Got Books?

I've got about a thousand more priority projects I should be working on right now, but I keep going back to ideas for a potential course proposal I'm working on about the work of C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling. I think it's because I've been reading a lot of Lewis and Rowling again (and also MacDonald and some Tolkien).

One problem I keep coming up against: finding books I'd really like to read that are not in our county's main library system (one of the best in the country) or in the seminary library (which has a very good Inklings section). Given my complete lack of budget for books right now...no joke, I had to use my last book review income for bills and still have no idea how I'm financing the rest of the books we need for homeschool this fall...I really can't go out on a limb and purchase these right now, no matter how I might try to justify it. I'm trying ILL, but sometimes that can take months.

It dawns on me, however, that many folks who read my blog tend to love Rowling and the Inklings (hmmm....what a coincidence)! So I thought I'd throw out the titles of two books I'm looking for in hopes that some of you out there might have copies you'd be willing to part with for a few weeks, perhaps in trade for some of the other terrific books I have on my shelves. A geeky book exchange! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Sort of harkens me back to my tween and early teen summer days when I would swap baseball cards with Wade and Woody, two guys who lived down the street from me.

So nobody gets my 56' Yogi Berra or my signed Brooks Robinson, but here are the books I'm looking for:

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer (Kent State University Press, 2008)

George MacDonald: Literary Heritage and Heirs, edited by Roderick McGillis (Zossima Press, 2008)

Got books? If you have these and are willing to trade for a few weeks, let me know. I've got a parcel of interesting things on my shelves, ranging from Anglican theology to Christian education to good fiction to literary criticism. If I don't need it to teach with this fall, maybe we can work out a creative exchange!

The Seventh Birthday

The sweet girl's birthday is becoming my "new way" to realize we're half-way through another year -- it used to be the approach of July 4th!

We had a lovely celebration on Saturday. After seven years, I am at last getting the hang of what makes a birthday celebration "just right" for my daughter. It has to do with simplicity and tradition: friends, ice cream, balloons, and of course muffins (no cake!) She loves the tradition I started last year, where we bring out her "birthday book," a scrapbook of pictures from previous birthdays. I didn't finish putting in all the 6 year old pictures until the morning of her 7th, but no matter. It was there to flip through and look at and marvel over, and that's what mattered.

Although we were missing some folks very dear to us this year, we still had a lovely day. And our precious little one really is seven...truly growing up, in all sorts of wonderful ways, right before our eyes. Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings on this family.

"Why It Is Important to Edit" OR Just One Little Sound

So I just posted a review of a picture book. As I re-read my zippy little conclusion, I realized I had just written this:

"a fun picture book for all households who have ever had young picky eaters of kids with big imaginations"

I don't know about you, but I doubt picky eaters would find kids with big imaginations all that tasty!

I hastily changed "of" to "OR" and practically dissolved into giggles. Now I find myself humming Hap Palmer's wonderful song "One Little Sound."

Take the /r/ from rice, and the food is cold as ice
Take the /h/ from heat, warm it up and we can eat
Take the /t/ from tape and feed a hungry ape
Oh, what a difference, just one little sound

A great song: it not only works to teach phonics, but to remind writers of the importance of careful editing!

Oh My Aching Writing Muscles

While the sweet girl is trying out her muscles and learning new found skills in sports and arts camp, I'm at home trying to get through overwhelming piles of things to do. I can roughly sort the piles (like socks?) into categories like these:

~scholarly reading and fall course prep
~homeschool planning
~writing projects (research, actual writing)
~housecleaning and organizing

It's a lot easier to sort than it is to do the actual work, especially the writing.

That's because I'm discovering how flabby my writing muscles are. I thought I'd done a pretty good job of keeping them exercised this year, but now that I'm faced with some actual daylight hours (read: I'm awake!) to dive into projects that have been simmering on the back burner, I'm discovering how painfully slow I am right now at crafting essays and stories.

I'm also re-discovering how easy it is to let myself be distracted. I'm actively looking for venues where I can send some of my work (both work I'm writing now and things in the files ready to submit or re-submit) so I legitimately need to look through some online journals, read samples of other people's work, etc. It's fun, but way too easy to while away "just a few more minutes" reading instead of diving into the waiting projects. And far too easy to let myself fall into discouragement when I read an essay or story by someone else: I remind myself that good writing should enlarge my creativity and give me hope, not make me feel diminished when I inevitably compare my creaky prose to someone's final published draft.

At least my writing log makes for amusing reading!

I'm also discovering it's easier for me right now to go back and forth between kinds of work: the practical, nitty-gritty work of household tasks (so pleasurably measurable...there's the "J" in my INTJ personality type) and the more ephemeral work of getting well-crafted sentences onto the page (harder to see immediate returns or quantify your sweat equity!). So it was that I turned with some relief to bandaging the sweet girl's scraped hand and getting her a popsicle when she got home this afternoon -- yes, she was covered in paint, dirt, and scrapes, but filled with enthusiasm over the day's fun adventures.

When I look into her smiling face, I find myself tapping into that enthusiasm and remembering something important I don't want to forget: writing is fun and I love to do it!

Images of Life and Growth

Near the end of George MacDonald's The Lost Princess, there's a fascinating chapter where Rosamond is tried in the "chamber of moods." She has shown some soul growth, growth in kindness, love and self-control, and is on her way from being a "mock" princess to a "real" one. But the Wise Woman knows she still needs testing, situations in which she can try her patience.

In the last scene, she discovers a beautiful young girl with a lap full of flowers. When the child throws a flower down on the ground, it magically takes root and blooms. When Rosamond goes to touch or pick the beautiful flowers, however, they wither. She cannot touch the living flowers without killing them, in part because she has a greedy desire to possess them rather than to simply admire their beauty and let them live.

That notion of giving life instead of death is powerfully portrayed in the image of the growing or wilting flowers. Poor Rosamond comes to realize how desperately tired of herself she is, how awful it is to be "a creature at whose touch the flowers wither!" Only when she has lived through that despair, repented of her greed and learned to touch the flowers gently (without plucking them up) do they begin to not shrink from her touch. Indeed, when she touches them with love and gentleness, she is astonished to see that the flowers actually begin to grow. Rosamond becomes speechless with joy in the face of such a transfigured flower, which mirrors her transfigured heart.

I keep thinking about the potency of this simple story image: green and flourishing plants and flowers show life and growth while wilting or drooping plants and flowers show death and barrenness. It's an image that's used to great effect in Shannon, Dean and Nathan Hale's graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge, which I just finished yesterday.

Rapunzel is a wonderfully funny and fascinating retelling of the old fairy-tale. The Hales have moved the locale to the Old West, where Rapunzel uses her long braids of bright red hair as a whip and a lasso. She's a girl on a rootin-tootin' quest: to free her real mother and revenge the many years stolen from her by evil "Mother Gothel" the woman who took her from her real mother when she was just a little girl, and who eventually imprisoned her in a tall tree when Rapunzel refused to acquiesce to Gothel's plans to turn her into the Gothel of the next generation, a tyrant who reigns over the surrounding peoples by withholding growth from their land if they don't do as she bids.

Yes, the people in "Gothel's Reach" live a miserable existence. The land is becoming dry, barren and cracked. The few patches of vegetation that are left are quickly wilting. Gothel has gotten hold of some serious "growth magic" (it's not her own magic) and while she can use it to grow things, to nourish and provide, more often than not, she uses it to withhold growth. What an evil character! Even in the places where we see she has grown things, she often uses them to stunted purposes, like the tall tree where she imprisons Rapunzel. When Rapunzel fails to submit to her wishes by her sixteenth birthday, Gothel uses her anti-magic to withhold food from Rapunzel. Fruits and vegetables that used to magically appear for her to eat no longer show up, and the tree itself starts to twist closed. Small wonder Rapunzel has to find a way to get down.

I've barely recounted this story -- there's lots more adventure, especially once Rapunzel hooks up with trusty sidekick Jack -- because I hope you'll check it out and read it on your own. Nathan Hale's illustrations are terrific and add so much to the already terrific storytelling by husband and wife team Shannon and Dean. But I did find it fascinating that within a space of just a couple of days, in incredibly different kinds of novels written 133 years apart (The Lost Princess was published in 1875, Rapunzel's Revenge in 2008) I should find the same potent growth imagery used to similar effect.

So much of our soul's growth or stunting shows itself in whether we bestow things that nourish and help life flourish or if we try to grab and cling selfishly and thus end up bestowing death. What sort of person do we want to become? Someone who helps nourish life or thwart it?

More on soul growth and stories soon...this is a topic I find myself stumbling on everywhere right now, and thinking about a lot.

Never Too Early To Plan Your Wedding

For some reason, the sweet girl was thinking about weddings last night.

"Could people decide to have a really short wedding?" she asked me. "Could they just kiss each other and then go have cake?"

And a few minutes later, still thinking about the cake part, obviously, she gave a little sigh of dismay. "Do you have to have cake at your wedding?" she asked, because (as everyone who has ever met her for more than five minutes knows) she DOESN'T LIKE CAKE.

"Of course not," I assured her. "When it's your wedding, you can plan the celebration the way you want it. You could have pie! You could have ice cream!"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, a little gleam in her eye. "Then I think I'll have milkshakes!"

Random Early Summer Musings

The sweet girl seemed to grow three inches today, not in physical stature but in maturity. She decided to do sports camp, something she's been going back and forth about for weeks. She loves art, so the afternoon camp was a given, but athleticism is not her strong suit. She was a little nervous about the camp, but decided to give it a try. I was so proud of her when she got home and announced "Sports camp was a challenge...but it was fun!" Proud that she did it, proud that she recognized it was a challenge for herself, but that hard things are worth doing. I don't think I had that much awareness or perseverance when I was her age.

Even at six, almost seven, she still loves to carry her comforting "cloth" (an old soft piece of cloth she uses as a lovey). She mostly enjoys sleeping with it but has gotten in the habit of carrying it certain places (like church, for some reason). Mostly these days the only time she really seems to want it is when she's feeling tired or if she's feeling a bit nervous about something. I knew she was going to want to take it to camp, but I also knew there was no way it would fit in her shorts pocket or be something she could keep track of (she also tends to drop it and forget it once she gets comfortable in a situation). She seemed to feel extra vulnerable when I told her gently that I didn't think she could take it. Thankfully God gave me wisdom and I hit upon the idea of giving her a much smaller torn piece (of the same material) that I had saved in a drawer for just such a time as this. She tucked that little piece in her pocket and was just fine. She now calls it her special "baby cloth" for sports camp!

The evening found us out on the bench near our sycamores enjoying some quiet time. She grubbed around with a stick in the nearby rocks and the little patch of garden by the parking lot, and I finished reading George MacDonald's The Lost Princess and enjoyed listening to our urban birds (a noisy crow and some starlings that have a nest nearby). On our way back into the house, we were totally thrilled to discover not one, not two, but THREE precious baby rabbits scampering about and munching greens in the big tangled mess of grape vines at the end of the sidewalk. I don't think I'd ever seen rabbits this small up close! We dubbed them Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail ("but they're gathering grapes instead of blackberries," said my knowledgeable little Beatrix Potter fan) and decided Peter must be off somewhere in Mr. McGregor's garden!

The work on our building, by the way, is pretty much complete. Today they replaced the streetlamp that used to be right beneath our window. I was very saddened to see the old one go as it was old-fashioned and had a wonderfully Narnian feel, especially in falling snow. Now we just have an annoying, glaring light that makes weird shadows on the sidewalk.

First Grade Art: Degas Dancers

On the eve of arts camp, I thought I'd post another of our art projects from first grade year. The month we studied Degas, we drew ballet dancers with chalk on dark construction paper. Another great project idea from the Usborne Art Treasury. I joined in on this project, as you can see from the photo below.

Under the Rafters

I live just down the road from the seminary where I graduated eight years ago. I still teach in their online program. If anyone had told me I'd be walloped by emotion by this past weekend's homecoming event, I would have chuckled. Homecoming? That's what you do when you go back to visit places. We never left!

And yet in many other ways, we really did. Anyone who has ever been around academic communities for any length of time knows how quickly and completely they can change, at least every few years. Pretty much all of the students I studied with (4 years) and all of the co-workers I worked with afterwards (3 years as part-time staff) have long since gone. The faculty is almost entirely different from the one I studied under. Although I am still very blessed to be connected with the school (I love teaching in their distance program, where I have had the privilege of guiding some amazing adult learners and continuing to learn and grow as a scholar and a mentor) my life for the past five years has been in a completely different season.

When we realized it was time to leave seminary, our daughter was two. I was still finding my way into parenthood. Our daughter was going through a really difficult year (that's a story for another time). We went through an incredibly long season of unemployment, of vocational blankness, of questioning whether or not we'd been wise to go to seminary. Once we realized, once and for all, that God was calling us to stay in this area, our work and ministry lives began to revolve around our church and other local organizations.

I was still on campus fairly often to use the library or to attend adjunct training, but there were days I felt a bit like one of the Hogwarts ghosts. I'd slide through the walls, invisible, because almost anyone I ran into was no longer someone whose name I actually knew or who knew my name. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. The grief I felt over such displacement dissolved after a while. I found I could take the sweet girl to play on the seminary lawn in the evenings and it was okay, a lovely place to play, a place with some good though fading memories. This past year I was able to get plugged into a homeschool co-op group with some of the newest student families, which put me on campus once a week again. The main connection I share with these ladies and their kids is homeschooling, but I enjoy listening to them talk about their classes and their spouses' study schedules and the new professors. It makes me grin a bit to remember some of my own student days.

But in the past ten days, D. and I have both been on campus more than we have been in years. A conference last week, a homecoming (the first of what they hope will be an every few years event, I think) and we found ourselves attending lectures and dinners and hanging out with some people we'd not seen in years (except on Facebook!). It was all good, but I found myself overwhelmed with emotion during a couple of the lectures.

Oddly enough, I think it was because of where they were held. Newer classrooms, renovated since we were students, are now used most often, but for larger events, crowds get moved into a multi-purpose area in one of the old buildings. I had almost every single one of my classes in that building, the majority of them in that room (or the smaller classroom in the corner). Sitting listening to someone speak on theology and church history, standing to pray evening prayer, what moved me in my gut was the fact that these were the same windows, the same rafters overhead, that I had studied under a decade ago.

Weird, I know, but we human beings are strangely visceral people. It was when I looked up into the rafters that I was flooded with memories, not just of people, but of the joy of learning and reading and writing, the whole passion I felt during that season of study. Two professors in particular helped formed my ability to think, read and write theologically, to think with my heart. Sitting in that classroom, I felt tremendously grateful to them, and for the ways that spiritual and intellectual formation still enriches my life. I may still not fully understand why the Lord brought us here and the very different ways he has guided our path since we first came (oh how different our lives are now from what we imagined we were being prepared for!) but I think I have a newfound sense of peace and trust that nothing experienced in this past twelve years has been a waste. It's all there, ready to draw on, "life and food for future years."

Lewis Reviews

I just posted my review of A Reader's Guide to Caspian: A Journey Into C.S. Lewis's Narnia over at Epinions. This is an excellent "guided tour" through Prince Caspian penned by two devoted Lewis scholars/researchers/teachers: Leland Ryken and Marjorie Lamp Mead.

I'm on a major Lewisian reading kick right now, working my way slowly (note-taking as I go) through Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism, reading a number of Lewis related essays, beginning to re-read Planet Narnia, and watching the Prince Caspian film (for the first time since the theater). I'm hoping to do more writing about Lewis in the coming weeks, both review work and notes for a possible course proposal.

I also realized, when I posted this evening, that over the past few years I have slowly built a small but growing body of Lewis-related reviews at Eps. He is such an important writer of my heart. I linked to several of my other reviews in tonight's post, and some of those links take you to others as well. I'm a bit frustrated that the wonky search engine there does not always yield my actual reviews when you type in certain book titles (as I discovered tonight)...so for now I will just keep linking!

Parents, Kids and Jesus

Hat-tip to Janet at Quoth the Maven for putting me on to the very funny (and sometimes profound) blog "Stuff Christians Like." I clicked over there last night and read this wonderful post "Asking Our Kids to be a Mini Jesus." Does the daily walk of parenting teach us more about the love of God? Definitely worth a read if you're a parent, and maybe especially if you're not.

And oh, did it bring back memories of the toddler toothpaste wars...

Prose You Swallow, Prose You Follow

I'm extra hungry this week. That's because the sweet girl and I are reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy aloud.

Farmer Boy is the third book in the original Little House series. It tells about a year in the life of young Almanzo Wilder (who would grow up to marry Laura). How much fun she must have had talking to Almanzo and his family as she prepared to write this book! Like all of Laura's books, it's filled with vivid descriptions of daily life and activities, in this case the daily activities of a busy farming family in northern New York in the 1860s.

The family works very hard, including the children, so it's small wonder they eat a lot of food. And boy, could Almanzo's mother cook! I had almost forgotten how hungry I get when I read the descriptions of the table laden down with all the good things she made for them to eat:

"Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. He bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves, and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie."

There's a solid, workmanlike quality to Wilder's prose. I keep getting a picture in my head of someone carefully building a brick wall, layering each brick with care, spreading the mortar in between with a trowel, scraping off any excess that slops over the cracks. She uses simple subject/verb sentences, and isn't adverse to repetition and listing things. It's a noun-heavy kind of prose, with crisp verbs and an occasional strong adjective (and not always the one you're expecting either -- I love "sleek butter"). This is true whether or not she's describing good food, harsh weather, or how to make or clean something.

Her descriptions of food always feel vivid, but I think it's Farmer Boy where they really stand out because there's just so much food. There's no getting around it: Laura's family was poor, especially in comparison to the wealthy land-owning Wilders. The food descriptions in the two books particularly highlight that difference. I can still recall, years ago, drinking water and eating dry bread (well, as dry as I could find it) while imaginatively entering The Long Winter, the story of the harsh winter during Laura's teenage years when her family almost perished from cold and hunger. Who can forget the howling of yet another prairie blizzard, the painful grinding of seed wheat to make bread, the twisting of hay for fuel? Wilder is as good at describing scarcity as she is plenty.

If the brick wall image doesn't work for you, try bread. I used to love watching my mother bake bread: the careful lining up of ingredients, the mixing together, the punching down of the dough, the rising of the dough beneath a cloth. All the careful steps to make something substantial and nourishing. Laura Ingalls Wilder's writing feels like that to me: thick, crusty, substantial and nourishing, carefully put together from time-tested recipes. Nothing fancy, and yet somehow it feels and tastes like a work of art.

If I'm thinking a lot about prose style this week, perhaps it's because I'm turning to a very different writer late in the evening. While the sweet girl and I are munching on Wilder in the afternoons, I'm sipping a delicious frothy beverage in the evening as I read George MacDonald's The Lost Princess.

I've read some MacDonald before, but can't recall if I ever read my way through this particular story. It's a fairy-tale, a parable, and the way MacDonald uses language couldn't be farther from Wilder's use of language, though they are both wonderful at evoking a sense of place and painting vivid pictures in your mind. But while Wilder describes things with her eyes wide open, noticing and recording exacting detail, MacDonald seems to describe what things are underneath, as though writing with his eyes closed. You can almost hear him murmur under his breath as though the words follow a tune he's making up as he goes along. He suggests and compares as often as he tells.

"In a little while she unfolded her cloak and let the princess look out. The firs had ceased, and they were on a lofty height of moorland, stony and bare and dry, with tufts of heather and a few small plants here and there. About the heath on every side lay the forest, looking in the moonlight like a cloud; and above the forest, like the shaven crown of a monk, rose the bare moor over which they were walking."

Walking through a MacDonald story I am struck that the landscape feels less solid. It's almost always bathed in some sort of light, moonlight or sunlight, affecting how we see (like an impressionist painter who goes back to the canvas to paint the same object or scene again and again, in different seasons and lights). The words meander. MacDonald doesn't mind advancing ahead a few feet and then stopping and swooping back a few feet more. Like someone sewing a back-stitch, he'll stop a sentence somewhere, go back and pick it up in the middle, then pop the needle back through right where he stopped. If he's a forest guide, he doesn't stick to a straight path, but runs off into detours, some of them inexplicable or even a bit wearying until you realize he's led you right to a bright wildflower several feet away (you just hadn't noticed it) or pointed out a animal hidden in the shade.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the second paragraph of the very first chapter of The Lost Princess where he separates the words "it came to pass one day that, in the midst of a shower of rain that might well be called golden....something happened" by over fifty phrases/clauses separated by commas, dashes and various other forms of punctuation, and once even a complete jump from prose to poetry as he stops to admit he's "stealing" some lines from Coleridge. All of this to describe what the golden rain looked, sounded and smelled like, as though he couldn't possibly imagine anything more important at that point in his story than to just stand there and linger, along with you, in this golden rain. It's like working your way through a sentence in a Pauline epistle (which I hear is even more fun in Greek) realizing that the flow of thought just goes on and on, like a babbling brook, one that you eagerly follow even if you sometimes lose your memory of where you started and have to go back to the source and start again.

Comparing Wilder and MacDonald is an odd exercise, I guess, because they're going about their art in such different ways and writing such different kinds of stories. But it's enjoyable for the mere sake of comparing, and for the beauty of realizing how much one can love both kinds of writing for what they are.

I love the breathless, meandering feel of MacDonald -- even just imagining reading that opening sequence makes me laugh, knowing how anyone listening will be almost quivering in anticipation (as I was the first time I read it) by the time we got to those two little words "something happened." He makes me want to follow him on that winding path deep into the magical forest drenched in moonlight, where I know owls will hoot and small creatures will scurry across our path and we'll stop to listen and to watch.

But I also love the substantial, solid feel of Wilder, where each sentence builds on the next as bricks in a wall, raindrops in a barrel, ingredients in a recipe, accumulating in ways that make sense, where the end of a chapter leaves me as satisfied as someone who has just eaten a piece of crusty homemade bread warm from the oven. And dripping with "sleek butter." Of course.

Constellations and Sequences

"Why is this cup constellating?" the sweet girl asked me tonight at the dinner table.

"Why is it what?" I asked.

"Why is there constellation on the outside of this cup?" she asked again, tracing the wet drops with her finger.

"Oh!" I said. "You mean condensation!"

I do love our daughter's way with words. She uses them so boldly, even when she's not quite sure if she's got the right one on the tip of her tongue.

One of my other favorites, which she used to say quite regularly, is "sequences."

You know, sequences...those bright shiny things you use to decorate clothes and purses.

First Grade Art: Water Lilies

Since we're in our last week of school, I'm starting to pull together some notes and pictures from the sweet girl's first grade year. I want to keep these things together with some samples of work from her narration notebooks, so we have a good chronicle of the kinds of things she learned and did this year.

So don't be surprised if I'm posting a few more pictures than usual in the coming days, especially artwork samples.

Here's one from just a week or two ago. We were learning about Monet, and did a tissue paper collage of some water lilies. I helped cut some of the shapes and laid down some of the glue and a few of the tissue paper pieces (S. always complains of sticky fingers) but she did much of the work on this herself. She especially loved tearing the different colored papers into strips and layering them on top of each other.

"Lost and Found"

Right as I finished posting the frustrated post below, I began listening to a favorite song from Robin Mark's "East of the River" CD. A friend passed this recording on to us a few weeks back and I've been falling in love with it during the past week. There's one song in particular that's speaking volumes to my heart right now. I thought I'd post the lyrics here, because this is the kind of perspective I'm praying for in the midst of difficulties.

Sometimes I feel like certain songs or poems are written as though God had me in mind when he touched the poet's heart with certain words. Have you ever felt that way? For instance, I'm so very thankful for the reference to "pavement" in the first stanza here, as it connects the whole song even more deeply to my life and experience right now. In fact, that whole first stanza puts me in mind of a moment I had years ago when we first moved to our little town. I was having a hard time making the transition here, as you might guess, and was absolutely startled one day to find the sidewalk not far from here sprinkled with small silver angels. A shopkeeper had spread them out like confetti, just because...

I still have one of those tiny angels. I've kept it for almost twelve years.

"Lost and Found"

When the rain falls and it somedays will
Then the pavement under my feet
Sparkles silver and gold, in reflected light
That I otherwise wouldn't have seen

And when the storm comes and the strong winds blow
I will bow my head to push through
And every step that I take I will watch and pray
To be sure my foothold is true

So Jesus don't you keep me from that storm
I want to walk that sacred ground
For You are Master of it all
And I am just a lost and found

And in the dry place,
in the wilderness,
When Your Word seems so far away
Then I will think of my life, and I will
bless your name
For your promises never have failed
And when the night falls at the end of days
I will lift my eyes to the heavens
Where we will shine like the stars
in reflected light
In Your presence forever and ever

Lost and found, lost and found
I am but a lost and found
But can there be a sweeter sound than
singing with the lost and found

(Robin Mark, 2007)


Amen

Ready For That Vacation...

We started our last week of school this morning, but oh my, am I ready for a vacation. And it has almost nothing to do with being tired of school (though both the sweet girl and I are ready for a break from routine...we seem to be wrapping up well).

Remember my post from a couple weeks back, about my struggles to live in a city? I had one of those days where city was pressing in on all sides and just exhausting me.

Our landlord decided on this week for the workers to come and strip the bricks from the top part of our building. There's some sort of oxidization (i.e. rust) problem, and they're breaking the bricks off from the top of the building down to the top of the window-frames. I have no idea whether or not the bricks will get replaced, which may mean the outside of our building will look even more forlorn and dilapidated than it does already. I'm trying not to mind, reminding myself of how much we enjoy the good space within.

In the meantime, we have a huge scaffold across our sidewalk. We have to duck under it to get in and out of the house and the foreman of the project has issued a friendly caution that we let them know when we come out or at least check overhead so we don't happen to catch bricks on the head. And of course, for most of the day they were pounding and hammering at the surface of the building, breaking the bricks off. I've been struggling with headaches since a minor migraine-like episode last week, and let's just say continual pounding for hours didn't help today (they may bring the electric hammer tomorrow...oh joy! which at least has the advantage of getting the job done faster). They're right at our front windows...we had to close the front blinds this morning because otherwise the workmen would have been right there during out entire math lesson ("Mommy, I feel a little bit distracted..." said the sweet girl. Huh. Wonder why?)

I decided to have the sweet girl skip her rest time (hard to rest with all that pounding) and we went out to run errands. I guess I was hoping to escape "city sounds" for a while, but motorcycles, a bus, and an angry and quite possibly drunk man (we get that a lot round here) really didn't improve the atmosphere much. I just kept feeling tired and more discouraged.

Part of my discouragement is our difficult financial situation which continues to get harder. Pardon me for mentioning it (and I'll spare you details) but we could use much prayer. Our long-held ministry positions and patchwork of part-time/self-employment jobs (sans health insurance, which we pay out of pocket) has had us running a really long deficit. We're trying to be wise, but each month the squeeze gets worse. I knew this summer was going to be difficult, but I thought the worst of it would not hit till July. The way we get paid, June should have been slightly less anxiety-ridden. But go figure, it's still awful. I spent part of the morning trying to wrestle with the numbers and see our way clear, but it remains a fog. So awful that the debt hole is beginning to feel not like a mere pit, but a Mars-sized canyon (yes, we've been reading solar system books again). First of the month is always hard for me because of the frustrating hours spent trying to figure out the bills.

And this month feels particularly hard because I just can't see any way we're going to be able to cover any summer vacation (much less the things we *really* need, like groceries and gas!). Normally I would not be whining about the fact that we can't get any vacation. I'm aware of how selfish that sounds, especially in a world like our's! Last summer we got 2 1/2 days, and I remember being determined then that we would find a way to make sure it was a bit longer this year. But with a shortfall every month, there is no way to do it. And I am just having one of those days when my longing for -- beach, rivers, mountains, fields -- anything not covered in concrete! is just acute.

So please forgive this post. I know the weariness will pass; refreshment will come (it always does somehow...God is good, all the time!). I'd appreciate prayers that I'd be open to it when it does come, not bowed down with heaviness. And grateful for prayers that I will survive a week of sledgehammer sounds on our walls.

Last Six Betsy-Tacy Books Being Released Again This Fall!

Woo-hoo! Or perhaps that should be "Yoohoo! Betsy!"

Harper's is re-releasing Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy high school & beyond books (Heaven to Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World, Betsy's Wedding) this coming autumn. You can go to this page at the Betsy-Tacy Society to see the announcement and sneak peek at the covers. You can even pre-order through their gift shop!

I almost swooned when I saw these. They're part of the Harper Perennial Modern Classics line. They've packaged them as two novels per volume (odd choice, but okay, I'll take it) but they're reproducing them with some of Vera Neville's original cover art. Too wonderful that. From the pictures, I think the cover art is from the earlier book in each pairing -- I wonder if they reproduce the art from the other book on the back cover or somewhere inside?

I don't often feel a desire to own another copy/edition of a book I already own, and I already own all the Betsy-Tacy books and the other Deep Valley books as well. But these books are such a major parting of my reading/writing life. So yes, I would love these.

I'll even forgive the publisher for letting Meg Cabot provide one of the forewords (I apologize in advance to any Meg Cabot fans) instead of...well...me. Considering I've never had a book published, for children or otherwise, I can understand why no one called! I can think of other authors, however, whose writing would definitely fit the spirit of Lovelace's world better. Though for all I know, Cabot loves these books dearly and has penned a terrific foreword. (I promise I will eat my Merry Widow hat if she turns out to have written something wonderful.)

Wouldn't it be fun if we all decided to have Betsy-Tacy picnics in honor of the release date in October?

The Flight of the Hummingbirds

I'm a bit more than half-way through John Yow's The Armchair Birder. It's been a while since I've read a book of essays and I'm thoroughly enjoying these. He provides witty commentary along with his observations, and the birds he covers in these pages are "ordinary" birds (if there is such a thing...I'm starting to wonder!) not exotic ones. He even writes on a few birds, like the crow, robin and starling, that we see here in our little city.

An example of Yow's writing style will also provide you with one of my favorite passages so far. It's in the essay on the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris):

"Maybe the male I'm watching right now, sitting impatiently on the hook from which I've removed the feeder to refill it once again, is in fact trying to fatten up so he can hit the highway and catch up with his pals. Or maybe, since we're having one of the hottest, driest summers on record, he and all the other hummers are just thirsty. In any case, they'll be gone soon enough, headed to Central America on a journey that will include a 500-mile, nonstop flight across the Gulf of Mexico. The energy they build up for the trip often doubles their body weight, yet even so, the feat seems pretty miraculous. Austin says that a physiologist once proved by metabolic tests in his laboratory that the ruby-throat couldn't possibly store enough fuel in its tiny frame for such a lengthy flight, but, he writes, 'the birds, never having read the report, continue to do so twice each year.'"

Heh. It's not possible, but they do it anyway. How I love this.

Can you imagine the thousands...nay, millions...of wingbeats that one hummingbird must beat for such a long flight? A nonstop flight of 500 miles! For that tiny (yet courageous and ferocious, according to other descriptions) brightly colored bird.

Where does the hummingbird get its hidden reserves of energy? Yow mentions later that hummers can eat a wide variety of insects in mid-air, catching them "flycatcher-style." He didn't connect that to his former musings, but I found myself speculating that perhaps the way they have been designed enables them to take in the extra nourishment they need as they go.

Well, however the mystery works, it strikes me that the hummingbird probably gets the energy he needs where we all get it: from God, the one who sustains the whole world. As I was praying yesterday, feeling in need of strength for the ongoing journey, I felt thankful for the hidden reserves of energy given us by the Holy Spirit. And I found myself picturing the flight of the hummingbirds, whose migration will for me forever be an icon of reliance on the unseen...and the cheeky joy of doing what looks impossible in the face of all the reports that seek to define what's possible.

The Quilt That Covered Me For Years

Last weekend we bought a new quilt for our bed.

Normally that wouldn't be something I'd find a need to post about on my blog -- or even turn into a status update on Facebook! It's actually not the new quilt (a practical machine washable one, lightweight with lovely colors, on major sale) that I feel a need to post about. It's the quilt we're retiring.

That quilt (the one pictured above) was handmade by my grandmother. My beloved Mamaw passed away almost seven years ago, the day that the sweet girl turned one month old.

Mamaw was an amazing woman. Tiny and tenacious, she gardened and quilted and canned for years in her small mountain home in western North Carolina. She often made what I thought of as "milestone" quilts to celebrate marriages and births.

By the time Dana and I got married, in 1992, she was in her early 80s and her quilting activities had slowed down, mostly because of her failing eyesight. I didn't really expect she'd be able to make us one and so was extra-delighted when she presented us with a quilt (the last one she ever made) in 1994. It was not her best quilt, she apologized. Some of the stitches came out crooked (I loved those). But she wanted us to have it. She stitched our names in tiny little red stitches on the inside corner. "Both your names," she emphasized, "so you'll always have to stay together." Her way of telling us that marriage is meant to last!



Although part of me considered the possibility of giving the quilt a longer life by only using it for decorative purposes or only using it once in a while, I found I just couldn't. My grandmother was such a busy, grounded, active person, always doing things for others, that it just didn't make sense not to use her gift to us as it was intended to be used. It was lightweight and stayed on our bed year-round. It's been there for fifteen years.

In the past couple of years, it's begun to get ragged. I started to cringe whenever I had to wash it as some of the tears got larger and some of the batting came loose. Unlike my Mamaw, I have no sewing gifts, and there wasn't much I could do to repair it. The edges and corners also began to look perpetually grubby and dingy. I used it longer than I should have probably, but it had become such a comfort and such a icon of love. Yes, it was a quilt that graced a marriage bed, so it represented that, but it seemed to bundle many other kinds of love in its warm folds. I cuddled with it on the couch on sick days, wrapped it round me in times of grief, and wrapped up in it to read countless times. I snuggled my nursing baby in the warm embrace of this quilt.

It was past due for retirement. It was time to take it off the bed and replace it with a serviceable quilt for "everyday use." As I folded it up and smoothed its soft surface, I found myself remembering a poem I wrote years ago when it was brand new, a tribute poem to my grandmother. It's one of those poems that makes me realize there really are moments when poetry can be a touch prophetic. I thought I would share it here.

You Gave Me Strawberry Squares

You gave me strawberry squares
stitched together with gnarled love
and trembling tenacity.
Patches of red cut a zig-zag path
against a field of soft white cotton.
"If I have one more quilt in me, it's yours."

You pulled it, piece by piece,
from your inner spaces
like sticky strands of intricate web.
Your weaver-hands are old.
You say you lost the needle
whenever your eyes got tired.
I see you searchng, on hands and knees,
looking for the eye, the center of things.

I patch your story with every question
about every photograph in the album.
We lose the thread of conversation
in the jumbling of years,
but always find the center again.
Your life has ripened on the vine,
bright like cloth strawberries.
Your creation holds the colors
of Christmas, the fruit of summer,
full circle in the midst of squares.

This quilt will cover me for years --
the fruitful squares of story
keep me going when I can't find the eye.
What did you think while you sewed
the pattern, bent over the frame
like living prayer?
(Was the pattern there all those years?)

Did you think about
the boxer dog who stole brown workpants
and green shirt right off the line,
how Papaw gave away the best beans
in the row because giving the best
is what you do,

the depressed corn field
where hungry neighbors stole healthy ears
and you pretended not to see,
the grave your men dug in the same field
for a friend,

the way you could turn your
Baptist-preacher-father-in-law
on the sheets with one hand
he took to dying so lightly...

You remember it all, the places,
the names, the color of the corn
and beans, the feel of the sheets
and the smell of the field,
and it's all there, stitched into
strawberry squares you gave me,
past pieced lovingly to future.

This quilt will cover me for years.

(EMP)

100 Species Challenge #4: Mayapple

On Friday, the sweet girl and I went on a field trip with one of the families in our homeschool group. We headed to a nature center about 20-30 minutes from here and had a marvelous time seeing and hearing all sorts of amazing creatures great and small. Our favorite sounds belonged to croaking bullfrogs (we saw about a dozen of them, poking their eyeballs just above the surface of the pond) and hammering woodpeckers (we heard them but didn't see them). We also saw tadpoles in various stages, thousands of termites devouring an old log, and countless beautiful trees.

One plant we saw in the woods intrigued me so much I decided to take this photo so I could bring it home and identify it. The kids kept noticing the large, umbrella like leaves and I was surprised to find this mostly round white flower clinging to the front of the stem and sheltering under the leaves. Not all of the plants were flowering, but the ones that were had only one flower.

Thanks to Peterson's wildflower field guide, I now know this is a mayapple (podophyllum peltatum). It's a perennial plant found in woodlands; the flower usually appears in May and is later followed by a lemon colored berry. According to Peterson's, everything but the berry (which can be made into jelly?) is toxic.

The funniest thing was that I had no flash of recognition when I read its English name, but the light bulb went off for me when I saw the Latin name. Podophyllum happened to be the name of the homeopathic remedy that got me through a terrible intestinal virus in March. (Recall that homeopathic remedies are made with miniscule and very diluted amounts of substances which would otherwise be toxic.) So thank you, Lord, for the helpful medicinal qualities of this unusual woodland plant!

One more funny note: the plant has gone by many other names, including wild lemon and also mandrake. One website where I read information mentioned that in English folklore, the plant has been described as screaming when it's pulled from the ground, with its screams driving people insane. Ah-ha! Anyone else think that JK Rowling has read this bit of folklore? Good Harry Potter reader that I am, I couldn't help but laugh...and consider reaching for my fluffy pink earmuffs.

Pretty Wild! Top Picture Books for Children

Fuse #8, a blogger at School Library Journal, has been gradually posting the results of a poll that asked people to rank their 100 top children's picture books. Although I've only read a few posts, I've enjoyed them...she's not just ranking the books but talking about them, sharing snippets of emails in which the voters explained their choices, reflecting on the artistry and history of the various books, etc.

I just happened to hop over today and saw that the final post is up with the number one book from the poll results. You can click here to see the fun post on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, which (not surprisingly perhaps) came out on top.

Also great fun...within the post is a link to a YouTube video of President Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are to a group of kids on the White House lawn. It was clearly not the easiest of tasks: one gets the impression the group of kids was huge, and he's in the unenviable position of trying to make sure everyone can see the pictures and also hear him, but it's still a delight. He's a bit stilted until he gets to the roaring, but then he warms up. My favorite moments are watching his daughters, especially the youngest, enjoying their Dad reading aloud, and Mrs. Obama adding comments and sound effects from her seat behind him. Yes, sound effects. Clearly Sendak's classic has been read at the Obama house long before this public relations event. Any time a family has sound effects down, you know it's a beloved book!

I'm looking forward to seeing a post that provides the entire list of 100 books, which should be coming soon. For now you have to scroll down and pick up links that direct you to other postings that detail the list. If you're curious, here's the top ten in descending order, from #10-#1: Knuffle Bunny, Millions of Cats, Madeline, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Make Way for Ducklings, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Snowy Day, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are.

An interesting list. I'm trying to decide what my top ten would look like, and what difference there might be in my personal list of books that I love and that have influenced me and my family, and my list of books that I think deserve to be in the top ten by virtue of their historic influence and how much they've been loved by so many people. My other thought has to do with editor Ursula Nordstrom, whom I was happy to see was featured prominently in the post in the post on Wild Things, and how far-reaching and long-lasting her influence has been in children's literature.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the top ten, or your own top ten!

Loving the Beautiful Particulars

If anyone had ever asked me if I loved nature...all the wonderful things God has created...animals, plants, weather...I would have always told them yes.

I grew up with, and completely took for granted, a lovely yard in Virginia. We had terrific climbing trees, green grass that felt terrific on my bare toes, a gorgeous garden complete with a garden patch I was allowed to call my own from a very young age. We had rose bushes and a plum tree and at either end of the street where I lived there were grassy fields (we called them the "triangles" because of their approximate shapes) where the kids in the neighborhood could meet to play kickball or pick wildflowers or collect bugs. We had ditches with ivy-covered banks between which water flowed like a miniature stream, allowing us to race leaf boats. I had a sand pile and a swing set. Down the road from us were neighbors who had all sorts of lovely trees, including magnolias. Almost nothing is more beautiful than their large, creamy blossoms and shiny dark green leaves unless it's the feathery, powder-puff pink blossoms on the sweet-smelling mimosa trees, which also flourished in our neighborhood. A block or so away, we even had a patch of woods in which we could wander (sadly gone now).

I loved it all. But I never fully appreciated it until I didn't have it.

I've had other places of beauty besides that first neighborhood. I lived on two stunningly beautiful (though vastly different) college campuses, including one in the mountains of western North Carolina, truly one of the landscapes of my heart. In the first five years of our marriage, D. and I lived less than five minutes from a Pennsylvania national park that burst into incredible dogwood bloom every spring, a place where you would stumble upon fields of deer or quaint covered bridges when you turned a corner.

I didn't know I was going to grow up and be called to live in an urban setting. Cities, for all the fascination they hold, always felt like they sucked the life out of me if I was in them for too long. Too much concrete and glass and brick, too much rust and bustle. I didn't mind visiting cities, but I was certainly never going to live in one, and I would have said adamantly that I would never a raise a child in one if I had a choice.

And yet...here I am, here we are. In the post-industrial rust belt for almost twelve years, a tiny town of boarded up storefronts and too much traffic, completely yardless, my front "porch" a concrete step just a few inches above street level. Would I love to live somewhere else? You bet, except for the tiny little wrinkle that the Lord has apparently called us to be where we are for the time being and given us a love for this place and those who live here. If there was one other important thing I learned along with my love of all things green in God's world, it was that the very best place to be is the place where God calls you, no matter where it is.

So here I am, here we are. And guess what? In this remarkably dry and weary concrete land, I have found myself falling in deeper love, and in deeper ways, with the created world.

I think it's because we see so little of it, because I have to work so hard to find ways to share nature with my little girl. She has none of the beauties I took for granted when I was her age, no yard to run around in, no place to safely walk barefoot, no opportunity to just sit and stare for minutes (or hours) at bugs. Well, we do have those opportunities sometimes, but they come rarely and they have to be planned carefully, with visits to the yards of friends or nearby parks or the seminary lawn. I think what I am most wistful for is the deep sense of freedom and spontaneity that I had as a child, when I could simply wander outside (I can hear a squeak and the slim wooden frame of the back screen door slamming behind me as I write this) and toss myself down onto the grassy lawn with a good book. The sounds I took for granted were cricket chirps and cooing doves, not motorcycles and trucks. The smells I took for granted were sweet honeysuckle and pungent ivy, not exhaust fumes and the dumpster across the road.

So we've had to get creative. We've had to get passionate about learning as much as we can about every bit of nature within reach. We take nature walks here in our little city, picking wildflowers, crouching as near as we can to curbside gardens that don't belong to us, twining binoculars around our neck so we can peer at the birds nesting in the birdhouse in the yard of a nearby church. During the week hardly anyone is around those church grounds, so we sometimes sneak into their side yard for a few minutes and play. There's a long, cascading kind of willow tree there, a small one that blooms with beautiful white flowers in early spring, and the sweet girl calls it her "tree house." She hides beneath the branches while her Mom keeps a casual lookout for anyone who might be wanting to kick us off the property, trying to give her little girl a few minutes of the kind of quiet, green privacy she loved so when she was six.

And I am amazed at how much I'm learning. Do I still long to live in a place where I can these things for granted? Well, to be perfectly honest, yes. But having to work hard to find bits of nature means I value them all the more when I find them. I have learned the names of plants and trees and birds. I've never been particularly good at knowing specific names of things, so I've tried to get better. And as I learn them, I pass them on to the sweet girl. We're learning together to appreciate every bit of God's beautiful created world we can, from the ten sycamores across the road (whose buds we watch with such raw expectation every March) to the wonderful starlings that are nesting in the gap between the buildings across the street. Not to mention the tree sparrows that have their nest in the corner of our own building (we live over a warehouse) and the huge crow that struts his stuff on the roof across the way from time to time.

This past weekend we went to a nearby park for a picnic supper, something we try to do as often as possible in spring and summer. This was our first picnic of the year and it was a bit grey and chilly in the early evening, but still oh so beautiful. Robins were scattered on the grass in such vast numbers it was like they were having a Robin convention, or (more likely, I thought) deciding to field a few baseball teams. I counted 29 robins at one point on the baseball field, most of them congregating in the outfield.



And I was stunned by the surge of excitement and happiness I felt when a bright yellow blur tumbled by us, surfing the wind. I actually stood to my feet shrieking "it's a goldfinch! it's a goldfinch!" I was so thrilled to see that amazing bird I wanted to toss a handful of confetti or set off sparklers. D. had told us he'd seen one during his morning walk the other day, but neither the sweet girl or I had been able to add this particularly beautiful little bird to our spring list yet, and we were delighted to do so. He flew by twice (yes, it was definitely a he...we could tell by his colors and markings) finally alighting on the metal fence by the baseball field, and I simply stood on the other side of the fence, staring in awe.

Getting to know God's world in its particulars is a joy. It strikes me as somewhat ironic that it took almost a decade of lean years to get to me to the place where I began to passionately look and learn everything I could. Somewhere along the line I realized I had to stop majoring in wistfulness and get busy appreciating anything and everything alive and growing (or singing or flying!) that God put in my path. The beauties of green and growing things, the gorgeousness of the natural world, are never going to be something my daughter is going to be able to take for granted as I did. But that doesn't mean I can't teach her a deep gratitude for them, and a deep joy in discovering them wherever they are.

For All The Moms Who've Been Before...

From the sweet girl's bedtime prayer last night, at the end of a lovely Mother's Day:

"Thank you for my mom...and her mom and her mom and her mom and her mom and her mom, all the generations back. All the way to Eve."

I think that just about covers it!

Speaking of Writing

"Work of the eyes is done now/go and do heartwork..." (Rainer Maria Rilke)

I love this quote. You can find it in various forms online; depending on the translation, people seem to break the line in different places. Sometimes you'll find it as "done now...go" and sometimes as "done...Now go" and though those nuances make a subtle bit of difference, both seem to work.

What I love about it is the way it clearly shows the need for both "eyework" and "heartwork" when you're writing. "Work of the eyes" is necessary -- we need to look and look and look some more, and store up all we see. But there comes a time when the looking stage reaches some sort of end, and we find ourselves needing to do "heartwork" on the images we've seen. The last part of the quote is actually something like "go and do the heartwork on the images imprisoned within you." Although that speaks to me too (especially the idea that the work of writing has to do with freeing) I don't think that all the images we begin with are necessarily imprisoned. A better description for me might be embyronic. The images are like seeds, the "heartwork" involves digging, plowing, planting, nourishing, watering, and all the other many things one does to encourage growth and blooms.

Sometimes the images we begin with in the eyework stage are actual ones, things and people we've seen as we've explored the world. Sometimes the images are born in our imagination, including the images and characters that we're given as gifts. But once we have the image firmly fixed in our mind, it can't just sit there. We need to get it to the page, then begin to wrestle with it and create something that is born not only of close observation or creative imagining, but of the deepest parts of our hearts and what we believe about the story...the one we're telling, the one we're living in, and how those intersect.

Work of the eyes, work of the heart. Eyework, heartwork. Both utterly necessary, and both arduous tasks. I'm rediscovering that right now as I try to step back into the creative work of writing fiction. So far I've mostly dangled my toes, cautious about the water below. Pretty soon I need to dive.

A Festive Morning To You

I woke up this morning feeling discouraged. That's not an easy thing to admit for someone who tries/wants to greet each new day like the gift from God that it is. But unfortunately today it was true: I felt like I sprang straight into the morning with leftover discouragement from the day before attached to my back in a heavy pack. Maybe I forgot to take the pack off last night before I went to bed!

And then the sweet girl got up. I was cleaning up a bit in the kitchen before I went into her room for morning prayers. I'd already told her good morning and when she came back into the kitchen, I said "good morning again" sort of automatically, my mind somewhere else.

"Good morning!" she exclaimed, her voice bright. And then added, "Festive morning! Great morning! Excellent morning! I love you morning!"

I started laughing. I told her I especially loved "Festive morning" -- one of the most joyful ways I've ever heard to welcome a new day and to share your joy with someone else.

I think I may try this discipline for a while: finding a joyful way to greet God each morning, maybe even before I get out of bed. I know some days I will feel that joy...and other days, like this one perhaps, it will be a conscious stretch. But that's okay. I think the discipline of doing it can matter, to my heart and to God's.

I've been realizing anew lately how important it is that I let God know how much I love him. So often when I pray, I'm stuffed with requests or worries, and yes, that's part of praying too, to present those things at God's feet. But simple words of love mean so much in any relationship, including our relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth.

A festive morning to you!

What a Difference...

the sun can make, especially in the way we see shadows.

Poem in Your Pocket Day!

National Poetry Month comes to an end today with the celebration of "Poem in Your Pocket" day. When the sweet girl and I celebrated this day together last year, she carried "Eletelephony" and I carried "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

This year she decided to carry Rebecca Kai Dotlich's "Midnight Stray" (far and away our favorite poem published in the Gotta Book 30 Poets in 30 Days series this April...we have loved that series!). I also wanted to carry a poem that we had read together during the month and chose Jane Yolen's "Grandpa Bear's Lullaby" (you'll need to scroll about half-way down the page to find it). It speaks to me on profound heart levels beyond its immediate tender and cozy associations. I love a poem that can work when it's whispered to a very small child, and yet still packs a wallop for the heart of a parent.

What a great month this has been. We're definitely going to make April a poetic month from here on out in our family. Not that poetry can't be celebrated in other months too -- it will be! But it's been wonderful to set aside some specific time to celebrate and play with language.

I also posted two reviews of poetry books for children on Epinions this month. You can check them out at these links: Prelutsky's "Pizza the Size of the Sun" Feeds Our Poetry Hunger and If Those Socks Could Speak -- "Dirty Pile of Laundry: Poems In Different Voices."

Happy end of Poetry Month!

Reading Round-Up: Post Easter Edition

I always have good intentions about posting on my reading for each quarter, but then the months fly by. So I'll arbitrarily pick Easter as my cut-off date for this batch of reading reflections.

It's been a slow start to my reading year in some ways. I'm plowing ahead, bit by bit, in Susan Wise Bauer's A History of the Ancient World (yes, faithful readers of this blog are allowed to chuckle over how long it's taking me to wend my way through this book). I've made it up to the 600s BC which gives you some indication of how far I've got to go. It's truly a good read, but it's become my bedside book, the one I pick up and dive back into when I need a break from other things or for when I'm in between books. I'm hoping by the time I finish it, she'll have volume 2 ready for me to read in just the same way!

I'm also still reading Travis Prinzi's Harry Potter & Imagination, and David Adam's Aidan, Bede and Cuthbert.

My current re-reading -- and re-reading is a beloved and necessary feature of my reading life -- is the Harry Potter series. More on that in another post.

I hadn't realized how steeped in mysteries my reading has been this year. That's almost all due to the fact that I've been re-reading Dorothy Sayers' Wimsey-Vane novels, with a brief detour into the work of contemporary author Jill Paton Walsh (who finished Sayers' last unfinished novel). Here's my complete list of mystery novels read since January:

The Wyndham Case (Jill Paton Walsh)
Gaudy Night (Dorothy Sayers)
Busman's Honeymoon (Dorothy Sayers)
Debts of Dishonor (Jill Paton Walsh)
A Rare Benedictine (short stories by Ellis Peters)
Cream Puff Murder (Joanne Fluke)
Thrones, Dominations (Dorothy Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh)

I've also read parts of the first Sayers biography Such a Strange Lady by Janet Hitchman. It didn't manage to retain my interest the whole way. I fared better with the excellent Conundrums for the Long Week-End: England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey by Robert Kuhn McGregor with Ethan Lewis. It managed to be not only a biography of Sayers but also a fine literary analysis of the Wimsey novels and a cultural analysis of England between the wars, as illumined by the development of Wimsey's character. Good reading.

Also read in this quarter:

FICTION

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit
The Magic Half by Annie Barrows

NON-FICTION

The Snowflake Man by Duncan C. Blanchard
Keeping House by Margaret Kim Peterson

Links, where provided, are to my reviews on Epinions.

I don't usually post about our family read-alouds but am thinking I may start. You can usually see a list with our current book and the past several we've read on the sidebar on the bottom left.

100 Species Challenge #3: Lily of the Valley

I've been slow as a tortoise posting anything on the 100 Species Challenge we started last summer. I've taken a number of pictures of plants and flowers, and even identified some of them! but have been remiss about posting anything. Given my slowness and our urban environment, I still think it will likely take me several years to actually manage 100 postings, but I'm enjoying myself anyway! Don't be surprised to see a few more posts than usual this spring...

# 3 on our list is Lily of the Valley. I took this photo in the beautiful gardens at Old Economy last Thursday. The technical name for this particular variety is Convallaria majalis var. montana. The green tint on the bell-like flowers shows it's the US variety.

The sweet girl thought these needed water since they were drooping, but droop is part of their distinctiveness. Some people think they look like tear drops, and one legend says that they were formed by Eve's tears when she left the garden. I like that: wouldn't it be like God to turn even those tears into something beautiful?

"You're Not Listening, Marian."

I grew up loving Meredith Wilson's musical "The Music Man." The story's wonderful, the songs singable, and Robert Preston as the reprehensible (yet endearing!) and ultimately redeemable con man Professor Harold Hill has got to be one of my favorite musical movie performances of all time. I think I can safely say he's the only slick talking salesman I ever fell in love with!

A librarian at our local library mentioned "Marian the Librarian" in passing the other day, and the sweet girl was instantly intrigued. She wants to be a librarian (that's been her firm answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up?" since she was four!) and she loves rhymes. When she asked me what the librarian meant, I told her about the movie. Then of course I put the DVD on hold.


"The Music Man" debuted before her wondering eyes yesterday. She hasn't seen the whole film yet (it's long...) but she's already in love with the music and dancing. And she begged to watch "Marian the Librarian" first, and then again...and again and again and again. Yes, five times. I let her do it mostly because I had never, ever heard her laugh so hard. The idea of people singing and dancing in a library completely tickled her funny bone, and she thinks Professor Hill's antics to try to get Marian's attention are a riot. Especially when he threatens to drop a bag of marbles on the floor!

Throw in Shirley Jones' exaggerated consternation, clever lyrics she's still working to figure out, a room full of whirling, twirling girls in beautifully colored dresses, the literally toe-tapping choreography, and the scene where Harold Hill slides down a banister on a spiral staircase, and you've got one riveting musical number. I caught her trying some of the dance moves with her bears last night before bed. I suspect we will be singing Marian the Librarian around here for a long time!

Seventeen Years

If you'd been taking a walk with me and the sweet girl yesterday, you would likely have overheard this conversation:

Me: Do you know what Saturday is?
Sweet Girl: No, what?
M: It's the 25th. Do you know what we celebrate on the 25th?
S: Christmas?
(No, she doesn't really think it's Christmas time, she's just very literal. Please note that I didn't specify which 25th I was referring to!
M: (laughing) No, I meant APRIL 25th. It's Mommy and Daddy's anniversary. We're celebrating 17 years since we got married.
S: (with a squeal) HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! (a pause, then...) Wow, 17 years is very impressive. I'm proud of you and want to give you a kiss!

I couldn't help but laugh she planted a kiss on my cheek. I think that's one of the nicest anniversary greetings I've ever had.

Literary Birthdays & Poetry Month: William Shakespeare

Today is the day traditionally celebrated as William Shakespeare's birthday (we know he was baptized on April 26).

In honor of the day, I'm hoping to have a chance to read a bit in Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories II. The sweet girl and I recently studied Cleopatra and Marc Antony, and she was very interested to learn a famous play had been written about them. I've heard Garfield's re-tellings of Shakespeare for children are quite good so I checked this volume (which includes his retelling of Antony and Cleopatra) out of the library. I've just not had time to read any yet, and I'd like to before I attempt it out loud.

Combining birthday celebrations with the ongoing celebration of poetry month, I'm posting what is probably my favorite Shakespearean sonnet, number 116.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I love this reflection on the durable nature of real love: its deep, unchanging quality even in the face of change, hardship, danger, decay. "...bears it out even to the edge of doom" is a remarkable phrase that rings so deeply true of all the best love stories, whether those be ones imagined on the page (that fortify us for the journey) or lived out in real life.

Thank you, Will, that you did indeed write. And love too.

Revisiting Amazing Grace

I'm up way too late (past midnight) trying to get some work done, both teaching and writing. It's been a long, full week with very little time for thinking or reading, and tired as I am, I just feel in need of some quiet space to do both.

This Friday evening found us at church for the monthly movie night, which my husband and a current seminarian began hosting a few months ago. This evening's film was "Amazing Grace," the 2006 film inspired by the life of William Wilberforce.

D. and I originally saw the movie back in the fall of 2007. I loved it then, as you can see from my review here, but I loved it even more the second time around. Perhaps this time I wasn't so focused on seeing whether or not they were historically accurate in the way they portrayed one of my favorite heroes of the faith. This time I just sat back and soaked in the wonderful performances. All of them were excellent, but Ioan Gruffudd was really masterful as Wilberforce. I remembered how well he captured his passion and drive; I hadn't remembered so vividly how he captured his frailty and exhaustion.

That's what really got to me tonight: how terribly in need of grace we all are, even those saints (like Wilberforce and Newton) whose lives we look back on with gratitude and sometimes awe. Wilberforce nearly burned himself out for God. There were clearly times (many times) when he couldn't see what God was doing, when he was worn out and at the end of his rope, and when he felt like a complete failure. Of course we the audience know, even as we watch those darkest moments, that grace will prevail. Wilberforce will succeed (did succeed) in getting his bills passed in parliament. The British slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery itself was abolished in 1833. His life's work was blessed and countless people freed and blessed through it.

But Wilberforce didn't know that while he lived it. He couldn't see the very good end, though he prayed for it fervently, dreamed it, imagined it, hoped for it. But what Gruffudd captures so brilliantly about Wilberforce is the truth that, in the midst of the very long fight, there were simply times when it just felt like a long, lonely, bitter slog. And there were times when only the grace of God, especially manifested through the love and encouragement of people around him, carried Wilberforce through.

Poetry Month: Robert Louis Stevenson

If there was poetry I cut my teeth on, besides the poetry of the King James translation of the Bible, it was the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. I think one or both of my parents must have known and loved his work when they were children, because we always seemed to have at least one copy of A Child’s Garden of Verses lying on the shelves. I’m pretty sure we had more than one copy because no one set of illustrations springs to mind when I think about some of the poems I loved best.

Of course, that might also be due to the fact I’ve seen still more versions of his poetry in my adulthood. A number of his poems appear in almost every good anthology or collection of poetry favorites for children, including quite a few we’ve read to the sweet girl in the past six plus years since she was born. His poem The Swing has been anthologized over and over...I still remember the sweet girl, at the age of only about three and a half, figuring out that there were two copies of this poem in two different books on her shelves. She loved to take them out and compare the very different pictures; most of all, she loved to hear the poem read again and again.

I still love “The Swing.” No matter how many times I read it, it never seems to lose its simple magic:

How do you like o go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside –

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown –
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

I never lose my appreciation for the music of this lovely poem, its back and forth, up and down cadence that does indeed seem to mimic the rhythm of swinging.

And I never lose my appreciation for the way it manages to evoke the memories of the sheer joy I felt when I would swing, which was often…first on our backyard swingset when I was little, and then (when I’d gotten older and the swingset had long since been taken down) on a wooden swing my Dad built for me in a backyard maple. How I loved that swing, which had good, long ropes so I could really pump up and feel like I was flying, and a wide, comfortable seat that I could laze in, one toe merely dragging on the ground, if I just felt like rocking back and forth a bit while I read a good book on a sunny day.

This poem manages to capture all of that feeling for me, and it does it in just a handful of cheerful, rhyming words. Doesn’t it make you happy just to savor those phrases: “pleasantest thing,” “cattle and all,” “garden green,” and “roof so brown”?

There are other Robert Louis Stevenson poems I love: “The Land of Counterpane,” “Bed in Summer,” “Where Go the Boats,” “The Seaside,” and perhaps especially “Rain” (just to name a few) but “The Swing” holds a special place in my heart.

Poetry months posts from 2008: Wendell Berry; William Butler Yeats

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

There are moments in the Easter liturgy where my heart always soars. That first moment when the congregation seems to rise up like a tidal wave of joy to shout "He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" And the moment when the first notes of "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" launch us into praise.

I know that the singing of that hymn is not always a part of every Easter service or liturgy, but within Anglican churches at least, it's almost definite that we'll sing it at some point. And I am so grateful. The words of that hymn have become a huge part of the celebration of Jesus' resurrection for me: his rising, his defeating of death once and for all time, our praise, our joy, our sure and certain hope that because he rose we also shall rise. Alleluia!

When I teach English church history, I remind my students that Anglicanism really has no primary founding theologian in the way that the Presbyterians have Calvin and the Lutherans have Luther. We have a founding liturgist in Thomas Cranmer, but he wasn't a theologian in the sense of the others...not a great systematizer or revolutionary thinker. The richness of Cranmer is the way he deeply inhabited the Biblical story and let the Scriptures enrich his prayers.

It strikes me more and more the the best and most deeply influential Anglican theologians have primarily been poets and hymn-writers (which may be one of the reasons I was drawn into this tradition in the first place!) and that Charles Wesley is certainly one of the most important. We may not think of C.W. primarily as a theologian but if you consider a theologian someone who speaks truth about God in ways that enrich the lives and understanding of the community of God's people (and I do) then Charles Wesley is one of the best we've ever had.

This is the man who penned Hark the Herald Angels Sing as well as Christ the Lord is Risen Today, but his prolific and profound poetry didn't touch only on the great feasts of Christmas and Easter but on every part of our journey in Christ. Love Divine All Loves Excelling (sung by the congregation at our wedding), O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing (my favorite hymn as a child), Jesus Lover of My Soul, And Can It Be, Lo How He Comes With Clouds Descending. These are not merely some of the most beautiful and singable congregational hymns ever written; they speak profoundly and truly about who God is, how he loves us, and who he calls us to be.

I love both the Wesley brothers, and though I'm fond of reminding my students of the many thousands of miles that John rode on horseback during his preaching tours (remember the world was his parish!) I love that he wasn't the only Wesley who composed while riding. There's a marvelous story of Charles arriving at a chapel one evening and springing from his horse with a cry of "a pen! a pen!" They say he wouldn't talk to anyone until he had written down whatever words had been given to him as he journeyed along. I'm so grateful for all the words God gave Charles Wesley over the years as well as for Charles' faithfulness in receiving them and using his God-given talents to shape those words into such deep praise and poetry.

Little Ray of Sunshine

We had a delightful Betsy-Ray-like moment yesterday. The sweet girl had decided to pen "love notes" to me and her Dad (her newest craze) and trailed after me with marker in hand. "How do you spell 'you're a sweetie?'" she wanted to know.

Of course that made me laugh. I was remembering the delightful moment in the Betsy-Tacy books when Mrs. Ray says that Betsy has been making up stories for years. She used to follow me around asking 'how do you spell "going down the street?"

I wonder if I ever trailed after my Mom asking similar questions...

The Cross on My Desk

On Sunday, the sweet girl came over to my desk and taped this lovely paper cross to my desk. "There," she said, "now during Holy Week you can think about the death of Jesus, even when you're busy working."

Amen!

Trust the Good News That God Is Doing Something New

"...The call to repent is part of the announcement that this is the time for the great moment of freedom, of God's rescue.

That's why it goes with the call to believe. Jesus' contemporaries trusted all sorts of things: their ancestry, their land, their Temple, their laws. Even their God -- provided that this God did what they expected him to do. Jesus was now calling them to trust the good news that their God was doing something new. To get in on the act, they had to cut loose from other ties and trust him and his message. That wasn't easy then and isn't easy now. But it's what Peter, Andrew, James and John did, and it's what all Christians are called to do today, tomorrow, and on into God's future."

~Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone (from commentary on Mark 1:14-20, the calling of the disciples)

This resonated deep in my heart when I read it yesterday during some quiet time on Palm Sunday. How often do I trust in all sorts of things...even good things...including God as long as he does what I expect him to do? How often do I lack courage to follow God's call when he is doing something new that I don't entirely see or understand?

Peter, Andrew, James and John could have had no clue, absolutely none, as to what Jesus was calling them to. They went because it was Jesus who did the calling, not because of any promises or understanding of what they were getting into. I want that kind of courage and that kind of love: to hear his voice, to know without a doubt that following his voice is the most important thing I can do, and to follow him with all my heart.

Happy Poetry Month!

The blogosphere is buzzing with poetic energy as National Poetry Month kicks off today. I'm especially impressed at the number of sites dedicated to celebrating children's poetry.

You can find round-ups in many places, but I especially want to point you to Karen Edmisten's post here, which has links to Gotta Book's 30 Poets in 30 Days and The April Poem-a-Day Challenge at the blog Poetic Asides. The 30 Poets in 30 Days will present a brand new poem each day from a wonderful children's poet...Jack Prelutsky gets things started today! The Poem-a-Day Challenge presents creative prompts to get your poetry-writing sap flowing each day.

Miss Rumphius Effect is also presenting Poetry Makers, a daily series of interviews with children's poets during the month of April. She already introduced me to a poet I didn't know (just on day 1) and a brand new book that I know my little girl would absolutely love.

As I did last year, I hope to blog this month about some of my favorite poems old and new and why they've lodged in my heart.

Happy Poetry Month!