"Mommy, Why Does Your Face Look Like That?"

A funny moment with the sweet girl today, one that brought me some much needed laughter...and a bit of perspective!

After a very busy couple of weeks, I finally found time to sit down today and do some work on the family finances (write checks, etc.) only to find that I had once again neglected to pay a couple of important bills. This has happened a few times lately, and it's not helping our family's already stretched-tight financial situation.

I know this isn't mere forgetfulness. I'm pretty sure I understand what's going on and how to correct it; it's just a matter of doing it. Because we've had some pretty long seasons of debt and financial hardship, and because those are the kinds of difficulties that can make me most anxious, I've been trying to "not think about it" unless and until I absolutely have to. Dumb, very dumb. Putting this out of sight and out of mind isn't helping matters. I need to be disciplined: do what I need to do well and carefully, but not give into fretting, especially since fretting is useless. It's a bit of a balancing act, and one I've obviously not been doing well.

I still had papers spread out all over the living room floor when it was time to get the sweet girl up from her afternoon rest time. I still felt terribly preoccupied with numbers when I poked my head into her room, where she was cuddling with some of her stuffed animals. I let her know rest time was over and asked if she'd like a snack.

"Yes," she said. And then added, "Mommy, why does your face look like that?"

"Like what?" I asked, probably adding to the look she was noting by my puzzlement.

"Like THAT." She tried to scrunch her own fair, unwrinkled little face. "Like your forehead is all wrinkled."

I was beginning to get it. "You mean, like this?" I asked, purposefully scowling and wrinkling my brow.

"Yes! Like that!"

I half-sighed, half-chuckled. And I told her, in all honesty, that Mommy was having to spend the afternoon thinking about bills to pay and being on the phone with people we owed money to, and that those things made me feel sort of anxious and worried, even though I know they shouldn't. "So I'm feeling worried, and I'm thinking a lot. And I guess that's why my forehead is all wrinkled," I concluded.

She listened quite placidly and seemed to accept my explanation. Except then she added, with a wise little nod, "Yes, and you're thirty-nine."

Ah yes. That too.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. And thankfully, it turns out to be the best thing in the world for your face...and your soul!

Schooling With Computers

I am discovering that I really love the simplicity of teaching and learning at home. Give us a few good books, a few good apples, a bench outside (if it's sunny and warm) or a couch inside (if it's cold and rainy) and we're good to go!

But I'm also delighting in the fact that I am homeschooling in the information age.

It's unusual for me to admit that I feel at home in my own time. Often I'm like a fish out of water. And I've always seen the "two-sidedness" of technology -- both the potential and actual blessings that come with it, and the potential and actual pitfalls.(Yes, I note the irony that I am writing this in a blogpost.) Among other things, I sometimes wonder if we're just taking in way too much information too quickly, with no way to assimilate it or respond to it meaningfully. But that's probably another post for another time.

This week I've been realizing how wonderful it is to have the internet at my fingertips when it comes to supplementing or enriching our lessons. So far at least I haven't really planned much of the "computer activities" that we've used. I just find myself getting curious about topics as I teach them, so I begin to explore on my own, the way I do with most topics in which I'm interested. Or I find helpful looking websites recommended by other parents and teachers on homeschooling forums.

This week we've used the internet for three things. We've been studying the seven continents, reviewing their names, learning where they're located on a map, and reading some facts about each. As usual, the sweet girl is utterly fascinated by Antarctica (her penguin passion never seems to fade). I found a terrific zoomable map at enchantedlearning.com, where with a click of the mouse you can zoom in and out on a satellite photo of Antarctica. We had great fun with that, making the land of ice and snow bigger and smaller!

We've also been reading about Johnny Appleseed, the legendary name of the real John Chapman of Massachusetts, who traveled in the young United States planting apple trees and helping pioneering settlers. You can find the well-known Johnny Appleseed "grace" at dltk-kids.com. If you're not sure you remember the tune (I wasn't!) you can even play a recording of the melody played simply on piano. They've got the words to several verses of the song in English, and the first verse in Spanish.

And then today we spent some time at this fun website: starfall.com The activities there re-emphasize the letter sounds and phonics we've been working on for months. It also has simple but effective graphics and easy "click and drag" kinds of games that help S. learn basic computer skills as well as review letter sounds. That's a nice plus because I've been looking for a "gentle in" to more computer usage. We've not been in any rush to teach her computer skills. She did some game-playing on the computer at preschool last year, and she's done a bit of typing and clicking with us from time to time. I know some might think it's foolish -- there seems to be a huge push to want to get kids "computer-savvy" as quickly as possible. But frankly, although it's an important skill in our culture, I haven't felt the need or desire to have her learn it right away. It's felt more important that she spend time reading, writing, coloring, counting, stringing beads, playing with play-doh, making up stories for her tiny dollhouse family, taking walks and looking for beetles. I'm sure she will spend plenty of hours of her life on a computer; those skills will come in time just like everything else. Today it was just such fun to watch her delight in clicking on the capital A's and lower-case a's on the apple tree, and dragging each letter to the appropriate apple basket down below.

Yep, today I was thankful to live in the computer age.

Bearing Fruit

The verse we've been learning in school this week is John 15:5. "Jesus said 'I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing."

We've been talking about what it means to draw life from Jesus.

It's made me think of this picture I took a few weeks ago when we were visiting a nearby gardens where the grape vines were laden with fruit.

Starting Our Ninth Week

I just had to give a shout out: we're starting our ninth week of school today! The sweet girl and I have definitely found a good rhythm for our days (and have been able to add some of that much needed flexibility too) and I am feeling so grateful and enthused about how our school year is going.

And more good news: the Lord has provided more teaching work for me at the seminary in the spring. This will enable me to continue to freely work at home and to homeschool. We didn't know how God was going to work this out for us in the new year, and I am just feeling so grateful that he has. His blessing feels like a sign of tangible encouragement that we are doing what we are meant to be doing.

I just had to share these things on my heart this morning. I wish there were more people with whom I could share our work/homeschool/ministry journey!

The Blessing of Children

While blog-hopping the other day, I found this wonderful post from a Catholic homeschooling mother and writer: 40 Reasons to Have Kids. It's a terrific list all in itself, one worth reading over and contemplating and then reading over again as you think about your own reasons you could add to it.

What makes it even more interesting is that it was written in response to another list, titled "40 Reasons Not to Have Kids" which is included at the end of this article. If you think that list sounds like a bad joke or a broad parody...well, it wasn't intended to. It's part of an actual book that apparently has become a bestseller in France. I only recommend reading the latter list 1) after you have read the life-affirming list I posted first, and 2) with an eye toward reflecting on the sadness of our life-denying culture (and finding new ways to pray for people enmeshed in it).

It's truly eye-opening to see the difference in world views: what life and children and love and parenting look like from the perspective of someone who knows and loves God, versus what they look like from the perspective of someone who seems to be mostly thinking about herself. Granted, we all fall into the latter category sometimes (because we're all sinners) but I am totally in agreement with the blogger who believes that children are a gift. In fact, a very great gift. And that they help to move us out of our selfish myopia and into an openness to all that God longs to do in us and shape us into being.

One other comment on this pair of lists: when I read the article about the author of the "No Kids" book, it pointed out that she is, in fact, the mother of two children whom she deeply regrets having. How painful that must be for her children. The journalist interviewing her asked her if she'd given copies of her book to her kids (who are, I believe, aged 10 and 13). And then came my favorite moment from the article:

For the record, she has given copies of her book to both her children. Neither has picked it up, or paid it any attention. "All they want to do is read Harry Potter," she sighs.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm so thankful for the resilience of childhood. It's wonderful to realize that her children instinctively turn away from the painful and debilitating view of life that she's espousing and turn toward an amazingly written story that, among other things, provides one of the richest storied pictures you can imagine of maternal sacrificial love, and of sacrificial love at the very heart of reality. In other words, they're "escaping" into a story that's preparing them for an encounter with the Greatest Story. It's pre-evangelism, but shh! don't tell their mother. Don't tickle the sleeping dragon. Just let em' read.

Festival of Faith and Writing Booklist

Calvin College hosts the Festival of Faith and Writing on their Michigan campus every other spring. This is a festival I've been longing to go to for...oh, about a decade. They always have an amazing line-up of writers and artists. Though I've never been able to actually get there, I stay on their mailing list, in part because they provide great reading recommendations based on their speaker list.

This year they've done something fun and very smart: they've compiled a booklist based on the speaker list for the coming 2008 festival and they've posted that list as a "library" on the website librarything. If you're looking for some new reading material this fall and winter, check out this wonderful list. It's full of authors who care about the craft of writing and who wrestle creatively with the connections between life, faith and literature.

Surrendering to Fiction

I've got a bout of fiction writing coming on. I can feel it coming, almost like you can tell when you're getting the flu.

I'm kidding with that last analogy...well, sort of kidding. There's a combination of feelings for me when I think about sitting down to write stories. Some of it is birthday-coming-soon excitement. But these days, it's tinged a bit with dread too. I think it's because I have gotten out of the habit of writing fiction. It's a completely different animal from writing prose, no matter how much I enjoy that endeavor and how creative it can be. Making myself drop into fiction is a deeper sort of surrender. When I am really "into" a story, it takes huge amounts of reserve energy (and my reserves seem low). That's probably why I haven't done it as much in recent years...my energy is going toward other things. That's not necessarily bad, but I miss the excitement and exhaustion and exhilaration of story writing.

And for the first time in a long time, stories are coming again. I'm dreaming and daydreaming about some characters I haven't visited with in years. I'm hearing story thoughts and character voices (don't worry...I'm not hearing actual voices, just finding myself imagining dialogue between characters while I'm doing other things like cooking or cleaning or showering). I've even got a couple of rather strong visual images floating around in my mind, and they're clamoring to be pinned on paper, always a bit terrifying.

And I am procrastinating. Faced with computer time this afternoon, a whole blessed hour of it, I frittered it away. Productive frittering (homeschool planning, recipe gathering, email sending...and oh yes, blogging). But lurking in the background is that realization that I am doing everything I can to do-si-do my way around the blank page that's just asked me to dance.

I need to curtsy, surrender to the music, and get on with it.

Ever stood on this creative cliff yourself? What do you do to make yourself jump? I'd love to hear!

Time To Read (Early October)

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I planned to purposefully post periodic updates about the books that the sweet girl and I are reading together. I'm doing this partly for my own record-keeping/reflections, but I also hope others might benefit from some of the book recommendations.

Our longer read-alouds thus far (since late August):
Little House in the Big Woods (Wilder)
The Boxcar Children (Warner)
The Apple and the Arrow (Buff)
Babe: The Gallant Pig (King-Smith)
The Storm: The Lighthouse Family (Rylant)
My Father's Dragon (Gannett)

Well, we're almost done with that last...final chapter tomorrow!

As for picture books, we've had a sudden renaissance of interest in the work of Marisabina Russo, long a favorite of the sweet girl's. We started reading Russo's books when S. was about two, and they've definitely stood the test of time. Lately she's been wanting repeated reads of Waiting for Hannah; The Trouble With Baby; The Line-Up Book; and Russo's newest, The Bunnies Are Not in Their Beds. I cheerfully confess that the last one drives me a bit crazy, but it's a fun read-aloud and at least it raises good discussion about listening and obedience (though the mischievous bunnies, a la Curious George, don't always provide the most wholesome examples).

I'm feeling very grateful to Marisabina Russo, however, not only because she writes books that help my daughter tap into and learn to better express her feelings, but because of a most gracious letter she wrote to us last week. I was on her website not long ago, looking up the names of some of her newer work (at the request of the sweet girl) so we could put them on hold in our library system. When I saw she listed an email adress, I decided on a whim to contact her and let her know how much we loved her books at our house. I've been getting more bold about contacting authors in recent years, in part because I'm coming to realize how wonderful it is when people tell you that what you wrote touched them on a deep level, and in part because published authors are becoming so much more accessible in the information age. I even sent Marisabina a link to a review I wrote of her book Come Back, Hannah. Re-reading the review, which I penned a couple of years ago, brought back very fond memories of our little girl's toddlerhood and our struggles and small, daily triumphs with language acquisition.

Well, not only did Marisabina Russo enjoy my review (and say so, which was quite lovely of her) but she wrote some wonderful words just for my daughter, letting her know how happy she was that her books were so loved. It's a letter we'll treasure. And it makes me think that perhaps we should write a few more authors and let them know how much we enjoy their work! Among other things, it helps S. to know and understand that authors are real people, writing out of their real lives and experiences, and that they care about readers. At least the best ones!

Finally Fall

October got off to a very hot and summery start. Although I confess I tend to dread winter a bit, I love the weeks of fall weather that precede it, and I was a bit saddened that it still felt so hot and dry and August-like during the first week of October.

Then we walked out of our front door this morning and woosh! A crisp wind scuttled across the sidewalk and came rushing up to us with the jubliant feel of autumn. It even SMELLS like fall today! We were happy to go back for a jacket for the sweet girl.

I love autumn days. This afternoon felt just perfect for drinking a cup of tart cherry tea (sweetened with a bit of Agave Nectar, my newest find at the health food store) while cooking up a big pot of lentil soup for the young adult group that meets at our church this evening. The sweet girl is not a soup eater, but I think she enjoyed all the good cooking smells too. She peeked into the pot and said wistfully, "I wish I could go to the young adult group tonight so I could have some of that soup!" (Yes, I will save out a small bowlful for her...) Somehow lemon juice, garlic, thyme and tarragon all smell better in the fall. Onward to cornbread...

Our First (and Hopefully Last) Trip to the ER

In the category of where we actually spent this weekend, at least a couple of hours of it: how about the emergency room of our local hospital?

This is not a place one ever wants to be (though we were grateful it was there). You especially don't want to be there because your five year old needs to be.

The sweet girl is OK. She had an unfortunate run-in with a large, glassed in frame which was propped up on a shelf (for some unfathomable reason) in our church nursery. We were at church yesterday doing some work -- D. had a flyer to pull together for this morning's bulletin and I was photocopying the monthly newsletter I'd just finished pulling together at home. I was at the copier across the hall from the nursery when I heard the crash, the smash, the shatters and the high-pitched screams. Not what a mother ever wants to hear. I went running as fast as I could and then had just a few moments of sheer blind panic when I saw her surrounded by broken glass, holding up bleeding hands.

We never did quite figure out what happened. She didn't know the picture was framed in glass or that it was loose and would slip. She just wanted to see "the pretty giraffe" in the picture. As far as we can tell, it started to fall (perhaps hitting her on the head and starting to break) and then she tried to ward it off by grabbing/ clutching at it. Then the whole thing just smashed to the floor. End result: lots of minor cuts but three deeper cuts, one an especially deep laceration on her left hand, between pointer finger and thumb. We couldn't get the bleeding stopped for a long time, which is why we decided a trip to the local ER was in order. The sweet girl got to experience all sorts of firsts, including x-rays (they wanted to rule out that no glass silvers were still in her skin, and thank the Lord they weren't).

So...we got home around five o'clock with a tear-stained and blood-stained little girl. She'd had the equivalent of a few stitches (they used a kind of special glue on her skin, which will help it heal and will fall off in a few days). In addition to glued and band-aided fingers (which are now partially wrapped in gauze, which we've found is easier to keep on...and we need to keep those fingers clean and dry for a few days to give them a chance to heal properly) her lips were bright red from a popsicle a kind nurse gave to her as we were leaving. She wore a sticker that said "Hug me, I was brave." And frankly, both D. and I were exhausted, almost as tired as she was! There is something about the emotions of seeing your child get hurt that are really wearing. I am just very grateful to God that she is all right.

And today is the 17th anniversary of the day her daddy and I first said "I love you" to each other. We sort of celebrate that each year as a mini-anniversary. Some years it's felt very romantic. This year we're mostly just trying to catch our breaths. Autumn's always been my favorite season but falling in love during it blessed it with an even deeper benediction and grace. And I'll tell you something: I felt so blessed that he was the man sitting next to me in the emergency room yesterday, holding our little girl on his lap and encouraging her to play math games to get her focus off the pain of her hands. I love him more than I could have believed possible seventeen years ago.

"Return of an Angel"

In the category of where I truly wish I could be this weekend: I am longing to be at any one of the performances of Return of an Angel, a play about Asheville native and renowned American novelist Thomas Wolfe.

The play is being put on by the Occasional Theatre at the Asheville Community Theatre, in conjunction with other activities marking the Thomas Wolfe Festival.

My paternal grandparents George and Lola Love McCoy were good friends of Thomas Wolfe. They encouraged him in his work -- my grandmother, in fact, wrote what I believe was the only positive review of Look Homeward, Angel in the region when the book first came out (most folks native to Asheville were incensed by the candid way in which Wolfe had exposed the frailties and foibles of a number of townspeople, only thinly disguised as characters).

And my grandparents are in the play. The roles are small, but they are actual characters. The man playing my grandfather got in touch with my parents, wanting to learn as much as he could about Papaw. He's a terrifically gracious person and has been emailing our family with updates about rehearsals. If you go to the page with character profiles, you'll see photos of my grandparents next to photos of the actors playing them. (My Mamaw would have been thrilled by the beauty of the lady playing her, I think!) The little boy on my grandfather's lap in that photo is my Dad.

My grandparents are very close to my heart. I never knew my Papaw, but I certainly feel as though I did, mostly because my Mamaw lived the last five years of her life at our home in Virginia, from the time I was nine until I was fourteen. She told lots of stories. Those were formative years for me, and I will always be grateful for her influence in my life. I've also spent a lot of time in the intervening years talking to my parents about their parents, and also doing a good bit of research into our family history. I was able to trace my Mamaw's line back about ten generations to Ireland.

It's all very exciting, and you can see why I'm longing to be at the play. I felt like I came tantalizingly close to being able to go.

We're all thrilled that my beloved oldest sister is going, however. We can't wait to hear back from her with a full review. She's already heard from the playwright, and she'll get to meet her and also some of the cast on Saturday night. Once I get a full report, I hope I will be able to post again...and I hope the official website for play will post some performance pictures!

School in our Pajamas

We got many and varied responses when we began letting people know that we were really going to homeschool this year. One of my favorites came from my Dad. We were talking on the phone, and in response to me saying how much I was looking forward to the year beginning (this was back sometime in August) he replied something like: "Well, yes. But you're going to *really* do it, right? It's not like you're going to just hang out in your pajamas every morning."

This made me chuckle. It didn't upset me, because I knew exactly where my Dad was coming from. First of all, you have to understand that my Dad, bless him, truly does respect homeschoolers. Most of his grandchildren have been homeschooled, and he loves and respects the work my sister and sister-in-law have done in teaching them. He also, perhaps unbeknownst even to himself, is probably one of the biggest reasons that I decided I wanted to homeschool, because my Dad was a wonderful teacher.

I was never formally homeschooled, but I learned a lot at home, even before I was officially school age. Some of this was informal, just because my parents are both the kinds of people who love to learn and talk about what they're learning and thinking and doing. But some of it came about because my Dad took time and effort to teach me things. When I was about four, he and I had a big blue notebook we kept together. We did all kinds of things in that notebook: color wheels, rhymes, number games. I created my first poem for that notebook, which he dutifully copied down (I can still picture his careful capital letter printing in blue ink). So I had a very early example of how to pass on the joys of learning and discovery to a child.

But I know the other place my Dad is coming from too. He's "old school" in some respects, which makes sense, given the fact that he's 75 years old (or young). He appreciates formal learning, the kind of learning he himself experienced. He values order and routine. I'm his daughter, and I appreciate and value those things too, in part because I learned to from him.

In fact, one of the things I'm discovering as we move into a our sixth week of the school year is that I have to guard against falling into the trap of being too formal. One of the reasons we chose to homeschool is that we value the flexibility, the way learning can fit into the everyday and be an organic part of living. I am finding that I need to strike a creative balance between "formality" (for want of a better word) or an organized routine (which describes it better) and flexibility.

In the case of the sweet girl, learning flexibility, informality and spontaneity feel most important now. She is her Papaw's granddaughter through and through, inheriting not only his love of order and routine but mine as well, with a touch of it from her Dad too. I guess it's not surprising to find that she thrives on a schedule. She loves when we do things in the same order each day...morning prayers and Bible reading in her room; breakfast; morning chores; another brief prayertime on the living room couch; a musical interlude when we learn our Scripture verses; and on to lessons (reading, math, writing, sometimes art and poetry) before we take a walk and enjoy some sunshine and do some longer read-alouds outside. That's quickly become the shape of our usual morning, and she would love it, I think, if I varied it even less than I do. One of her great challenges, not just in schooling but in life in general, is to not shape expectations around things being done exactly the same each time we do them. I think she will likely grow up with a great love of liturgy (at least I am praying that's one of the side benefits or good fruits that will come out of this particular character trait!).

So I'm trying to let my own inner scheduler relax some mornings, and just take it easy. This morning we got a bit of a late start and S. was dawdling over breakfast, mostly because she realized it was the first day of a new month. This is always a cause for great rejoicing. We had to change the kitchen calendar and read about the new owl for October (a Western screech owl this time). We had to change the magnets on the refrigerator that spell out the month and day and date. This inspired her to put together all sorts of letters and play with sounds and decide what some of those sounds actually sounded like when you blended them.

Did I look at the clock? Several times. Did I consider telling her we had to hurry up and get dressed and get ready for "school"? Yes. But then I took a deep breath. I realized that we were "doing school." We were learning, we were enjoying learning. And we weren't, thank you, Lord, having to get ready to rush out the door (which is what we were doing this time last year).

So I relaxed. She chattered about letters; we talked about owls; I started a load of dishes and a load of laundry. And for a little while at least, we did school...in our pajamas.

Just don't tell my Dad.

Prayers for Journeyers

"Protect me, O Lord.
Your sea is so big,
and my boat is so small."
(Breton Fisherman's Prayer)


"Beyond these shores
Into the darkness
Beyond these shores
This boat may sail
And if this is the way
Then there will be
A path across this sea.

And if I sail beyond
The farthest ocean
Or lose myself in depths below
Wherever I may go
Your love surrounds me
For You have been before
Beyond these shores."

(Prayer to Christ, attributed to St. Brendan the Navigator)

Grr-rowling!

I’m re-reading some scenes from Deathly Hallows again. After my initial two readings this summer, I needed to put the book aside for a while, just to savor the ending (and grieve some too). But lately I’ve brought it back out.

The sweet girl has been fascinated with this book since the morning of July 21st when we picked it up in the bookstore. I don’t know which fascinated her more: the size, the riveting (and colorful) cover, or the fact that Mommy was glued to the book for hours, reading whenever she could. At any rate, according to her Daddy, the book caught her eye again yesterday afternoon. He found her trying to sound out the words on the cover.

In the category of things I wish I’d overheard...

S: (trying to sound out the word): "Rrr-ow-ll-ing."(which she pronounced to sound like growling) "Rowling’s not a word!"

D: It’s a name.

S: (sounding amused) "A name for a lion!"

Which I actually thought was pretty fitting, considering it’s the name of the woman who invented the house of Godric Gryffindor. Long may those Gryffindor lions rr-ow-ll!

Conversation Before Nap

Sweet Girl: Mommy, could we read The Flopsy Bunnies before nap?

Me: Sure, sweetie. I thought you might want to read one of your new books from the library, but we can wait and read one of those after nap.

S: Can't we read both?

M: No, Flopsy Bunnies is pretty long and it's getting late.

S: Can we please tell Beatrix Potter not to write such long stories when it's getting late?

Literary Birthdays: Celebrating Robert McCloskey and Tomie dePaola

Two important birthdays on the literary calendar this weekend! September 14 (or 15th, depending on sources...I've seen both dates) marks the birth of writer and illustrator Robert McCloskey.

Ohio-born McCloskey was born in 1914 and passed away in the summer of 2003. Although born in Ohio (the setting of his book Lentil) he is probably most associated with Boston, the setting of his wonderful Caldecott award winning Make Way for Ducklings. And most of all, he is probably associated with Maine, a state I've never visited but almost feel as though I have through several of his wonderful picture books. It's hard to choose, but I think my very favorite will always be Blueberries for Sal. McCloskey was a wonderful story-teller whose old-fashioned illustrations help new generations envision what pockets of America looked like in the 1940s and 50s.

And happy birthday to Tomie dePaola, born today in 1934 so turning 73 (just a couple of years younger than my parents)! Tomie has enriched the lives of so many families through his many wonderful books. We've loved a bunch of them, but have especially enjoyed his illustrated Bible stories, folks tales, and stories of saints. He has a colorful, almost primitive style that children respond to with enthusiasm. One of the very first Christmas books my little girl ever enjoyed was Tomie's Little Christmas Pageant, a lovely introduction to the story of the nativity for toddlers and preschoolers.

Thank you, Robert and Tomie, for enriching our lives.

Editors and Family Talk About Madeleine

I may just keep posting favorite tributes for a while, as I keep finding more. I just got Publisher's Weekly in my inbox, and loved reading these memories and anecdotes from some of Madeleine's editors and from her beloved granddaughter Charlotte.

I was sad to find, via Charlotte's reflections, that her grandmother didn't like Jane Austen! Hmm...Madeleine didn't like either Austen or Rowling (though I think had she persevered with Harry, she might have changed her mind...there was lots more "under the surface" there than she realized after reading the first book).

Well, as Madeleine herself said, "different strokes for different folks." Grin.

More Tributes to Madeleine

Besides the daily digest posts from Bonastra (the online L'Engle discussion community of which I've been a part for the past decade) I'm finding that my favorite tributes to the complex life and work of Madeleine L'Engle are coming through blogs. Standard obituaries just don't seem made for dealing with complexities. And it's most moving and illuminating to hear about how her writing truly influenced or shaped real people's lives, especially since she was such an intensely personal writer.

One of my favorite tributes so far is by Terry Mattingly and can be found here at the Get Religion website.

I also appreciated Janet Batchler's reflections on what Madeleine and her writing meant to her. Regina Doman's thoughtful and astute comment on that posting is also well worth reading and reflecting on.

If you've read other L'Engle tributes that you've found moving, feel free to post links in the comments. Or add your own thoughts and reflections...

Homonyms

The sweet girl has always been intrigued by homonyms. One of her favorite sentences, and a sentence that has now graced our refrigerator (in plastic letter magnets) for several months, is "A bare bear has no clothes." She and her Daddy had a terrific time coming up with that one, and discussing the differences between "bare" and "bear," a discussion which never ceases to fascinate her. (It helps a lot that she dresses several of her teddy bears each day!).

Today we were reading the wonderful James Herriot story "Only One Woof." We read all of the stories in James Herriot's Treasury for Children last fall, but it's been long enough ago that she doesn't remember the stories well (a year can feel like a really long time to a five year old!). I've loved Herriot's stories myself, both for children and adults, for years, and autumn just feels like the right time to get them back out again.

"Only One Woof" is the story of a sheepdog...well, two sheepdogs, Gyp and Sweep, who are brothers. One of the things I love about Herriot is that his vocabulary always challenges: he doesn't dumb things down for a young audience in any way. I stopped once in a while to explain a word, but mostly I let the wonderful, rustic Yorkshire music of his prose just play against our ears, knowing that most of the meaning will come out in the wash eventually, as it always does with good writing.

But this morning, S. suddenly stopped me. "Mommy," she said, looking puzzled, "what were the sheepdogs hearing?"

"What?" I asked, not understanding what she was asking.

"What are they HEARING?" she persisted. And I think she added something like "Are they hearing the sheep?"

Light dawned slowly, but it finally dawned. We had been reading about how the sheepdogs would "herd" the sheep. Quite sensibly, she thought they "heard" them. After all, sheep are noisy!

So now we have a new homonym to play with. The sheepdogs heard the sheep saying baa, and it was their job to herd them into the barnyard.

For a very fun and thorough list of homonyms, check out this great website which I just stumbled onto this afternoon.

For Madeleine, May All Her Seasons Be Blessed

How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
That every life is noted and is cherished,
And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.
(~ from A Ring of Endless Light)


Madeleine L'Engle Camp Franklin died on Thursday, September 6. This coming November 29, she would have been 89 years old.

I've been trying since last evening to come here and post something...something to adequately convey how much I loved Madeleine L'Engle and her writing, and what her books have meant to me for the past 28 years. Instead, I spent a while last night crying, then pulling some of my favorite books from my L'Engle shelves, reading, smiling, laughing, and finally crying a little more.

Lest anyone think it strange that I was grieving the death of someone I'd never actually met, know that I felt as though I'd known her, and known her well, since I was eleven. Her writing, both fiction and non-fiction, carried with it a very authentic and intimate voice. Over the years, I also wrote her a handful of times, and she was always so gracious to respond. Two personal notes I remember in particular came at very different seasons in my life: one a note encouraging the writing aspirations of an enthusiastic and eager sixteen year old, one a note wishing blessings on me and my new husband (I sent her a wedding invitation because when it came down to thinking about important members of my life community, she was on the list).

Her writing has shaped me and helped me in so many ways. She helped me think about life in terms of seasons; she helped me learn to order my time and count it as precious. She taught me the importance of names and naming, and what a precious gift it is to be given the gift of someone's name. She taught me to hope and believe that marriage, even or especially in its difficult times, could still grow and flourish. She reminded me to be honest in my prayers. Time and again, she returned my focus to God's amazing love for his beloved creation, and especially turned my eyes again and again to the incarnation and the wonderful gift of Jesus.

That I still try to live a writing life in any way is partly due to her encouragement. That I am an Anglican is also attributable to her, at least in part, for it was Madeleine who introduced me to the beauty of the seasons of the church year.

That introduction came about in her book The Irrational Season. It was the first of her non-fiction books I'd ever read. I'd spent most of my adolescence reading her fiction for both children and adults. On my 18th birthday, my sister Martha gave me a copy of The Irrational Season, one of what's known as the "Crosswicks" journals, a series of confessional type reflections Madeleine wrote mostly in the 70s.

My sister had just gone to a Madeleine L'Engle reading at the University of Connecticut. She had a chance to meet her, and Madeleine signed my book. "For Beth, May all your seasons be blessed." I have a feeling that it was a standard line she wrote in many people's books, but that doesn't mean I didn't treasure the message, especially given all that I had already come to learn from her (and more I would come to learn) about seasons and blessings. She was so important to me in so many seasons. Two of her books in particular helped me through deep, growing times: A Ring of Endless Light, which helped me navigate adolescence, and A Severed Wasp, the only novel I could really read during the one brief period of my life that I went through a serious depression.

Over the years, I read some of her books so many times that they're yellowed and practically in tatters. I still have my first copy of Wrinkle, and it's literally been read to pieces! Last night as I prowled through my L'Engle shelves, I realized I really think of them in those terms, because I have two complete shelves (over 40 of her books) set aside just for her work.

There's so much more I could say...and maybe I will later. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you, Madeleine, and blessings to you in your new journey into the fullness of glory. Thank you for your stories, and for passing on to me your deep, deep love of story and the Story. May all your seasons be blessed. May you feast at the essential table and enjoy the companionship of all the saints, including your beloved Hugh and Bion. And may you finally get that heavenly music lesson with Grandpa Bach that you so long anticipated!

"What in the Wumberly World..."

The sweet girl had a hard day..she didn't seem to be feeling well, and kept complaining of tiredness. I let her have some extra rest time on the couch. She was lounging against the pillows, cuddling her stuffed giraffes, when all of a sudden a very loud engine (like a motorcycle revving) sounded on the street just outside our front windows. She sat up startled. "What in the wumberly world WAS THAT?" she asked.

And I had to laugh. The phrase comes from one of her favorite poems at the moment, "The Llama Who Had No Pajama." I say one of her favorite poems because she's also adoring "The Seven Silly Eaters." Both poems are by Mary Ann Hoberman, whom we've only recently discovered. The sweet girl has always enjoyed poetry, but she's just been riveted with these poems (and they're long, both of them). She was fascinated with the world "wumberly" and the fact that it was made up. I've noticed a sudden upsurge in her own playing with language and that she's sometimes making up new words of her own.

So a long, hard day all around, and we're all tired...but that one moment just felt so "wumberly" I had to share it.

Reading Round-Up: End of Summer Edition

I can't remember the last time I posted a list of what I've recently read/am currently reading...and of course what I'm hoping to read!

Here's at least a partial listing from the past few months, based on hasty scribblings from my journal.

I recently read:
Austenland and Princess Academy, both by Shannon Hale. I started with Austenland, which is Hale's most recent novel, and her first written for adults. I enjoyed it, but from the notes about the author discovered she was best known for her young adult work. So I went and found Princess Academy, which won a Newbery Honor in 2006, I think. And I loved it. I mean, LOVED it. This is a beautiful book that deserves to be read, savored, and then read again. I plan to review it for epinions soon.

This was also, of course, the summer of Harry Potter. I finished my re-read of the first six books with a couple of weeks to spare, and then laughed and cried my way through Deathly Hallows, which I've already re-read once in total (and parts of it several times). A marvelous and fitting end to a series that deserves to be around (and will be, I think) for generations. Thank you, J.K. Rowling. In the lead-up to book 7 this summer, I also read John Granger's excellent Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader.

I read a good bit of juvenile and young adult literature this summer. A couple of "oldies" -- Richard Atwater's Mr. Popper's Penguins (did that as a read-aloud with my penguin loving daughter) and Lois Lenski's Strawberry Girl, different than I expected but satisfying, and with those familiar Lenski illustrations. Nikki Grime's Road to Paris, much more recent, and as always, a treat. (I love Grimes' work.) It's occuring to me as I write all of these down that I've reviwed almost none of them. Must remedy that sometime... it's been a busy few months.

On the non-fiction front, I've been reading at several things:
N.T. Wright's Evil and the Justice of God. A good book, and a helpful book, I think -- there are a couple of sections in particular that I really want to go back to. I'm in the final chapter, savoring it, and plan to review this soon too. Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World. Excellent read thus far. I got going for a while and couldn't put it down, then needed to take a break. It's quite a tome. I am planning on it getting me through some chilly autumn and possibly even a few cold winter nights. In addition to being wonderful reading just for my own enrichment, the preparation is oh so helpful as I contemplate tackling ancient history with the sweet girl during her first grade year. Bauer has written a "younger" version of these for children, which I checked out of the library and skimmed. It's a "must have" book for us during the elementary years, I can tell.

And while I'm on the subject of schooling, I've been reading Ruth Beechick's The Three Rs, a fine little book on simple but life-giving approaches to teaching young children the basics of reading, writing and math.

I haven't enjoyed a good book ABOUT writing in a long time, so was delighted to discover William K. Zinsser's On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction. Hey, it's been around for a quarter century or more, but it's new to me! I only managed to read a few chapters before I had to return it to the library (it was on loan from another branch and someone had put it on hold) but I'm going to get this one again. It's the first sort of "how-to" book I've ever read that I found myself nodding in agreement over...because he's describing writing and revising processes that I've actually put into practice. And more and more, I find myself drawn to writing non-fiction.

I read most of a book called LifeShapes, a book on Christian discipleship by Mike Breen and Walt Kallestad. D's at all all-day conference with Breen today, and I'll be interested to hear insights from that.

My fascination with the Snape/Lily backstory (so tantalizing and so brief) from Deathly Hallows has led me to think more about the courtly love tradition. I've been re-reading Petrarch's Sonnets & Songs from Laura's Lifetime; bits of C.S. Lewis' The Allegory of Love; and some bits of Petrarch's My Secret Book (this last a challenge -- it's a Ciceronian dialogue between Petrach and an imagined St. Augustine). I've only dipped my toes in on the whole courtly love tradition, but the fascination persists, so I'll keep trying to dip as I can find the time.

Fiction: I've barely started Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, my attempt at a classic during the last half of this year. I've not gotten far enough into it for it to grab me yet; I'll let you know when it does!

With the youth fellowship group, we've taken a break from Plantinga and Wright and are studying 2 Peter from the New Testament.

Family Reading/Read-Alouds: The sweet girl and I just finished Little House in the Big Woods, and now are mid-way through The Boxcar Children. We're having read-aloud time of longer books every day.

Some of the other books she's loved this summer (and I've enjoyed reading to her, often over and over!): Shirley Hughes' Evening at Alife's; Alfie Gets in First; Alfie's Feet; Abel's Moon. Bob Hartman's The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book. The Big Picture Bible. The Bob Books (phonetic readers). The Caterpillar That Roared. Ladybugs. Where's the Green Sheep? Bunny Day. I don't have authors handy for all of these latter books, but they've all been favorites.

No time now to write about what I hope to read this fall...I'd like to find an autumn reading challenge to join again, but if not, I'll just make up my own!

My Favorite Question This Morning

I love the sweet girl's questions. Her fascination with history is especially fun.

This morning we talked about different periods of time in history, and times when certain things had been invented. She was completely fascinated to think of a world without computers. I told her that her grandparents had not grown up with computers and that even her Daddy and I had not really grown up with them, that we'd learned to use them when we were young adults. I explained that people didn't have computers in their homes much until the 1980s. She looked utterly intrigued if not a bit baffled, and then asked:

"But before they invented computers, what did people do when they needed to do something on the computer?"

The "organic" nature of learning

One of the topics I really wanted to delve into with the sweet girl during this, our first "formal" homeschool year, was history. That's primarily what I'm using the Sonlight materials for: their "introduction to cultures" for kindergarteners, which does a nice job of introducing history, different cultures, timelines and geography. Because the materials are compiled and distributed by Christians, there's some definite emphasis (at least in part of the term) on Christian history and on missionaries. I liked that too, church history teacher that I am.

I was a little surprised, however, that the instructor's guide indicated that for this first week, we'd be studying a couple of specific "heroes of the faith," Martin Luther and William Tyndale. Initially I thought it seemed a bit odd that we'd be majoring in specific people so soon rather than doing some of the more general introduction to history (which begins next week). As I looked over the materials, I was also a bit doubtful as to whether or not they would engage my little girl's interest since a lot of it looked potentially over her head. Having read and taught church history a lot in recent years, I knew I could supplement some of the book (which frankly needed a little supplementing) and help explain things more simply for her. But I honestly wasn't sure she would "get it."

Boy, was I wrong! As much as she's loved math and reading and art this week, all stuff she's has plenty of practice with already, and even begun to relax a bit with handwriting (more on that later!) history has been, far and away, the subject she seems most enthusiastic about. She's listened well and asked good questions.

Late Monday morning, near the end of our first day of school, we sat on the bench under one of the big sycamores across the road and read the introduction and first chapter about Martin Luther. I prefaced it with some initial comments about history in general, but mostly we jumped in feet-first. At first it felt like a real swim upstream. "What's a monk?" she wanted to know. We dog-paddled for a while, with S. seeming to meander in and out of the material. Was she even really listening? I wondered.

Then her Daddy came home for lunch. "What did you learn this morning?" he asked, after they hugged enthusiastically and she exulted in her first morning of kindergarten. And much to my jaw-dropping surprise, she began to talk excitedly about Martin Luther. "Mommy, what were the three times he almost GOT DEAD?" she asked, and in a daze I talked about Luther's near-death experiences (when he cut himself on a sword, lived through a typhoid epidemic, and was almost struck by lightning) and how God helped him and healed him and called him to serve him.

But Monday evening was best of all. She got to choose the hymn for family devotions and chose "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." And I asked, oh so casually, "do you know who wrote the words to this hymn?" She said no. When I told her Martin Luther, her eyes got round as saucers. She was thrilled. She's insisted on listening to this hymn every night this week.

And yesterday my issue of Christian History magazine came in the mail. This issue is focused on J.S. Bach, and there was a whole article on Bach and Luther, including a picture of a rare edition of one of the first German hymnbooks with Luther's "Mighty Fortress" in it. I watched my daughter pore over this picture, which led to a discussion of organs (she's never seen one or heard one) which led me to dig up an old tape I had of Bach organ music, which we listened to for awhile.

Connections, connections. Natural and wonderful connections. This is part of the "organic" nature of learning (argh! sorry for the pun!) at home that I've always appreciated. Watching my daughter's face alight with interest about topics I didn't even know she was ready for, I think I am coming to appreciate it even more.

Alan Jacobs on HP and the Deathly Hallows

Yes, yes. Alan Jacobs has weighed in on the final Harry Potter book over at Books and Culture. It's one of the most cogent and beautiful reviews/analyses I've seen yet. Worth waiting for. If you've read and loved Deathly Hallows, or perhaps especially if you've read it and not loved it, please go read this review.

I'm itching to get back to some more HP reflections. Not sure when it will happen, but essays like this inspire my thoughts!

Kindergarten and Graduate School

Deep breath. I've spent the past hour working on setting up my online course shell as my class, the Episcopal Ethos, will be made accessible for students on Monday. Monday is also the sweet girl's first day of kindergarten here at home.

You can see why I'm taking deep breaths, I think! The school year is really and truly about to start, in a big way. And for the first time ever, I will be teaching both kindergarten and graduate school in the same semester. A unique privilege and perhaps a bit of a challenge. I hope I'm up to it!

D. is actually out right now buying us a desk. This is a purchase we've agonized over...it was one of those things we really felt we couldn't do without as we try to organize our space for fall, but it's also something we can't afford. We looked at some used furniture but couldn't find just the thing we needed to fit the back corner of the living room, which is where the desk (and the computer) will be going, thus freeing up my dining room table once more for school projects by day and for dinners (if we so choose) by night. We finally found a desk that's being discontinued at Staples. And I really like it. Most office furniture you buy on the cheap *looks* cheap -- like plastic sort of coating over plywood -- but this is real varnished wood. It's a wider grain than I might have chosen, but I'd rather have a real, rougher looking wood than a fake sort of smooth plastic. The size is right; it has some good storage overhead, and it will fit in the corner. And it only costs $80 -- I say that with gritted teeth and the awareness that $80 to us right now feels more like $800. But it has to be done, and this seems to be the most painless way to do it.

So I'll be spending the rest of the weekend, when not in church or hosting our youth fellowship group, either cooking; revising, posting and re-arranging documents for my online course; readying the sweet girl's school supplies in her new purple pencil box; or cleaning out the living room corner for the new desk.

Here comes Monday!

Why Expelliarmus? (Still Thinking About Deathly Hallows)

Ever since we heard the prophecy at the end of Order of the Phoenix, one of the main things I've worried about is how Harry was going to defeat Voldemort without resorting to evil's methods. We've known, of course, that Dumbledore believed that the only way Harry could win was through the power of love, and that turned out to be blessedly true. But I still wondered how it would happen. How would JK Rowling show us a decisive victory over Voldemort (and make certain we knew he was dead) without depicting Harry as a kind of murderer?

I think she succeeded brilliantly in showing us deep qualities of mercy in Harry. And one of the master-strokes is the way Harry uses the "Expelliarmus" spell at the very end, instead of the "Avada Kedavra."

Let's lay aside (for now, though I'd like to come back to it sometime) the troubling facts that at different points in the narrative, Harry casts the other two curses that have been classified as unforgivables by the ministry. But he never casts an AK, the curse that killed his parents and that should have killed him twice.

One of the things I didn't expect, and which was a fascinating part of Deathly Hallows, was that by the time Harry met Voldemort for the final confrontation, he would be in a place of calmness and strength and power. I think I always imagined the final confrontation as a desperate moment with Harry somewhat cornered, yet protected and helped by love outside (as well as inside) himself. He was certainly helped all through DH, and would never have gotten as far as he did without the help of countless others.

When the final confrontation boils down to just the two of them, however, it's clear Harry has the upper hand. Voldemort has lost all his horcruxes, which we know has left him in a weakened state. He's lost Nagini and most of his other supporters, including Bellatrix. And as Harry unwinds the narrative, for him and for us, we begin to realize that Harry is pretty sure that he also has the upper hand in terms of weapons. He's wielding what looks like a lesser wand, but because the greater wand recognizes Harry as its new master, his spell should be able to defeat Voldemort's.

I hadn't imagined the complexity that Rowling could bring to bear on the whole "Deathly Hallows" subplot, and especially on the wand exchanges. That was brilliant, with that seemingly insignificant little moment on the tower when Draco disarms Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince being so key. (The only other seemingly "throwaway" moment that might have seemed even more brilliant was the way in which Dumbledore used the golden snitch Harry almost swallowed in his very first Quidditch match six years before.)

So by the time of the final confrontation, Harry is in a place of power: he's the master of the Elder Wand, he has Voldemort cornered, he has done everything he was supposed to do to ensure the other's vulnerability. And what is beautiful is that, standing in that place of power, Harry chooses not to wield it with utter forcefulness, not to vengefully cast at Voldemort what Voldemort cast at him and his parents. He restrains his power. Instead of seeking to kill, he seeks to disarm, a word positively fraught with biblical connotations.

There is even a strange sort of beauty (or if that's not quite the right word, perhaps nobility is better) about the way he casts it. It's not accompanied by a cry of rage or glee. Voldemort "shrieks" his final curse. But although Harry also yells, his yell is depicted in almost prayerful tones: "he too yelled his best hopes to the heavens" (and how marvelous that he is in the Great Hall at the time, with the clear light of sunrise dawning).

Lest we miss the point, JKR gave us that wonderful exchange in the early chapters where the death eaters figure out the true Harry's identity (in the midst of the decoy Harrys) because Harry uses "expelliarmus." It's an unusual move, one that doesn't seem to make a lot of logical sense, but one that's very Harry. He used it in graveyard in Goblet of Fire, he taught it to the DA students in Phoenix. It's becoming his "signature move," and Rowling makes it utterly clear, in the way Harry explains why he chose to use it rather than send the imperiused Shan Stunpike plummeting to his death, that it's a move of mercy and recognized as such by his worst enemies.

Harry shows mercy to Voldemort here, even in the act of ensuring his destruction. He throws the milder, disarming spell versus Voldemort's enraged killing curse (note we've got red versus green again!). Why is Harry ready to show mercy?

I think there are many reasons. Here are just a few:

• Harry has seen what Voldemort "will become." I think this refers to the awful bit of Voldemort's lost soul (is it the piece that was blasted out of Harry?) which is beyond help in the waystation/waiting room/train station between the worlds after death. This is one reason he tries, although unsuccessfully, to remind Voldemort that only real remorse can possibly re-knit his unravelled soul. (Sidenote: Shades of C.S. Lewis' "Weight of Glory" essay here, where Lewis reminds us that everyone we see has an eternal destiny, and that should affect our own actions.)

• Harry has been able to enter into some measure of real empathy with Voldemort. As awful and evil as Voldemort is, he and Harry shared common experiences and deep connections. Let’s not forget that as he was walking toward death, Harry remembered that Hogwarts was home to him, to Voldemort, and to Snape, "all the abandoned boys." Considering the depth of his hatred, once upon a time, for Snape as well as Voldemort, being able to see some of the painful childhood feelings he shared with his enemies was very important for the growth of Harry’s own soul.

• Harry has been trained in righteousness. I think this is the most important point of all. All through his years at Hogwarts, although he did not know it fully (and although we as readers did not know and understand it fully either) Harry’s trials have helped to prepare him for exactly this moment. Albus Dumbledore, his primary mentor, helped train him for what Albus knew would probably very well be a certain death. Albus couldn't prevent that, and I think for a long time (before the "gleam of triumph" and the "flaw in the plan") he thought the best he could do for Harry was to train him for a holy death, a brave and courageous death that might win release for others. That's why he gave Harry so many chances to face evil and temptations and hardships, even as early on as the events in Harry’s first year at Hogwarts in Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps even as early on as leaving him on the steps at the Dursleys. And we see Harry's progression in mercy all through the series, including what I still think is one of the deepeest emotional/spiritual turning points of the series: when thirteen year old Harry spares the life of Peter Pettigrew, the man who betrayed his parents.

There are many things here I'd like to explore more fully later. For now, I'm just quietly celebrating that when it mattered most, Harry showed mercy. It was not a curse of Harry's that killed Voldemort, but the rebounding of Voldemort's own rage and hatred. Harry aimed to disarm.

Time to Read (Late August)

I'm way overdue to post a "reading round-up" -- in fact, I'm not sure I've posted one since June, and I've read a fair amount this summer! I'd like to at least attempt a list of my recent and current readings, along with some jottings about what I've particularly liked during this season.

But from time to time, I'm also going to post something under the heading "Time to Read." These will be specific posts about what I'm reading with the sweet girl. I've often incorporated some thoughts on that into my reading round-up, but as we head into the new school year...our first official school year here at home together...I want to be more intentional about listing what we're reading and keeping track of the books we've enjoyed together.

Yes, I'm homeschooling my daughter. I can't believe that I'm actually able to do this. I've wanted for so long to make it happen, and for God to allow our family the space in our schedules to try it...well, He is just very good. The sweet girl is completely excited about our new ventures. She was playing with her Playmobil Bunny School the other day and informed me that Buck and Heidi (her two little rabbits) would be "kindergartened at home" by Mr. Hopper, their teacher. I love that she's enthusiastic about having me home and having me for a teacher, and that she's already turned kindergarten into a verb!

We officially begin Monday, though this week (our first full week at home since I left the office on the 10th) I've been easing us into bits and pieces of our new schedule. I'm also trying to clean and organize as much as I can, though given that I've had no time to do much of either for the past year and a half, progress has been slow. But we will not be afraid to take time. (You're going to hear that a lot in the coming weeks...one thing I'm already enjoying and looking forward to enjoying even more is being able to pace our learning ventures at a sane and natural pace.)

What are we reading right now, as we head into the school year?

In the mornings, we're beginning our second read-through of The Big Picture Story Bible by Helm and Shoonmaker. Friends loaned us this and we like it a lot: it's very different from most children's story Bibles in that it focuses on overall recurring themes in the Scriptures, like covenant and exile and the promise of the coming of "God's forever king." Pictures are so-so, but the text is very well-done and S. keeps asking for more of it.

For read-aloud time, we've been enjoying Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, and Holling Clancy Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea (we picked this up after our trip to Lake Erie, since S. wanted to learn more about the Great Lakes).

We're still reading a plethora of picture books, of course: lots of Shirley Hughes again lately, and a DK book called The Caterpillar that Roared. Plus one very factual (full of photos) book about ladybugs...how they hatch, eat, molt, fly, etc. The sweet girl's love of all things small still flourishes!

We've been reviewing some in 100 Easy Lessons and are around half-way through now. We probably shouldn't have taken so much time off this summer. Though S. remembers her letter sounds very well, she's a lot more halting (less confident) in blending those sounds together to form words/decoding words than she was just several weeks ago. I feel badly that I dropped the ball on reading lessons for so long, but it was SUCH a busy, busy summer. We're now practicing every day though, so I'm sure her read-aloud skills will come back with more confidence as we continue.

And speaking of building confidence, she LOVES the Bob Books, the wonderful little books for beginning readers that come in box sets. I'm glad that I persevered in keeping these on request at the library, though it took months (literally) to get them, as they're so popular. I'm beginning to think we will have to cave in and buy them, though I've held off because they're a bit pricey for such little books. Of course, their littleness is part of their charm...that at the fact that they are written so simply, with each book helping the child practice a certain sound or set of sounds. S. loves knowing she has read a whole book on her own! We just finished reading through the final set of four (there are three sets of four for twelve books in all) in the first set for beginning readers.

Good Apples

"Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness." (Jane Austen)

I like this quote, though I'm not sure where it's from (a letter or one of the novels?). I've also seen it written two ways, either as "good apples" or "good apple pies." No matter...it rings true!

I love apples, and I was very happy to find a new variety in the produce section at the market the other day. I was drawn to them first because of their lovely name, "Ginger Gold." And then because of their color, a shiny, pale apple green. The picture above makes them look more yellow than they are...or at least more yellow than the ones we have. They taste as good as they look too: very crisp and slightly tart. Not as tart as a Granny Smith, but much more flavorful than Golden Delicious (one of the sweet girl's favorites).

I like this apple so much, in fact, that I went looking for more information about it online. Turns out it's a relatively new find: a Virginia apple from the Blue Ridge region. No wonder I was drawn to it! And it's available August through October.

I have decided, by the way, that this is my fall to finally bake an apple pie. For the first time in ages, I am in a season of my life where I can take a little more time to do things...("we will not be afraid to take time" is one of my personal homeschooling sayings) and baking is one of those things that I really enjoy and can invite the sweet girl to do with me. She loves helping in the kitchen (we made peanut butter cookies yesterday) and measuring and stirring and setting the oven temperature and cleaning up all provide great lessons. So...I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I have never made an apple pie from scratch. This is the year!

If you've got any good apple pie recipes, send them my way. I think already know what pastry recipe I plan to use for the crust though.

Calling All Literary Knitters!

I've been thinking for some time that I'd like to learn to knit.

Now I'm sure of it.

I was glancing through some of the fun tid-bits on the AustenBlog the other day, and found this link to a website called Yarn Love. They sell hand-dyed yarn in gorgeous colors. And as you'll see if you click on the above link, almost all of their yarns are named after literary heroines or famous women.

Aren't they gorgeous yarns? I am now wishing wistfully for a skein of the "Elizabeth Benett" yarn, and the talent to know how to make something lovely with it. Perhaps a wonderfully warm scarf I could wrap up in on those cold, winter days when I love nothing more than to curl up with a Jane Austen novel, or sip a cup of warm tea while I watch the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series...again.

Blissful Feet at the Beach

Yes, we really did go to the beach last week. And I can prove it!

I'm not sure when I started taking pictures of feet, especially feet at happy moments. But from time to time, I just do. And my feet, feeling warm sand for the first time in a decade (I kid you not) were completely blissful.

We finally got a mini-vacation...our first family time away of the entire summer. We had two nights and most of three days. And we finally got to Lake Erie, which is something we'd wanted to do for years. The peninsula was gorgeous. I loved the combination of woods and beach...this was my first ever visit to any of the Great Lakes. And it was the sweet girl's first ever visit to the beach.

I don't know why it took us so long. Life in the past decade, here in the post-industrial town that time forgot, has not always been easy. I am feeling a bit nostalgic as I write this because today, August 20th (it's just past midnight right now) marks exactly 10 years since we moved here. 10 years. If you had told me then that we would still be here, I would have laughed in disbelief. This was supposed to be a waystation, a testing ground, a little bit of wilderness, preparation time, a stepping stone, a bridge moment, a season. And it has been all those things. Just in a much more prolonged and profound way than D. and I could ever have guessed when we pulled onto this very street a decade ago and began unpacking boxes.

So...tired as I am, feeling grateful for lots of things. For persevering love in hard places. For knowing the faithful words and kind works of God in a "besieged city." For my sister who drove through a pouring rain to help us unpack boxes that first night, who flew here in the middle of the night/early morning five years later to be here for the birth of the sweet girl, and who has visited us here countless other times. For friends who know how blessed but exhausting life and ministry and work in this town can be, and who sent us a check so we could take that vacation to the beach this past week. For a relatively new friend, Erin (who so faithfully reads this blog, and who has blessed my life with poetry and great conversation in the past almost-two years) whom I was delighted to finally have a chance to meet during our time in Erie.

And oh yes, I'm feeling grateful for rested, blissful feet at the beach.

BBC Filming Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes

Now here's a lovely little bit of book-lovers' news: BBC One is filming a new adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes.

If you've never read Ballet Shoes, go find a copy, curl up and give yourself a couple of hours...you're in for a wonderful treat. The novel, published in 1937, is about three adopted girls who become sisters in a very unconventional English family. The girls all train as dancers, though each has a different talent/passion (and only one of them, the youngest, is really "meant" to be a dancer).

I grew up reading our public library's copy of Ballet Shoes to tatters. I loved Pauline, Petrova (especially Petrova!) and Posy Fossil, the sisters of the story, and entering their world was always a wonderful experience. Though I've read several other Streatfeild books, and they're all enjoyable, in my opinion Ballet Shoes is by far the best.

I now own a paperback copy with illustrations by Diane Goode (who also did new cover illustrations for some of the Betsy-Tacy books some years back, and is the writer/illustrator of several picture books the sweet girl loves). About two years ago, I ran across a video of a BBC film adaptation of the book done a number of years ago -- and was not impressed.

So I'm very excited about this one. It's got quite a cast list! Among other things, I think it will be fun to see Emma Watson (Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter films) play Pauline. I can easily picture her in the role.

Bella at Midnight

In April, I reviewed the wonderful book Bella at Midnight, by Diane Stanley. It's a marvelous fairy-tale with some fantasy echoes scattered through it. I loved it so much (and it brought me such joy to realize someone in our day and age could still tell fairy-tales so beautifully) that almost as soon as I closed the covers, I found myself wanting to share the story with someone.

My own daughter is still too young (though I plan to read it with her in a few years) but my niece Hannah, a voracious reader, seemed just the right age. I decided to give a copy of the book to her for her eleventh birthday. She celebrated her birthday last week, and since she and her family happened to be visiting my parents (her grandparents) in Virginia, I mailed the book there. She got it on Monday.

What I didn't know was that Hannah and her family would be able to squeeze in a two hour visit with us on their way back to Illinois this past Thursday. This was a special blessing because they will soon be on their way to Taiwan, where they will be doing mission work in the next year. The two hours we had with them were all too short, but are hours we'll treasure. I was especially happy that the sweet girl and her youngest cousin (just four years old) played together so well.

But I think one of my favorite moments was when they first arrived. Hannah, looking so grown-up with a new stylish haircut, her beautiful eyes framed as always by her glasses (I always wished I had glasses when I was growing up, as they seem to fit book lovers' faces so well!) came toiling up our long stairs. She hugged me, and then she held up the book I'd sent her for her birthday just a few days before. Then she hugged the book, and announced with wonderful enthusiasm "It's great! I just finished it! I LOVED it!"

For book lovers, the only thing better than loving a book yourself is being able to share it with somebody else who loves it too.

Circles of Prayer

A dear family that lives near us (we'll call them the "A family") has blessed us so much in the past year and a half. When I went back to work half-time in April 2006, I worried about where my little girl could go on the staff meeting morning that her Daddy and I shared. The "A family" offered to take care of her. And they did, one morning a week, faithfully and joyfully, week in and week out. They would never let us pay them for their services, and they welcomed my introverted little daughter into their boisterous and loving family (which includes 5 children, 3 of them near my daughter's age, plus 2 dogs and a cat!).

I've been thinking about them a lot lately since I am finishing up this particular season of work outside the home. This morning, they blessed me again. But to share how, I need to go back in time about three years.

When the "A family" moved here almost three years ago to attend seminary, Mrs. A was pregnant with their fifth child. We had barely had time to even meet them -- I'm not sure I knew their names yet, but had glimpsed them walking around town and once at church -- when it was time for their child to be born. Their precious little baby girl came home from the hospital but was soon back in with some serious health problems. She literally battled for her life in those first weeks, and they almost lost her. Although we didn't really know them, our circles of community (seminary, church) touched, and we found ourselves praying for them and for this precious little baby girl regularly. I remember checking in on the hospital's care website to see pictures of her, and just praying, praying that she would be well.

I am delighted to say that she is well! Although she has some ongoing health issues because of those early frightening weeks, little "baby A" has grown up into a boisterous, friendly, beautiful little girl who will turn three this September. She has blessed our lives numerous times over just by being her sunny self. She is truly one of the most light-filled little people I've ever known.

Yesterday I was in major stress mode when we got to church. Our family has had too many late nights and early mornings this week, due to lots of things all happening at once: vacation bible school and my last week at the office being the two major ones. We had a bit of a spat at home as we were about to rush off the day: Daddy tried to rush Mommy, Mommy lost her cool and snapped at Daddy, Sweet Girl reacted to everybody's else's stress and decided to throw Daddy's hat down the stairs and then tearfully wouldn't apologize. We managed to pull ourselves together (more or less) in the car, but we still weren't in the best space when we arrived.

When we got to the church building, D. headed off to get into his costume for the opening skit. S. headed for the registration table. I got her checked in, helped her put on her name tag and her bandanna (the kids have all been dressed this week as "islanders" in our Pirates of Paradise Island VBS), and headed upstairs to my office, almost in panic mode as I thought of the huge final to-do list I'd left myself to tackle. I know part of the difficulty in trying to work through so much this week has been the emotions connected to the fact that I'm leaving what has felt like a fruitful season of work and ministry.

Mrs. A. was at church yesterday morning also. She had just dropped off her two VBS-aged kids downstairs. She came walking toward me, her precious, sunny, curly haired, wide eyed 2 year old in tow. I think as soon as Mrs. A. saw my face, she knew I was not having an easy morning, and when asked how I was, I told her the truth: overtired, overextended, stressed.

"Can I pray for you?" Mrs. A. asked.

"Yes," I said gratefully.

And she did, right there in the hallway. With VBS volunteers and kids in and out of spaces all around us, she just put her hand on my shoulder and began to pray. It was a beautiful, Spirit-led prayer that my heart needed to hear.

All of that in itself would have been enough of a blessing perhaps. But as she started to pray, I opened my eyes again quickly, smiled, and held my hand out to her precious, sunny little girl. She smiled back at me, slipped one hand in mine, and then with her other hand, reached out to take her mother's. All during the prayer, she was perfectly still and quiet, until the very end, when she announced "Ahhh-MEN!" in emphatic tones, making us all laugh. When I marveled that she'd joined us so beautifully in the prayer, her mother told me simply "she loves to pray."

It didn't dawn on me fully till later what a powerful picture of the body of Christ this was. Here was this little child, so much like the children Jesus held on his lap as he talked about how we needed to enter the Kingdom. This precious little child is one I prayed for a lot during a very vulnerable season of her young life. And now, not even yet three, she was praying for me when I was vulnerable and in need.

Circles of prayer. Circles of prayer.

They Will Soar on Wings Like...

When the sweet girl was two and a half or three, I made a set of Bible verse cards for her. Because she wasn't talking much yet, I relied heavily on images to help her learn and become familiar with the verses. On one side of the card I put a picture (either clipart or cut from a magazine or catalog) and on the other side I put the Scripture. When we read them together, I would hold them up with the picture side facing her and the verse facing me, and I would read the verse aloud. Once she was beginning to talk in earnest, she would chime in with the word or words (related to the picture) when I paused in the reading of the verse. For instance, one card had a picture of a sun, and I would read "The Lord is my...." and she would say "Light." I think that might have been the first verse card I made, probably because light was a word she could sign as well as say.

After we used them for quite a while, I put all the cards away in a little box, and just recently we got them out again. We've worked on other Scripture verses in the meantime, especially ones set to music, but I've been delighted to see how well she remembers these first cards and how much she still enjoys reviewing them.

The other day she pulled out a card with a picture of a soaring eagle on it. I held it up and read "...those that trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like...."

"Birds," she said promptly, looking at the picture. It had been a long time since we'd gone over the verse, after all.

"Well, that's right," I encouraged. "We will soar on wings like birds, a particular kind of bird. This bird is an eagle."

"Eagles," she repeated.

Last night she happened to pull that card out again. Once more I held it up and read "...those that trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like..."

"Seagulls!" she said promptly.

You know, that image works pretty well too!

Exhausting Week

Well, we've officially started what I've termed our "exhausting week." This is the week of the summer that, if we can just get through, I will begin to feel that I can breathe again!

Several weeks ago, when we made the decision (for our family's health and well-being) that I would step down from my job at the church office, we thought it made sense for my last day to be this coming Friday, the 10th. It did make sense...then. The one big thing we weren't thinking of, however, was that it would mean my last week at the church would run concurrently with our church's VBS program. D., as the Christian Education director, is ultimately in charge of that program and also heavily involved in the hands-on carrying out of components: the dramatic skits at the beginning (it seems that most men really harbor not so secret desires to dress up like pirates) and the Bible reflection times with the various age groups throughout the morning. The sweet girl is attending the VBS, so this is really a family affair, and we're having to leave the house early each morning to get us all where we need to go at church in plenty of time.

I've tried to help "behind the scenes" with the VBS, especially helping to prepare some of the Bible reflections on the theme of treasure. I had hoped I might be able to help with actual teaching, by my time at the office is pretty tied up. Since we haven't yet been able to hire my successor, I'm trying to wrap up all sorts of odds and ends with the administrator job: revise my job description; file mountains of papers (filing has always gotten short shrift because I'm always skimming off the top of urgent things in my twenty hours per week); make tasks lists of the basic things that need to be done each week; find and train volunteers willing to do them, etc. I spent about six hours at the office today instead of the usual four, and I'm beat.

It's all good, but all tiring...and this week too shall pass, to paraphrase one of my wise Mama's favorite sayings. (She loved "this too shall pass" and "may this be the worst day of your life" whenever I complained...which of course I did a lot during adolescence!). I'm not really complaining here, just taking a deep breath. I know we are moving toward more spaciousness and room in our schedules, and I am so looking forward to that. For now, I just need to rely on God's grace to get through a week of way too much to do and way too little time to sleep.

Prayer for Travelers

I've been very out of the news for the past few days. I'm trying to finish up my final weeks at the office and finish them well; our church's VBS (which my husband is coordinating) runs next week; I've had to finish my fall course syllabus; and I'm working on a writing deadline. Those are just a few of the things that have kept me from the news, which I usually have to seek out, since we don't have television.

So I was appalled yesterday when I stumbled onto photographs of the terrible disaster in Minnesota -- the interstate bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis on Wednesday. I've spent a few minutes today reading stories and looking at photos, grieving for those who lost their lives and for their loved ones who will miss them. Today's news is somewhat encouraging in that there have not been as many confirmed casualties as originally feared, but even one casualty in an accident of this kind is devastating, and there have been several confirmed deaths so far. As always in this kind of situation, there are the heartbreaking stories of people still missing, and the poignant stories of people who were traveling late or who took an alternate route or other ordinary things that happened to bring them to that specific location at that specific moment in time.

I think this story hits especially close to home because we live very near to a city that's known, with some affection, as "the city of bridges." We've always heard that Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world except for Venice, and I believe it. Despite a lot of gray weather due to living in a river valley, and far too much rust in the landscape, some of the skyscape is unusually beautiful here because of the many bridges that adorn this area. We travel over bridges frequently since we have to cross rivers to get places.

So this really does hit home. And it made me turn to the prayer for travelers in the Book of Common Prayer:

O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel (in particular those who travel over bridges); surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey's end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

It's a good prayer, for actual travelers and for all of us who are traveling through, or wayfaring, through this life.

The Meaning and Purpose Behind Stories

How Christian are the Harry Potter stories? That's a question that's fueling a lot of post-Deathly Hallows discussion right now, at least among the websites and forums I visit.

D. and I were discussing this issue this past weekend. I've found myself wanting to stay away from some of the discussions, truth be told, in part because I think we can risk becoming too dogmatic in our defense of Harry as "Christian" literature. Do I believe these stories are steeped in Christian imagery and symbols? Yes. Do I think that Rowling has shaped the story around themes that are deeply and importantly Christian? Yes. Do these books, and especially this final book, personally move me on deep spiritual levels? Oh yes.

Do I think that these elements are so blatantly obvious that anyone who misses them (or sees them and tries to brush right by them out of discomfort or frustration) is just being stupid? That's where I'm drawing a line. I think we need to show a little mercy to the people who refuse to see these things in the Harry Potter stories. The fact that they have a hard time hearing and seeing them may, in fact, be testament to the underlying needs of people in our culture.

These are rich and complex stories. Our current culture is story-starved, I think, at least starved for good stories that really echo the true Story. Ms. Rowling has created stories in which people will hear more than they know, imbibe more than they realize. I'm not sure we should try hitting people over the heads by unpacking the "message" in these books, although I do love discussing and unpacking them among others who are eager to see what's there. I just wonder if we shouldn't let sleeping dragons lie...at least sometimes. That may be a more effective way to ensure that more people will read, enjoy and experience some deep formation of the heart through their experiences of these stories!

Some of the most basic things Rowling's stories show (show, not tell) are so basic that it would be easy to miss their import. One of the most important things of all might be the simple fact that there is more to this world than material reality. Spiritual reality, unseen reality, exists. We are people with souls, not just minds and bodies. And people with souls are worth loving. They're worth living for and dying for.

That may seem so basic that a lot of people will just skeptically raise their eyebrows and say "so?" But children are growing up not knowing these realities. If a fascinating and wonderful story with characters they love can help point them toward these realities, I for one want to cheer that on. And there are more explicit Christian truths to be mined in these stories as well. But I'm not going to hand a child Harry Potter (or for that matter C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is far closer to straight allegory) and tell them to read it because it's good for them. I know it's good for them, but I'm going to give them the story knowing it will delight them as a story...and knowing that they will find instruction in the midst of the delight.

How conscious Rowling was of the Christian depth of what she had to say I don't know. It's hard to believe that some of the direction wasn't conscious, because it's so deeply engrained. On the other hand, that very depth could also point to an element of unconsciousness. Sometimes the book actually knows more than the writer, or helps lead the writer into places where they didn't at first intend to go. I think Rowling's recent comments about "struggling to believe" were very honest and also inform what was going on here. I think God was at work in Rowling's writing, not only in helping her to craft stories that will delight and instruct many people in our age, but in helping her to wrestle with and work out her own story, her own coming to terms with grief and death and love and choice and what it means to live in a fallen world between the now and not yet.

And a side note to the whole issue of how faith informed the writing. I find it interesting that some people are displaying a frustration with not knowing exactly how well-planned these books were. People seem to vaciliate between yearning to know all the details of Rowling's fictional world (with an assumption that Rowling knows all the details and can reveal them all if she so chooses) and a skepticism that she doesn't really know all the answers, didn't plan things carefully enough, and might even have contradicted herself in talking about the fictional world she's been writing for the past seventeen years. I think whatever contradictions might exist are perfectly understandable, given the length of her writing process and the complexity of the plot. In fact, months ago I remember writing here on this blog about how encouraged I was to hear that Rowling herself was surprised/saddened by writing in unexpected character deaths. Not that I wanted to see beloved characters die, but it struck me as hopeful that the writing process was still so lively for her that she could be surprised in the midst of it, even though she had repeatedly talked about how firm her ultimate direction was and how carefully she'd plotted. It gave me more confidence, not less, that we could trust the final direction and the ways in which she got there. And I don't think we were disappointed.

Sometimes I think one of the best things Rowling has done in the Harry Potter stories was to give our time and culture a Mirror of Erised, a glass into which we can look and find revealed, sometimes to our astonishment, our own heart's desires. Because I wonder...as we look eagerly for answers about what happened to beloved characters (how did their lives turn out?) and ask questions about the still puzzling patterns in the less-revealed plots and the motivations of characters whose stories were not fully told, are we asking questions about our own lives as well as about the lives in these stories? Does the yearning to delve deeper into meaning, the longing for certainty that the author knew where the story was going, the hope for consistency to answers about this sub-creation, say something real about us? Might it not reveal a hunger to find meaning in our lives, a fully trustworthy Author behind the meaning, and a lovingly intentioned and crafted purpose behind the creation in which our stories play out?