I've lived for almost fourteen years in the same very small town. I've walked countless miles on the streets and sidewalks. Every block has multiple memories attached to it.
Would you believe I actually have a literary memory rooted here? It has to do with the drugstore about 3 blocks from our house. It's a chain store that's changed names over the years but still looks much as it did when we moved to town. It's not the drugstore where we have our pharmacy so I'm not there too often, but since it's so close, I do pop in from time to time.
When the sweet girl was an infant, I was going through a difficult season. I was filled with joy over becoming a mom and loving our precious baby, but I was also struggling with postpartum depression. Several family members and friends passed away in the first eleven months of our daughter's life. It was a season tempered by high joys and deep griefs, often tumbling close together.
In the midst of all this, I was not always getting much sleep. Sometimes I just needed a break. My dear husband would say "take an hour" and shoo me out the door, often encouraging me to pick up my favorite Chinese food a few blocks away. I was working part-time at the seminary then and had my own office, and I would often take a book and the Chinese food and go hole up in the office (with the door locked) for about an hour, just to have some alone time.
And it was during that season that I fell in love with the Harry Potter books.
I'd read Sorcerer's Stone several months before. And I enjoyed it. D. and I agreed it was highly creative, especially the final chapters (with that eerie and interesting end we hadn't foreseen). I liked the characters, the humor, the plays on words.
But it was a busy season of life. And while I knew I wanted to go on to book two, I didn't feel compelled to read it immediately, the way you sometimes feel when you finish a story.
All of that changed the day I wandered into that little drugstore down the road, worn out and in need of some reading material. It's such a laugh to think I was looking for reading material in a drugstore, of all places. Our shelves at home are crammed with books. The library's about two blocks in the other direction. I was actually looking for a glossy magazine with pretty pictures, preferably of houses and gardens (I was so very tired right then that I'd discovered home and garden type magazines with pretty pictures were my best bet for reading material during the many hours I was nursing my baby).
What I found was a paperback copy of Chamber of Secrets. Oh, I thought, that's the second Harry Potter book. I've been meaning to read that. I picked it up, made sure I had enough money on me to purchase it, and took it to the counter. And I'm pretty sure I started it that afternoon, quite possibly holed up in my office with a carton of chicken and broccoli and a fortune cookie.
The rest, as they say, is history. I loved Chamber of Secrets. It made me laugh, it kept me on the edge of my seat, and I fell in love with Harry and his friends. It was the book that compelled me -- almost immediately -- to go find the third and fourth books (the only ones out at that time) and to wait with eager anticipation for the fifth. And reading that book propelled me into some of the best communal, literary discussion I've ever been privileged to enjoy, discussion that kept going for years.
So here at the end of July 31st, I tip my hat to the local drugstore, a strange literary landmark if there ever was one. I remain inordinately fond of their magazine and book aisle, though I'm not sure I've ever purchased anything else from it. And I also tip my hat to Harry and to his author, J.K. Rowling, and wish them both the happiest of birthdays.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Brave Writer
I've been working on homeschool plans for the fall and am having entirely too much fun exploring the Brave Writer website. Although I plan to continuing using Writing With Ease for our main writing curriculum this year, I'm looking forward to supplementing with some of the Brave Writer materials. I've also been mining the site and its accompanying blog for ideas (Friday Free Writes, complete with prompts! Poetry Teatimes!) and enjoying some of the posts there.
And I must say I love this saying from what they term the Brave Writer lifestyle, which feels so appropriate for how I'm trying to shape our whole lifestyle of learning that I think I should write it with a gold metallic marker and put it somewhere near my desk: "Remember: depth over breadth, enjoyment over struggle, commitment over clutter."
And I must say I love this saying from what they term the Brave Writer lifestyle, which feels so appropriate for how I'm trying to shape our whole lifestyle of learning that I think I should write it with a gold metallic marker and put it somewhere near my desk: "Remember: depth over breadth, enjoyment over struggle, commitment over clutter."
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Little Princess: Book and Film
The sweet girl and I have both been feeling a little under the weather the past few days. Nothing terrible, but extra tired (probably the heat).
Last night her Daddy had to work late, and we decided that we needed a girl's movie night, even though it was just Monday -- movie nights in our household tend to be on Fridays. But hey, it's summer! And it felt good to loll around for a bit!
So during dinner we watched Little Princess, the Alfonso Cuaron directed version from 1995. It was the sweet girl's pick: she's been interested in seeing it ever since we finished our second read-through of the book, which is one of her absolute favorites.
I'd seen the movie before, and remembered a lot of the changes made to the plot, but I'd forgotten how much they seem to miss the heart of the book. I know I'm biased because the book is so beloved. And I continue to struggle with the idea of whether or not faithfulness to the source material is a valid criteria for judging the ultimate success of a film. I'm torn between reviewing a film on its own merits as a film, and providing contrasts with the book. I usually end up trying to find a balance.
At least that's what I tried in this review I posted at Epinions earlier today. If you know the book or the movie, or if you know both, what do you think? Would you agree with my assessment that "striving to act like a princess in terribly degraded circumstances is a real and moving struggle for Sarah Crewe, and that struggle is mostly lost in translation"?
Because sometimes films can have beautiful artistry in their own right and yet retain the heart of the source material. D. and I recently finished re-watching To Kill a Mockingbird, and once again I'm in awe at how well that movie captures the essence of the book. The book makes me weep, but then so does the film. Different sorts of weeping maybe, but tapping the same stream.
Last night her Daddy had to work late, and we decided that we needed a girl's movie night, even though it was just Monday -- movie nights in our household tend to be on Fridays. But hey, it's summer! And it felt good to loll around for a bit!
So during dinner we watched Little Princess, the Alfonso Cuaron directed version from 1995. It was the sweet girl's pick: she's been interested in seeing it ever since we finished our second read-through of the book, which is one of her absolute favorites.
I'd seen the movie before, and remembered a lot of the changes made to the plot, but I'd forgotten how much they seem to miss the heart of the book. I know I'm biased because the book is so beloved. And I continue to struggle with the idea of whether or not faithfulness to the source material is a valid criteria for judging the ultimate success of a film. I'm torn between reviewing a film on its own merits as a film, and providing contrasts with the book. I usually end up trying to find a balance.
At least that's what I tried in this review I posted at Epinions earlier today. If you know the book or the movie, or if you know both, what do you think? Would you agree with my assessment that "striving to act like a princess in terribly degraded circumstances is a real and moving struggle for Sarah Crewe, and that struggle is mostly lost in translation"?
Because sometimes films can have beautiful artistry in their own right and yet retain the heart of the source material. D. and I recently finished re-watching To Kill a Mockingbird, and once again I'm in awe at how well that movie captures the essence of the book. The book makes me weep, but then so does the film. Different sorts of weeping maybe, but tapping the same stream.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Reading and Writing Biography and History: What Matters Most
A friend of mine recently emailed me an article entitled "So Many Different Dietrich Bonhoeffers" by Richard Weikart. Within the context of his wider agenda of discussing the ways in which Bonhoeffer has been made over in the image of various liberal and conservative thinkers, Weikart takes Eric Metaxas' recent biography of Bonhoeffer to task for this very practice. He castigates Metaxas for actual historic errors, a lack of deep understanding of historical and theological context, and finally, for presenting a portrait of Bonhoeffer that is far too evangelical.
I found myself at sixes and sevens when I read this piece. First of all, I should note that I read Metaxas' Bonhoeffer biography this past February. To be more honest, I should say I tumbled headfirst inside it and devoured it. Laying aside, just for a moment, any or all qualms about its historical accuracy or the worth of its interpretive lens (we'll come back to those things) the book was crafted so well from a stylistic standpoint that it was hard to put down. Metaxas, whose book on Wilberforce I truly loved, has a way of warmly inviting readers into the story of his subject. He has a knack of making you feel as though you are in the person's presence. He is also artful in his use of quotes. In other words, he can tell a good story (something I am coming to prize in the world of biography) and his tales go down easy.
But when it comes to writing biography, is spinning a good story enough if one isn't historically accurate? And how much does one's own context come into play in the way one spins a tale?
Although I devoured the Bonhoeffer book, I did not feel the full-hearted love for it that I had for the Wilberforce volume. It left me feeling a little unsatisfied and ragged. In fact, I never reviewed the book, as I normally would such a large volume I'd spent so much time with. It took me a while to muddle through to why, and my reflections helped me to think through how much the shape of a subject's life also affects the shape of a biography.
One reason the Bonhoeffer biography felt untidy and somehow incomplete is that Bonhoeffer's life felt that way. I don't mean to speculate on how Bonhoeffer himself felt when he died. Indeed, the accounts we have of his death seem to indicate that he died peacefully, a man at rest with God. But the fact remains that he was a victim of war; his life came to a tragic and sudden end when he was only 39, and when the war was almost over. Presumably, had the government not discovered Canaris' diaries, it would not have gone after the conspirators. With the war so close to its end, he would likely have been liberated and perhaps gone on to live a long life, thinking, writing, and teaching more. And had he done so, probably many of the questions people raise about his theology would have become much more clear.
The fact that Bonhoeffer was in prison for almost two years before he died also seems to complicate things for Metaxas, and (I would imagine) for any biographer. There's only so much we know about those final two years, most of it from letters and poems Bonhoeffer wrote from prison, or from the memories of loved ones who visited him during that time. The last three months, when he was being moved often and in secrecy, are almost a complete blank. Here is where I really struggled with Metaxas' biography, because he had to rely almost completely on the reminisces of people who just happened to share prison transports and cells with Bonhoeffer. Their perspective can make you feel as though you're viewing blurred snapshots from the final months, and those only taken every few days.
But back to my original musings about what makes good history and biography. Weikart certainly isn't the only critic to call Metaxas' work into question. Fellow evangelicals, though more sympathetic in tone, have also called him on his scholarship. There's a really good article from Christianity Today back in February (yes, I'm late to this party) that rounds up early reactions and responses to the book. Even the author of this article, who lauds Metaxas for his vivid writing (and doesn't dismiss the worth the book still has, which I appreciate) admits that the book is "agenda-driven." But of course he does so within the context of admitting that all history/biography (and even all book reviews!) are agenda-driven to some extent.
To some extent. I repeat that, because it seems to me that sometimes our writing is not so much agenda-driven (which implies we've consciously got our agenda in the front seat, calling the shots) as worldview soaked.
It's true that it helps us to clearly know from what perspective/lens (and potential bias) we're writing from, but writing from one is a given. We can't perch on an imaginary objective pedestal when we write: we write from a given place, time, and culture colored by our own unique personal history and understanding.
I also think there are times when writing from a clearly inhabited perspective is helpful. It's true that there are times when our given perspective distorts what we see and how we report it. But there may also be times when our given perspective sharpens what we see and how we write about it. In this particular case, I'm thinking that, while it seems to be true that Metaxas' understanding of Bonhoeffer's theological context doesn't go very deep, his perspective as an evangelical does help him to ferret out those places where Bonhoeffer manages to get past his own potential biases to critique theological liberalism -- in American seminaries of the period, for instance, or even in the work of his teacher Harnack. Doesn't it seem worth noting the places where Bonhoeffer steps outside the box you assume he would fit most comfortably inside, given the theological training he was steeped in? Does it take evangelical eyes to see those places?
So what, beyond in-depth research and artful telling, matters most when writing good biography and history? I'm still thinking this through. It seems that much biographical writing would be helped by a candid acknowledgment of our own context (with its potential strengths and drawbacks), a willingness to wrestle with at least some key sources that interpret a subject from a different perspective of our own, and a steeping (as much as possible) in the voice of our biographical subject. One reason I love using primary sources when I teach history is that nothing seems to take the place of hearing the actual voice of someone from the time period under discussion. Yes, sometimes those texts will be in translation (and that raises the issue of perspective in translation work!) and we still have to interpret what we read, but a thoughtful wrestling with primary sources can still go a long way toward insuring that we have a thorough understanding of a biographical subject.
More on this another time.
I found myself at sixes and sevens when I read this piece. First of all, I should note that I read Metaxas' Bonhoeffer biography this past February. To be more honest, I should say I tumbled headfirst inside it and devoured it. Laying aside, just for a moment, any or all qualms about its historical accuracy or the worth of its interpretive lens (we'll come back to those things) the book was crafted so well from a stylistic standpoint that it was hard to put down. Metaxas, whose book on Wilberforce I truly loved, has a way of warmly inviting readers into the story of his subject. He has a knack of making you feel as though you are in the person's presence. He is also artful in his use of quotes. In other words, he can tell a good story (something I am coming to prize in the world of biography) and his tales go down easy.
But when it comes to writing biography, is spinning a good story enough if one isn't historically accurate? And how much does one's own context come into play in the way one spins a tale?Although I devoured the Bonhoeffer book, I did not feel the full-hearted love for it that I had for the Wilberforce volume. It left me feeling a little unsatisfied and ragged. In fact, I never reviewed the book, as I normally would such a large volume I'd spent so much time with. It took me a while to muddle through to why, and my reflections helped me to think through how much the shape of a subject's life also affects the shape of a biography.
One reason the Bonhoeffer biography felt untidy and somehow incomplete is that Bonhoeffer's life felt that way. I don't mean to speculate on how Bonhoeffer himself felt when he died. Indeed, the accounts we have of his death seem to indicate that he died peacefully, a man at rest with God. But the fact remains that he was a victim of war; his life came to a tragic and sudden end when he was only 39, and when the war was almost over. Presumably, had the government not discovered Canaris' diaries, it would not have gone after the conspirators. With the war so close to its end, he would likely have been liberated and perhaps gone on to live a long life, thinking, writing, and teaching more. And had he done so, probably many of the questions people raise about his theology would have become much more clear.
The fact that Bonhoeffer was in prison for almost two years before he died also seems to complicate things for Metaxas, and (I would imagine) for any biographer. There's only so much we know about those final two years, most of it from letters and poems Bonhoeffer wrote from prison, or from the memories of loved ones who visited him during that time. The last three months, when he was being moved often and in secrecy, are almost a complete blank. Here is where I really struggled with Metaxas' biography, because he had to rely almost completely on the reminisces of people who just happened to share prison transports and cells with Bonhoeffer. Their perspective can make you feel as though you're viewing blurred snapshots from the final months, and those only taken every few days.
But back to my original musings about what makes good history and biography. Weikart certainly isn't the only critic to call Metaxas' work into question. Fellow evangelicals, though more sympathetic in tone, have also called him on his scholarship. There's a really good article from Christianity Today back in February (yes, I'm late to this party) that rounds up early reactions and responses to the book. Even the author of this article, who lauds Metaxas for his vivid writing (and doesn't dismiss the worth the book still has, which I appreciate) admits that the book is "agenda-driven." But of course he does so within the context of admitting that all history/biography (and even all book reviews!) are agenda-driven to some extent.
To some extent. I repeat that, because it seems to me that sometimes our writing is not so much agenda-driven (which implies we've consciously got our agenda in the front seat, calling the shots) as worldview soaked.
It's true that it helps us to clearly know from what perspective/lens (and potential bias) we're writing from, but writing from one is a given. We can't perch on an imaginary objective pedestal when we write: we write from a given place, time, and culture colored by our own unique personal history and understanding.
I also think there are times when writing from a clearly inhabited perspective is helpful. It's true that there are times when our given perspective distorts what we see and how we report it. But there may also be times when our given perspective sharpens what we see and how we write about it. In this particular case, I'm thinking that, while it seems to be true that Metaxas' understanding of Bonhoeffer's theological context doesn't go very deep, his perspective as an evangelical does help him to ferret out those places where Bonhoeffer manages to get past his own potential biases to critique theological liberalism -- in American seminaries of the period, for instance, or even in the work of his teacher Harnack. Doesn't it seem worth noting the places where Bonhoeffer steps outside the box you assume he would fit most comfortably inside, given the theological training he was steeped in? Does it take evangelical eyes to see those places?
So what, beyond in-depth research and artful telling, matters most when writing good biography and history? I'm still thinking this through. It seems that much biographical writing would be helped by a candid acknowledgment of our own context (with its potential strengths and drawbacks), a willingness to wrestle with at least some key sources that interpret a subject from a different perspective of our own, and a steeping (as much as possible) in the voice of our biographical subject. One reason I love using primary sources when I teach history is that nothing seems to take the place of hearing the actual voice of someone from the time period under discussion. Yes, sometimes those texts will be in translation (and that raises the issue of perspective in translation work!) and we still have to interpret what we read, but a thoughtful wrestling with primary sources can still go a long way toward insuring that we have a thorough understanding of a biographical subject.
More on this another time.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Poetry Units for Modern History
I'm knee-dip in curriculum planning for the fourth grade this fall and loving it. Yes, I know, I'm a bit of a geek that way.
So tell me...if you were planning to introduce/study 4-6 English speaking poets to and with a 4th grader, poets that would correlate with the modern history time period we're also studying (1850 to the present) which poets would you choose? I've already decided on 3, but am hoping to choose another 1-3 poets, and I'm genuinely curious to know who comes to mind for other readers/teachers/poetry lovers. (I'll post more about my selections soon.)
Would love to hear your thoughts!
So tell me...if you were planning to introduce/study 4-6 English speaking poets to and with a 4th grader, poets that would correlate with the modern history time period we're also studying (1850 to the present) which poets would you choose? I've already decided on 3, but am hoping to choose another 1-3 poets, and I'm genuinely curious to know who comes to mind for other readers/teachers/poetry lovers. (I'll post more about my selections soon.)
Would love to hear your thoughts!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Literary Mice (Or "I think mice are rather nice.")
When the sweet girl was younger, we seemed to read an awful lot of books about bears and bunnies. Come to think of it, we still do (some old favorites, some new). But lately it feels like everywhere we turn, we're running into literary mice.
I've blogged about literary dragons, so it seems only fitting that I move to the opposite end of the spectrum, at least size-wise, and post a bit about some of our favorite literary rodents. There certainly are a lot of them...
My thoughts started moving in this direction several weeks ago when our family enjoyed a read-aloud of Margery Sharp's The Rescuers. This tale about three brave mice, Miss Bianca, Bernard, and Nils, was the inspiration for a Disney film of the same name which is nevertheless an entirely different story. As much as I like the Disney film, I prefer the book, especially with its wonderful pictures by Garth Williams.
My favorite literary mouse, bar none, is the incomparable Reepicheep. First introduced in Prince Caspian, the second of the Chronicles of Narnia, he absolutely steals your heart in the third volume, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (That I have only reviewed the film version of this story I've loved my whole life is something of a travesty...though it's perhaps understandable. I have a hard time reviewing books I love as deeply as VDT, books that have become part of my heart's terrain.) Maybe I can redeem my shortcoming a bit with this post from the archives about Reep as an Anglo-Saxon warrior.
Kate DiCamillo has certainly added to the prestige of literary mice with her Tale of Despereaux. And who can forget Beverly Cleary's Mouse and the Motorcycle (and subsequent volumes) or E.B. White's Stuart Little?
Perhaps because they're small and unobtrusive, mice often make great observers of history. I'm thinking, of course, of Amos, the inventive mouse of Ben Franklin in Robert Lawson's Ben and Me; the tiny white mouse-poet who befriends Emily Dickinson in The Mouse of Amherst; and Celeste, the mouse with a window on Audubon's world in Henry Cole's gorgeously illustrated A Nest for Celeste.
We've known so many picture book mice I know I can't possibly remember them all. One of our recent favorites is Bella and Bean, by poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich, creative pictures by Aileen Leijten. We also enjoyed Two Christmas Mice by Corrine Demas, illustrated by Stephanie Roth. One of my oldest literary mouse friends is Frederick, in Leo Lionni's book of the same name, about a mouse who stores colors for the bleak winter while all the other mice are scurrying about storing food.
When I think of books for littles, several mice come to mind. Although I'm not a huge fan of the television tie-in versions, during the preschool years we did enjoy the whimsical pictures of the original Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird. Two of my favorite illustrations of books for very young children, John Butler and Jane Dyer, both do themselves proud with mice pictures in While You Were Sleeping and Time for Bed. Mice make gentle bedtime book companions!
Rose Fyleman's poem that begins "I think mice are rather nice..." has long been a favorite in our household. Melissa Wiley features Scottish Robert Burns' poem To a Mouse in The Far Side of the Loch, her second book in the Martha series. (My review of that book is forthcoming; meanwhile here's my review of the first Martha Book, Little House in the Highlands.)
Humorous Kenn Nesbitt gives us the poem "If You Give a Mouse a Motorcycle", a title which manages to pay clever tribute both to Beverly Cleary and to the popular If You Give a Mouse... series of books by Laura Joffe Numeroff.
I know I'm forgetting numerous poems, picture books, and longer stories...in fact, I feel sure I've overlooked some obviously epic mouse. I'd edit as I think of more. (I decided to save literary rats for another post.) And if you have favorite mouse poems, stories, or books, please drop me a comment! I'll be glad to add to the ongoing list.
I've blogged about literary dragons, so it seems only fitting that I move to the opposite end of the spectrum, at least size-wise, and post a bit about some of our favorite literary rodents. There certainly are a lot of them...
My thoughts started moving in this direction several weeks ago when our family enjoyed a read-aloud of Margery Sharp's The Rescuers. This tale about three brave mice, Miss Bianca, Bernard, and Nils, was the inspiration for a Disney film of the same name which is nevertheless an entirely different story. As much as I like the Disney film, I prefer the book, especially with its wonderful pictures by Garth Williams.
My favorite literary mouse, bar none, is the incomparable Reepicheep. First introduced in Prince Caspian, the second of the Chronicles of Narnia, he absolutely steals your heart in the third volume, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (That I have only reviewed the film version of this story I've loved my whole life is something of a travesty...though it's perhaps understandable. I have a hard time reviewing books I love as deeply as VDT, books that have become part of my heart's terrain.) Maybe I can redeem my shortcoming a bit with this post from the archives about Reep as an Anglo-Saxon warrior.
Kate DiCamillo has certainly added to the prestige of literary mice with her Tale of Despereaux. And who can forget Beverly Cleary's Mouse and the Motorcycle (and subsequent volumes) or E.B. White's Stuart Little?
Perhaps because they're small and unobtrusive, mice often make great observers of history. I'm thinking, of course, of Amos, the inventive mouse of Ben Franklin in Robert Lawson's Ben and Me; the tiny white mouse-poet who befriends Emily Dickinson in The Mouse of Amherst; and Celeste, the mouse with a window on Audubon's world in Henry Cole's gorgeously illustrated A Nest for Celeste.
We've known so many picture book mice I know I can't possibly remember them all. One of our recent favorites is Bella and Bean, by poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich, creative pictures by Aileen Leijten. We also enjoyed Two Christmas Mice by Corrine Demas, illustrated by Stephanie Roth. One of my oldest literary mouse friends is Frederick, in Leo Lionni's book of the same name, about a mouse who stores colors for the bleak winter while all the other mice are scurrying about storing food.
When I think of books for littles, several mice come to mind. Although I'm not a huge fan of the television tie-in versions, during the preschool years we did enjoy the whimsical pictures of the original Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird. Two of my favorite illustrations of books for very young children, John Butler and Jane Dyer, both do themselves proud with mice pictures in While You Were Sleeping and Time for Bed. Mice make gentle bedtime book companions!Rose Fyleman's poem that begins "I think mice are rather nice..." has long been a favorite in our household. Melissa Wiley features Scottish Robert Burns' poem To a Mouse in The Far Side of the Loch, her second book in the Martha series. (My review of that book is forthcoming; meanwhile here's my review of the first Martha Book, Little House in the Highlands.)
Humorous Kenn Nesbitt gives us the poem "If You Give a Mouse a Motorcycle", a title which manages to pay clever tribute both to Beverly Cleary and to the popular If You Give a Mouse... series of books by Laura Joffe Numeroff.
I know I'm forgetting numerous poems, picture books, and longer stories...in fact, I feel sure I've overlooked some obviously epic mouse. I'd edit as I think of more. (I decided to save literary rats for another post.) And if you have favorite mouse poems, stories, or books, please drop me a comment! I'll be glad to add to the ongoing list.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
"Here is the only place I can love Him."
I didn't mean to disappear from the blog. A few days of travel, a moving fully into summer rhythm, and I have found myself needing to take a hiatus from journaling here. I've savored time to do other sorts of writing, reading, thinking.
I've been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, a book it's a special delight to hold and read since I've spent many a moment on Ann's blog over the past few years, and because I entered into her gratitude exercise a long while ago. I've been keeping more of those blessing lists in my physical, hand-held journal (which has suddenly felt deeply important to me again) but have yet to transfer any of the lists to the blog. Maybe this evening, or tomorrow.
One of the blessings of Ann's book is her meditation on time, especially the need for us to live in the present moment -- a pearl of wisdom it seems to me so many people have spoken to my heart over the years, but which I continually need to be called back to and to heed again. Her sparse, poetic language flows so beautifully, and I find that once in a while, a line just jumps off the page and straight into my heart. "Here is the only place I can love Him," was one such line this morning. She's referring to her love for God. And here -- this moment, this today. How true this is. We cannot love him in the past because it's gone. We cannot love him in the future yet because it's not here. HERE is the only place I can love Him -- wherever our HERE happens to be.
I say this during a week where I have thought a lot about the past. Time spent at my sister's unearthed old journals and letters I'd left in boxes in her attic two decades and a little bit more ago. Two decades does not seem like a lot of time, but oh the younger self that spilled from those dog-eared notebooks and tattered envelopes. How much I needed to sit with that younger self for a while and laugh and cry and laugh some more and remember her passions and mistakes and bad poetry and surprising snippets of stories. It was good to sit with her, like meeting an old friend.
I say "Here is the only place I can love Him," during a week in which the 95 year old woman who first led me to Jesus is in the hospital in my old hometown. Mrs. B. suffered a heart attack a few days ago; she's weak and frail but peaceful. The same night she suffered her attack, her 67 year old pastor son also suffered a heart attack (how connected are our hearts, I wonder?) and though frail Mrs. B. survived, the robust son did not. I am thankful indeed that my mother and father, who love Mrs. B. as they would their own mothers (she has truly been a spiritual mentor, friend, mother, grandmother, to our whole family) are there with her now. They're able to feed her and pray with her and just be with her, especially in this time when much of the immediate family must be away from her bedside to travel the few hours for the son's funeral. They're able to return a cupful of blessings to a woman who has waterfalled blessings on our family for so many years. And they're doing it in the hospital where my own dad spent a week fourteen months ago, which means they're getting a chance to see doctors, nurses, maintenance people who blessed them then.
I did say maintenance people. The head maintenance man was a tremendous gift to my parents when my father was in hospital. When my mother first met him, my dad was so ill we didn't think he would recover. My mother was at her lowest ebb and had been all alone, praying. She literally thought he was an angel sent to minister to her, his words were so encouraging, his countenance so loving. It turns out he has the voice of an angel, a beautiful gospel-singing voice that he uses to minister to patients. He sang for my dad over a year ago. He sang for Mrs. B. yesterday. "Because He lives, you can face tomorrow."
God will be in all our tomorrows. He is in all our yesterdays (a wonderful thing to know as I meander down this street called memory). But here...HERE...is the only place I can love him. Right now.
I've been reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, a book it's a special delight to hold and read since I've spent many a moment on Ann's blog over the past few years, and because I entered into her gratitude exercise a long while ago. I've been keeping more of those blessing lists in my physical, hand-held journal (which has suddenly felt deeply important to me again) but have yet to transfer any of the lists to the blog. Maybe this evening, or tomorrow.
One of the blessings of Ann's book is her meditation on time, especially the need for us to live in the present moment -- a pearl of wisdom it seems to me so many people have spoken to my heart over the years, but which I continually need to be called back to and to heed again. Her sparse, poetic language flows so beautifully, and I find that once in a while, a line just jumps off the page and straight into my heart. "Here is the only place I can love Him," was one such line this morning. She's referring to her love for God. And here -- this moment, this today. How true this is. We cannot love him in the past because it's gone. We cannot love him in the future yet because it's not here. HERE is the only place I can love Him -- wherever our HERE happens to be.
I say this during a week where I have thought a lot about the past. Time spent at my sister's unearthed old journals and letters I'd left in boxes in her attic two decades and a little bit more ago. Two decades does not seem like a lot of time, but oh the younger self that spilled from those dog-eared notebooks and tattered envelopes. How much I needed to sit with that younger self for a while and laugh and cry and laugh some more and remember her passions and mistakes and bad poetry and surprising snippets of stories. It was good to sit with her, like meeting an old friend.
I say "Here is the only place I can love Him," during a week in which the 95 year old woman who first led me to Jesus is in the hospital in my old hometown. Mrs. B. suffered a heart attack a few days ago; she's weak and frail but peaceful. The same night she suffered her attack, her 67 year old pastor son also suffered a heart attack (how connected are our hearts, I wonder?) and though frail Mrs. B. survived, the robust son did not. I am thankful indeed that my mother and father, who love Mrs. B. as they would their own mothers (she has truly been a spiritual mentor, friend, mother, grandmother, to our whole family) are there with her now. They're able to feed her and pray with her and just be with her, especially in this time when much of the immediate family must be away from her bedside to travel the few hours for the son's funeral. They're able to return a cupful of blessings to a woman who has waterfalled blessings on our family for so many years. And they're doing it in the hospital where my own dad spent a week fourteen months ago, which means they're getting a chance to see doctors, nurses, maintenance people who blessed them then.
I did say maintenance people. The head maintenance man was a tremendous gift to my parents when my father was in hospital. When my mother first met him, my dad was so ill we didn't think he would recover. My mother was at her lowest ebb and had been all alone, praying. She literally thought he was an angel sent to minister to her, his words were so encouraging, his countenance so loving. It turns out he has the voice of an angel, a beautiful gospel-singing voice that he uses to minister to patients. He sang for my dad over a year ago. He sang for Mrs. B. yesterday. "Because He lives, you can face tomorrow."
God will be in all our tomorrows. He is in all our yesterdays (a wonderful thing to know as I meander down this street called memory). But here...HERE...is the only place I can love him. Right now.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Meditation for July
"He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights." ~ Psalm 18:33
I set this verse to a tune this evening so the sweet girl and I can sing it together. We're at the beginning of our third or fourth read through of Hinds' Feet on High Places (an adapted version for children). This lovely book about a character named "Much-Afraid" and the Chief Shepherd who leads her out of the valley of her fears and into the heights of the kingdom of love really seems to speak to my daughter's heart. It speaks to mine too. And so this is the verse on which we'll meditate this month.
I set this verse to a tune this evening so the sweet girl and I can sing it together. We're at the beginning of our third or fourth read through of Hinds' Feet on High Places (an adapted version for children). This lovely book about a character named "Much-Afraid" and the Chief Shepherd who leads her out of the valley of her fears and into the heights of the kingdom of love really seems to speak to my daughter's heart. It speaks to mine too. And so this is the verse on which we'll meditate this month.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Some Favorite Moments
This week has been full of fun moments. Here are just a few...
First, I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels to get dirt under your fingernails. The sweet girl and I have begun planting in our raised bed in the community gardens. We did a few potted flowering plants, and plan to do a few other potted/seedling sorts of transplants (some herbs, maybe a tomato plant or two, or some green peppers) but even though it's late in the season to start, we thought we'd give some seeds a try. We'll see how it goes. I'd almost forgotten the wonderful absurdity of seeds. So tiny they're almost not there -- hard to hold onto when the wind is blowing -- paper thin -- easy to lose -- and YET. We plant them with this cheerful expectation that something real and living will emerge from them, maybe even grow beautiful and fruitful. No wonder Jesus loved seeds as kingdom metaphors.
Then there's the joy of finishing a task, and finishing it well! After the great computer crash of late May/early June, I finally got the homeschool portfolio completely finished. Had a blessedly graced evaluation time with the official evaluator yesterday (sweet girl read to her from "Ramona's World") and today I handed the portfolio with official evaluator letter over to the district office. Hey, 24 hours to spare! The regular secretary wasn't there, but the helpful person in the office filled out the receipt for me. And I wish you could have seen my face when she asked, "So, do you have your affidavit for the 2011-2012 school year yet?" Um. Oh...right...I have to do this *all over again*.... She quickly assured me I still had time, but added some folks just turn them in when they bring the portfolio for the year just finishing. Which is really smart, but far more together than I can manage to be at the moment!
Finally, in the little gifts are sometimes the best gifts category, I've been thoroughly enjoying how much the sweet girl is loving one of her simplest birthday presents. I picked up a new sketch diary for her, along with a set of Crayola "pipsqueak" markers (little ones, brightly colored). They've gotten tons of use, and she's completely enthusiastic. Yes, the big present (a lovely doll she's named Emily Susanah Madeleine) was also a hit, but it's a good reminder to me that a small gift, lovingly chosen, is sometimes the best gift of all.
And without realizing it, I think I just added three things to my ongoing gratitude list. (#s 137-139)
First, I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels to get dirt under your fingernails. The sweet girl and I have begun planting in our raised bed in the community gardens. We did a few potted flowering plants, and plan to do a few other potted/seedling sorts of transplants (some herbs, maybe a tomato plant or two, or some green peppers) but even though it's late in the season to start, we thought we'd give some seeds a try. We'll see how it goes. I'd almost forgotten the wonderful absurdity of seeds. So tiny they're almost not there -- hard to hold onto when the wind is blowing -- paper thin -- easy to lose -- and YET. We plant them with this cheerful expectation that something real and living will emerge from them, maybe even grow beautiful and fruitful. No wonder Jesus loved seeds as kingdom metaphors.
Then there's the joy of finishing a task, and finishing it well! After the great computer crash of late May/early June, I finally got the homeschool portfolio completely finished. Had a blessedly graced evaluation time with the official evaluator yesterday (sweet girl read to her from "Ramona's World") and today I handed the portfolio with official evaluator letter over to the district office. Hey, 24 hours to spare! The regular secretary wasn't there, but the helpful person in the office filled out the receipt for me. And I wish you could have seen my face when she asked, "So, do you have your affidavit for the 2011-2012 school year yet?" Um. Oh...right...I have to do this *all over again*.... She quickly assured me I still had time, but added some folks just turn them in when they bring the portfolio for the year just finishing. Which is really smart, but far more together than I can manage to be at the moment!
Finally, in the little gifts are sometimes the best gifts category, I've been thoroughly enjoying how much the sweet girl is loving one of her simplest birthday presents. I picked up a new sketch diary for her, along with a set of Crayola "pipsqueak" markers (little ones, brightly colored). They've gotten tons of use, and she's completely enthusiastic. Yes, the big present (a lovely doll she's named Emily Susanah Madeleine) was also a hit, but it's a good reminder to me that a small gift, lovingly chosen, is sometimes the best gift of all.
And without realizing it, I think I just added three things to my ongoing gratitude list. (#s 137-139)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Nine Years Ago...
It's rare that you know exactly what you were doing a given number of years ago on a certain day and time. But when you're commemorating the birth of your first born (and only) daughter, it's pretty easy to recall with great clarity!
Nine years ago right now I was exhausted and marveling over the miracle of the sweet girl's birth. I remember so much of that long day (following a very long night) with great clarity, including the thunderstorm outside the hospital window. Most of all, I just remember being utterly grateful for how the Lord had brought us through a difficult labor and delivery ~ and how precious that little baby in my arms (so tiny!) truly was.
And now I look at my long-legged, slender, twirling, laughing, fancy-dress wearing, short hair-cut sporting, doll hugging, brussels sprouts eating, punny, artistic, loving and creative nine year old...and I marvel even more.
Nine years ago right now I was exhausted and marveling over the miracle of the sweet girl's birth. I remember so much of that long day (following a very long night) with great clarity, including the thunderstorm outside the hospital window. Most of all, I just remember being utterly grateful for how the Lord had brought us through a difficult labor and delivery ~ and how precious that little baby in my arms (so tiny!) truly was.
And now I look at my long-legged, slender, twirling, laughing, fancy-dress wearing, short hair-cut sporting, doll hugging, brussels sprouts eating, punny, artistic, loving and creative nine year old...and I marvel even more.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Books About Books
Lately I seem to be on a tear of reading books about books. It started a couple of weeks back when I found A Jane Austen Education on the new book shelves at our little library. No sooner had I finished that than my copy of The Wilder Life hit the hold shelves two towns over.
I'm working on reviews of both, but I found myself wanting to jot a few thoughts here. These were both fascinating reads...highly different from one another in some essential ways, and yet similar too. They both seem to fall into the genre I'm coming to think of as literary memoir, or maybe "book lover's confessional" would be more appropriate.
A Jane Austen Education is subtitled "How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter." (In other words, "everything I need to know I learned from Jane...")
The Wilder Life (a title which could probably lead one into unintended trouble if googled indiscriminately) is subtitled "My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie."
Both books are written by highly literate and liberal folks -- good writers, very educated, with a deep love of story. William Deresiewicz, who used to teach at Yale, has the honor of being perhaps the most interesting male writer I've ever read on Austen. His book is about two-thirds thought-provoking literary criticism (he gives readings of all six of Austen's novels) and one-third memoir/confessional. What fascinates me most about this book, written from the perspective of a Jewish academic who seems mostly secular, is that his main thesis boils down to this: reading Jane Austen helped him to be a kinder, more compassionate, deeper human being. In fact, I think you could actually argue persuasively from his arguments that what he learned from Austen is the need for Christian virtues (and the beauty of holiness).
Wendy McClure, the author of the Wilder book, sounds even younger and hipper than Deresiewicz, whom I gather is about my age (hence not so young and hip anymore, though certainly not decrepit). She's also a lot less academic...though her impressive writer credentials include an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her prose style reminds me a bit of Anne Lamott, if one could ever imagine Anne Lamott wearing a sunbonnet and trekking across the prairie in an obsessive search for some elusive...something. That is, something that has to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her story, something that somehow might connect to the trekker's own story.
I have to admit I laughed out loud multiple times while reading The Wilder Life. I love (love, love) all the Little House books. I've loved them since childhood, and I've loved reading them all to my daughter (except for the First Four Years, which I've not been able to bring myself to put her through yet). McClure knows the books backwards and forwards, and it was easy to fall into a deep kinship with her experience of inhabiting the world of the books so deeply. I too inhabited Laura's story in my childhood. And whenever I enter the books again, I still feel like I do ~ an experience I've had many a time, not just with Wilder's work, but with other writers too, including Austen.
McClure talks about religion more overtly than Deresiewicz, though in a way that shows her discomfort with zealous people who take it too seriously ~ and while one can easily empathize with that, I found it interesting that she was scared off by religious zeal/passion when she was so good at showing so much of her own -- when it came to literature! She tries to be charitable, but she clearly feels ambiguous about how "Christian homeschoolers" (a group she tends to lump together without much differentiation) have approached Wilder's work. That made me chuckle, partly because I'm both a Christian and a homeschooler, and I would likely have some of the same concerns/critiques she has. Wilder has definitely been embraced by the wider homeschooling community, but not always for the reasons McClure assumes and most highlights. There's a tremendous diversity among homeschoolers, even faith-based ones, that she hasn't quite grasped...though it's hard to fault her for that since it's a common misperception.
What Deresiewicz and McClure have in common, despite their different voices and approaches, is that ability to fall completely into stories, to let stories change and shape them. They are passionate readers who have found not just artistry in the pages of books, but themselves. And they're passionate about sharing their insights about what they've learned in the process. Deresiewicz' journey is much more interior/cerebral, though the book takes a surprisingly personal turn in the final chapter as he relates his own story of courtship/love/marriage and gives it an Austen spin. McClure's journey is exterior as well as interior as she sets out on an actual pilgrimage to see as many Laura Ingalls Wilder "places" as she can, and as she tries to sort out the tensions between truth/fiction and the connections (and disconnects) between Laura's life and her own.
Both books also put me in mind of C.S. Lewis. Okay...a lot of books put me in mind of C.S. Lewis, who has helped me learn how to read and think more deeply. (I sometimes feel like Jack hovers between the lines of most things I read, whispering encouragement and pointing out insights.) His words on "sehnsucht" (that deep yearning or craving for something beyond ourselves, something that often feels just out of reach) kept playing through my mind as I read these two authors. And they both seem to be living examples of Lewis' wonderful quote: "We read to know that we are not alone."
I'm working on reviews of both, but I found myself wanting to jot a few thoughts here. These were both fascinating reads...highly different from one another in some essential ways, and yet similar too. They both seem to fall into the genre I'm coming to think of as literary memoir, or maybe "book lover's confessional" would be more appropriate.
A Jane Austen Education is subtitled "How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter." (In other words, "everything I need to know I learned from Jane...")
The Wilder Life (a title which could probably lead one into unintended trouble if googled indiscriminately) is subtitled "My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie."
Both books are written by highly literate and liberal folks -- good writers, very educated, with a deep love of story. William Deresiewicz, who used to teach at Yale, has the honor of being perhaps the most interesting male writer I've ever read on Austen. His book is about two-thirds thought-provoking literary criticism (he gives readings of all six of Austen's novels) and one-third memoir/confessional. What fascinates me most about this book, written from the perspective of a Jewish academic who seems mostly secular, is that his main thesis boils down to this: reading Jane Austen helped him to be a kinder, more compassionate, deeper human being. In fact, I think you could actually argue persuasively from his arguments that what he learned from Austen is the need for Christian virtues (and the beauty of holiness).
Wendy McClure, the author of the Wilder book, sounds even younger and hipper than Deresiewicz, whom I gather is about my age (hence not so young and hip anymore, though certainly not decrepit). She's also a lot less academic...though her impressive writer credentials include an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her prose style reminds me a bit of Anne Lamott, if one could ever imagine Anne Lamott wearing a sunbonnet and trekking across the prairie in an obsessive search for some elusive...something. That is, something that has to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her story, something that somehow might connect to the trekker's own story.
I have to admit I laughed out loud multiple times while reading The Wilder Life. I love (love, love) all the Little House books. I've loved them since childhood, and I've loved reading them all to my daughter (except for the First Four Years, which I've not been able to bring myself to put her through yet). McClure knows the books backwards and forwards, and it was easy to fall into a deep kinship with her experience of inhabiting the world of the books so deeply. I too inhabited Laura's story in my childhood. And whenever I enter the books again, I still feel like I do ~ an experience I've had many a time, not just with Wilder's work, but with other writers too, including Austen.
McClure talks about religion more overtly than Deresiewicz, though in a way that shows her discomfort with zealous people who take it too seriously ~ and while one can easily empathize with that, I found it interesting that she was scared off by religious zeal/passion when she was so good at showing so much of her own -- when it came to literature! She tries to be charitable, but she clearly feels ambiguous about how "Christian homeschoolers" (a group she tends to lump together without much differentiation) have approached Wilder's work. That made me chuckle, partly because I'm both a Christian and a homeschooler, and I would likely have some of the same concerns/critiques she has. Wilder has definitely been embraced by the wider homeschooling community, but not always for the reasons McClure assumes and most highlights. There's a tremendous diversity among homeschoolers, even faith-based ones, that she hasn't quite grasped...though it's hard to fault her for that since it's a common misperception.
What Deresiewicz and McClure have in common, despite their different voices and approaches, is that ability to fall completely into stories, to let stories change and shape them. They are passionate readers who have found not just artistry in the pages of books, but themselves. And they're passionate about sharing their insights about what they've learned in the process. Deresiewicz' journey is much more interior/cerebral, though the book takes a surprisingly personal turn in the final chapter as he relates his own story of courtship/love/marriage and gives it an Austen spin. McClure's journey is exterior as well as interior as she sets out on an actual pilgrimage to see as many Laura Ingalls Wilder "places" as she can, and as she tries to sort out the tensions between truth/fiction and the connections (and disconnects) between Laura's life and her own.
Both books also put me in mind of C.S. Lewis. Okay...a lot of books put me in mind of C.S. Lewis, who has helped me learn how to read and think more deeply. (I sometimes feel like Jack hovers between the lines of most things I read, whispering encouragement and pointing out insights.) His words on "sehnsucht" (that deep yearning or craving for something beyond ourselves, something that often feels just out of reach) kept playing through my mind as I read these two authors. And they both seem to be living examples of Lewis' wonderful quote: "We read to know that we are not alone."
Monday, June 20, 2011
"Kaboosh!" The Sounds of Creativity
I spent the afternoon at Arts Camp doing brainstorming/wordplay sessions with three groups of kids. I was there to try to prime the creative pump for the rest of the week's song writing sessions, which Dana will doing with them.
Despite some craziness (not an easy working space, some rambunctious kids in second group, and some VERY rambunctious kids in the third group) it was a lot of fun. I wanted to get them thinking concretely and metaphorically, without telling them that's what we were doing. I used one of my favorite group writing starters, where I have the kids think about a particular season ~ summer, of course, for today ~ but to think about it in terms of what it looks like, sounds like, tastes like, smells like, and feels like. I also threw in color associations and got them to think about what the season would look like and wear if it was a person. For one group, when things were petering out, I tried to get them thinking about how they'd sell summer if they could put it in a bottle. (One little girl said she'd put lots of grass and flowers in the bottle.)
It's always interesting to see where children's minds go. Their creative and imaginative leaps are fascinating. But sometimes equally fascinating is how pedestrian kids can be (and adults too, this is an equal opportunity challenge) when you ask them to try to come up with descriptors, one reason I like to push it back into the realm of the concrete whenever possible. Even after we brainstormed a whole page full of rainbow colored words and images -- most of them highly specific and related to various senses -- when we got to the part where we were putting lines down, there were kids who wanted me to write things down like "summer is fun" or "summer is pretty." How is it fun? I pressed them. What makes it look pretty?
Like I said, this is an equal opportunity challenge. Left to ourselves, we often run straight toward the easy, vague words that mean so much they don't mean much at all. The kinds of words that balloon over you like a tent, covering a lot of ground. I'd rather hear the snap of the tent as it's unfolded and the banging of the hammer as the tent pegs get smacked into the ground. And I use that image purposefully, because one of the kids, when I asked him what summer sounded like, answered "bang! bang! bang!" When I said, "what makes that noise?" he said "the hammer when you hammer tent pegs in when you go camping!"
Sound words were a definite hit with the younger kids. If I'd had more time, I would have played more with onomatopoeia. One of the sounds of summer that kept coming up was fireworks. So with the youngest group, I asked them to make fireworks sounds. They came up with "kaboosh!" which worked its way into their poem. "Summer says 'kaboosh!' like fireworks."
A fun day. Or maybe I should say a day that sizzled like sparklers.
Despite some craziness (not an easy working space, some rambunctious kids in second group, and some VERY rambunctious kids in the third group) it was a lot of fun. I wanted to get them thinking concretely and metaphorically, without telling them that's what we were doing. I used one of my favorite group writing starters, where I have the kids think about a particular season ~ summer, of course, for today ~ but to think about it in terms of what it looks like, sounds like, tastes like, smells like, and feels like. I also threw in color associations and got them to think about what the season would look like and wear if it was a person. For one group, when things were petering out, I tried to get them thinking about how they'd sell summer if they could put it in a bottle. (One little girl said she'd put lots of grass and flowers in the bottle.)
It's always interesting to see where children's minds go. Their creative and imaginative leaps are fascinating. But sometimes equally fascinating is how pedestrian kids can be (and adults too, this is an equal opportunity challenge) when you ask them to try to come up with descriptors, one reason I like to push it back into the realm of the concrete whenever possible. Even after we brainstormed a whole page full of rainbow colored words and images -- most of them highly specific and related to various senses -- when we got to the part where we were putting lines down, there were kids who wanted me to write things down like "summer is fun" or "summer is pretty." How is it fun? I pressed them. What makes it look pretty?
Like I said, this is an equal opportunity challenge. Left to ourselves, we often run straight toward the easy, vague words that mean so much they don't mean much at all. The kinds of words that balloon over you like a tent, covering a lot of ground. I'd rather hear the snap of the tent as it's unfolded and the banging of the hammer as the tent pegs get smacked into the ground. And I use that image purposefully, because one of the kids, when I asked him what summer sounded like, answered "bang! bang! bang!" When I said, "what makes that noise?" he said "the hammer when you hammer tent pegs in when you go camping!"
Sound words were a definite hit with the younger kids. If I'd had more time, I would have played more with onomatopoeia. One of the sounds of summer that kept coming up was fireworks. So with the youngest group, I asked them to make fireworks sounds. They came up with "kaboosh!" which worked its way into their poem. "Summer says 'kaboosh!' like fireworks."
A fun day. Or maybe I should say a day that sizzled like sparklers.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Summertime...and the Livin' is...Busy?
I know, I know, it's supposed to be easy!
Our summertime schedules rolled into town with a vengeance this week. Beginning of AYI Arts Camp (D. directing, S. attending), seminary homecoming (time with friends old and new), and the Ancient Wisdom Anglican Futures conference (check it out here). Our brains, hearts, and bodies are all on overload, but in a good way.
I'm far too scattered this morning to do a cohesive post (heck, it took me three tries to spell cohesive) so I'll just jot a couple of random links and thoughts.
I found myself quite thoughtful this morning over this piece by Timothy Keller. I'm really coming to love his writing. This article seems to get at something I've been thinking toward for years, but have never quite found a way to articulate: how the way of Jesus offers us a "third way" of being in the world and understanding family, one which isn't fully defined or understood through either a conservative/traditional or liberal/secular lens. Good food for thought.
Having an opportunity to hear William Harmless, SJ yesterday on Augustine of Hippo and the ancient catechumenate -- what a delight! Since D. and I are tag teaming the conference this week, he heard part 1 of the lecture and I heard part 2. We agreed we didn't have time to exchange notes last night, but ended up talking about it for twenty minutes anyway, as tired as we were.
Listen to this wonderful quote from Augustine's De doctrina christiana, on the "three aims of preaching":
"A certain man of eloquence has said -- and said rightly -- that an eloquent person should speak in such a way that he 'teaches, delights, and persuades,' adding: 'To teach is a necessity, to delight makes it enjoyable, and to persuade is a triumph' (Cicero, Orator 69). Of these three aims, the one mentioned first, that is, the necessity of teaching, shapes what we say; the other two shape how we say it. So the one who speaks with the aim of teaching should not think he has spoken to the person he wishes to teach so long as he has not been understood. Although he has verbalized what he himself understands, he should not consider that he has really spoken -- really communicated -- if the one listening to him has not really understood."
And on the "Evangelist as Tour Guide" (love this thought) Augustine writes:
"Now if we feel disgusted because we are so often repeating things geared to the little ones, familiar things, let us equip ourselves with a brother's or a father's or a mother's love, and by linking our hearts to theirs, those things will again seem new to us. For so great is this feeling of compassion that when people are touched by us as we speak and we by them as they learn, we each dwell in the other, and so it is as if they speak in us what they hear while we, in some way, learn in them what it is we teach. Isn't it quite common that when we show certain beautiful, spacious locales, whether in town or out in the countryside, to those who have never seen them before, we who have been in the habit of passing them by without any enjoyment find our own delight renewed by their delight at the novelty of it all? And how much more enjoyable the closer our friendship, because as we come together more and more through this bond of love, what had gotten old becomes new to us all over again. But if we have some progress in contemplative matters, we do not wish those who are learning from us simply to enjoy and be amazed when they gaze upon human handiwork, but we want them to enjoy and be amazed by the deeper design and underlying purpose of the Artist himself and, from there, soar up in admiration and in praise of the All-creating God, where the richest fruitfulness of his love finds its endpoint. How much more ought we to rejoice when people now approach to learn of God Himself, for whatever things we learn, we learn to learn of God; and how much more ought we to be renewed in their newness, so that if our preaching, now a routine, has cooled off, it may again catch fire because of our hearers."
Amazingly good stuff (all from Fr. Harmless translation Augustine in His Own Words published last year by Catholic University of America Press). My teacher heart needs this, on all sorts of levels...I hope to have time to ruminate and write more about it later. For now, just passing on a little bit of ancient treasure.
Our summertime schedules rolled into town with a vengeance this week. Beginning of AYI Arts Camp (D. directing, S. attending), seminary homecoming (time with friends old and new), and the Ancient Wisdom Anglican Futures conference (check it out here). Our brains, hearts, and bodies are all on overload, but in a good way.
I'm far too scattered this morning to do a cohesive post (heck, it took me three tries to spell cohesive) so I'll just jot a couple of random links and thoughts.
I found myself quite thoughtful this morning over this piece by Timothy Keller. I'm really coming to love his writing. This article seems to get at something I've been thinking toward for years, but have never quite found a way to articulate: how the way of Jesus offers us a "third way" of being in the world and understanding family, one which isn't fully defined or understood through either a conservative/traditional or liberal/secular lens. Good food for thought.
Having an opportunity to hear William Harmless, SJ yesterday on Augustine of Hippo and the ancient catechumenate -- what a delight! Since D. and I are tag teaming the conference this week, he heard part 1 of the lecture and I heard part 2. We agreed we didn't have time to exchange notes last night, but ended up talking about it for twenty minutes anyway, as tired as we were.
Listen to this wonderful quote from Augustine's De doctrina christiana, on the "three aims of preaching":
"A certain man of eloquence has said -- and said rightly -- that an eloquent person should speak in such a way that he 'teaches, delights, and persuades,' adding: 'To teach is a necessity, to delight makes it enjoyable, and to persuade is a triumph' (Cicero, Orator 69). Of these three aims, the one mentioned first, that is, the necessity of teaching, shapes what we say; the other two shape how we say it. So the one who speaks with the aim of teaching should not think he has spoken to the person he wishes to teach so long as he has not been understood. Although he has verbalized what he himself understands, he should not consider that he has really spoken -- really communicated -- if the one listening to him has not really understood."
And on the "Evangelist as Tour Guide" (love this thought) Augustine writes:
"Now if we feel disgusted because we are so often repeating things geared to the little ones, familiar things, let us equip ourselves with a brother's or a father's or a mother's love, and by linking our hearts to theirs, those things will again seem new to us. For so great is this feeling of compassion that when people are touched by us as we speak and we by them as they learn, we each dwell in the other, and so it is as if they speak in us what they hear while we, in some way, learn in them what it is we teach. Isn't it quite common that when we show certain beautiful, spacious locales, whether in town or out in the countryside, to those who have never seen them before, we who have been in the habit of passing them by without any enjoyment find our own delight renewed by their delight at the novelty of it all? And how much more enjoyable the closer our friendship, because as we come together more and more through this bond of love, what had gotten old becomes new to us all over again. But if we have some progress in contemplative matters, we do not wish those who are learning from us simply to enjoy and be amazed when they gaze upon human handiwork, but we want them to enjoy and be amazed by the deeper design and underlying purpose of the Artist himself and, from there, soar up in admiration and in praise of the All-creating God, where the richest fruitfulness of his love finds its endpoint. How much more ought we to rejoice when people now approach to learn of God Himself, for whatever things we learn, we learn to learn of God; and how much more ought we to be renewed in their newness, so that if our preaching, now a routine, has cooled off, it may again catch fire because of our hearers."
Amazingly good stuff (all from Fr. Harmless translation Augustine in His Own Words published last year by Catholic University of America Press). My teacher heart needs this, on all sorts of levels...I hope to have time to ruminate and write more about it later. For now, just passing on a little bit of ancient treasure.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
"Things That Fascinate Me When I Read and Write Fiction..."
Our main computer crashed this week. While I'm waiting for its healing (we have a good friend who is working to recover the data this week) I'm on another computer, the one that soon *will* be my main computer. It's also the one I used the last time our other computer crashed. Diving into documents, I found a few things I wrote and saved last summer, including this meme.
I can't remember where I found it, but I liked the idea. It was fun to revisit the list today too!
******
Things That Fascinate Me When I Read and Write Fiction
Moments of decision. I am always at my deepest attention when I get to a place in a story where a character faces a moment of clear decision. Forks in the road excite me.
Names. Character names, place names, explanations for why something or someone is named what they’re named. People who live up to their names, and those who don’t.
Quirky little towns with a cast of somewhat eccentric characters.
Descriptions of landscapes, especially specific flora and fauna.
Train rides, or other moments where people can contemplate the world passing by.
Physical journeying, especially through forests or mountains.
Music or poetry, especially when they’re woven seamlessly into a story.
Interesting collections (and characters who collect things).
American history, particularly interesting tidbits involving presidential or pioneering history.
Descriptions involving color.
People sitting around talking…just talking…the way real people do.
Sudden epiphanies.
Mysteries, especially ones involving the past.
Unlikely groups of people becoming friends, forging a team, or becoming a community. The more misfits the merrier.
Meals. I’ve already mentioned that I love it when people sit and talk, or have sudden epiphanies, or forge community. Even better if those things happen over food, especially if it’s described so well I can practically smell it or taste it.
Lost things becoming found. Lost people ditto.
Allusions to other books I’ve read and loved. I always feel much closer to a character if s/he has read and enjoyed the same books I have.
Biblical themes, allusions or names.
Two characters who showcase contrasting traits.
Characters who make me laugh because they’re ridiculous and pretentious but don’t realize they are.
Time travel. It drives me crazy, especially when not handled well, but it also thoroughly intrigues me…and always has. I’ve been nibbling at writing time travel stories since I was about seventeen, but I’ve never fully taken the dive.
Narrators whose voices feel so real and authentic I can hear them in my head.
Romance, especially when it’s completely subsidiary to other issues in the books, and when it sneaks up on the characters themselves. Good, believable obstacles (emotional or otherwise) that need to be resolved before two characters can come together.
Family history.
Family jokes and sayings.
Allusions to world history or church history, especially if it’s an era I’m especially interested in.
Ancient times.
Celtic saints.
Grandmothers. Grandfathers.
Old and young generations needing to learn how to communicate.
Medieval ethos, especially if there are going to be battles.
Talking animals. They’re often so much wiser than we are.
Stars/astronomy. Characters who like to stargaze.
Wise mentor figures.
Moments of pity and charity for fellow creatures, especially when you least expect it.
Surprises.
Laughter.
Puns and wordplay.
I can't remember where I found it, but I liked the idea. It was fun to revisit the list today too!
******
Things That Fascinate Me When I Read and Write Fiction
Moments of decision. I am always at my deepest attention when I get to a place in a story where a character faces a moment of clear decision. Forks in the road excite me.
Names. Character names, place names, explanations for why something or someone is named what they’re named. People who live up to their names, and those who don’t.
Quirky little towns with a cast of somewhat eccentric characters.
Descriptions of landscapes, especially specific flora and fauna.
Train rides, or other moments where people can contemplate the world passing by.
Physical journeying, especially through forests or mountains.
Music or poetry, especially when they’re woven seamlessly into a story.
Interesting collections (and characters who collect things).
American history, particularly interesting tidbits involving presidential or pioneering history.
Descriptions involving color.
People sitting around talking…just talking…the way real people do.
Sudden epiphanies.
Mysteries, especially ones involving the past.
Unlikely groups of people becoming friends, forging a team, or becoming a community. The more misfits the merrier.
Meals. I’ve already mentioned that I love it when people sit and talk, or have sudden epiphanies, or forge community. Even better if those things happen over food, especially if it’s described so well I can practically smell it or taste it.
Lost things becoming found. Lost people ditto.
Allusions to other books I’ve read and loved. I always feel much closer to a character if s/he has read and enjoyed the same books I have.
Biblical themes, allusions or names.
Two characters who showcase contrasting traits.
Characters who make me laugh because they’re ridiculous and pretentious but don’t realize they are.
Time travel. It drives me crazy, especially when not handled well, but it also thoroughly intrigues me…and always has. I’ve been nibbling at writing time travel stories since I was about seventeen, but I’ve never fully taken the dive.
Narrators whose voices feel so real and authentic I can hear them in my head.
Romance, especially when it’s completely subsidiary to other issues in the books, and when it sneaks up on the characters themselves. Good, believable obstacles (emotional or otherwise) that need to be resolved before two characters can come together.
Family history.
Family jokes and sayings.
Allusions to world history or church history, especially if it’s an era I’m especially interested in.
Ancient times.
Celtic saints.
Grandmothers. Grandfathers.
Old and young generations needing to learn how to communicate.
Medieval ethos, especially if there are going to be battles.
Talking animals. They’re often so much wiser than we are.
Stars/astronomy. Characters who like to stargaze.
Wise mentor figures.
Moments of pity and charity for fellow creatures, especially when you least expect it.
Surprises.
Laughter.
Puns and wordplay.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
One of Those Moments
I had "one of those moments" during yesterday's morning quiet time with the sweet girl. We were doing our prayers and Bible reading before breakfast, and were talking about the morning's readings. I can't even recall the exact passage or story under discussion -- we often jump around quite a bit in these morning conversations -- it may have been triggered by the Pharisees. But the sweet girl had one of those "a-ha" moments that gave me an "a-ha" moment too.
"Mommy," she said, "you know how sometimes people can act all good on the outside but not be right on the inside?"
I nodded.
"Well," she said sagely, "it's like 'believer is as believer does.'"
It took me just a second to catch on to her train of thought. We sometimes remind her that "pretty is as pretty does," especially on mornings when she's dawdling over something very girlish (like choosing clothes or playing with a "hairstyle") but is struggling with attitude and behavior. I think we learned the expression from Ma Ingalls, that sage dispenser of practical parental wisdom. And it's a good saying. What you look like on the outside is one thing, but your heart attitude is the most important of all.
But the sweet girl's observation took it a step further. "Believer is as believer does." Who we are in the deepest core of us is reflected in what we do. Jesus wasn't ever faked out by seemingly pious actions by folks like the Pharisees (and he's still not fooled when we try it too). He could see to their heart motivations. But real fruit, real righteousness, real acts of mercy and peace and goodness, are important. What we do matters. It's inextricably linked to who we are and what our heart situation is. We can't grow fruit if our roots don't go deep into good soil. We can't bear fruit if we're not attached to the vine. But if we are, then the fruit will come. And people will know us by that fruit.
Or to put it more simply, in the sage words of a growing, learning, ever-root-deepening (thank you, God) eight year old girl: "believer is as believer does."
"Mommy," she said, "you know how sometimes people can act all good on the outside but not be right on the inside?"
I nodded.
"Well," she said sagely, "it's like 'believer is as believer does.'"
It took me just a second to catch on to her train of thought. We sometimes remind her that "pretty is as pretty does," especially on mornings when she's dawdling over something very girlish (like choosing clothes or playing with a "hairstyle") but is struggling with attitude and behavior. I think we learned the expression from Ma Ingalls, that sage dispenser of practical parental wisdom. And it's a good saying. What you look like on the outside is one thing, but your heart attitude is the most important of all.
But the sweet girl's observation took it a step further. "Believer is as believer does." Who we are in the deepest core of us is reflected in what we do. Jesus wasn't ever faked out by seemingly pious actions by folks like the Pharisees (and he's still not fooled when we try it too). He could see to their heart motivations. But real fruit, real righteousness, real acts of mercy and peace and goodness, are important. What we do matters. It's inextricably linked to who we are and what our heart situation is. We can't grow fruit if our roots don't go deep into good soil. We can't bear fruit if we're not attached to the vine. But if we are, then the fruit will come. And people will know us by that fruit.
Or to put it more simply, in the sage words of a growing, learning, ever-root-deepening (thank you, God) eight year old girl: "believer is as believer does."
Friday, June 03, 2011
Poetry Friday: Jessica Powers
Not long ago I came across a gorgeous photo on the Facebook page for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I don't have permission to post it here, so a verbal sketch will have to suffice: imagine an indigo bunting perched on a branch, his body startlingly blue against a misty purple blur of mountains, his mouth wide open in a song you can practically hear. He's alone against a backdrop of beauty and majesty, just singing and singing.
Though it's not about an indigo bunting, the picture made me think of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, "Robin at Dusk" by Jessica Powers. Jessica Powers was a Carmelite nun who lived from 1905-1988. My copy of her Selected Poetry is thumbed over, paged through, spilled on...sort of the Velveteen Rabbit equivalent of a well-loved book.
I thought I'd send the poem winging and let it perch here. Imagine the little bird singing for all he's worth...
I can go starved the whole day long,
draining a stone, eating a husk,
and never hunger till a song
breaks from a robin's throat at dusk.
I am reminded only then
how far from day and human speech,
how far from the loud world of men
lies the bright dream I strain to reach.
You can go here to read the final two (and amazing) stanzas. You'll need to scroll to the middle of the page.
Happy Poetry Friday! The roundup is at The Writer's Armchair.
Though it's not about an indigo bunting, the picture made me think of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, "Robin at Dusk" by Jessica Powers. Jessica Powers was a Carmelite nun who lived from 1905-1988. My copy of her Selected Poetry is thumbed over, paged through, spilled on...sort of the Velveteen Rabbit equivalent of a well-loved book.
I thought I'd send the poem winging and let it perch here. Imagine the little bird singing for all he's worth...
I can go starved the whole day long,
draining a stone, eating a husk,
and never hunger till a song
breaks from a robin's throat at dusk.
I am reminded only then
how far from day and human speech,
how far from the loud world of men
lies the bright dream I strain to reach.
You can go here to read the final two (and amazing) stanzas. You'll need to scroll to the middle of the page.
Happy Poetry Friday! The roundup is at The Writer's Armchair.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Joining the Dance
I've recently begun reading Timothy Keller's book King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus. His opening chapter presents one of the loveliest, most cogent descriptions of perichoresis I've ever read. As one of my favorite seminary professors used to say: "That'll preach."
Perichoresis is one of those big theological words that tends to make people scratch their heads. It's a Greek term that refers to the mutual love/indwelling of the Triune God, and is sometimes described in terms of a dance. One of the things I love about Keller's chapter is that he discusses the meaning of this concept in a beautifully winning way without ever actually using the five-dollar word. (I know, I just used it...but I'm using it to make a point about how he's not using it. Does that make sense?)
One of the reasons I struggled with the decision to go or not go on into higher (beyond masters) theological studies was precisely this: I think theology is best when it's written so that real people can understand it, learn from it, grow from it. When I was writing theological papers, I worked hard to make them as free from academic jargon as I could. I don't think writing in this fashion means you lack understanding: rather you work hard to have a deep enough understanding that you can write about it in real language. Not dumbed down language, but everyday language. In other words, I wanted to write theology as a communicator, poet, story-teller, teacher -- not primarily as an academic writing for other academics. I still want to do that.
So I'm thoroughly enjoying Keller, because he's actually doing it.
Here's a bit from the chapter:
"The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are each centering on the others, adoring and serving them. And because the Father, Son, and Spirit are giving glorifying love to one another, God is infinitely, profoundly happy. Think about this: If you find somebody you adore, someone for whom you would do anything, and you discover that this person feels the same way about you, does that feel good? It's sublime! That's what God has been enjoying for all eternity. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are pouring love and joy and adoration into the other, each one serving the other. They are infinitely seeking one another's glory, and so God is infinitely happy. And if it's true that this world has been created by this triune God, then ultimate reality is a dance....
If this is ultimate reality, if this is what the God who made the universe is like, then this truth bristles and explodes with life-shaping, glorious implications for us. If this world was made by a triune God, relationships of love are what life is really all about."
There's lots more. But at least this gives you a taste!
Perichoresis is one of those big theological words that tends to make people scratch their heads. It's a Greek term that refers to the mutual love/indwelling of the Triune God, and is sometimes described in terms of a dance. One of the things I love about Keller's chapter is that he discusses the meaning of this concept in a beautifully winning way without ever actually using the five-dollar word. (I know, I just used it...but I'm using it to make a point about how he's not using it. Does that make sense?)
One of the reasons I struggled with the decision to go or not go on into higher (beyond masters) theological studies was precisely this: I think theology is best when it's written so that real people can understand it, learn from it, grow from it. When I was writing theological papers, I worked hard to make them as free from academic jargon as I could. I don't think writing in this fashion means you lack understanding: rather you work hard to have a deep enough understanding that you can write about it in real language. Not dumbed down language, but everyday language. In other words, I wanted to write theology as a communicator, poet, story-teller, teacher -- not primarily as an academic writing for other academics. I still want to do that.
So I'm thoroughly enjoying Keller, because he's actually doing it.
Here's a bit from the chapter:
"The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are each centering on the others, adoring and serving them. And because the Father, Son, and Spirit are giving glorifying love to one another, God is infinitely, profoundly happy. Think about this: If you find somebody you adore, someone for whom you would do anything, and you discover that this person feels the same way about you, does that feel good? It's sublime! That's what God has been enjoying for all eternity. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are pouring love and joy and adoration into the other, each one serving the other. They are infinitely seeking one another's glory, and so God is infinitely happy. And if it's true that this world has been created by this triune God, then ultimate reality is a dance....
If this is ultimate reality, if this is what the God who made the universe is like, then this truth bristles and explodes with life-shaping, glorious implications for us. If this world was made by a triune God, relationships of love are what life is really all about."
There's lots more. But at least this gives you a taste!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Random (But Mostly Sweet Girl) Musings in the Early Evening
D. and the sweet girl are at our church's weekly children's outreach. I'm usually there too, but this evening I stayed home to finish recording my grades and comments for the seminary courses I assisted in this semester (due tomorrow) and to nurse a bad headache.
I've still got a little bit of work to go, but the bulk of it is DONE. I can't tell you how good that feels. This teaching semester has been oddly difficult for me, especially given the fact that I wasn't actually fully teaching a course (for the first time in several years) just assisting in three. It's been a good experience, but it's also felt like a bit of a slog, and I'm too tired right now to figure out why. (And maybe that's part of the answer right there: my sem work, like everything else, has to be put into the context of overall tiredness and stress.)
Before I dive into the last bits that need doing, I thought I'd take a deep breath and enjoy a few minutes to just journal in the quiet of the early evening. It's rare that I have this kind of quiet time and space to myself before late night.
So here goes, a few random musings from a tired but grateful heart.
* I think I'm raising a writer. The sweet girl began keeping a story notebook earlier this year, and lately she's gotten it back out so she can write more stories. That might be a good clue in and of itself, but the real clue that she's got a writer's heart came for me yesterday when she suddenly announced that there was *one certain pen* she had to find so she could write in her story notebook. I mean, the pen she had was all right, she explained quite earnestly, but it was not the pen she really likes to use when she writes stories. "I need my flowy pen," she told me. "The one that writes all smooth and flowy." Speaking as someone who finds all story-writing easier with a fine tipped pen, I can fully empathize. And hallelujah, we found the flowy pen.
* There's a sign taped to our front window. It's addressed to the birds. It's the sweet girl's promise to feed them "breakfast, lunch, and dinner" -- weather permitting. She's stuck to her promise too, and the sparrows, wrens, and starlings have begun to get quite excited when they see her coming. She keeps putting bird seed in her pockets. I foresee plenty of bird seed in our washer/dryer, though I have asked her to remember to check her pockets before she puts her clothes in the hamper.
* We still love picture books. It's been a hard few months for the sweet girl, who has moved into what I guess you'd call "tween territory" with great vigor. Her intensities, her brightness, her energy...blessings...her intensities, her anxieties, her struggles to control her temper...some challenges. All of it comes together in a big package that, some days, feels like more than any of us can unwrap. (So thankful God holds her heart. Mine too.) In the midst of all this, there are moments when she so longs to be "big" and "independent" and moments when she just wants to curl up on my lap again, like she's four. It reminds me of my golden retriever, years ago, when he was just moving out of his puppy stage but would still try to curl up on my lap. Given the sweet girl's huge growth spurt this year, that last is getting more difficult ~ she has really long legs! But one thing we've both realized is how much we miss reading picture books together, so lately we've been making time to do that again. It's been wonderful. I need to get some reviews out, especially of the delightful Emma Dilemma.
* We're loving drawing. One of the best parts of loving picture books is that we no longer just read them together, we pore over them together. And then on Fridays, we draw from them together. This has yielded some surprising creative results for us both in the past few months, which I hope to post about again.
Hmmm...this has turned into very much a parenting/family/homeschooling sort of post, though I had thought I would range further afield on all sorts of topics. I guess my brain just spiraled in one direction. And now I really do need to get back to work. More musings soon!
I've still got a little bit of work to go, but the bulk of it is DONE. I can't tell you how good that feels. This teaching semester has been oddly difficult for me, especially given the fact that I wasn't actually fully teaching a course (for the first time in several years) just assisting in three. It's been a good experience, but it's also felt like a bit of a slog, and I'm too tired right now to figure out why. (And maybe that's part of the answer right there: my sem work, like everything else, has to be put into the context of overall tiredness and stress.)
Before I dive into the last bits that need doing, I thought I'd take a deep breath and enjoy a few minutes to just journal in the quiet of the early evening. It's rare that I have this kind of quiet time and space to myself before late night.
So here goes, a few random musings from a tired but grateful heart.
* I think I'm raising a writer. The sweet girl began keeping a story notebook earlier this year, and lately she's gotten it back out so she can write more stories. That might be a good clue in and of itself, but the real clue that she's got a writer's heart came for me yesterday when she suddenly announced that there was *one certain pen* she had to find so she could write in her story notebook. I mean, the pen she had was all right, she explained quite earnestly, but it was not the pen she really likes to use when she writes stories. "I need my flowy pen," she told me. "The one that writes all smooth and flowy." Speaking as someone who finds all story-writing easier with a fine tipped pen, I can fully empathize. And hallelujah, we found the flowy pen.
* There's a sign taped to our front window. It's addressed to the birds. It's the sweet girl's promise to feed them "breakfast, lunch, and dinner" -- weather permitting. She's stuck to her promise too, and the sparrows, wrens, and starlings have begun to get quite excited when they see her coming. She keeps putting bird seed in her pockets. I foresee plenty of bird seed in our washer/dryer, though I have asked her to remember to check her pockets before she puts her clothes in the hamper.
* We still love picture books. It's been a hard few months for the sweet girl, who has moved into what I guess you'd call "tween territory" with great vigor. Her intensities, her brightness, her energy...blessings...her intensities, her anxieties, her struggles to control her temper...some challenges. All of it comes together in a big package that, some days, feels like more than any of us can unwrap. (So thankful God holds her heart. Mine too.) In the midst of all this, there are moments when she so longs to be "big" and "independent" and moments when she just wants to curl up on my lap again, like she's four. It reminds me of my golden retriever, years ago, when he was just moving out of his puppy stage but would still try to curl up on my lap. Given the sweet girl's huge growth spurt this year, that last is getting more difficult ~ she has really long legs! But one thing we've both realized is how much we miss reading picture books together, so lately we've been making time to do that again. It's been wonderful. I need to get some reviews out, especially of the delightful Emma Dilemma.
* We're loving drawing. One of the best parts of loving picture books is that we no longer just read them together, we pore over them together. And then on Fridays, we draw from them together. This has yielded some surprising creative results for us both in the past few months, which I hope to post about again.
Hmmm...this has turned into very much a parenting/family/homeschooling sort of post, though I had thought I would range further afield on all sorts of topics. I guess my brain just spiraled in one direction. And now I really do need to get back to work. More musings soon!
Monday, May 16, 2011
"And Then God Showed Up..."
There are certain catch-phrases bandied about by Christians that drive my theological sensibilities a bit batty. "And then God showed up..." has always been near the top of the list.
I think it drives me crazy because it assumes that there are times when God is not around. I'm not trying to deny, of course, that we all go through seasons of time when we can feel as though God is absent. Sometimes this may be due to our own sin or apathy ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it...") Sometimes we may be going through a time when the Lord may choose, in his gentle wisdom, to not speak too loudly -- (unlike the "megaphone" times in our lives) -- perhaps because he wants us to seek him more deeply.
Whatever the reasons may be, there are plenty of wilderness times in our lives when we may feel as though the Lord is not very active or present in our lives. Small wonder then that we marvel when we do suddenly sense his presence, when we find ourselves saying "and then God showed up!" like it's a shock.
As I said, what's bothered me most about the phrase is that, lurking in the background, there's this element of surprise. As though God took a walk somewhere, wandered off, got lost, then happened to make it back. A little late, but hey, at least he bothered to show up. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but there's something that smacks a little bit here of the vision of the deist watchmaker God, who sets things in motion and then leaves us all to muddle on as best as we can. But he pops in from time to time, just to check on how things are going.
But lately I've been gaining more empathy for the statement, or at least seeing it in a new light. Maybe because I've been floundering a bit in the wilderness lately, and the times when...oh, okay, I'll say it...the times when God has showed up, clearly and obviously, have provided such deep and meaningful refreshment for my weary heart and soul.
Still, I don't want to forget the pervasiveness of God's presence. He is there, in the hard times as well as the beautiful, in the dry times as well as the garden blooming wild with fruit times. He is there. We may forget it. We may not always sense it. We may forget to walk in the truth of it. But he is there. He is the one who sustains us, every breath, every moment, every mercifully new morning. He is there.
So here's what I think: when we say "And then God showed up..." this is what we just might mean:
We mean to say, like Jacob, "God was here, in this place (this very ordinary, hard-ground, rock-littered place!) and I DID NOT KNOW IT!"
We mean to say, like the Israelites celebrating on the other side of the Red Sea, "there was no hope, there was no way out, there was no way through, and then the most amazing thing happened...God showed up! He rescued us from death!"
We mean to say, from the depths of our heart, "I was once far off, but now I have been brought near, and amazing grace, God is here!"
We mean to say, like Jack Lewis, "God walks everywhere incognito. And the real challenge for us is to come awake."
So maybe we mean to say...today, this moment, this now, I have come awake. The Prince of Peace has bestowed the kiss of life. I have come alive to the presence of God (always here, always sustaining) in ways that have surprised and stunned me. That have made me realize anew that hallelujah, HE IS HERE.
I think it drives me crazy because it assumes that there are times when God is not around. I'm not trying to deny, of course, that we all go through seasons of time when we can feel as though God is absent. Sometimes this may be due to our own sin or apathy ("prone to wander, Lord, I feel it...") Sometimes we may be going through a time when the Lord may choose, in his gentle wisdom, to not speak too loudly -- (unlike the "megaphone" times in our lives) -- perhaps because he wants us to seek him more deeply.
Whatever the reasons may be, there are plenty of wilderness times in our lives when we may feel as though the Lord is not very active or present in our lives. Small wonder then that we marvel when we do suddenly sense his presence, when we find ourselves saying "and then God showed up!" like it's a shock.
As I said, what's bothered me most about the phrase is that, lurking in the background, there's this element of surprise. As though God took a walk somewhere, wandered off, got lost, then happened to make it back. A little late, but hey, at least he bothered to show up. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but there's something that smacks a little bit here of the vision of the deist watchmaker God, who sets things in motion and then leaves us all to muddle on as best as we can. But he pops in from time to time, just to check on how things are going.
But lately I've been gaining more empathy for the statement, or at least seeing it in a new light. Maybe because I've been floundering a bit in the wilderness lately, and the times when...oh, okay, I'll say it...the times when God has showed up, clearly and obviously, have provided such deep and meaningful refreshment for my weary heart and soul.
Still, I don't want to forget the pervasiveness of God's presence. He is there, in the hard times as well as the beautiful, in the dry times as well as the garden blooming wild with fruit times. He is there. We may forget it. We may not always sense it. We may forget to walk in the truth of it. But he is there. He is the one who sustains us, every breath, every moment, every mercifully new morning. He is there.
So here's what I think: when we say "And then God showed up..." this is what we just might mean:
We mean to say, like Jacob, "God was here, in this place (this very ordinary, hard-ground, rock-littered place!) and I DID NOT KNOW IT!"
We mean to say, like the Israelites celebrating on the other side of the Red Sea, "there was no hope, there was no way out, there was no way through, and then the most amazing thing happened...God showed up! He rescued us from death!"
We mean to say, from the depths of our heart, "I was once far off, but now I have been brought near, and amazing grace, God is here!"
We mean to say, like Jack Lewis, "God walks everywhere incognito. And the real challenge for us is to come awake."
So maybe we mean to say...today, this moment, this now, I have come awake. The Prince of Peace has bestowed the kiss of life. I have come alive to the presence of God (always here, always sustaining) in ways that have surprised and stunned me. That have made me realize anew that hallelujah, HE IS HERE.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Story Musings and Prequelitis
I got my traditional Mother's Day nap yesterday (three years running makes it a tradition in our household) and was amazed how much that helped me, energy-wise, going into the new week. Perhaps it should be a weekly tradition!
Following the nap, I was treated to Chinese food and a video with my dear family. We decided to go on and see The Empire Strikes Back, as the sweet girl had decided (after weeks, or was it months?) that she was ready to move on in the Star Wars trilogy. She loved the first one, but I think the intensity made her want a long breather in between installments. Plus she's sort of charmed by the fact that her Daddy and I had to wait three years -- THREE YEARS! -- in between each movie when we originally saw them.
I love watching the Star Wars films with the sweet girl. It's fun to watch any story you know by heart with someone new, someone who is seeing the story fresh for the first time. It's even more fun when they're watching it from a young, innocent perspective. I like to observe what works and what doesn't work for her, from a story perspective. What does she intuitively get? What needs more explaining? What strikes her as hilarious? Not that every story needs to be simple enough to be fully understood by an almost nine year old, but it's still interesting to ponder what works and what doesn't on a child's level, and which story layers work on more than one level.
She loved Yoda, of course. She lit up like a Christmas tree when we told her he was voiced by Frank Oz! She is a BIG fan of Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. She thinks Han Solo is very funny. The running gag of the hyperdrive not being fixed was probably her favorite part (well, next to checking out Princess Leia's changing hairstyles). She practically cackled in glee when Han landed the Millennium Falcon on top of the huge Imperial ship ("it looks like a tiny skylight!" she crowed) and then floated away with the garbage. I think she was momentarily stunned by the big reveal of Luke's parentage -- I was glad she was cuddled on my lap at the time, so I could squeeze her shoulder in sympathy.
Of course, Dana and I ended up getting into a long, geeky discussion, as we brushed our teeth and headed toward bed, about the prequels. And about how we would have written Darth Vader's back story completely differently. (Oh go on, admit it. You would have too! If any villain ever deserved a better back story than the one he got, it's Vader!)
But I think I've had prequels on the brain, ever since we started viewing (thanks to an unexpected wait on a movie at the top of our Netflix queue) the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise. This is a series we've often talked of wanting to watch -- we never caught any of it. Well, D. says he caught part of an episode once in the wee small hours when the sweet girl was a baby, but as you can imagine, that's a bit blurry. I don't even recalling seeing that. So it's all new to us.
I've been hearing that a lot of Trekkies weren't overly fond of the series because it messed with canon and with their preconceived ideas about what the Star Trek universe looked like prior to Kirk, Spock and crew took to the skies. They have my empathy, but I honestly think, based on the three episodes we've seen so far, that the writers were spot on, at least early. The third episode, which we watched a few nights ago, was especially rife with original series "vibes" and references. And it's just plain fun to see the beginnings of things we've grown accustomed to in the Star Trek universe, like phasers and transporters. Their trepidation over using the transporter (and their insistence on using shuttles) is particularly fun -- sort of like reading mystery novels set anywhere prior to the mid 1990s, when you sometimes find yourself gnashing your teeth because the characters in danger don't have cell phones. I also enjoy the sense that the crew members are like kids in a candy shop when it comes to space exploration. Meeting alien races! Cool! Much less high-falutin' talk (no prime directive yet) and much more "let's just go see what's out there." It works for me.
So in general, how do you feel about prequels? Should writers avoid them like the plague? Are they always rife with potential pitfalls? What about companion stories written from a different POVs (like Ender's Shadow/Ender's Game?)And what book, or series of books, would you most love to see "prequelized"? I'd love to have some geeky book/movie discussions about this topic.
Following the nap, I was treated to Chinese food and a video with my dear family. We decided to go on and see The Empire Strikes Back, as the sweet girl had decided (after weeks, or was it months?) that she was ready to move on in the Star Wars trilogy. She loved the first one, but I think the intensity made her want a long breather in between installments. Plus she's sort of charmed by the fact that her Daddy and I had to wait three years -- THREE YEARS! -- in between each movie when we originally saw them.
I love watching the Star Wars films with the sweet girl. It's fun to watch any story you know by heart with someone new, someone who is seeing the story fresh for the first time. It's even more fun when they're watching it from a young, innocent perspective. I like to observe what works and what doesn't work for her, from a story perspective. What does she intuitively get? What needs more explaining? What strikes her as hilarious? Not that every story needs to be simple enough to be fully understood by an almost nine year old, but it's still interesting to ponder what works and what doesn't on a child's level, and which story layers work on more than one level.
She loved Yoda, of course. She lit up like a Christmas tree when we told her he was voiced by Frank Oz! She is a BIG fan of Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. She thinks Han Solo is very funny. The running gag of the hyperdrive not being fixed was probably her favorite part (well, next to checking out Princess Leia's changing hairstyles). She practically cackled in glee when Han landed the Millennium Falcon on top of the huge Imperial ship ("it looks like a tiny skylight!" she crowed) and then floated away with the garbage. I think she was momentarily stunned by the big reveal of Luke's parentage -- I was glad she was cuddled on my lap at the time, so I could squeeze her shoulder in sympathy.
Of course, Dana and I ended up getting into a long, geeky discussion, as we brushed our teeth and headed toward bed, about the prequels. And about how we would have written Darth Vader's back story completely differently. (Oh go on, admit it. You would have too! If any villain ever deserved a better back story than the one he got, it's Vader!)
But I think I've had prequels on the brain, ever since we started viewing (thanks to an unexpected wait on a movie at the top of our Netflix queue) the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise. This is a series we've often talked of wanting to watch -- we never caught any of it. Well, D. says he caught part of an episode once in the wee small hours when the sweet girl was a baby, but as you can imagine, that's a bit blurry. I don't even recalling seeing that. So it's all new to us.
I've been hearing that a lot of Trekkies weren't overly fond of the series because it messed with canon and with their preconceived ideas about what the Star Trek universe looked like prior to Kirk, Spock and crew took to the skies. They have my empathy, but I honestly think, based on the three episodes we've seen so far, that the writers were spot on, at least early. The third episode, which we watched a few nights ago, was especially rife with original series "vibes" and references. And it's just plain fun to see the beginnings of things we've grown accustomed to in the Star Trek universe, like phasers and transporters. Their trepidation over using the transporter (and their insistence on using shuttles) is particularly fun -- sort of like reading mystery novels set anywhere prior to the mid 1990s, when you sometimes find yourself gnashing your teeth because the characters in danger don't have cell phones. I also enjoy the sense that the crew members are like kids in a candy shop when it comes to space exploration. Meeting alien races! Cool! Much less high-falutin' talk (no prime directive yet) and much more "let's just go see what's out there." It works for me.
So in general, how do you feel about prequels? Should writers avoid them like the plague? Are they always rife with potential pitfalls? What about companion stories written from a different POVs (like Ender's Shadow/Ender's Game?)And what book, or series of books, would you most love to see "prequelized"? I'd love to have some geeky book/movie discussions about this topic.
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