Christmas Books & Homeschool Musings

Since we travel each Christmas, our family has gotten into a tradition of opening our gifts to each other sometime during the 12 days of Christmas after we return home. In recent years, we've tended to open gifts on New Year's Day, for the very practical reason that my husband has off from the office and we can have a relaxed and leisurely family morning.

Gifts are relatively few this year, but I suppose it's still possible I might have a book or two lying unopened beneath the tree (along with some socks, of course...) I've got a share in a family gift certificate to B&N thanks to a precious friend, and am pondering my endless list of books I'd love to read (there are many titles on my wishlist). Thanks to my very generous sister, however, I've already received two books, both from my Amazon wishlist, this Christmas: Alice Gunther's A Haystack Full of Needles, and Bob Hartman's Telling the Bible.

So tell me, what books did you get for Christmas?

It struck me, after I asked for these particular books, how much my reading tastes have changed in the past several years. For starters, both titles are non-fiction, something I used to read far more sparingly than I do now. These days I find myself far more drawn to the "new non-fiction" shelves at the library than the "new fiction" shelves, at least the adult fiction.

Secondly, the books represent deepening and ongoing passions in my life: my desire to build more community into our daily lives and homeschooling experience (hence the Gunther book) and my desire to be a better, more faithful and creative teller/writer/teacher of the Bible, at home and in other contexts (hence the Hartman).

It also dawned on me how much of my reading tastes are shaped by the internet. I would never have found Alice Gunther's book without having first read her blog and the blog of her friend Melissa Wiley. Those dear ladies, and a handful of other Catholic moms, writers, and homeschoolers, have no idea how much their blogs have meant to me in the past couple of years. As an Anglican homeschooler, I am in real awe of the richness of the Catholic homeschooling community and am so delighted I get to eavesdrop on their wonderful creativity. The way they share their lives with one another (and by extension with folks like me) is inspiring. My longing to build similar kinds of community and pockets of friendship is intensifying all the time. My desire to shape our homeschool experience by our observance of the church year and our unique traditions as Anglicans is also deepening.

The difficult thing, of course, is that most Anglicans don't homeschool...or at least relatively few of us in comparison to Catholics and non-Anglican evangelicals. Frankly I get lonely. The fact that I'm Anglican, that my family's life is shaped by urban mission and ministry, and that I only have one child can sometimes make me feel like an oddly shaped jigsaw piece trying to fit into a gorgeous puzzle. All the other pieces are shiny and well-cut and know where they're supposed to go. I'm the one that fell out of the box and got stuck under the sofa and then bent by the toddler. Whenever I start to feel that way though, I make myself stop. I think about the amazing diversity I have found among the homeschooling movement (where there seems to be no such thing as a "typical" homeschooling family, despite the abundant stereotypes). I laugh to think how some acquaintances of mine, who I'm pretty sure think homeschooling is only for crazy people, would marvel if they could see the depth and beauty of home learning in lives as diverse as the ones found at A Circle of Quiet, Karen Edmisten, and Mental Multivitamin.

Well, I've wandered far afield in these musings, which basically started out as "here are the books I got for Christmas"...but the point of good books is that they make me wander. And wonder. And ask questions. And think about who I am and who I'm still hoping to become.

All good things to ponder before opening presents on New Year's Day.

The Fourth Day of Christmas, and Richard III

I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas (or soon will...a note of greeting in case any of my eastern Christian friends are reading this!). We got home from our travels last night, a little worn out, a lot grateful, and mostly glad to be here.

It's snowing outside, and I've spent the day going back and forth between writing work and laundry, with an evening of grocery shopping and paper grading ahead of me. We're taking some days off from school, which I'm hoping will give me time to both catch up on end of semester work as well as an editing project. Then I need to move ahead, with joy and energy! to lesson plans and syllabi tweaking for the new year.

The sweet girl gave her dolls a Christmas party this morning. We spent time curled up reading Christmas picture books this afternoon, and she's spent the rest of the day doing various art projects.

I've not had much time for reading in these oh so busy weeks (nor for writing about what I'm reading) but I did just finish up William W. Lace's The Little Princes in the Tower, a fascinating introductory book about the two young princes imprisoned in the Tower of London by Richard of Gloucester in 1483. I got interested in the topic when we covered the War of the Roses in Story of the World in our last week of school before Christmas break.

Lacy's book is a quick read, at only a bit more than 100 pages long, and is going on my book list for 6th grade, the next time we plan to cover medieval history. Yes, I'm finally getting wise and starting to make book lists that far ahead. So often I pick up library books which aren't quite "right" for the sweet girl's current age level, or are a bit advanced so we only use bits of them, but I find myself thinking "this is a good book for down the road." It finally dawned on me that every time I think that, the book should go on a list for the future!

Reading about Richard of Gloucester, who became Richard III, made me think of Richard III, of course, as in Shakespeare's Richard III. I honestly can't recall if I've read the play or not, though I've seen the film version starring Ian McKellan. (I remember it's a rather odd version...does anyone have any thoughts about how it compares to the old Olivier version?)

It's been a long while since I've tackled reading any Shakespeare, and I decided I wanted to try this particular play while the subject's on my mind. I need a copy I can carry around with me, not the hardback Riverside Complete Shakespeare from my college days (which could work well as a boat if we ever got caught in a flood) so I went looking in the library catalog for a suitable paperback. Who knew just how many paperback versions of the bard existed?

I went with Penguin because...well...it's Penguin. But I'd love to know if any seasoned Shakespeare readers out there have a favorite version of his plays to recommend, either in paperback or in online sources (one with particularly good notes would be especially helpful). I don't do e-readers, and I spend way too much time working on our slow computer to be able to enjoy reading anything of length and complexity on screen, but if there's a good online version with helpful notes, I'd love to bookmark it and visit it periodically while I'm waddling around with my Penguin paperback this January.

Happy fourth day of Christmas!

Home

Why have I never read this poem before today? Certain lines seemed vaguely familiar, but like faint echoes...so if I have read it, it must have been a long time ago.

The more I read Chesterton, the more I love him. I was so moved by this that I almost wept. I really needed this poem before heading out, weary as I am, for our holiday travels. It's getting tucked inside my journal.

Thank you to A Quotidian Life for posting it.

I'm so glad I know where Home is, and who.

The House of Christmas

G.K Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

I Wonder What I'm Getting for Christmas...

A little while ago, the sweet girl and I were working our way through a big pile of laundry, chatting as we folded.

She held up one of my more pitiful socks.

S: Mommy, why do most of your socks have holes?
M: Well, a lot of my socks have worn out. And I haven't been able to replace them. So I'm keeping the ones with holes until I'm able to replace them.
S: (all in a rush) Don't do that till after Christmas! ~a pause, then ~ Not that I'm telling you what you're getting, just don't go out and buy any socks.

Hmm. Methinks my feet are going to be a lot more warm and cozy in January than they've been in December!

Of course, this slip-of-the-tongue can work both ways. I came close to doing it myself this morning when she came running over, holding up one of her favorite twist-up crayons with almost no crayon left in it. "Mommy, I'd really like it if we could get some more of these twisty crayons sometime. Lots of my favorite colors are out or almost out."

And I was this close to saying "Oh that's all right, honey. Daddy wrapped a package of those last night." Caught myself just in time!

Any good Christmas surprises hidden at your house?

The Jesse Tea

December is flying by, filled with its usual crazy mix of mundane end-of-semester duties and delightful seasonal joys, including people to see, places to go, work on the annual family letter and the writing of my annual advent poem. I feel crammed to bursting with too much to do and too much to ponder (if that second is possible) and too little time to do it in. I think that's true of most Decembers, but it feels particularly true of this year (just more work has come my way than usual recently) which means sometimes I feel like I'm running on fumes.

So I'm feeling extra grateful for any opportunities to catch my breath and also to exercise some creativity. Last Friday was a little bit of both those things, when I hosted a "Jesse Tea" for five children in our local little homeschool group.

I fell in love with the Jesse Tea idea when I first read about it here on Alice Gunther's blog Cottage Blessings. I probably first saw it a couple of years ago, and it's been in the back of my mind ever since to try to do this. I'm so glad I was able to do it for the homeschool group this year.

The Jesse Tea takes the traditional advent idea of a Jesse Tree (I love the play on words!) with its symbols of God's promises in Scripture, and moves it into the realm of a tea/celebration with the snacks taking on the symbolic roles. The snack ideas themselves are incredibly simple and I adapted/tweaked them even further to help my budget and to exercise some bits of my own creativity. I spent more time pondering the devotional thoughts that I talked through with the kids as I presented them with each snack or activity (I skipped one of the snack steps, the Noah boats, and had the kids color place cards with arks and rainbows on them instead). God's faithfulness to keep his promises and his loving and rescuing work each step along the Story were natural themes that kept coming out in the devotional ponderings.

I wasn't able to take many photographs -- and hesitate to use photos of the other kids without their parents' permission -- but these couple of photos will give you a glimpse of the "Joseph's coats" the children decorated (bread shapes, soft butter, colored sprinkles) and also the "Flowers of Jesse" we enjoyed at the end (shaped from spice gumdrops).




I wish I had gotten photos of some of the "Isaac's Bundles of Sticks" (pretzel sticks tied with red licorice laces) and some of "Abraham's Stars" (white chocolate chips with a dark purple plate for background). The kids also enjoyed "Moses' Burning Bush" (broccoli florets dipped in honey mustard dressing) and several other creative treats. We even had gummi worms (a big hit!) with our apples, to remind us of how sin entered the world, the disobedience of Adam and Eve to which God responded with his redemptive, rescuing work.

I was delighted to see how well the children responded to the whole thing. I'm already thinking about how I could do it again and do it even better, but this really was a lovely event! What I especially loved was hearing the kids answer questions I asked about the Bible stories and seeing them "make the connections" between the symbols and stories and between the stories themselves. My favorite was when we talked about the root of Jesse, and how God promised a "small shoot" would grow from the stump, all that was left of David's once great royal house. When I asked the kids "and who was the tiny shoot that grew from the root of Jesse," a lovely six year old girl piped up "Jesus -- when he was just a little, tiny baby!"

Just Imagine It's a Garden...

When we left for church this Sunday morning, it was raining -- freezing rain. The skies were filled with lowering gray clouds, the hills misted with fog and we were running late. I slipped a bit as I hurried into the car, and made some sort of disgruntled noise. And then I just plain old grumbled: "It would be much easier to walk over here if this was still grass."

Remember we used to have a bit of grass there? But last summer, it got ripped up and paved over to make...sigh....more sidewalk. That's the sidewalk I found myself inadvertently skating on this a.m. I've been grumpy about it for such a long time, venting about it on an icy morning seemed all too easy.

The sweet girl told me I shouldn't complain. She said the people who paved the sidewalk must have needed to. I agreed I shouldn't complain but told her that I didn't think they'd really needed to. And then I sighed and said something about the gray day and the expanse of icy parking lot.

"Just imagine it's a garden, mommy," my seven year old said. (She knows me well!)

And you know what? It helped.

Thankful for the Light

Monday, a new work and school week, a new opportunity to share some of my thanksgivings.

This morning I find myself particularly thankful for:

24. A beautiful weekend with D. and the sweet girl, full of Christmas preparation and events. The festival of Christmas trees, a horse and wagon ride down Church Street, candles in the cold. Good time around the advent wreath. Putting up our tree.

25. And oh, that tree! The sweet girl decorated most of it, so it's heavy (dripping!) with ornaments from about four feet and downwards. I know lots of people decorate beautiful, designer looking trees, but give me our homemade hodge-podge anytime, with every ornament collected over the past eighteen years a story in and of itself.

26. A lovely service at church yesterday, honoring our retired pastor. It was both a good and challenging time for me, as it brought up emotions and feelings on a lot of levels (including some, connected to our church's journey, that I didn't know I had). But ultimately good.

27. Lights! I love the lights on our tree, and the purple lights (for advent) that we string around the living room wall. Craving light as I am at this dark time of year, there couldn't be a better time to enjoy these tiny bits of brightness in our home. And how I loved hearing the sweet girl at prayers this morning (we prayed and did Bible reading by the tree) when she said so sweetly and simply "and thank you for the lights on our tree and how they remind us of Your light."

28. Slipper socks. This is not a joke, though I feel very Albus Dumbledore (well, early pre-DH Albus, anyway) when I write it. I have been so incredibly cold the past couple of weeks and I confess I've been having a bit of a pity party for myself because my heating pad died several months ago and all of my socks seem to have sprung holes at the same time (and we're having one of our very, very lean months where purchasing things like socks and heating pads just aren't on the list). Imagine my delight yesterday when I scrounged around in my drawer and found an old pair of slipper socks (warm, fuzzy, sky-blue, sans holes!) stuck way in the back. I think my sister might have given them to me for Christmas a few years ago, and they've still got some good wear in them. My toes are so much happier today!

29. The advent poem is coming. The advent poem is coming! (I feel like a breathless herald, like Paul Revere!) It's currently in embryo in my journal -- a very rough draft, in its most scribbled, lines-crossed-out, margin-noted form. But it is on its way.

Advent 1: "To come awake...to remain awake"

Our thanksgiving trip was full of blessings, though the travel itself was exhausting. We came home and "hit the ground running"...and it feels like we haven't stopped running yet!

I've been trying to move this week into a watchful, listening attitude, as of course we have also moved into Advent. Due to lots of traffic delays, we got home so late on Sunday evening that it was tempting to just push the beginning of Advent off by one day. But we love this season so much that it felt important to go ahead. Note to self next year: get the wreath and candles set up before we leave for our trip, so it's waiting and inviting us as soon as we walk in the door.

I'm discovering this year just how hard it is to stop and rest and listen when life feels stuffed with a long to-do list. Most of these "to-do's" aren't holiday related (though of course there are some extra activities connected to advent and Christmas and the almost inevitable stresses of our travel schedule) just ordinary work, life, family, ministry. Among other things, I'm a teacher, so it's end of semester crunch!

I hadn't realized how much I've been taking on and now it seems like everything is coming to a head all at once, with deadlines looming and many things needing attention. Most all of it is good, but I'm beginning to feel like I'm living in an overrun garden that needs pruning.

It's been helpful to dig back through some old journals and read snippets of poems, reflections, and quotes from other years, including some years when I seemed to have an easier time moving into listening/reflecting mode. Of all the books I have inside me to write (I told D. the other day that I think I have 7 or 8 books inside me at the moment, to which he replied "sounds painful!") the book of advent reflections feels closest to the surface.

Looking through a nine year old journal the other evening, I stumbled on this quote by C.S. Lewis, whose feast day we just celebrated.

"We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake."

I've loved that quote for a long time, but it's speaking to me on deep heart levels in this particular busy time. How comforting to know that in this "crowded world" (crowded with people, things, feelings, obligations, and so much more) that the world is "crowded with Him" -- that in fact, He walks among and through and in the midst of all that other stuff, trying to get our attention, often using it to get our attention. Our labour is to walk through the world on the lookout for signs of his presence, and to walk with attention -- not sleep-walk (as it's so easy to do when we're feeling so tired, or when we're experiencing emotional stress) but to really walk with our eyes open, paying attention.

November

On Sunday we celebrated Christ the King, which always falls on the final Sunday before Advent. When I turn to the readings in the Prayer Book these days, I am very near the back of the book as we've moved into the final "proper" before the readings beginning anew with Advent 1.

The older I get, the more I'm finding myself much more deeply attuned to the rhythms of the church year than to the actual calendar year. I'm realizing that it's this time of year when I'm getting truly excited about newness and fresh starts, much more than when we turn the calendar to January 1, although that's enjoyable too.

It's combination of things: the approach of Thanksgiving, a holiday near to my heart because it reminds me to be grateful and because it's the most time we get to spend with extended family each year, the approach of the prayerful, watchful season of Advent, which of course leads us to the dazzling light of Christmas. It's knowing that no matter how short and dark days seem right now, we're about to turn the corner and begin to bask in just a bit more light each day, a glorious reflection of the Light whose birth we're about to celebrate.

I love the month of October and have long called it my favorite. From a purely seasonal point of view, that's still true -- I love the bright blue days, the colored leaves, apples, pumpkin, corn, the still-longer amounts of daylight, the not-quite-so-cold as it's going to get. But from a heart perspective, I'm beginning to realize how much I love November. All Saints, Christ the King, Thanksgiving, the very tip of Advent.

And from a literary point of view (and those literary days are a deep part of my heart's journey) the November 22 Feast Day of C.S. "Jack" Lewis, and the commemoration of birthdays: Robert Louis Stevenson on November 13, Jack, Madeleine and Louisa (Lewis, L'Engle and Alcott) on November 29. And on the family calender, several extended family members' birthdays and also November 16, my late (paternal) grandparents' anniversary. 80 years since their wedding this year; I still keep a picture of their beautiful wedding day up on my bookshelf.

We're heading out for family visits soon, and I likely won't have much computer access for a few days. If you're reading this, know how many blessings I am wishing your way during this thanksgiving season, this beautiful November.

Dear Governor...

You've made my daughter cry. How does it feel to make a second grader cry?

Yes, that's right. Thanks to your recent $15 million budget cuts to the state historical and museum commission, our local historic site, a wonderful place that has provided us (not to mention thousands of other people) hours of learning and enjoyment, is being forced to shut its doors. It's a unique place, a place many towns across America would love to have in their midst. It's a place that provides an oasis of beauty in the midst of rusted urban decay and historic pride in a tiny town that has seen better days and doesn't always feel like it's got a lot to brag about anymore.

Frankly, we think you've made a mistake.

What good does it do to promise to maintain the buildings if you're not going to help maintain a staff there that can keep the place open to the public and provide educational tours for the public and for schoolchildren?

We're all aware these are difficult economic times, but oh, how I would love to get a look at the state budget and see what was prioritized ahead of the historical commission. I'll bet you some very smart moms and dads and schoolteachers and yes, schoolchildren could help you figure out other things that could be trimmed from that budget.

I'm endeavoring to at least teach my daughter a lesson in civics and in the potential for positive change if people come together and work hard enough. Today I explained to her what petitions are (since I was busy signing one). I've also suggested that she write you a letter. I don't know if she'll do it or not. She was busy wiping away tears and feeling unsure that a letter from a second grader could really make a difference.

So...civics lesson another day. Today we just needed some time and space to feel sad.

Grateful Heart: Thankful Monday

I've not been posting my gratitude list every Monday, but I have really been enjoying the exercise of reflecting on my blessings each Sunday, at the beginning of each new week. Here are a few to add to my ongoing list:

16. My husband is home! He had good, refreshing time away in South Carolina (and that's a blessing too) but now he is home, and I'm so delighted. Between his work hours and travel schedule, we've not had much time together this month, so the bits we've gotten in the past few days feel precious.

17. Time for creativity and shared imagination. I started working on a story during the days D. was away. Unexpectedly, it's a fantasy/fairy-tale type story (though perhaps that's not surprising given my reading fare in recent months). I really liked the characters, places, and political intrigues that were coming to me. When I started bouncing my ideas around with D., he immediately got into it, and now we're spending some time each evening creating more details together about this fictional world. We've even drawn a map! It's great fun to be working on a creative project together. I especially love how his great questions help spark my imagination.

18. Beautiful autumn weather. After that deep cold spell we had in October, November has turned unseasonably warm. That's not only a blessing for our utility bill, but gives us extra time to enjoy the outdoors before winter settles in to stay.

19. Time with a dear friend I'd not seen in several months. My friend Sandy moved to British Columbia in June, but is back to visit her precious first grandbaby. Yesterday we got a couple of hours together to walk and talk in the beautiful autumn weather I just mentioned.

20. My folks are OK from Hurricane Ida. They weren't in the worst of it down in Virginia, but they got a ton of rain and wind as the hurricane moved on. Lots of standing water in the yard, but no flooding in the house, no downed trees (like they suffered several years ago in the wake of Hurricane Isabel -- their roof took a real beating then!) and no power outages.

21. Some time to read and note-take on some good church history reads. I don't get/make enough time for that kind of continuing ed. but I find I am always blessed when I do -- and it strengthens my teaching in both the short-and-long term.

22. Recent assurance from the Lord that he loves me no matter what, and that my "adequacy" has nothing to do with it.

23. The sweet girl and I are reading a new Ramona book together. They're some of her favorite books in the world, and I parcel them out like chocolates!

So many more I could list, but I'll stop for now...

Literary Birthdays: Robert Louis Stevenson, November 13, 1850

This morning the sweet girl and I celebrated Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday with muffins and poetry reading. In a wonderful "coincidence," we just happened to be reading a book of his poems this month (before I remembered that November was his birth month).

Next perhaps to some hymn writers and the apostle John, Robert Louis Stevenson was probably the first poetic voice to speak to my heart. I shared his poems early with my daughter, and have continued to share them as she grows. She loves his work too.

There are so many repeated images and themes in his poetry that I love: dreams; rain; birds; ships at sea. I love that he is such a liminal poet. He seems to walk boundaries -- day/night, dark/light, sun/shadow, childhood/adulthood, waking/sleeping -- with the gracefulness of a tightrope walker.

We read a brief biography of him this morning, from the Robert Louis Stevenson volume in the "Poetry for Young People" series. A few of the facts we gleaned:

He came from a long line of lighthouse builders; he built poems.

He was ill during much of his childhood and spent a lot of time in bed; his weak lungs often meant he'd spend long nights coughing and longing for the dawn. Small wonder he explored the things he did.

His lungs never did get better. He ended up living in Samoa in his later years, searching for warm climates where he could breathe more easily. He died there of tuberculosis at the incredibly young age of 44. On his gravestone are etched these words, which he himself penned:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.


The Scottish Stevenson as painted by Sargent

Dragon PR

Earlier this week I finished Michelle Knudsen's The Dragon of Trelian (my full review at the link). For any of you scratching your heads and trying to come up with why the author's name sounds familiar, yes, she's the author of Library Lion, one of my seven year old's favorite picture books of all time (and it's pretty high on her dad's and my lists too). I picked the book up because it was penned by Knudsen -- I love her story-telling, and I'm always curious to know how someone known for good crafting in one genre tackles another. The answer here is: well, and quite creatively. It's a solid mid-grade fantasy.

Of course, it got me to thinking about dragons again. They do keep popping up. Remember this post from a few months back, when I found myself musing about the different ways in which dragons were presented in Tolkien and Rowling? Since then I've read three more dragon tales: this one, Rosemary Sutcliff's The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup, and a re-read of Margaret Hodges' picture book version of St. George and the Dragon.

It does seem as though dragons are getting a major make-over in fantasy literature today. While the more traditional tales (either older stories, or ones based on older stories, like Hodges') keep dragons in traditional roles, the newer tales, while maintaining many of the things we love about dragons -- their fierceness, scaliness, and fire-breathing capabilities -- have softened their image considerably. I keep thinking of those "soft lenses" that get used on Hollywood starlets, the ones that made their features look slightly blurred and dreamy and a bit more beautiful than they might look in harsher light.

The title dragon in Knudsen's story gets this softer treatment. His name is Jakl and he's an orphan. A young princess named Meglynne finds him, adopts him and cares for him, and ends up sharing a strange, mystical connection with him (think Vulcan mind link, only cross-species).

That seems to be part of the new package: it seems like lots of people have secretly wanted dragons for pets/companions, and these days those kinds of stories abound. I know this isn't a precisely new element to dragon stories (Kenneth Grahame and Ruth Stiles come to mind, as earlier representatives) but it does seem to be making a comeback. I suspect that may be due almost entirely to Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper who gave Norbert his own teddy bear...

The other recurring elements I'm seeing in this trend: viewing dragons as somehow misunderstood or mistreated, and seeing them ultimately fight on the "right" side. Part of the fun in Trelian is seeing the dragon fight with and for the princess. Indeed, there's a heart-stopping moment where you realize, once the major battle against the baddies has been won, that the dragon might be brought down by unobservant good guys who just aren't used to seeing a dragon fighting to protect the castle and its inhabitants. My favorite line in the whole book, uttered by the magician Serek: "The dragon is, ah, on our side."

Almost makes you wish you could steal an imaginative page from a dragon PR agent. I suspect it would read something like this. "Baby, the days of type-casting are so over! I know you're tired of breathing fire and looking like a bad guy, but you don't have to limit yourself to those kinds of scenes. Remember Norbert! Remember Jakl! Be subversive! Hold out for the ground-breaking roles!"

Everybody's a Critic: The "New" Winnie the Pooh

I finally picked up my library hold shelf copy of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the authorized "sequel" to A.A. Milne's original Pooh classics. I've only read the introduction and the first story, but so far am cautiously optimistic. David Benedictus mostly seems to "get" Milne's voice and rhythm, and the illustrations by Mark Burgess gently mimic E.H. Shepard's original illustrations. They're also colored with lovely, light washes of color.

I know my friend Erin, Pooh devotee extraordinaire, enjoyed it, but I hear it's not getting very good reviews overall. When my husband picked the book up at the library, the librarian basically told him to tell me not to get my hopes up because the early reviews have been dreadful.

The sweet girl was curious about the book, so I explained to her that this author and artist have been given permission by the people who own the rights to the original Pooh stories, to write and draw more stories like them. I tried to explain the notion of similar styles, and I explained how long ago the original Pooh books were written because I wasn't sure she realized just how old they were (we do love them!).

When she was getting ready for her bath this evening she paused to look at the cover of the book, then said, in a rather disapproving voice, "Why is Piglet's sweater green?"

"What?" I asked, having (I must confess) not noticed this detail of the cover art.

"Why is Piglet's sweater green? It should be pink." And then she added, in a resigned tone, "Maybe the man who drew the new pictures for this new book just didn't know what color Piglet's sweater should be."

I guess everyone's a critic, even my seven year old. That Pooh bar is set pretty high!

The Cost of a Lighted World

A few years ago I jotted down this story from the book Aquachurch by Leonard Sweet:

"As a child in the 1950s, I heard a story at a holiness revival meeting in New York. It seems a certain missionary, home on leave, was shopping for a globe of the world to take back to her mission station. The clerk showed her a reasonably priced globe and another one with a light bulb inside. 'This is nicer,' the clerk said, pointing to the illuminated globe, 'but of course, a lighted world costs more.'

What has lighting our world cost you lately?"

I thought of that story yesterday evening when the sweet girl called me into her room after dinner. The early darkness (courtesy of daylight savings) means she is getting more dark-evening playtime after dinner, and she's taken full advantage of it the past few nights. She dresses in dance skirt and shoes, pulls the shades, douses every light in her room, brings out flashlights, and then hits the play button on the CD player. Her favorite right now is Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and she'll dance away to it, beaming her flashlights around to make spotlights. (If anyone on the hill happens to be watching the windows of our building, they probably think we're signaling some urgent message...)

But last night she came running out her room, insisting I come back and see something neat. Her inflatable globe -- not the globe on a stand we bought from mission-going friends at their recent yard sale -- would light up if she positioned her flashlight on one of the light blue ocean areas. The light wouldn't shine through the darker colored plastic of the continents, but when she pushed her little flashlight against one of the oceans, the entire world did indeed light up.

It sounds so simple, a little plastic globe lit by a flashlight, but can I tell you something? It was breathtaking. We both just stood there in awe, looking at that brightly lit sphere in the midst of her dark room. It was a bit of magic, a small, softly glowing planet seeming to hover in the dark but familiar space of her room. There was something fragile and lovely about it, like a Christmas ornament. We slowly turned it, letting it revolve as the music played. Beauty discovered. Beauty shared. I realized later that it was one of those moments that I think will stand out indelibly in my mind in years to come, as I look back on my little girl's growing up years.

Hours later, I thought of the Sweet quote. I've always liked it, not only because it's a terrific illustration ("that'll preach," as one of my seminary profs used to say) but because that final question seems so challenging. "What has lighting our world cost you lately?" helps me to think about my actions, whether or not what I'm doing or not doing helps to shed some light in dark places. And sometimes, yes, light-filled actions are costly.

But that night I found myself thinking of something different. In one sense, a lighted world costs a great deal. In another sense, for we children of God it's utterly free, a gift, the kind of gift you're not at all expecting, like when your seven year old runs toward you, her face eager and alight, to tell you she wants to show you something beautiful.

Because we don't light the world, do we? At least not in the sense that God does. God, the one who said "let there be light," the one who himself is called "the light," the one who shined light on the people who had walked in great darkness, he is the one who truly bears light to this dark world. He is the one who promised his people, when they were languishing in despairing darkness, that he would not leave them there, that he would come and rescue them, even if it cost him everything.

And it did. So in a very deep sense, you can truly say that a lighted world costs everything. It cost Jesus everything. And yet, as grateful receivers of that light that illumines our hearts, we know it is also utterly and beautifully free.

I know, of course, that we too are called to be lights, to not hide our lamps under a bushel, to let our lights so shine before others that God is glorified and so those who see our lesser lights find themselves looking to the source of light and life we reflect. Small wonder we creatures of this world love the moon, that "lesser light to rule the night," because in a deep sense, we relate to a waxing and waning satellite that has no true light of its own but can only reflect the greater light. Of course, it is still the moon's task to shine. And so it is our's. But we need to be in the right position to do so, our face turned towards the source of all radiance.

Oh Lord, make us radiant. Make your face to shine upon us so that we reflect your glory. Help us remember that you have lit the world at great, dear cost. Help us to take your light (like a small flashlight in the hand of an eager child) into those corners and heart spaces where your light has not been fully comprehended, into places where the darkness battles bitterly to try to take back ground. Help us, Lord, to do battle with courage, and not to cede an inch to the dark. For this world is so beautiful when it's fully lit by your love.

Thankful Monday

Another Monday zipping by, and I've not had time to post my gratitude list. Right now I'm especially thankful for:

11. Time this past weekend to cook, bake and clean. Now if I could only wiggle some writing time in there!

12. The fact that my seven year old truly enjoys (yes, ENJOYS!) scrubbing the bathtub. Cleaning the bathroom has always been my least favorite chore, and it's so much more fun with an enthusiastic little girl right beside me, chipping in and marveling over the fun of scrubbing sponges and soap.

13. That we have not yet succumbed to illness. There are a lot of germs floating around out there, seemingly everywhere we turn. Neither D nor I has been getting the sleep we need, and we've all battled some congestion/sore throats, but not one of us has really fallen badly ill.

14. For the opportunity to reconnect with a couple of old friends this week via Facebook. I know FB can be a bit of a mixed blessing, but sometimes it's a real gift.

15. For the Lord's continued provision for our family. We're able to pay the bills this month again, always a "thank you." And thanks to extra work projects and some timely gifts from loving friends and ministry partners, we've been able to buy groceries for the past few weeks without resorting to credit and without huge levels of anxiety in the grocery store. I can't tell you how good that feels. Even better, the delight of relaxing and being able to give a bit more ourselves.

For All the Saints, Who From Their Labor Rest

I so love this hymn.

You can hear it here, with a full choir and organ.

The text is by William How, the glorious music by Ralph Vaughn Williams (whose music I've listened to for much of this day). God's gift of music through Ralph Vaughn Williams is yet one more reason I am thankful for the Anglican tradition.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!/We feebly struggle/they in glory shine/all are one in Thee/for all are Thine./Alleluia! Alleluia!


A blessed All Saints Day to you!

The Continuing Adventures of Betsy, Tacy and Tib

Although I thought the sweet girl was relating most to Tib in our recent read-aloud of Maud Hart Lovelace's first two Betsy-Tacy books, she has recently declared herself Betsy. She's named two of her dolls Tacy and Tib, and this afternoon they've been very busy. In fact, everywhere I turn, that trio is up to something!

Today's adventures....Betsy, Tacy and Tib have played with Lego's, given each other fun hairstyles, and gone to dancing class. That would be the sweet girl's darkened room, with music playing and a big flashlight to use as a spotlight.

Although I cracked up over the idea of Betsy, Tacy and Tib (those playmates of the late 1890s) playing with Lego's, it did dawn on me that they would probably have loved them if they'd been invented back then. Tib's brother Hobbie would have too. In fact, one could almost imagine Hobbie growing up to invent them. Think about what great fun they had building a playhouse with the wood in the Mueller's basement!

I must confess that seeing the sweet girl so enthusiastically making up stories for the terrific trio makes me wish that she had a) sisters; b) nearby cousins, both in age and geography; or c) neighbors with bookworm kids.

But I will count my blessings that she is blessed with a lovely, vivid imagination!

I wonder if we could start a girl's book group?

Fully 5/6 An Authentic Janeite

True confession: though I've loved Jane Austen's work for a decade, and spoke and written of my love for her work far and wide, I've never really felt like a fully authentic Janeite.

Yes, I've read all six of her published novels. No, I've not read all her letters (though I have read some) and I've not read her "juvenalia" or her unfinished novel Sanditon. That last is a purposeful decision...I found myself feeling so sad that I had no more Austen novels to read, I just didn't want to read the very last one yet, even if it's incomplete.

When I say I've read all six of her novels, here's the caveat: four of them I have read repeatedly. They've turned into almost annual re-reads for me. I especially love reading Jane in autumn and winter, and these four novels have become real delights in my life. Ordering them into a list of favorites would be difficult, since I love them all and they've each probably been "my favorite" at one time or another. If forced to choose, I will probably order them this way: Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility.

Okay, my secret is out. I do not regularly re-read either Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park. How to justify this? Well, Northanger Abbey was the first Austen book I read after Pride and Prejudice, about a decade ago. I liked it, but I don't think I had yet fully learned to appreciate her work. I do think that Austen is an acquired taste. The complexity of her prose (especially dialogue) and the surprisingly and sometimes subtly humorous tone (which I'd never been prepared for) take a while to fully fall into. Or at least they did me. Once I fell, I fell completely, but I think it was a book or so past Northanger. In the meantime, I'd seen the A&E 1995 mini-series version of P&P, which I credit with training my ear to be able to "hear" Austen as I read the words on the page.

And I have no good reason for not returning to Mansfield Park. I know many people swear that it's the best of all her work, but the one time I read it, it somehow struck me as different in tone than the others. (Duh...different how? I don't yet know.) The characters didn't grab me by the scruff of the neck and demand to be remembered (or even ask me to dance).

I've read bits and pieces about both novels over the years, but I've not allowed myself to watch any film adaptations of either, not wanting to be prejudiced before I read them again. And I've not actually returned to reading either book again...until this past week.

This week I decided to re-read Northanger Abbey. I figured what better week to read Gothic satire than the week leading up to Halloween? But I confess I felt nervous as I took the book off my shelf. It felt too smooth, the binding too uncreased, the pages too new to be one of my beloved Austen books. And what if...perish the thought...my reading experience remained the same as the first time and I still didn't "fall into it completely"?

Silly me. If Jane is an acquired taste, then I have so long ago acquired it that reading her now feels like second nature. I should have realized that I've spent so much time with Jane in the intervening years that I would recognize her voice as soon as I began reading. I should have known that one can never really have the same reading experience twice, because wherever one is today is not where one was ten years ago (or five, or one, or possibly even last month).

So I picked it up and began: "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine."

And oh, I fell! I fell!

What a delicious novel! Its pointed satire, witty dialogue, delightfully and sometimes painfully naive young heroine, hysterical send-ups of gothic literature (no wonder Bronte tut-tutted over Jane), and sometimes just downright snarky humor had me chuckling as I turned pages. And turned pages quickly, as I discovered, much to my joy, that reading it after the passage of so many years made it almost feel like a "new" Austen book, one I couldn't put down. Henry Tilney is a marvelous hero: funny and snarky himself at times, but almost unfailingly kind to Catherine and (thankfully) stable. And the looked-for-and-expected cad, John Thorpe, is not quite the devilish cad of later Austen novels -- he's mostly just a colossal bore who talks endlessly of the superiority of his horse and curricle (think of a contemporary man who drones on about his car, or for you Lovelace fans -- think Phil Brandish and his amazing red auto). The mis-communications between Thorpe and Catherine were enough to make me laugh into my pillow.

What a delight to re-read Northanger Abbey and love it so. I now consider myself almost completely an authentic Janeite, or at least 5/6 of one. Next up, sometime this autumn or winter, a re-read of Mansfield Park!

"Comfort Food" Movies

I've been thinking a lot about comfort food this week as I begin to make some of my favorite fall recipes. Suddenly we're cooking and baking with lots of orange, from pumpkin to sweet potatoes! Autumn is a time for squash soups, for thick, warm breads, for butter and cinnamon and apples.

Yesterday the sweet girl and I had a poetry tea party (I guess we could call these "poet-teas"?) the first of many, I hope. We'd baked our traditional pumpkin-butterscotch cookies the day before, and had some of those along with tea in thin white cups (she wanted peppermint with good dollops of milk from the little pumpkin-shaped cream pitcher, and I had decaf British Blend, my current favorite) all on an autumn-patterned cloth. We read fall-like poetry and just other poems that struck our fancy: Robert Louis Stevenson, David McCord, Christina Rossetti, William Blake.

I've been feeling extra tired this week. So last night, with D. having another late night at work and the sweet girl in bed, I crashed on the couch in front of one of my favorite "comfort food movies" -- The Sound of Music.

You know what I mean by comfort food movies -- the kind of movies that are so deliciously familiar that you feel like you're eating your mom's mashed potatoes or your favorite homemade mac and cheese. It's nourishing but not surprising to your palette -- you know just how it's going to taste, and it always feels great going down. You know it was made with love. You know other people love it too. Not twists or turns in the story recipe, which you know by heart, so it sometimes makes you sleepy (and you can probably quote from it in your sleep too). That kind of comfort food movie.

The Sound of Music is one of my favorite such movies. Besides the story, acting and singing (all of which I love) I love the feelings it evokes for me. I always remember the wonderful evening, oh so many years ago, when the film first burst onto my consciousness. I went with my dad and older sister to see it on a big screen at the Byrd Theater in Richmond. The Byrd was a majestic movie house from a bygone age of film-going, and it forever ruined me for utilitarian multiplexes. It had ornate decorations and red velvet seating, a "mighty wurlitzer" organ, and a lobby with a shimmering chandelier. I still recall how stunned I felt when we stepped back into that lobby at intermission (yes, a real intermission with an orchestral interlude). Remember what happens right before the intermission? Maria has just packed her bag so she can run away to the abbey, away from the dashing retired naval captain whose love she'd never sought but whose love she nevertheless finds herself longing for, and as she leaves she casts one last yearning look around the huge entrance-hall to the von Trapp family mansion. You know, the one with the shimmering chandelier. When we stepped out of the film world and into the lobby of the Byrd, I am pretty certain I just stood there and gawked. I was sure somehow the movie world had extended into my real nine-year-old life and I was just plain dazzled.

So every time I watch The Sound of Music, that memory watches with me. But so many other memories come along for the ride too. After seeing it on the big screen, I watched it for many years in its choppily edited version on network television. I still know all the places where the t.v. version made cuts, because I still find myself startled when the actors and actresses move into those bits of speech or song, as though they snuck them in as extras when I wasn't looking. After all these years, it still feels like bonus material.

And of course, I know the songs by heart. My sister and I used to sing along with the record album...yes, I did say album...and I know Julie Andrews' inflections and phrasings so well I tend to note the places where she pauses for breath. I also know all the places where she soars on the high notes, so I can adjust the volume on the remote control accordingly (since we're spread out on one floor, late-night movies tend to keep other people in the house awake, like tired seven year olds who should be sleeping, so I'm careful with volume).

Did I mention that Christopher Plummer was my first "movie crush"? I still melt into a puddle over the love scene in the gazebo, even though I've long since read and heard the things Andrews and Plummer have said about the hilariousness of that shot, their unprofessional bout of giggles, and how Robert Wise basically gave in and shot it in semi-darkness in an attempt to calm things down. He liked the silhouette so well he decided to keep it.

And I'm amazed that I still find things to notice in the movie that I've never really noticed before, like the shot that pans upward at the wedding, focusing in on the beautiful church altar, then swings to the bell-towers as we note the passing of time, then seems to hover in mid-air as we find our focus on a nazi flag and a square full of goose-stepping soldiers. I got shivers last night seeing that, noting how quickly and powerfully our attention was moved from the altar to the flag, and how that seemed to symbolize, in just a few seconds, exactly how Germany had swallowed up Austria. Only of course, not swallowed it up entirely, as we see in subsequent scenes of quiet courage.

What a great movie. What a great week for comfort food.