and Minds Booknotes, one of my favorite book blogs, has posted a list of some wonderful looking children's books, most of them on the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons. He's even having a 12 days of Christmas sale (happy 12th day, everyone!). As he says, it's never too late to stock up for wonderful books for next year!

No Two Snowflakes Exactly Alike

A few weeks ago the sweet girl and I re-read the wonderful Caldecott-award winning Snowflake Bentley, a picture book written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Mary Azarian. This is a book we loved last winter, but this year it's captured the sweet girl's imagination even more.

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley was a pioneer in micro-photography. Simply put, he spent most of his life perfecting the technique of photographing incredibly tiny things. His special love was snowflakes.

A few weeks ago, not long after we read the book, S. and I were taking a walk together one afternoon in the midst of a gentle snowfall. The flakes were falling fast enough to thrill us, but slow enough that they left only a gentle dusting on my black coat. The coat turned out to be a perfect backdrop for the flakes, and we found that by looking...really, really looking with attention...we could see some of the amazing shapes of the individual snow crystals. We marveled over their exquisite, extravagant quick-melting uniqueness.

We love the artwork in Snowflake Bentley, but S. was disappointed this time around that there weren't more actual photographs by Bentley himself. I confess I wanted to see more too. So for Christmas, I decided to give her a copy of Snowflakes in Photographs by W.A. Bentley (Dover Publications). It's filled with page after page of nothing but his beautifully photographed snowflakes. 72 plates of over 850 snowflakes -- not his whole collection (the man was clearly in love with snow!) -- but still a huge and beautiful sampling.

I wondered if this was an odd present to get my six year old. I also thought it might get lost among the glitzier presents of toys, arts and crafts. It did get a bit lost on present-opening day, but since then she's gone back to it several times. And last night, when the high school senior I'm mentoring was over to discuss her senior project, S. kept running into the living room to show off some of her favorite gifts. Imagine my delight when she brought out the Snowflake book and turned through page after page, enjoying the admiring comments of the very kind and thoughtful high school student. "There are no two exactly alike!" the sweet girl proclaimed with joy. And of course she keeps wanting to play the "what's your favorite?" game, having us each choose our favorite design per page.


The images are copyright free so can actually be used for artwork. I've already got some ideas brewing. I find myself wanting to get out sketch pad and pencils in an attempt to capture some of these amazing designs. How good of God to bless the world with such gorgeousness. How good of Wilson Bentley to spend his life capturing bits of that gorgeousness for posterity...and for my little girl and me.

Calendar of the Heart: J.R.R. Tolkien, January 3, 1892

It's the 117th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's birth today. I try to keep what I think of as my own heart's calendar, which includes the birthdays of loved ones, but also the birthdays (or feast days) of saints, poets, writers, artists and musicians who have gone before, leaving the world a much more beautiful place.

To celebrate Tolkien today I turned to this paragraph near the end of The Return of the King. If you've read and loved Lord of the Rings, then you know this moment. It's the place in the narrative I can hardly ever see clearly for tears:

"Then Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long gray firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."

Do you ever stop to think how Tolkien and Lewis must have felt when they entered into glory? Both seemed to peek past the veil while still here. Both had such a wondrous, numinous sense of "the other side." You can feel the awe and wonder in their descriptions of light, water, fragrance. More real, you can practically hear them murmur, more real than anything we've ever known, even on our most real days.

Peaceful Rest at the Beginning of 2009

We had a lovely start to the new year yesterday when we finally did our family Christmas present opening. Then we spent the rest of the day visiting with friends, shopping for the new kitchen calendar (it's tradition that the sweet girl picks that each year: this year we've got 12 months of baby dachshunds!) and coming home to work on a big family jigsaw puzzle. That last has been wonderful fun and just may turn out to be a new annual new year's tradition.

I guess 2008 wore the sweet girl out: a little while ago I went into her room to get her up from her usual afternoon rest. Typically that means sitting quietly with books or small dolls on the bed while she listens to music or a book on CD. She hardly ever actually sleeps any kind of nap. But I found her curled in a swirled up nest of fleece blankets, fast asleep, her pigtails peeking out from beneath the blankets, her breathing deep and even. And in the background, the soothing British voice of Jim Broadbent, cheerily announcing that he was a bear of little brain.

Off to see if I can truly get her awake this time. Ratatouille is simmering in the crockpot, filling the house with good smells. I'm working my way through my final set of fall papers (grades due Monday!) and prepping homeschool lesson plans for January.

Happy New Year!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

I've been contemplating how to capture our recent Christmas trip in words. It's difficult, because some of the words I might choose (including exhausting and stressful) might indicate a lack of gratitude on my part, and I really do feel grateful in so many ways for the gifts of this past year, and even of this somewhat odd holiday season.

Christmas is a very important day for my husband's family. Unless dire circumstances prevent it, they always celebrate it together, though in recent years they've floundered a bit to find new ways to ground their celebration and new traditions to replace old and beloved ones in the wake of my husband's grandparents' death six years ago. Grandma and Granddad were the literal glue that held their family celebrations, especially Christmas, together. Everything spun round in their orbit and took place in their home. I sometimes feel as though we're attempting to embroider around a very large hole on Christmas day. There's still a level of grief there that I, as an in-law (who nevertheless loved those two people dearly) can only fathom in part. And of course every family deals with such things differently. I know how my family of origin would likely work through that kind of grief, but every family has its own way, its own dance.

So I confess I always feel a little bit of displacement on at least a couple of levels on Christmas day. We live through the advent season as prayerfully and well as we can here, but right at the end of it, there's a flurry of activity (ministry, school and work related) and then we pack in what feels like a frenzy and head out for several days on the road. When we lived further east, we were a close enough drive to extended family that we could still do our small family celebration at home in the morning, then head to Maryland or Northern Virginia for a late lunch and a couple days' visit with family. That's not possible now: we have to leave at least a couple of days before Christmas to make the trip work, which means we often don't do our family present opening here until somewhere well into the 12 days of Christmas (often around new year's). We take a few small gifts for the sweet girl to open and spend most of the actual day traveling to and from D's mother's house and his sister's house, with lots of time spent with nine of the sweet girl's cousins and other relatives.

So there's always a bit of stress involved (even in the midst of the fun parts) and this year there was a good bit more stress than usual. I don't feel free to write about much of it here, since those stories aren't mine to share, but various members of D's family are going through a very hard time right now. The "holes in the fabric" felt a lot more ragged than usual in the family celebration this year. More than ever I felt mindful of how very much we all need Jesus, and how deeply grateful that he came to us as one of us to share our burdens and our sorrows!

I got sick when we traveled, which didn't help matters a lot from my perspective. Congestion, cough and fever (which began to hit in earnest on Christmas Adam as we headed down, then got a lot worse on Christmas Eve and the Day itself) kept me at a lower ebb of energy than usual. Still there were blessings: candlelight and tree-light in the sanctuary of D's mom's church on Christmas Eve and many beautiful Christmas carols; the sweet girl waking up Christmas morning and wanting to hear the Christmas story from Luke as soon as we'd finished breakfast; watching the sweet girl's face light up when she received the gift of a baby doll (what she most wanted) from her daddy and me (she named her Noelle). We traveled onto my parents' home the day after Christmas. It was wonderful to see them and there was a remarkable feeling of relief in my tired, middle-aged, displaced self to see some of the familiar sights and sounds of Christmases from my own childhood, especially the wooden barrel where we always kept the tree ornaments (and Mom and Dad still do).

I think the moment most tinged with grace, however, was one I could never have planned nor even imagined. It happened on Sunday as we were leaving. We'd gotten up early and met D's aunt for breakfast at a local IHOP. As we pulled out of the parking area, after saying our good-byes, I slid a quieting CD into the player (David Klinkenberg's "The Carol of Emmanuel," a recording my sister gave me last year) hoping we could settle into a peaceful beginning of the long 5 plus hour journey back home. We found ourselves at a very long red light at a busy intersection on an overcast morning. A group of dark birds was flying nearby in a "V" formation. While we watched, they swooped past and then settled onto some telephone wires. But not for long -- they suddenly all dived again together, in perfect formation. They continued to swoop and swirl in perfect loops and dives, fluttering from place to place as though in a choreographed ballet. D. and I both had that same thought in an instant: "choreographed." He said the word out loud, laughing, but then we just sat there in awe watching them continue their amazing dance. They seemed to flutter and swoop in time to a perfect music. Of course, they couldn't hear the music we were listening to...a gentle, rolling, piano/violin version of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" but they clearly could hear something. Their flight was as beautiful and easy as though they'd practiced it hundreds of times before, just casual loops and rolls and dives, sometimes landing on the wires, but often swooping in an unseen shape as though riding the waves of air current to some planned but hidden-to-our-eyes destination before they paused, turned with stunning precision, and flew to the next place.

Sheer beauty. Sheer grace. I watched them as long as I could, until they became tiny dots in the small patch of sky reflected in my rear-view mirror. Despite the aches in my body and heart, I felt calmed, like a child at rest. I think it was one of the best Christmas gifts a loving Abba could have sent this particular daughter.

Favorite Christmas Pageant Rehearsal Moments

We rehearsed this morning for tomorrow's Christmas pageant. The older children (fourth grade and up) have all the speaking parts this year. One of our high schoolers has ambitiously adapted a play based on a short story by Tolstoy. In the middle of that story, there's an opportunity for a telling of the nativity, and the younger kids, pre-k through third, have non-speaking roles in that.

The sweet girl is a shepherd this year, and looks precious (like a miniature monk) in her grayish-brown shepherding outfit. She is, of course, carrying her woolly stuffed sheep!

The five year old daughter of dear friends is at last getting to play Mary after longing for the part last year (when a much older girl played the role). We were so delighted that she's getting to do it, as this will be the family's last pageant at our church (they're going on the mission field next year). When we first offered her the role, earlier this week, she got nervous and said no; she thought she'd rather be a sheep after all and stick with her big brother, who's playing a shepherd. I suspect the real Mary might have had moments when she wouldn't have minded being an ordinary sheep either! But today, like the other Mary, this tiny girl said yes. She looked luminous in her little blue veil, and smiled with true delight when my dear husband (who's directing the pageant) asked her if she could hide the baby Jesus doll in the folds of her robe when she first came out, then bring the doll out and place him in the manger at the appropriate time. Her mom had a baby recently, so I suspect this all feels very close to home!

Other favorite moments: when I asked the oldest girl playing an angel if she would mind taking on the role of Gabriel. Hesitation. "Will I still get to be a girl?" Clearly important to her! I hesitated only a fraction (and decided in that instant that this was not the time to discuss angel gender or lack thereof) and then just said "of course!" "Okay then," she said.

Our Joseph got a little bossy. He kept asking "who's playing Mary? which one is playing Mary?" and then when we told him, he marched up to her and took her hand. "Come on!"

And after the rehearsal, that tiny little Mary, whose dad will be teaching theology next year, showed she has perhaps been reading comic books, while also perhaps giving some thought to the idea of kenosis (Jesus emptying himself when he took on flesh) when she commented on Jesus waking up in the manager. "He must've said 'hey, look! What happened to my powers?!'"

Even as I laugh, I think how strange and mysterious it must have seemed to all the heavenly host to proclaim the God of heaven and earth was lying swaddled in a feed box! "One born in a manger commands the beauteous files..." as Henry Vaughn reminds us.

Sometimes we just have to sit at Jesus' feet in gratitude and awe because there's no other appropriate response.

Still Time To Give Thanks

We've had what has felt like a busier and more stressed advent season this year for a number of reasons. We've also been blessed with many moments of grace and joy, but for some reason I have (in particular) been feeling overwhelmed with too much "to do" and too much "to think about" and having a harder time than usual letting go and finding places to sink deep down into stillness and expectancy.

For the past couple of years I've posted a list of what we're thankful for, usually right around thanksgiving. This year I didn't, and despite the fact that thanksgiving is far behind us and Christmas is now literally just around the corner, I keep feeling a nagging need to come here and count my blessings anyway. Any time of year can be a time to give thanks, and I seem to be in more need than usual of taking a deep breath and doing just that!

I missed our annual tradition of writing blessings/what we're grateful for on leaves for the thanksgiving tree. We didn't do it at home, and despite the fact that it was just the three of us and my parents in Virginia on thanksgiving day, we just forgot to do it there. I definitely want to reinstate this tradition next year, wherever we find ourselves.

While walking earlier today to run some errands, I asked the sweet girl to think of three blessings she was thankful for. She decided on these three: "that we have a Christmas tree; that I have crayons I can color with; and you, Mommy." I liked the simplicity of that list, and of course was rather partial to that last one!

My own "list" today included how well S. is doing in school and how much she enjoys learning; the kindness and sweetness of her daddy; and all the blessings of the autumn season this year. That included yet another trip to Virginia to spend time with my parents and D's aunt, mom and mom's husband. I'm especially grateful for my parents' continued good health (they're both 76 now) and for the wonderful afternoon we got to spend with them at Maymont Park, a beautiful park we used to go to when I was a child. I hadn't been there in years and loved how much it hadn't changed: the barn with animals for petting, the long trail through ivy-covered tree-lined paths filled with stops to ooh and ahh over various North American animals like gray foxes, black bears, and even hawks and eagles in the aviary.

Better perhaps even that our time at the park was the precious time spent by the sweet girl in the back yard with my Dad, feeding the birds and squirrels.
For a city-dwelling child who loves trees and animals, this was sheerly heaven. I watched her dancing around sprinkling corn on the ground and putting seeds in the feeders and realized how dearly she would enjoy doing this every day. I've had to work since then on my contentment levels and not feeling a renewed sense of resignation that we're called to where we're called. There are blessings here too. May I do a better job of remembering that and "counting them" each day!

Of Jesse's Lineage

After a couple of weeks of playing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" during our Advent devotional time, the sweet girl asked if we could do another Advent song as we began our third week. I chose "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming." I love this beautiful hymn, and it seemed especially appropriate today as we lit the rose colored candle for the third Sunday.

Everything seemed to dovetail beautifully (and unexpectedly, totally unplanned by us!) for our evening devotions tonight. First we had an unexpected hour together beforehand as a family, just the three of us, and spent it watching some old home videos of Christmases past, including the sweet girl's very first Christmas. That video includes some footage that's very special to us, of what turned out to be our last visit with both of my husband's grandparents. They were nearing 90 that Christmas and both of them passed away the following spring, within a few months of each other. It's so lovely to have this recording of them opening their Christmas gifts in their living room, with Great-Grandma Lucille smiling and talking with our dear baby girl. And wonderful now for S. to be able to see that she really did meet her great-grandparents.

Then the little Advent paper chain we've been putting together, which has a different name or title for Jesus each evening, had the title "Son of David." We talked about what it means for Jesus to be called the Son of David. The sweet girl and I have been studying ancient Israel in school this autumn, so we've gone over David's line a few times, especially when we were reading the book of Ruth. She knows that David was the son of Jesse who was the son of Obed who was the son of Boaz who was the husband of Ruth. Talking about our own family trees as well as David's fit in beautifully with the line in "Lo How a Rose" which reminds us that the promised one was "Of Jesse's lineage coming..." We discussed what the word lineage meant and tied it back into our talking/celebrating/remembering of our own family as well.

I love such fruitful heart-shaping moments, especially the ones that feel like sheer gift. You couldn't plan them this well if you tried!

And as usual, I found myself soaking all of this up in my own heart. It dawned on me as we listened to the song and reflected together on Jesus' lineage that I often focus on the amazing blessing of Jesus' royal heritage and the joy and beauty of God's fulfilled promise...but how seldom do I just ponder the power of the simple fact that Jesus had a lineage. Like you and like me, he had a family tree. The one who made real trees! The one who made people and all the families of the earth! The eternal Word who has always existed, who has always been with God and is God, who made everything in heaven and on earth! He had no beginning (there was never a time when he was not) and yet he chose to be born of a woman, to place himself within a human family, to carve his name in a line of human beings. The root of everything, the blossom that grows from a stump, chose to humble himself and be born here on earth, to place himself within the confines of a particular family tree. It's breathtaking. He had a lineage. It makes me want to go back to all those "begats" I usually skim over in Matthew and Luke and read them with a newly thankful heart. In fact, I think I will do just that this week.

B is for Bethlehem

We've started pulling our favorite Christmas books off the shelves for family reading. Tonight at bedtime we read B is for Bethlehem, a book we first found when the sweet girl was just an infant.



I loved this book from the first time I laid eyes on it. The beautiful, vibrant colors of the illustrations, reminiscent somehow of folk art or patchwork quilts, work in lovely tandem with the rhyming couplets that take you through the alphabet and through the nativity story.

And I love the book for the memories I have of reading it over and over to S. when she was a baby and a toddler. Several of the pages glisten with tape because we couldn't bear to take it away from her determined baby grip and some of the pages ripped. She loved looking at it, long before she could have been fully conscious of what it was about. And we loved that her little eyes (and heart, we hoped!) were already drinking in the glorious news of Jesus' birth.

It was fun tonight to read through it together and hear her new observations. She realized that, even though it was an alphabet book, giving you words that represented each letter, it was also going through the story. She loved how it talked about light (it mentions that "R" is for radiance): "that's neat," she said, "because God is Light, and Jesus is God's Son."

Festivities

I've hardly caught my breath from thanksgiving travels (and I've not yet caught up with all the posts I wanted to do here, especially my annual "giving thanks" list) but we've already plunged into Advent and Christmas festivities. It seems like most of the things we traditionally do as a family, in terms of local celebrations, all got scheduled this past weekend! That meant our county's festival of the trees, where I captured this lovely photo, as well as the Christmas events at Old Economy (our nearby historic site) and the live nativity at the church down the street.

After all that, we went ahead and put up our Christmas tree and lights too. As much as I enjoyed it all, I'm hoping this coming weekend will feel much more relaxed! Before you know it, it will time to light the rose candle on our advent wreath...

I hope you're all finding time to rest, to breathe, to pray, to contemplate, in this busy season (yes, I've got papers to grade...)

We hear the Christmas angels, their great, glad tidings tell...Oh come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

Just Because I Don't Want to Forget This

The sweet girl was sound asleep when I went in to get her up this morning. I gently woke her and then, after giving a few stretches and yawns, she crawled sleepily onto my lap. We don't seem to have quite as many of these cuddly moments (now that she's a big girl of almost six and a half) as we used to, so I treasure every second of warm little girl in white kitty-cat pajamas scrunched up under fleece blankets and resting on my lap that I can get.

I asked her if she slept well and she said yes. Then, still bleary-eyed, but clearly beginning to wake up, she announced the following tale. I'll write it as clearly as I can remember it...there were a few pauses where I prompted her with general "and then what" kinds of questions. But here it is, complete and unabridged.

"Last night before I fell asleep, I made up a story about a family named the Thursdays. They have three children, twin girls and a baby boy. And they went to the park and the store and ran some errands. They had a picnic at the park. There were two slides there, and they were the same length. The twin girls slid down the slides and the one that got to the bottom of her slide first won. And then they bought a watermelon at the store. The post office and the store just took a few minutes, so after that they went to a restaurant to eat some dinner and then they came home."

Wow. So I'm not the only one in this household who makes up stories before I fall asleep! Kind of nice to know.

"Is Aslan Going To Be In This Story?"

We were traveling on November 29, so I missed my opportunity to post what's becoming my annual tribute to three writers who have been very important in my life's journey. November 29 marks the birthdays of C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, and Louisa May Alcott.

Madeleine would have turned 90 this year, and her daughter and granddaughter created a blog to post some special memories in her honor. They are beautiful and bring grateful tears to my eyes.

This Lewis-ian birthday happened to find us reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to our six year old while we traveled. On Sunday we were so thankful to find ourselves at a particularly riveting place in the story (Eustace's transformation from boy to dragon and back to boy) right as we got stuck in the worst of traffic near the entrance to the Pennsylvania turnpike on a cold, dark and rainy late afternoon.

It's been a few months since we read Prince Caspian, so I was wondering how well the sweet girl would remember Narnia. I should have known better. These stories have always captured her imagination, and she was eager to step back through the doors (okay, through a framed painting this time out) into Lewis' magical world again. And her sense of the story is so sound...right as we got to the part where Eustace turned into a dragon, she suddenly piped up from the back seat: "Is Aslan going to be in this story?" I almost laughed for joy, both at her ability to recognize that if there was ever a time for him to show up, it was now! and for the fact that he was indeed just about to arrive and provide the needful transformation that Eustace simply could not provide for himself.

Oh yes, sweetie, Aslan is going to be in this story. In fact, he's been here all along, quiet, beautiful, incognito, just waiting to be recognized as always.

Lord, give us eyes to see.

Harry Potter & Imagination

A quick shout-out this afternoon (we just got in late last night from our thanksgiving travels and I'm still unpacking, getting back into routine and trying to sort/shape my busy upcoming week!). But I wanted to post the news that Travis Prinzi's book Harry Potter & Imagination is now available for pre-order from Zossima.com. You can go here to check out Travis' posting at the Hogshead about his marvelous sounding book and find the click through to actually place an order.

The promotional blurb reads, in part, "Prinzi explores how fairy stories in general, and Harry Potter in specific, are not merely tales that are read to 'escape from the real world,' but stories with the power to transform by teaching us to imagine better." Sounds terrific, yes?

I first came across Travis' blog via John Granger. And John, astute and creative engager of all things HP, calls Travis' book a "trail-blazing guide into the world of Harry Potter." That recommendation alone will probably make you want to read it, but I suspect that the intriguing peek Travis gives into the table of contents will make most Christians who love to think about literature and imagination sit up and take notice too.

And I confess I have a slightly selfish motive in posting this recommendation today. Travis is giving all those who help publicize his book an opportunity to win a free copy. Since I'd love to curl up with this book during Christmastime, I thought I'd give it a try. And now you know about it too. As my six year old would probably say: "that's cool!"