The Radley Porch

Advent Thoughts

2011-12-18T18:59:00.004-07:00

Breathless anticipation. The world waited for the promised seed of the woman--the One who would crush the head of the serpent and redeem Adam's fallen children for good. Prophet after prophet foretold what was coming: The Messiah would be born of a virgin, in Bethlehem. He would sit on David's throne. He would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The world waited; creation groaned, and then, in the fullness of time -- The Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

As a result, every boy in that town under the age of two was murdered.

Wait - what? This story is supposed to be nice and sweet, meek and mild. What is that doing there? And what is going on after that? This child grows up and is stalked by Satan; his family opposes his mission; his friends die; other friends desert him while one betrays him unto death. He suffers the most horrible death imaginable, but worse - undergoes the full wrath of God for sins he didn't even commit.

He rose again. He ascended to heaven. He is coming again to judge the living and the dead and take his sheep to eternal pastures he has prepared for them.

Oh, but in the meantime babies are still getting murdered. My friends are suffering. My heart is often in turmoil. My sin seems to rule me so that what I do is not the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Whatever happens, whatever you see,
Whatever your eyes tell you has become of me--
This is not, not the end.
I am making all things new again.

(This song--and video--are really worth your time)

Why Us?

2011-09-22T22:05:00.003-06:00

I just finished the most challenging, fascinating, stimulating, and breathtaking book I've read in a long time: Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves by James Le Fanu. I knew I would like this book from the first two paragraphs:

"Wonders are there many," observed the Greek dramatist Sophocles--"but none more wonderful than Man." And rightly so for man, as far as we can tell, is the sole witness of the splendours of the universe he inhabits - though consistently less impressed by his existence than would seem warranted.

"Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars," observed St. Augustine in the fifth century AD, "and they pass by themselves without wondering."

I devoured the book, eager to wonder at the mystery of human life, the complexity of God's creation. I found that breathtaking wonder, sometimes so powerful that it brought tears to my eyes. But I also found much more. Working from the "inside," Le Fanu uses science's most recent discoveries, particularly the Human Genome Project and breakthroughs in neuroscience, to call into question the entire system of scientific materialism that has reigned supreme for the last 150 years.

Le Fanu begins the book treating Darwinism as axiomatic, so much so that at one point I put the book down and complained to my brother. "This is ridiculous. Can he really not see the flaw in this?" My brother smiled and said, "Keep reading." I did so, and discovered that Le Fanu had laid a cunning trap. Through challenging (but fascinating) discussions of science, ranging from "prehistoric" man to the law of gravity, the secrets of DNA and the human genome, the electrical activity of the brain as it perceives and interprets the world, and more, the author exposes the flaws of a solely materialist understanding of life. He builds his case calmly and rationally until you reach the end and realize that the prevailing scientific dogma has just imploded under the weight of its own findings. Darwinism is finished. Is there any chance for further scientific investigation to vindicate it? Le Fanu says, no.

I found two things striking: First, the lengths to which "Science" will go to ignore the facts. To admit that there may be a non-material reality, such as the human mind and soul, destroys the myth that Science is the sole objective and rational arbiter of knowledge about the world. To admit that something inobservable by Science might be real is to admit that Science can't have all the answers. Rather than admit that, for the last century and a half, scientists have shoved under the rug anything that doesn't fit in the Theory...scientists have failed, in other words, to be true scientists, and they continue to do so.

Second, I was struck by the incredible mental gymnastics and, to be frank, spiritual suicide undertaken by evolutionary biologists, whose thinking has become futile. They are so committed to denying the existence of anything they can't know and explain that they are willing to sacrifice their very being. One example:

...one of the most astonishing claims in the history of science--that we are not, as we appear to ourselves to be, free and autonomous agents, but are rather the playthings of our 'selfish' genes. We are, apparently, machines created by genes for their own self-propagation--like some throwaway envelope, which they inhabit temporarily for a lifetime, before moving on to the next generation.

"They [the genes] swarm in huge colonies safe inside gigantic lumbering robots [ourselves] sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control,' writes evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. 'They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. We are their survival machines."

After sitting through countless college and postgraduate classes where Reformed Christianity was viciously attacked for its "determinism," I am stunned to find the open and unapologetic avowal, over and over, of a much more thorough determinism - a determinism as bleak, dark, hopeless, and meaningless as you will ever find. The materialistic view of the universe is the most demeaning, personhood-rejecting, soul-crushing...oh wait, there's no such thing as a soul.

I read this book at the perfect time. Our church's theme this year is "renewing our mind" as we begin a new series studying the book of Romans. The complex nature of Le Fanu's discussion awoke my intellectual hunger, but also paired perfectly with my study of Romans 1. The glories of creation Le Fanu describes shout the glory of the Creator (though Le Fanu himself never does so). As I read about the many wonders of life, I was forcibly made aware of God's "eternal power and divine nature, being understood from what has been made." Le Fanu demonstrated without doubt that secular man has missed what is plainly before him, making this book the best illustration I know of Romans 1: 18-23:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Inbox Freedom

2011-08-31T09:18:00.001-06:00

For the first several years I had my gmail address, my mail was imported into a desktop client. Thus when I started using gmail in the browser, I had thousands of "unread" emails in my inbox. At some point I marked them all read so I could at least tell when I had new mail, but I still had an inbox that was hundreds of pages long. While I filed/deleted mail as it came in, nothing ever made a dent on those past years of correspondence. It felt like one of those closets in the cartoons - everything stuffed in there until some poor sucker opens the door, and then, avalanche.

This month I decided enough was enough. I went through and deleted/archived my entire inbox. As of this moment, I have TWO emails in my inbox. And after I finish writing this, I am going to do the tasks associated with them, and then archive them, and then I will have ZERO emails in my inbox. This is a very disorienting experience.

I feel free!

Legacy

2011-08-25T11:29:00.000-06:00

Every Sunday of my childhood, I would rush out of the church service and line up to shake our pastor's hand. He would smile a warm greeting, and as he took my hand I could feel something round and hard transfer from his palm to mine - a red-and-white striped peppermint candy.

Sunday afternoon we gathered to remember this man, Albert G. Edwards III, and the tables at the reception were decorated with peppermints and Al's trademark bow ties. What was missing was his warm smile...and a pun or two or three.

Al was a gracious and humble man who had devoted his life to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He asked that there be no eulogizing at his funeral. He wanted the focus on Christ, not on him, and it was. As my dad said in his prayer, the way to honor Al is to honor what Al stood for - Christ. And yet, as Al's son-in-law delivered the message, he said there was one person Al couldn't stop from eulogizing him - God himself. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," God says (Revelation 14). Al was in the Lord, and the Lord calls him blessed.

The weekend wouldn't have been complete, though, without sharing stories of Al - but we had plenty of time to do that as we gathered with his family. His sister showed me pictures of him growing up in Iraq; his brother told me about the time he rigged an old telephone to a firecracker to spook a cat; the friends we drove out with shared how he had made a match between them; I shared how he once took me home from church (when I had been left behind accidentally) in his police chaplain car - a highlight of my childhood.

As I thought about it, though, I realized that the memories I have of Al are only a minuscule part of his influence on my life. He came to us in 1980, when our church was only a few years old and had recently had a conflict with its first pastor. He left a well-to-do church in New Jersey and took a 50% pay cut. It is Al who set our church on a solid foundation, trained up our leaders, and preached the gospel to us for 12 years, then helped find a strong replacement when he retired (that successor has now pastored us for 19 years and counting). It is impossible to trace the "trickle-down" impact of his ministry. The influence he had on my parents certainly affected me. Rocky Mountain Community Church has been the single most important component of my life, and what would it have been without Al Edwards? I can't imagine.

Al left a legacy even in his last days. One of his caretakers told me how no one she has ever cared for has said "thank you" so much and so sincerely until the moment he couldn't speak any more. Of all the deaths she has seen, she said, Al's was the most full of joy. And I know why. This is what we sang to close the service, at his request - Al's message to us:

Jesus lives, and so shall I.
Death! thy sting is gone forever!
He who deigned for me to die,
lives, the bands of death to sever.
He shall raise me from the dust;
Jesus is my hope and trust.

The Crown of the Year

2011-08-17T15:11:00.000-06:00

It's been Montana Driving Week. I've made three trips: to Forsyth and back (200 miles), Absarokee and back (100 miles), and Bozeman and back (300 miles). This state is beautiful. As I drive I am filled to the brim with thankfulness that I can live in such a lovely place. Right now is a particularly joyous time to drive, because I can see the land flourishing. The crops look magnificent - wheat, corn, sugar beets. The hay fields have all been mowed and are filled with dozens of giant round hay bales (one of my favorite sights is a mown hay field). Even the trains of gleaming coal cars filled to the brim with jet black fuel seem more abundant this year.

As I was sharing my delight with my dad today, he pointed me to Psalm 65, which describes the gifts I am experiencing and praises the Giver:

⁹ You care for the land and water it;
   you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
   to provide the people with grain,
   for so you have ordained it.^[c]
¹⁰ You drench its furrows
   and level its ridges;
you soften it with showers
   and bless its crops.
¹¹ You crown the year with your bounty,
   and your carts overflow with abundance.
¹² The grasslands of the desert overflow;
   the hills are clothed with gladness.
¹³ The meadows are covered with flocks
   and the valleys are mantled with grain;
   they shout for joy and sing.

It really does feel that the year is crowned with bounty and that the grasslands of our dry, arid state are overflowing. I shout for joy and sing!

Living a Dream

2011-08-13T10:39:00.000-06:00

I have always loved horses. This seems to be a common affection among young girls, and mine was fueled by my family's brief stint as horse-owners during my formative years. I have wonderful memories of riding my horse Misty down in the river-bottoms below our home in Shepherd, even though my little pad saddle had a tendency to slip and would dump me in the road more often than not. (Misty would stop as soon as I fell off and patiently wait for me to get up, stop crying, and dust myself off.)

In high school, long after our own horses had been sold to purchase my brother's classical guitar, I took a few months of equestrian lessons. In them, I learned how to do all those things I had been too young to do with our own horses - saddle and bridle, posting trot, canter, and even jump, all in an English saddle that never, I am happy to report, dumped me in the road. It was a sad decision to give up lessons to save money for college.

But the dream of horsemanship lingered long past any lessons, and I have always found myself longing to be around--not to mention on--horses. And yet, when my friend invited me to spend three days riding on her ranch this week, I was nervous. Maybe I didn't have the skills to ride any more. Maybe I would be too sore after the first day to survive the second and third. Maybe I had romanticized horses so much in my mind that I would be disappointed to find them as unappealing as I find most other animals.

I went despite my doubts, of course. I would have had to be very strong to withstand the siren call of six beautiful quarter horses! Over the three days I re-learned, under my friend's patient and skillful instruction, how to saddle up, how to trot, how to canter, how to discipline. I also learned, to my satisfaction, that I love horses as much in reality as I do in my imagination.

Sarah took me for miles over her beautiful ranch, through pastures full of sagebrush, down into gullies and up on ridges. The last day, I found myself cantering fast down a dirt track road with the wind singing in my ears and I felt like I had stumbled into my own dreams - only reality is far better.

Jesus Is Lord!

2011-07-25T11:03:00.001-06:00

Yesterday's sermon on the Lordship of Christ came at the perfect time. I was reminded that Jesus reigns supreme--that God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

Pastor Alfred challenged us in our creed. When we are asked "who is the real Jesus," do we "confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord"? (Romans 10:9) Do we emphasize Jesus as "Savior" to the neglect of Jesus as "Lord," trying to separate what cannot be sundered? Do we think about what we are affirming when we recite the early church creeds, each of which designate Jesus as Lord?

Additionally, the sermon challenged us in our life. What if I began to live with the conscious thought that my whole life is under Jesus's supreme authority? What if my confession "Jesus is Lord" moved from a private act of the heart to a public pledge of allegiance? What if I fought the overwhelming culture of privatism that allows Jesus to be personally engaging but publicly irrelevant, and demands that we shrink him "to a little godlet around our neck."? Do I call myself a witness for Christ when I'm only a secret agent?

Today I woke up with renewed purpose. I asked the Lord to show me where in my life he says "mine" and I say "not yours." This week is a key one, containing several deadlines. I have a lot of work before me, and a lot of opportunity to give in to anxiety and distrust. Instead, I pray that I can give my work back to him, allow him to rule my heart. I aim to work unto his glory; I want the banner of his Lordship to destroy my anxieties and shape my actions and my attitudes.

There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: "Mine!" - Abraham Kuyper

Riding Waves

2011-07-12T19:40:00.001-06:00

This afternoon I spent an hour in the Pacific ocean jumping in the breakers. It was a great deal of fun, although I had to quit after a particularly large wave tossed me like a rag doll and filled my suit with sand and my sinuses with saltwater.

I had a great time, and will probably do it again tomorrow (although maybe with a boogie board next time), but the power of that last wave has had me reflecting on how the ocean is often used as a metaphor for suffering.

"When peace like a river attendeth my way;
when sorrows like sea billows roll..."

"The waves of life have towered high;
I've been disfigured by the storm..."

I'm more of a mountain girl than a beach girl (and to be honest, much more of an indoor girl than either), and so the ocean has always intimidated me. But after one afternoon, I have an even better understanding of how the ocean is like life.

Like the circumstances of my life, I have no control whatsoever over the waves. They may be a gentle roll that fills me with delight as I bob up and down, or, before I know it, they may tower high and come crashing down on me with suffocating force.

The sorrows of life often seem relentless. Here too, the ocean illustrates: the waves keep coming, one after the other. When one knocks you down, sometimes the next comes before you have a chance to get your bearings again.

Sometimes you can't make it on your own. The only reason I got so adventurous today is that the whole time I was holding the hand of someone much stronger and more experienced than myself. He held me up as the current tried to suck me down; he helped me get my bearings after each wave. The scariest thing about the last wave was how it tore me from his grasp and tossed me in the sea alone. God is so good to give us a community of believers to help support and encourage us through suffering--he didn't design us to make it on our own. But even when the storms of life seem to pull us from all our human support, they cannot snatch us from the grasp of his hand. We are tossed and turned, but held fast always.

The ocean is also exhausting...just like life. :)

Living Alone

2011-07-07T10:40:00.002-06:00

The dishwasher is running, the sheets are in the washing machine, the bathroom is wiped down. Another week of house-sitting is nearly behind me, and it has caused me to reflect on living alone.

When I moved into the Skiles' house, the plan was to stay for the first school year and then get a place of my own. I was operating under the assumption that I wouldn't truly be "successful" until I was able to rent an apartment and be out "on my own." After all, a 28-year-old woman should be able to take care of herself, right?

The more I've considered this pressure I felt to get my own place, the more I have come to dismiss it. Who says we should live alone? Who says being a responsible adult means you have to be completely independent and autonomous? That's certainly not a biblical idea! In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize how bad it would be for my spiritual health. I love solitude and can easily be an anti-social person. The two weeks I've spent house-sitting this summer have shown me that when I get that total solitude I tend to withdraw into it and become a hermit. Not good. In addition, how can it be healthy for me to be the sole arbiter of my daily life, without reference to anyone else? (Moreover, how does that prepare me for a possible future marriage?) I would like to think it would give me great opportunities to strengthen my relationship with Christ, but I know the truth—it gives me a great opportunity to indulge my selfishness and self-centeredness. God put us in families and communities for a reason, and he uses others to challenge, encourage, and sanctify us. Retreating from that to "take care of myself" would be a cop out on my part.

Eleven months have now passed since I moved into my little basement suite, and as of right now I have no plans to move. I love living with the Skiles, and they seem to like having me live there. I am an adult living in their house, but I get all the benefits of family life. It wouldn't be perfect for everyone, but for me it is so much better than living alone.

Ice Cream & Linguistics

2011-07-02T09:43:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I took my four-year-old niece out for ice cream. We had a delightful time sitting outside with our cones and chatting. She was so cute as she told me about the things that have been going on in her life.

"We goed on a hike and a picnic. And then we goed into a real teepee!"

Later, she was very impressed by the medal her older sister got at soccer camp. "You winned it!" she said excitedly.

My niece's grammar is very cute. Listening to her today reminded me of my college linguistics classes and the amazing nature of the human brain. Bailey's mistakes do not arise because she doesn't understand grammar, but because she does. She instinctively knows that adding -ed to a word makes it past tense. To apply standard morphology to words that are actually exceptions is a process called "regularization" in language development, and shows an incredible ability of the brain to learn patterns and be able to apply them in new situations. Amazing.

Bailey will eventually learn that the past tense of "go" is "went"...who knows why. But when she does, I'll kind of miss her current way of speaking.

Delights of Drama

2011-07-01T08:04:00.001-06:00

Last week was "cheesy movies" week at my house. We were cleaning out our collections for our garage sale, getting rid of all those bargain bin titles that we're embarrassed to own anyway. But we decided to watch several before we parted with them for good. One was A Walk to Remember, a sappy Nicholas Sparks special. The movie starts with a delinquent teenager being sentenced to participate in Drama Club with the unpopular Christian girl. This experience is the beginning of his radical transformation. I laughed and commented, "See, drama is good for kids!"

Which brings me to the topic of this post. Drama is good for kids. My performance career started out poorly. At age six or seven, I memorized a cute little poem called "Shine, Christmas Candle" to recite at a Christmas program. When the time came, however, I was paralyzed by stage fright—even though I never actually made it onto the stage! As a naturally fearful and anxious person, it's quite possible that I could have continued down that path and become one of those people for whom public speaking is more terrifying than death.

But drama changed all that. It put me on a stage in front of hundreds of people, telling a story. I could do it because it wasn't me talking to them, but my character. My contact with them was mediated by the story. But once you've done that, it's also a whole lot easier to stand and speak in front of people as yourself. I am fairly certain that if not for all those years of plays, I would not be a literature teacher today.

My drama experience was almost always in the context of my church family, which makes it even better. It is the source of some of my most treasured memories. When I think back to my childhood relationships, so much of what I remember is in the context of putting on a play. I'm forcibly restraining myself from going off on a tangent sharing all those memories right now!

All this musing is prompted by two events last week. The first was that I taught a week-long drama camp to eleven little girls, ranging in age from 7 to 11. Some of them had never performed before, and it was incredible to see the breakthroughs that happened throughout the week. I was so proud when they faced that audience of nearly 50 people on Friday night and performed a play they'd put together in a mere 5 days.

Second, on Sunday we finally had our cast party for A Shakespeare Festival. We had so much fun reliving the experience as we watched the DVD of our performance, our special features (including a spoof reel the kids filmed), and played an uproarious ad lib game.

I was telling a friend about the party, and she summed it up perfectly. She commented on what the world says is "fun" for teenagers—drugs, drink, sex, parties. Destructive stuff. And then she said about my cast, "those kids are having so much fun, and they're doing something so constructive and uplifting!" Drama on its own will not always be something so constructive, but this group of kids bathed their production in prayer that they would work and act for God's glory, and the end result was definitely uplifting. It is such an honor for me to facilitate that opportunity. I hope they find in 10 or 15 years that they look back on the experience with as much delight and satisfaction as I do.

The Civil Wars

2011-06-30T08:02:00.000-06:00

I've really been enjoying this new duo that my brother found, The Civil Wars. That link will take you to their bio page, which details the interesting genesis of their collaboration. They both attended a "writing camp," where 20 songwriters got together to collaborate on radio singles for a particular band. They were paired up to write together, and immediately experienced a sort of musical fusion.

In many ways their music reminds me of A Swell Season (the duo that made the movie Once) in that it is acoustically driven with a piano and guitar, but The Civil Wars has a definite American feel to it. Some of their songs have a real Appalachian folk lilt.

"Poison & Wine" is their signature song so far. I think they make very nice use of paradox:

(As much as I like this song, I must admit that it's one of my pet peeves when singers don't put their end consonants on. Drives me crazy!)

I also think this one, "To Whom It May Concern" is cute, especially the last line: "Dear whoever you might be, I'm still waiting patiently." A single girl can relate!

I ended up getting their whole album Barton Hollow, and while I haven't listened to every song with great attention yet, it's all been great in the background.

An Ideal Day

2011-06-11T21:39:00.000-06:00

If we had ideal days every day, I'm sure they would lose that heart-rejoicing-overflowing-with-gratitude feeling. This day was a heart-filler, even though nothing particularly spectacular happened. (Unless it was the oatmeal pie I had for breakfast. That was a revelation.)

It started with a mid-morning drive through green Montana pastures (with white mountains on either side) to the tiny town of Molt. In Molt the old hardware store has become the Prairie Winds Cafe, known for live bluegrass on Saturday mornings. My friend and I enjoyed a full breakfast in the quaint atmosphere. Rounded out with the aforementioned pie. (Really, WOW.)

Returning to town, I stopped by my parents' house and played the grand piano. Enough said.

Then to the mundane--after I cleaned the bathroom, I tackled my wardrobe and reduced it in size by half. How freeing is it to say, "Yes, I could hypothetically wear this, but I don't and I probably won't--so clear it out!"

At 3pm I went to my favorite coffee shop, Off the Leaf, ordered an americano, and sat by the open door. The music was on low, the clientele was sparse, and I sat there for the next three hours, alternately enjoying sunshine and the fresh smell of rain as I read The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. I read it cover to cover, with intense pleasure. Hopefully it will engender a blog post of its own.

After dinner, an evening walk, which warrants its own post below, followed by sitting on the porch sipping peppermint tea, listening to the sprinklers, and chronicling my day in a notebook.

Yep, my heart is full.

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
Surely I have a delightful inheritance. Ps. 16:5-6

Anatomy of an Evening Walk

2011-06-11T21:30:00.000-06:00

Open your eyes. Open your ears. Slow down.

This was the prescription for tonight's walk. I didn't bring a driving beat to encourage exertion - this was not a power walk. I didn't bring a sermon or podcast to "redeem the time" - this time was already redeemed.

Open your eyes.

The sunshine tonight had that special evening quality; more golden than midday, providing a warmth separate from the surrounding cool air, casting long shadows. The Rims were shining golden and green as I walked toward them, and the robin's breast flamed bright as it flew overhead. On my left I passed a grandfather showing his young grandson how to change a tire. The little boy, wearing a safari hat, bounced up and down and shifted this way and that, not unlike the bird I saw hopping through the grass, or the cottontails that scampered across the road. (I counted at least 8 of those.) One mailbox was surrounded by friendly daisies; another by vibrant purple irises. Instead of just walking past generic "trees," I looked at an aspen, a maple, an oak. I saw a pine tree blooming, if that's what you call it when the cones are forming in fresh yellow clusters. The waxing moon looked hardly more substantial than a cloud in the still-light sky.

Open your ears.

Rimrock Road is closed to through traffic, so as I headed Rim-ward above it, the streets were more than usually silent. Silent enough for me to hear. Crickets were chirping in the grass. Birds were singing their hearts out. I listened to the mourning doves and thought about my grandparents, whose small North Dakota town is intimately associated in my mind with the sound of doves. (The result of many summer evenings and mornings in childhood lying alone in the tent camper in their back yard.) I listened to the thoughts in my own head.

Slow down.

I am a fast walker. Ever since I was a 14-year-old with short legs trailing all 6-foot-5 of Benji Boyd through the swamps of the Lord's Boot Camp (Teen Missions, Int'l), I have been a fast walker. Tonight I wore flip-flops, intending to stroll. I still started out too fast, but as I opened my eyes and opened my ears, I slowed down. There was so much to see, so much to hear. In fact, eventually I slowed to a stop. Tears came to my eyes as I smelled the lilacs and looked and listened at a world so beautiful that, as Lucy Pevensie might say, it would break your heart.

"Why," said I, "was it so sad?"
"Sad! No, " said Lucy.

The First Year

2011-06-04T13:02:00.000-06:00

Last August I left my long-term, well-paid job at Home Science Tools in an attempt to build Captive Thought Tutorials into a full-time endeavor. I am by nature an anxious person, so the amount of peace I have felt throughout this process can only come from the Lord.

So how was the first year? Let's just say - better than all my dreams. I don't know if I can express the profound depth of my thankfulness.

First, for my living situation. When the Skiles offered to give me an extremely inexpensive place to live, I was delighted. But I didn't know how little it would feel like a "place to live" and how much it would feel like a "home." Not only do I have a comfortable suite to live and work in, I have a family to share my life with. The past ten months have included 6AM power walks with Kerry, lunchtime read-alouds with Adam and Emily, motorcycle rides to the grocery store with Steve, mail deliveries from Grace, and lots of talking, singing, dancing, praying, and movie-watching.

Second, for my work. I love literature. I love reading it. I love thinking about it. I love reading about it. I love writing about it. I love teaching it. One of my goals as a teacher is to teach students to appreciate literature even if it isn't to their personal taste--several of my students told me I accomplished that very thing. One said, "Miss Mattson taught me to love literature." Right there--I would do it all for free just to hear that. (Unfortunately, I also have to eat. :) This year I taught British Literature (Charlotte Bronte to Oscar Wilde), American Literature (Washington Irving to Leif Enger), and C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity to The Last Battle).

Third, for my students. I think to be an effective teacher you need to love your subject matter and love your students. My students make it really, really easy to love them. The 25 I had this year ranged in age from 13 to 18, and lived from California to Rhode Island to Italy. Each class had its own unique flavor. American Lit challenged and questioned and picked sides. (Team Hawthorne versus Team Poe, anyone?) British Lit was lively, intense, creative, and full of class spirit. My C.S. Lewis students spent a whole semester thoughtfully applying Lewis's writing to their own lives and walks with Christ--it was inspiring to watch.

I am so thankful.

I can't wait to do it again next year.

Reminiscing

2011-05-27T17:48:00.000-06:00

I haven't worked at HST since last summer, but I'm still using the same computer and software as I did then. Thus, yesterday when I clicked the drop-down button next to my work Google Talk status, this is what I found:

Last summer I was enjoying the Master and Commander soundtrack, on which Yo Yo Ma plays a Bach Prelude. I was also, apparently, claiming U2's line, "Life should be fragrant, rooftop to the basement."

But mostly this brought back a flood of memories from last summer, especially of the wonderful baseball trip I took with my brothers to see three Twins games at brand-new Target Field.

It's great to think back to last summer...last summer when the grass was green and the sky was blue...and the Twins were good.

Shakespeare Festival

2011-05-26T17:53:00.000-06:00

Most theaters pick a play they want to put on and then cast it, but when you're running a church drama group you have some idea of your cast first and then need to find a play to fit. This task is stressful for me, to say the least.

Last year I ordered and read multiple scripts, and each time I came up empty. A friend suggested I do Shakespeare, but I knew I had a number of young ladies who wanted to participate, and good female roles are a bit thin on the Shakespearean ground. The play I wanted to do, Twelfth Night, has 3 female roles, and one of those characters is pretending to be a boy the whole time. Sigh.

The deadline for announcing our 2011 production was only a day or two away and I found myself at a total loss. And then, after some earnest prayer, the idea popped into my head - why not do a Shakespeare Festival? String together some of the Bard's best, most accessible, most famous scenes, and let each cast member have a starring role in at least one scene? I felt immediate excitement and conviction that this could work and would be a fantastic introduction to Shakespeare for cast and audience alike.

The kids weren't quite so convinced, and I could tell they were skeptical. (I can't blame them; most of them weren't very familiar with Shakespeare, and the idea of doing different scenes instead of a single play sounded weird.) I asked them to trust me, and thankfully they did.

I spent hours putting together the script, abridging scenes, trying for the right number of roles, balancing humor and drama, writing narrations, and inserting a few spoof/skit scenes from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by The Reduced Shakespeare Company. The end result was a 2-hour, jam-packed highlight reel containing 52 roles played by 10 high schoolers and 6 more played by 5 junior highers in the final scene. Ambitious.

And then those teens proceeded to knock my socks off. They worked hard, scheduling individual coaching sessions and lots of extra rehearsals. They memorized a LOT of Shakespeare, took on their roles with enthusiasm, and also fell in completely with my vision for a fast-moving, cast-managed play. They didn't blink at my casting spreadsheets, my costume-change spreadsheets (color-coded), my props spreadsheets, my stage-managing assignments. (Just thinking about the logistics of this play makes me tired all over again!)

After a little more than 2 months, they presented our Shakespeare Festival at the beginning of May. They were funny. They were dramatic. They were so comfortable speaking Elizabethan English they might have been born speaking it. The first night they made ONE noticeable mistake. The second night was a little less smooth, but with more energy and a more intense performance which made up for minor mistakes.

And as far as I could tell, they loved it. They experienced that rush, that joy, that "glow" of a successful undertaking. Months of teamwork and toil, reaching a pinnacle of entertainment and enjoyment. I wish you could have seen their faces backstage the first time the audience laughed. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them my college Shakespeare professor was in the audience. I wish you could hear them still quoting Shakespeare non-stop and laughing together at jokes forged in the fires of persevering endeavor.

"All the world's a stage," but there's nothing quite like standing on the theater kind, holding hands with your friends, and bowing to a well-deserved ovation.

Back in the Saddle

2011-05-23T17:06:00.002-06:00

Today was strange. I got up, showered, packed a lunch, and went to work at Home Science Tools. An hour into the day I was sitting in a marketing meeting discussing search engine optimization. I felt this weird, creeping "Twilight Zone" sensation, as though the last 9 months of my life never happened. That somehow I had never left HST, never embarked on this grand adventure, never found my "dream job."

Thankfully, that's not true. I have my first year as a full-time teacher under my belt (more in an upcoming post). I'm just here for four weeks, and I'm rejoicing that I have the opportunity to make a little extra money and give HST a summer employee they don't need to train. It's kind of cool to come back and slip back into the routine almost as though I'd never left.

On another note, I wasn't very rested for my first day of work. I think I got my vacation backwards - 5 days of rest and relaxation were rather wiped out by the 22-hour day on Saturday and the 11-hour drive on Sunday. (I-90 was closed due to flooding, so we had to drive hundreds of miles out of our way to get home!) All worth it, though!

Friendship

2011-05-21T10:57:00.002-06:00

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity" (Proverbs 17:17)

Thursday night Amanda and I spent time looking at her wedding pictures, and I remembered how special it was to be in her wedding party, every member of which I had known for over a decade (and in some cases, over two decades). I also remember how forlorn I felt when Jason and Amanda left the reception to go start their new life together in Virginia.

Visiting them now it's amazing how little has changed. Actually, everything has changed--Amanda is married; she lives in a new home in a new state with new friends. But the quality of our friendship hasn't changed. We can still sit comfortably in silence together, or talk for hours. We are perfectly compatible museum-goers, picnickers, and movie watchers. We can read Harry Potter aloud on the beach. And everything is doubly fun because I'm also long-time friends with her husband! Thanks to Jason and Amanda for such a wonderful, relaxing vacation.

Relationships take work, and it isn't as though Amanda and I have never had to work (living together for 3 years brought some challenges). But the tenor of our friendship has always been easy. I don't think we should expect or desire all friendships to be easy, (!) but I have a few of those, and I couldn't be more grateful. What a blessing to have close, deep, safe, secure relationships. Two other prime examples in my life are my brother Brian and his wife Tara. Ever since they moved to Billings I've dreaded the day they would have to leave. But this week my brother announced his new position as Senior Scholar of Public Theology for the Center for Cultural Leadership, a position that allows him to stay in Billings and do the work God has gifted and trained him for.

I’m so happy for him, but…well, I'm also so happy for me. I like living 5 minutes away from my best friends.

A Real Resurrection

2011-04-24T18:18:00.002-06:00

Pastor Alfred referenced this John Updike poem in his sermon this morning. I had never heard of it, but I love the imagery and the unequivocal declaration that the resurrection was a real, bodily event. And as we learned today, that is a very good thing, for if Christ was not raised, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins. "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead." 1 Corinthians 15:20

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Wonderful Invention

2011-04-04T08:11:00.002-06:00

What exhilaration did the Wright brothers feel that day at Kitty Hawk? How thrilled was Alexander Graham Bell when his machine carried his voice to the other room? And after 10,000 tries, what triumph must Edison have felt to see that light bulb turn on and stay on?

I know exactly what the poet Robert Browning felt when, at a party in 1889, he recorded his voice for the first time on one of Edison's cylinders. He was so excited he forgot his own poem and then proceeded to lead the group in a round of cheers. I know, because here it is:

An "astonishing moment," he called it. Do you know what astonishes me? That I live in an age where I can read in a book that Browning's voice was recorded on an Edison cylinder, then open my computer, go to YouTube, type in "robert browning edison" and hear it for myself. That is a wonderful invention.

Movie Music

2011-03-20T16:51:00.002-06:00

I love playing music from the movies. When I sit down at a piano, there's a good chance that one of the first things I play will be from a movie: Pride and Prejudice, Man From Snowy River, Ratatouille, etc. I have music for all of those. And while I'm not great at playing by ear, I have been able to figure out how to play other things without music - the theme from Wives and Daughters, a song from Tangled, "Sigh no more" from Much Ado About Nothing. My latest attempt is the theme from Lark Rise to Candleford. I figured out how to play it, but when Mom asked me to write it down, things got hairy. Despite that piece of paper that says I have a music minor, the Circle of Fifths seems to have "retired to the southern hemisphere of the brain...to a little fishing where there are no phones." (Billy Collins, "Forgetfulness.") Once I figured out what key I was in, I had no problem with the melody and the chords. But I still have not conquered the bizarre time signature.

While on YouTube listening to the Lark Rise theme, I stumbled upon the channel of "TweedleDee1," a husband and wife team whose hobby is to figure out themes from period dramas, transcribe them, and give away the sheet music. I quickly downloaded a duet from Emma (2009), and the themes from Little Dorrit and Anne of Green Gables.

Movie music is more than just the music itself. When you hear it played you are assailed by the many emotions the movie raises in you - the story, the characters, the time and situation of your life when you watched it. When I listened to TweedleDee1 play Anne of Green Gables I felt a rush of sentiment and memory. For that moment I was a four-year-old with the flu, watching Anne for the first time with my dad and oldest brother. For that moment I was curled up on a couch in Scotland with my two nieces, celebrating my 24th birthday. For that moment I was a talkative orphan getting into scrapes...mourning Matthew...falling for Gilbert.

One thing I never understood about my two-semester music history class in college - it never touched on cinema composers. We spent months learning all about opera, which was originally popular entertainment, but our own time period was all John Cage and no John Williams. When I listen to the theme from Schindler's List, I can't help but think that is terribly unfair. Typical of elitist academia, but unfair.

Shakespeare Invented English

2011-02-26T11:06:00.004-07:00

Okay, it's an exaggeration to say Shakespeare invented English...but it doesn't feel like much of one! Last week I told the intrepid cast of my Shakespeare Festival that dozens of cliches and hundreds of words were invented by Shakespeare. Of course, they asked me for examples, and, of course, my mind blanked and I couldn't think of any that I was certain about. So this week I've done my homework. And I'm blown away. Here's a great way to understand:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, had too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise - why, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - you are quoting Shakespeare. (from The Story of English.)

According to Shakespeare Online (and other sources I've seen), Shakespeare invented over 1700 of the words we use today. Some he made from scratch, but others he created by turning nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes, and putting words together in new combinations. Here's just a sampling:

accused, amazement, assassination, champion, circumstantial, compromise, critic, deafening, frugal, generous, hint, laughable, majestic, mimic, negotiate, obscene, puke, rant, torture, worthless, wild-goose chase, zany.

Wow. All that, plus "holding the mirror up to [human] nature:" giving us vibrant characters discoursing on comedy, politics, ethics, philosophy, love, murder, revenge, jealousy, exile, betrayal, ambition, depression, courage, patriotism, coming-of-age...and a whole lot more.

As someone once said, the amazing thing about Shakespeare is that he really is as good as everyone says he is.

Rats in the Cellar

2011-02-06T18:14:00.004-07:00

Today Pastor Alfred said a convicting thing: you are what you really are at your weakest moments. Being hungry (as in Esau's case, Genesis 25), or tired, or stressed, or overwhelmed doesn't excuse our sin, it reveals it. This reminded me of the following passage from Mere Christianity. Lewis says things so vividly:

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard. [...] Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul.

There's only one Exterminator who can deal with that rodent problem!

People Need People

2011-02-05T22:19:00.007-07:00

Tonight I watched two episodes from season 3 of Lark Rise to Candleford and several lines struck me forcefully. I plan to give a review of the series later, but for now here are the quotes I had to share:

There was an old local saying, 'Alone, you're nobody.' Miss Lane often said that the key to life was that people need people.

When I consider how much I need the people in my life, I think I would say I'm "nobody" without them. How thankful I am that God designed us as communal beings and put us in families and communities.

Surely it is not a matter of what we feel we can give; it is what is needed of us.

Life in families and communities is not easy, and often asks more of us than we feel able to give. In faith, we must try to give what is needed and find strength from God in our weakness.

To love is to lay yourself open to loss. That is the bargain we make with ourselves. Because it is worth it.

Oh, a hard saying. Love makes us so vulnerable to hurt and pain and loss. (Still we court it, even giving our love to animals; read Kipling's poem, The Power of the Dog.) And yet, it is so worth it--the love, the loss, the giving more than we feel we can...because people need people.

Fine Art is Good for the Soul

2011-02-03T09:35:00.004-07:00

I can't stop staring at my new painting. Every time I look at it I get a little thrill. It depicts one of my favorite sights -- bright golden aspens popping out of the dark green mass of a mountainside pine forest. The artist called it "Hidden Treasure" - which is exactly how I would have described it...if I had his way with words. Trust me, it looks even better in person:

My friend Taylor Lynde has been one of my favorite artists for many years. My parents have a beautiful painting he did of some Mayan ruins, commemorating the trip he and my dad took when they drove to Guatemala from Montana "just for the fun of it." My brother and sister-in-law own a breathtaking painting called "Visions of St. Paul's." It shows the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral against a brilliant blue sky from a ground-level angle. I still remember the gallery show where we first saw it - Brian and Tara and I kept coming back again and again to stand in front of it. I've never quite gotten over my envy that they own it...

Taylor sells his paintings on Ebay, for far, far, less than gallery prices. He has been on fire lately, listing a new painting several times a week. As his work kept showing up in my facebook news feed day after day I was starting to get the fine art itch. I figured out how much I could reasonably spend, then bid that much. I never thought I'd win it, and for Taylor's sake I kind of hoped it would go for more, but even after a last-minute bid from someone else, I came out on top. I'm so happy.

Please check out Taylor's work in his ebay store. He has two up right now ("Summer Valley" and "Bearthooth Evergreens") that make me wish I could have an art-buying grant. :)

Originality is Overrated

2011-01-24T17:41:00.004-07:00

Thank you all for the great writing prompts! It was fun to see what you suggested. I've begun sketching ideas for some of them.

Meanwhile, I ran across something in Mere Christianity which may help with the "what to write" conundrum. C.S. Lewis says stop trying to be "original":

Even in literature or art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. The best books, it seems to me, are all about communicating truth. And I'm not just talking about serious, didactic books either - P.G. Wodehouse is one of the most humorous and enjoyable authors on the planet, but it certainly isn't because he's original! His stories are repetitive and formulaic, but who can't recognize (and chuckle at) the dissonance between the facts about Bertie Wooster and his own estimation of himself? Self-deception is a universal trait, and Wodehouse had a gift for presenting it freshly.

An author like Jasper Fforde, on the other hand, is all about fantastic originality. I enjoyed The Eyre Affair, but a couple books further into the series my interest palled and I gave up. Not because the novels weren't still clever and original, but because Fforde seemed to me to be "showing off." His books seem to say, "look at how imaginative and original I am," but they completely lack that spark of recognition that links truth from a book to your own heart and mind. The result is that these "original" books left me bored. In contrast, the imaginative elements of Harry Potter, though extremely enjoyable, act as a support to themes and characters that are grounded in reality. Love, sacrifice, war, and friendship are the cake - wands, Latin spells, and O.W.L.s are the icing.

And then, of course, there are books like the one this blog is named after. To Kill a Mockingbird is the fruit of one woman writing what she knew. And I will read and re-read, laugh and cry over its pages for many years to come.

Mystery Class

2011-01-21T20:59:00.003-07:00

Anyone who reads The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins may be in danger of contracting a strange malady called "Detective-Fever." My class had certainly caught it today as we theorized about the resolution of the book's diamond-theft mystery. But when one of my students logged in with "Detective Extraordinaire" after her name, it inspired a particularly fun manifestation of Detective-Fever.

During the last 15 minutes of class everyone logged out and logged back in with a pseudonym chosen from the books we have read this year. Communicating via the chat box, the students tried to be "in character" while we all tried to guess their real identities.

I wish I could describe how uproariously funny our time was. My students creatively came in as both major and minor characters. Our motley crew consisted of characters from The Moonstone, including Mr. Betteredge, who kept referring to Robinson Crusoe, the Head Indian, who offered to tell our fortune for half-price, and Miss Clack, who was handing out tracts and getting upset that we were heathenishly lying about our identities! Mrs. Hale from North and South also made an appearance, although she seemed rather sickly. And there was a gaggle from Jane Eyre, including Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst, who was quick to make proclamations about Hell, and even Uncle John Eyre.

One particularly funny moment revolved around Grace Poole, who turned in a red herring performance just as she did in Jane Eyre! We guessed early on that she was Student A, so the girl who was actually playing her, Student B, started impersonating Student A, while still in the character of Grace Poole. Student B had us convinced that she was Student A.

When it came time for "The Reveal" each student spoke over audio, some disguising their voices, and others using funny accents. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

Literature has a lot to teach us...but boy, it sure is FUN to play around with, too! :)

MLK

2011-01-17T19:18:00.004-07:00

Have you thought about Martin Luther King, Jr today? I wonder how often this federal holiday comes and goes without us giving a thought to the man it seeks to honor. I certainly haven't spared much thought for MLK until the last couple of years. Teaching American literature, however, has brought the racial history of our country to the front of my mind, and I have found it a privilege to teach Mr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and I Have a Dream speech as the culmination of our studies on race.

I'm assuming you all have seen at least the climax of "I Have a Dream," but you might be unfamiliar with Letter From a Birmingham Jail. I urge you to read it; it is a powerful apologetic for the Civil Rights movement and an indictment of the "good people" who remain silent, the white moderate who cares more for order than justice, and especially the ineffectual and unsupportive church. King uses one of the greatest metaphors for the relationship between church and culture that I have ever read:

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

I love that metaphor - thermometer or thermostat? I'm pretty sure the latter is what Jesus had in mind when he gave us the Great Commission.

I'll close with one of my favorite Norman Rockwell paintings. Children are children, no matter the color of their skin - look at how the two groups in this painting share all the same interests:

Writing Assignments

2011-01-11T21:22:00.003-07:00

Tonight at dinner with some family members we were discussing once again the problem of "Christian fiction" as its own subculture/genre, and wishing more Christians would write great fiction that stands on its own merits. And, once again, we talked about my pipe-dream of writing fiction some day. A pipe-dream that never comes close to materializing because I never practice writing.

My brother suggested that I need to start with short stories to "hone my craft," because a novel is just too ambitious and overwhelming. (My objection was that short story-writing skills are not necessarily transferable to novel-writing, but I imagine it would still be a very beneficial exercise.)

My problem, as always, is in brainstorming and approving my own ideas. Two of my most successful writing projects were the result of external prompting. One was for a short story contest where the story had to deal with the theme of "redemption" (pretty broad!) and another was the result of my brother's challenge to write a poem that only a baseball insider could identify as being about baseball.

So - I think I need people to give me writing assignments. Want to help? Fill in some of these blanks:

Melodee, write a story about ____.
Write a story involving parachutes?/rock slides?/bookstores?/_____.
Write a story that uses the imagery of _____.
Write a story dealing with the theme of ______.
Or hey, even, write fanfic about these characters_____.

Anyone want to give me an assignment? No promises, but I might try some of them. :)

Farewell to a Hero

2011-01-10T14:13:00.005-07:00

One of my earthly heroes, Major Richard D. Winters, died on January 2 at the age of 92. The story of World War II is chock full of men who inspire with their loyalty, patriotism, dedication to duty, and servant leadership. Winters stands out, partly because his story was told so well by Stephen Ambrose in Band of Brothers, and partly because his men have also had the opportunity to extol his leadership publicly over the years - and they were never shy of doing so. (Sgt. Bill Guarnere: "I would follow him to hell and back.") He also stands out because he was an extraordinary man. Here's how Ambrose summed him up:

"Of all the leaders and heroes I have studied and interviewed - including some two dozen MOH recipients - none can surpass Dick Winters for courage, resolve, wisdom, concern for his men, determination to get the job done, the havoc he wrought on the German companies and battalions, risk-taking and accomplishments."

Major Winters was one of many young "citizen soldiers" that led our armies to victory...from the front. I know that our WWII veterans are dying at an alarming rate, but with his passing it is especially brought home to me that an era has ended. I'm so thankful for people like Ambrose (and many others) who saw the need in the last two decades to record the memories of this great generation. We are better for having heard the stories that went untold for so long.

I'm also thankful that I wrote Major Winters years ago and received a note in reply (which is laminated in the front cover of my copy of Band of Brothers) as well as the picture I've posted above (which hangs on my bedroom wall). He signed it to me with his trademark saying of encouragement: "Hang tough."

My hope is that this extraordinary man, who had once expressed doubt about his salvation, has found certainty in the arms of the greatest Servant Leader. I intend to watch We Stand Alone Together sometime this week in remembrance of a hero who served in a company of heroes.

Redesigns and Inspiration

2011-01-07T21:17:00.003-07:00

Okay, now I really have to keep this blog renaissance up, because I actually spent money on a photograph for the header today! (I know, I know, no one looks at blogs any more - they just read in Google Reader. But hey, I look at it, and this inspires me!)

Anyway, take a look and tell me what you think. I think my blog looks porch-ish for the first time ever!

Speaking of things that inspire me, I teared up over a Joe Posnanski post today (not a particularly uncommon occurence). Posnanski is a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated and a jewel of online literature. His posts are massively long (the tagline of his SI blog is "Curiously Long Posts") and full of twists and turns and 500-word asides. But I read almost everything he writes, even when it's about football or soccer instead of baseball. That's because no matter his subject, he has a human element or angle that pulls you in. He also has a sense of humor and a half!

Today he wrote about taking his 9-year-old daughter to Harry Potter World. After a long discourse about fatherhood and crowds and lines and Dr. Seuss, he got to the point of his story, an act of kindness to his daughter from a stranger. (One thing you have to know about Posnanski - the rambling journey to the point is just as important and valuable as the point itself.) You should really read his touching story yourself, but even without the context, I think you'll appreciate his conclusion:

Something that disappoints me sometimes is that it seems exuberance and enthusiasm can be such rare qualities in people. There are so many discouraged people. There are so many people who appear to be going through the motions -- lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them (I knew that Thoreau study would come in handy someday). The older I get the more I have come to believe that we can make such a difference by showing just a little bit of zeal, doing a little bit more, showing just a bit more of our spirit. [...] There's so much we can do in this crazy world with a little effort and imagination.

His story reminded me how even the smallest display of enthusiasm for a person can make a tremendous impact.

Whether or not you read the HP World story, do yourself a favor and read JoeP on "The Hawaii Chair." Yes, the man is not only a loving father and a baseball expert and a gifted writer, he is also a connoisseur of infomercials. I promise you, you will laugh until your sides ache. Read it!

And after Joe makes you laugh yourself silly, pick up his book The Soul of Baseball and cry with the beautiful American treasure that is Buck O'Neil. Even if you aren't a baseball fan, you should read that book.

Okay, I'll stop there. For now. :)

Happy As Can Be

2011-01-05T16:37:00.003-07:00

2011, how I love thee.

I spent the last week of 2010 sick with a miserable cold. I had great plans for finishing up all my grading and getting a head start on the second semester, but being away from home, out of my routine, and sick left me with very little motivation to get things done. Instead, I slept, went to a movie with my sisters-in-law and nieces (Tangled), watched The Lord of the Rings, and read one of my Christmas presents, The Help (blog post about it here.) It wasn't so bad of a week, after all.

The resulting to-do list made me dread January 3rd, however. Getting back into the swing of things is always hard...except that it wasn't. I've just spent three days at my desk working very intently to catch up, with equally full days ahead of me, but instead of feeling exhausted or stressed or overwhelmed, I just feel happy.

Happy because I'm doing my dream job. Happy because there's nothing else I'd rather be doing than preparing to teach The Moonstone, The White Heron, and Emily Dickinson. (And I don't even like Emily Dickinson!) Happy because grading isn't so bad when your students turn in great papers. Happy because C.S. Lewis inspires me, and creating an illustrated powerpoint timeline of his life and preparing to lecture on his legacy is just plain fun.

And guess what? Next week, I get to do the same thing, and the week after that, too. I spent the majority of 2010 just doing what I had to do to get this job. Now I get all of 2011 (and beyond) to enjoy it.

The Return

2011-01-01T17:45:00.002-07:00

Not sure I remember how to post on this thing!

January 1, 2011 seemed like a good day to sweep the cobwebs and scrub the dirt off this poor abandoned porch. I have missed blogging. Without it I have no written record of the joys, sorrows, and thoughts of 2010, and that makes it hard to remember the days that are now auld lang syne. I don't know how well I'll do, but with a new look and a new year, I'm hoping I can get back in the groove after some fashion.

The Hawk and the Dove

2010-01-23T15:42:00.002-07:00

This week I re-read The Hawk and the Dove, an old favorite from my 6th grade Sonlight days. It is a book that never fails to move me. In it a 15-year-old girl searches for meaning, purpose and community, and finds hope for these things in the stories her mother tells her about a 14th-century monastery.

Over the years I've read this book in various circumstances. Once when things were going very well I read it and was so convicted of pride that it reduced me to tears and drove me to my knees. Other times I have found comfort in the idea of continuity--wisdom passed from mother to daughter through many generations.

And other times, like this one, I am reminded most forcibly that the Christian life is one of suffering, and it is also one of community. First, communion with Him who suffered most for our sakes, and second with other believers--even when they are the cause of some of our suffering.

The story of Abbot Peregrine and the monks under him reminds me that to live in community requires brave love, persistance, accountability, compassion, humility, repentance, forgiveness, gentleness, conviction, and sacrifice. It is a hard and beautiful thing.

No matter what the suffering Christ calls us to, there is always hope amid the storm. When Peregrine says to his infant grandson, "God keep you from harm," his daughter replies:

You can't ask that, Father, and you know it, of all people. But let him travel through life with his hand gripping Jesus' scarred hand as tight as it now grips yours, and the storms will not vanquish him.

I'm gripping the hand of Jesus.

The Case for Ms.

2010-01-07T19:12:00.002-07:00

I have never liked being called "Ms. Mattson." I really think it's quite ugly-sounding, and would much rather go by the classic "Miss Mattson."

But today I was reminded of the value of "Ms.," when I had an email exchange with someone from a conservative southern Christian university (you probably know the one). Even though by the second email I was signing only my first name, (and the other party only shared their first name) I still got three emails in a row with the salutation "Dear Mrs. Mattson."

Somehow I really don't think it's caving to the feminist agenda to use "Ms." when you genuinely don't know someone's marital status. Surely that's better than calling me by my mother's name! :)

Another Tidbit

2009-12-31T07:18:00.002-07:00

Funny bit of Mattson family Wives and Daughters trivia: We owned the DVD before we owned a DVD player. And then we had to buy a DVD player for the sole purpose of having a W&D party with my sisters-in-law and their mothers. I think Addie was an infant at the time, so it must have been around 8 years ago.

Why Wives & Daughters is My Favorite Movie

2009-12-30T07:12:00.005-07:00

Warning - this is a long post. (But it could have been a lot longer! :)

We watched Wives and Daughters on Sunday afternoon, taking breaks to make molasses popcorn balls and eat pizza--a lovely end to our holiday weekend. I always list W&D as one of my favorite movies, of which I have many, but every time I actually watch it I come away thinking that it really is my unqualified favorite, a tier above all my other favorites.

It holds such a high place in my regard for many reasons. First, I love Wives and Daughters because it is not primarily a romantic love story. While it ends with the happy marriage of Roger and Molly, getting there is not the sole focus of the story. I always feel like this is the point that's misunderstood when people compare W&D unfavorably with Pride and Prejudice. P&P is, in essentials, the love story of Elizabeth and Darcy. W&D contains a love story, but it is only one thread in a tapestry of equally important relationships. People expecting the "romance" of P&P are almost always disappointed in W&D. But those who approach it looking to find the whole range of human relationships are bound to be delighted.

Wives and Daughters is a movie that takes its time. I have often called it “5 hours of character development.” Instead of exciting events, it shows ordinary people living ordinary lives with all the sorrow, conflict, misunderstanding, and heartbreak that real life involves—and all the pleasure, joy, beauty, and humor, too. Though the plot is rather skeletal, the characters are rich and deep. By the end of 5 hours spent in their company, you truly know them. Very few movies make me love the characters as much as this one does.

This movie is about maturity. Molly Gibson at 17 is quick-tempered, emotional, and full of passionate opinions. While she begins by declaring dramatically that she “will never be happy again,” with all the amusing certainty of a short-sighted teenager, she ends by learning to think of others more than herself and to presume the best of others instead of the worst. (I am always amazed that when Cynthia arrives she finds Molly delighted to meet and befriend her. The audience is cynical about this new sister, but Molly is not.) Molly grows into a circumspect, trustworthy, compassionate woman.

It is also about conflict and communication. Squire Hamley is one of the most flawed and most endearing characters I have ever encountered, played to absolute perfection by Michael Gambon. His frustrated relationship with his eldest son is all the more heartbreaking because it is so unnecessary. Osborne has made, in his father’s eyes, the worst possible choices, but we have seen enough of the Squire to know that though his prejudices and emotions are strong, his love and loyalty are stronger. His overwhelming wrath is quick to flare up, but just as quick to die down. “Ten to one he’ll be in another mind tomorrow,” Osborne counsels Roger, yet does not realize that his own storm would also pass quickly if he were honest with his father about his situation. Instead they live with continual secrecy, misunderstanding, and disappointment.

So much of the story is also about loss and its frequent partner regret. The Squire has lost the most, and he must live with his regrets. It so painful to watch him try to cope (not very well) with his wife's death, and then finally have to face his failures as a father: “Of late years we weren’t such good friends as we would wish to be, and I didn’t know if he knew how much I loved him.”

Wives and Daughters depicts the transition of an entire age. The world of Osborne—the age of the Romantic Poets—is fading out as the world of scientific Roger takes its place. Osborne the poetic genius is a failure, whereas dull, steady Roger becomes a celebrity for his scientific accomplishments. There’s been a cultural shift, and it’s mirrored in the way Molly moves from aficionado of Osborne’s poetry to devotee of Roger’s naturalist pursuits. It’s the 19th century, and the times they are a-changin’.

Of course, Molly’s change in interests is motivated by love. And while I’ve said that this isn’t primarily a love story, it certainly is one to a significant degree. Roger (unwittingly) wins Molly’s heart by what I think is one of the most attractive qualities in a man—kindness. In return, Molly’s love is selfless. Instead of indulging in bitterness or jealousy when Roger falls for Cynthia (oh, Roger!), she prays for him to be happy in his choice, and she encourages Cynthia to love him as she ought. For Cynthia she also acts with selfless love, sacrificing her own reputation to protect her step-sister. (This leads to Lady Harriet’s rescue operation—a delightful scene of power used for great good. Followed, of course, by Lady Harriet’s clever matchmaking machinations…)

If I took the time, I could double this list of themes. And I believe I could write an essay about each character. - Mrs. Gibson, who is not a typical “wicked stepmother,” but merely an everyday (infuriating) vain, foolish woman who cares far too much about what other people think of her. - Cynthia, who has many redeeming qualities in spite of her shallowness, but whose main flaw is a love for attention. - Mr. Preston, who swings back and forth between obsessive love and revenge only to have both trumped by a desire for job security. - Lady Harriet and her interest in “petty Hollingford affairs.” And what about Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe? And Mrs. Hamley and Aimee and Mr. Gibson?

I’m telling you, I love this movie and these characters, and I wish everyone could have as much pleasure and delight in it as I do! :)

Death Be Not Proud

2009-12-15T19:02:00.004-07:00

A lady in my church gives a lovely Christmas luncheon every year, at which she encourages us to share what God has been teaching us in the past year.

Today the first four women who shared all read from 1 Peter...that book of comfort for suffering saints. That gives you an inkling of the difficult season our church is in. Yes, we had a lot of joy this year - 17 babies born! But oh, what a lot of sorrow and suffering we have seen. Oh, how these words of the Apostle are for us:

"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." (1 Peter 4:12-13.)

This year brought accidents and injuries, long ICU stays, multiple cancer diagnoses, job losses, wayward children, chronic pain, depression, surgery complications, and more. Every last event highlighting the fallen nature of this world; reminding us that this is not our home. And the greatest reminder yet came yesterday, when we heard that our dear sister who has battled ovarian cancer for a year and a half had breathed her last breath.

Death is not "natural." Death is horrible. Death is our enemy. This fact is brought home to me as I consider Marcia's death. It was expected; it was almost welcomed in the sense that we didn't want her to suffer any more. It was even peaceful - it took place in her own home, surrounded by her family who love her. But it was not "natural," for we were created to live, not die.

The last time I saw Marcia, a few short weeks ago, was one of the most precious hours of my Christian faith. Jeff and Marcia are/were members of my small group, and that evening we met at their house, along with our pastor and his wife and one of our elders. Marcia had been unable to attend church for several weeks, so there in the living room our pastor brought the word to us and then served us the Lord's Supper. We sang and prayed and read scripture. It was a precious, holy time.

Now it's almost Christmas, and Marcia's death reminds us of the reason for the incarnation. Why did Jesus have to come? Why did he have to die? Surely to redeem us from this estate of sin and misery. Surely to achieve for us a resurrection life in that great city where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

I treasure up these things and ponder them in my heart:

The mystery of the incarnation - "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
The mystery of the Lord's Supper - "My body, broken for you; my blood shed for you."
The mystery of the resurrection - "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Because of His incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and certain return, today I say with John Donne,

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

"We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." (1 Thess 4:14)

Winter Loves

2009-12-03T16:57:00.003-07:00

I made a list on my way to work this morning:

1. Heated car seats. Need I say more? :)

2. Down comforters. So light, so warm.

3. Hot water bottles. When put under aforementioned down comforter, it keeps my feet toasty all night long!

4. Long wool coats. Classy and cozy.

5. Full moons in the morning. The moon was SO bright and beautiful in the early morning sky as I drove to work.

6. Real fires. I have to go to my friend's house for this one. Last night I got to stoke it and watch the flames flare up...and hear the snap and crackle...and feel the warmth!

7. "Angels We Have Heard on High" sung by Josh Groban and Brian McKnight. Apart from the cheesy orchestral interlude, it's my favorite recording of that song. I listened to it three times on the way to work.

Written Word Wednesday

2009-12-02T21:59:00.003-07:00

John Donne wrote a 7-sonnet cycle about the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It is called "La Corona," the crown. Each sonnet begins with the last line of the previous sonnet, so all seven are linked together into a "crown."

In view of Advent, here is #2, Annunciation:

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo ! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He'll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother ;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived ; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room
Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.

The Finish Line

2009-11-27T16:52:00.003-07:00

I just crossed the nanowrimo finish line, after writing 50,000+ words in 27 days. I feel like I should be popping champagne or something.

I feel kind of bad for resurrecting this blog only to desert it again for a month while I attempted such a crazy project. But thank you so much to all of you who encouraged me to try. (Or dared me, as in the case of my sister calling me "chicken.")

I have no illusions about my novel - it is bad. I introduced characters only to forget about them. A woman got pregnant and I almost forgot to produce a baby after nine months. I spent pages on introspective angst and then speeded ahead months in a few paragraphs. I skipped over important sections because they required research and, with a 30-day deadline, I had no time for research. My characters speak 21st-century lingo and smile too much and often act very sappy. My theology is sometimes trite, my description sometimes boring, and my characters sometimes insipid.

But you know what? I kept going. I didn't give up. I had fun. And I finished.

In many ways, nanowrimo was a game-changer for me:

1. I can no longer claim the excuse that I am too busy to write. November was a very busy month. I went two or three weeks without a single free evening at home. And yet, in only 27 days I finished a short novel-length piece of fiction. It is entirely unnecessary to write at that insane pace, but if I can do that, surely I can manage something a little less strenuous?

2. I have always known that good writing takes practice, and yet still felt frustrated when my first attempts didn't live up to my high standards. But I learned from nanowrimo that I really enjoy writing. And if that's the case, it is definitely worth taking the time and effort to practice it. It's a skill to be learned, and I want to learn it.

I have no idea where I'm going next, except that my fingers are already itching to clean up the ending of my draft. I have to admit that in my zeal to get to 50k today, I really fudged the ending. Not to mention all the holes I left earlier on that want filling in (my novel needs to be much longer than 50,000 words). I think I'll do a little more work on this until Monday, but then I'm going to lock it up for the month of December. January 1st I'm going to get it out, read it, and start re-writing it.

Now excuse me while I go read a book. I've kind of missed that in the frenzied effort of writing one. :)

Written Word Wednesday

2009-11-04T15:42:00.006-07:00

Week One of NaNoWriMo

Yes, I took the plunge, and here on Day Four I am 5,297 words in. Writing a novel in a month is hard...and exhilarating! In my 22 years as a reader, I have read hundreds and hundreds of novels—many of them good ones—so how is it that I have not the faintest clue of how to write one? I'm struggling with pacing, perspective, voice, amount of description, amount of dialogue, etc. And yet the beauty of it is that I just keep writing instead of giving up, and I'm confident that at some point this month I'm going to figure out how I actually want to tell this story.

Yes, writing a novel in a month is hard...and exhilarating. When you're on a 30-day deadline, you simply have no time to edit. Going back spells death, pressing forward is all that counts. You have no idea how counter-intuitive this is to me. It's so difficult to keep my critical fingers off previous pages, but there's something so freeing in saying, "keep writing; fix it later." I'm learning to adopt the Wrimo creed: "Resist the tyranny of the delete key!" and "Editing is for December." Yesterday, they gave us the following advice:

And please remember: If you write a paragraph or chapter you don't like, just put it in italics (or change the font color to white). Do not delete! After you write your way across the 50,000-word finish line, you can double back and clip out all the parts of your book that make you cringe (I think you'll surprise yourself with what you decide to keep). For now, just keep moving forward! There's an old folk saying that goes: Whenever you delete a sentence in your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground. Where it will likely require medical attention.

Writing a novel in a month is insane. (Even a very short one, like this.) I have two jobs, family birthdays, dinner guests, the World Series, and more. That daily word quota hangs over my head. Here's how the schedule is shaking out:

Write before work (approx. 6:45-7:30 AM). Yesterday this produced 453 words, today 724. (Monday this time was spent working on lesson plans)
Write on lunch break (approx. 12:40-1PM). Yesterday this produced 324 words, today 155. As you can see, results vary!
Write at night as much as possible. Since I've had something going on every night this week so far, this has varied, but I've been averaging 1200 words in 1.5 hours.

To catch up today, I have to write another 1,371 words. We have dinner guests, followed by small group, plus Game 6 of the World Series. Excuse me while I go try to finish Chapter 3. :)

Rope Tricks

2009-11-03T15:06:00.003-07:00

I have a pair of shoes that will not stay tied. I'm telling you, these shoelaces are positively Houdini-like. Double knots? Ha. Triple knots? Nice try.

I've been wearing them a lot lately, and every single time I get up from my desk, the laces are trailing again, and of course since "Safety First" is the motto of my workplace, I have to tie them before I walk downstairs.

I think I need to go shoe shopping. That, or ransom my tennis shoes from Ashleigh. Or both!

Overwhelmed

2009-10-29T15:07:00.005-06:00

It's been a tough week emotionally - people I love are hurting deeply, and I've been hurting for them. Lots of things have been running through my mind, some less helpful than others, like

"Life is pain, Highness, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something." - The Princess Bride

Wednesday evening was a particularly tough time, and even though I am not directly connected with the the particular suffering of my friends, I found myself utterly overwhelmed with sorrow. I went to bed in tears and woke up in tears. And that phrase kept running through my head to describe how I felt: "overwhelmed with sorrow." This rang some bells, so I turned to Matthew 26:

He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

Not only is he experiencing greatest sorrow - to the point of death - he is unsupported. His closest friends fall asleep, and he cries out, "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?"

This is incredible. What other religion presents a God who voluntarily experienced the greatest sorrow on this fallen earth? And as I meditated on this, I came to this fundamental truth. Jesus truly knows the depths of our sorrow. And yet more -- because he had to suffer it alone, we never have to - HE is always there to watch and pray with us. Wow.

Written Word Wednesday

2009-10-28T21:31:00.003-06:00

Both my sister and my mom sent me an article today from By Faith magazine on Christian writers. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so I can't comment on the article, but my sister did pull out this quote when she sent it to me:

"I hope to borrow from Flannery O’Connor, that my students in their writing will be more attuned to 'the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil,'" says Smith. "[I hope they] will offer the full range of human experience digested from a Christian worldview perspective."

This is so silly, but my first reaction when reading that quote was to feel pressured. Perhaps the fact that I can't think of plots is only a secondary reason for why I hesitate to write. The primary reason involves feeling that I should produce something of profound Christian excellence about "the full range of human experience". (My only novella to date has kind of a Janette Oke-ish quality to its Christianity. Nothing wrong with Janette Oke's Christianity, but it isn't exactly multi-faceted, layered literature.)

Yet another reason, perhaps, for me to attempt Nanowrimo. (Yes, I'm reconsidering!) I think maybe I need to throw caution to the wind and just write something for fun. No one should expect their first attempt to be a masterpiece, right? Well, we'll see. :)

Photo Essay: Dunnottar Castle

2009-10-27T21:25:00.004-06:00

Tonight I watched part of the 1990 version of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson. The reason I rented it, though, is that it stars something else: Dunnottar Castle. This was just 20 minutes down the road from where I lived in Scotland, and I had a couple wonderful adventures walking to the castle along the cliffs from the small village of Stonehaven. The movie sticks a non-ruined castle on top of this bluff, but the setting is unmistakable. Here's what it really looks like.

Depressing Literature

2009-10-23T16:51:00.002-06:00

At the request of my nephew I decided to address the "depressing literature" problem in class today. As in - why is "classic" fiction so often depressing? And why should we read it? What should we get out of it?

Literature has always been a way to grapple with tough questions about this world. As far as it is truly trying to imitate life, it is imitating life in a fallen world. And life in a fallen world results in these questions: how can people do this to one another? Is there really a God and is he good? Can God be present in the midst of great evil and suffering? Can a sinner have any hope of salvation? Not all authors, obviously, have the right answer to these questions – many have only a counsel of despair. But as Christians we have an overarching framework—God’s story—to help categorize literature:

Creation | Fall | Redemption | Consummation

Even the simplest fairy tales reflect this structure:

Once upon a time | Enter Wicked Stepmother | Enter Handsome Prince | Happily Ever After

Fiction usually only tells part of the story, and yes, often camps out in the Fall - that's where we're living here and now, and that's the road down which dramatic tension lies. But every protagonist that sacrifices for others hints at Redemption. And every happy ending hints at consummation.

As a side note, most fiction that is categorized as "realism" is depressing. In the critics' worldview, a happy ending cannot be realistic. "It's all tied up too neatly," they say. "No marriage is a happily-ever-after...just wait till the honeymoon is over," etc. However, in the Christian worldview I think there is room for happy endings, because our view of what's real includes the reality to come. We already know there's one happily ever after marriage to look forward to, and after the wedding feast of Christ and his church, there will be an eternity of joy. A book with a happy ending echoes that surety.

But back to depressing fiction. What value does it have for us? We read about the Fall in order to better understand our own sin, our own desperate need for a savior. We need to be reminded that creation is groaning under the weight of the Fall. As Christians, we should use depressing literature not as a path to despair, but a springboard to Christ. In other words, we take it and plug it into the context of God's story; we see it as an illustration of the Fall that makes Redemption and Consummation seem that much sweeter.

I eventually applied all this to the specific book we're reading, Uncle Tom's Cabin. When looking at the book through this framework, I think we were able to see that despite the intense depiction of human depravity, the book is filled with the hope of redemption and consummation. As we read our hearts can grieve over the sinful state of the world and our own hearts, but be quickened with joy and hope in Christ as the Physician of the world.

Written Word Wednesday

2009-10-21T20:51:00.002-06:00

My friend Ashleigh has a lovely feature on her blog called "The Wordless Wednesday," in which she posts some of her spectacular photography. As long as I'm attempting to revive this blog (woohoo! 4 posts in 4 days!) I've decided to steal from her and have my own Wednesday feature - a little musing on books, authors, and writing itself. We'll see how it goes.

I just discovered that the 11th annual NaNoWriMo is about to start. You're probably saying, Nano-what? NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month," and takes place every November. The goal is simple: write a 175-page (50,000 word) novel between November 1st and midnight November 30th. Naturally, with such a timeline, the goal is not to produce the next literary masterpiece. As the creators of the event say,

"Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

This approach actually makes sense to me. I have spent my whole life reading great literature. The result is that the minute I try any creative writing, I get to the end of the first page, read it over, come to the inevitable conclusion that it is not Great Literature, and give up. What if--just once--I kept going? Actually worked something out to completion, no matter how bad it was? What if, say, I just decided to write my first novel in 30 days. I could even have a burning party on December first, but at least I would be able to say that I completed a bad novel, and by extension, perhaps I could complete a good one.

Apparently I am not alone in thinking these thoughts. The most staggering thing about NaNoWriMo is this:

In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever.

Think about that. There are 100,000 people in this country who want to try writing a novel in a month. Do they do it just for fun? Or do they actually have aspirations of being published novelists? One hundred thousand people. There's my new motivation. "Write a novel; everyone's doing it." :)

PS - Yes, I thought about participating in NaNoWriMo; no, I'm not going to. Yes, I would love to be a novelist, but the fact that I can't come up with a plot to save my life indicates that nothing much is going to come of that particular ambition!

Birthday Blessing

2009-10-20T21:15:00.003-06:00

My sister turned 40 today! And though there were black balloons at her party, it was definitely a celebration of God's faithfulness and a time of thanksgiving for her life. She's always been one to look forward, not cling to the past, so she's not mourning on her birthday. She's had 40 years of walking with God and can look forward to tomorrow as yet another day in His service.

This attitude seems perfectly normal to me, but a brief perusal of the birthday card racks indicates that perhaps it's a little out of the ordinary. I cannot believe how many birthday cards are about a hatred for getting older. Dozens upon dozens of cards seem to assume that birthdays are the most depressing days of the year. (And if they aren't about that, they're all about how I talked myself out of buying you a gift, ha ha.)

I guess this shouldn't be surprising, considering how our culture worships youth and beauty and consequently fears aging. I love how the scripture honors both youth and age: "The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old." (Proverbs 20:29)

I've noticed that when my sister wishes people a happy birthday, she always says, "have a thankful day." In other words, it isn't a day to focus on ourselves, demand our way, or pity ourselves for the extra wrinkles; it's a day to remember God's faithfulness. Let's start a new trend and write THIS kind of blessing in our birthday cards:

"Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all you who remain of the house of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,
and have carried since your birth.
Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:3-4)

Book List

2009-10-19T20:16:00.004-06:00

Looking back on my 14 posts this year, it seems I've only been posting when I've been feeling really serious. Time for something a little lighter. :)

Last weekend was the library book sale, an annual event I look forward to with great anticipation. This year the pleasure was slightly marred by the presence of people with scanners impersonally loading boxes with books they intended to turn around and sell. Kind of takes the fun out of my personal little treasure hunt. In the end, though, I still managed to enjoy myself and came away with this lovely stack (bottom to top):

- Literature: Reading | Reacting | Writing
- Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
- Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography By William F. Buckley Jr
- The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Anderson's Fairy Tales
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Quo Vadis by Andrzej Karez
- They Called her Mrs. Doc by Janette Oke
- The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
- Great American Short Stories
- The Far Side of the World (Master and Commander) by Patrick O'Brian
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Passion & Purity by Elisabeth Elliot
- The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
- Christ in Poetry
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
- The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Hunger for Heaven

2009-10-18T19:33:00.004-06:00

I just wrote this facebook status:

Melodee was very moved by the Lord's Supper today...and is full of longing for the day when she can feast with Christ and never--NEVER--be soul-hungry again. Come, Lord Jesus.

Then I hit CTRL X and came to The Radley Porch. Some things just aren't meant to be a lone sentence inserted into a stream of sentences about weather, baseball, and travel.

So let me start over.

Today as we celebrated the Lord's Supper, we sang "Give Me Jesus," a simple spiritual that boils down the complexity of the human heart into this one statement of pure desire: at every moment of life - in the morning full of hope, when alone full of despair, and even in death - we need only one thing, Jesus himself.

Then Bryce reminded us that in the Supper Jesus gives us himself - but it is still only a foretaste of that time when he will drink of the cup with us at the great wedding banquet. The Supper just whets our appetite. But on that day we shall feast with him and never hunger again.

Today I felt so weak and weary and full of longing. Part of it is because I couldn't sleep last night and am running on empty. Part of it is because I spent some time this week with someone who is suffering greatly, and the heart cries out for relief from the effects of the fall. Part of it is frustration with my own recurring sin.

But there's another part. There are certain days--not as frequent as they should be--when I am given the eyes of faith to see past my idols to what my heart truly longs for. I read Psalm 27 to my suffering friend this week, but right now I'm claiming those words for myself: "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

And tonight, weary and worried and uncertain about my life, I'm looking forward with certainty to the home I have in heaven. I've just read the end of The Last Battle with tears in my eyes; Lewis so often says what's in my heart:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."

. . .And then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming, leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty. . . Then Aslan turned to them and said: "You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."
Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back to our own world so often."
"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"
Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.
"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the Shadowlands--dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

I can't wait for my Chapter One to begin. In the meantime, I hope to learn more and more to say, "you can have all this world, just give me Jesus."

The End is the Beginning

2009-08-11T19:01:00.004-06:00

I really struggled through a recent reading of Ezekiel. It was long and hard to understand, and for some reason just seemed more difficult than usual. (I think part of the problem was that my Bible-reading plan has me read six chapters at a time...too much to absorb and read meaningfully.)

Finally the day came when I was finishing the book, and I admit, I was relieved. I pushed through six chapters of ceremonial law and city measurements, looking impatiently for the end.

And when I reached it, it pulled me up short and took my breath away:

"And the name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE."

All that time I had forgotten that I was not reading about some ancient city in the past, but about a city in the future - a city that is my true home. My home, because my Lord is there! Yes, that's a breathtaking thought.

How Do You Steer a Hot Air Balloon?

2009-08-04T20:50:00.004-06:00

The other day I followed a hot air balloon to work. It floated down Monad and headed south on Carbon; its gentle drifting punctuated by spurts of flame up into the balloon. I peered around the sky for some of its fellows, but it appeared to be the lone remnant of the Magic City Hot Air Balloon Rally.

I gazed upward, wishing I could spend the day lazily floating in that basket, instead of in the office. When I finally looked back down at the road (as everyone must do once in awhile, more's the pity) I noticed that I was tailing a suburban with a trailer that read:

Caution: Frequent Indecisions
Hot Air Balloon Chase Vehicle

It pulled off to the side of the road directly in front of our building and watched the direction of its charge. In the meantime I parked, put up my windshield reflector, and headed into the office. Looking out my window a moment later I saw the suburban make up its mind, pull out, and head off once more to follow the whimsical meanderings of the hot air balloon.

I think it's the new warning label for my life. Caution: Frequent Indecisions.

Grace Like Rain

2009-06-21T08:35:00.004-06:00

I awoke at 6 this morning to one of the most beautiful sounds in the world - rain falling gently outside my open window. As I lay there listening, it struck me how frequently rain is mentioned in scripture as a symbol of God's blessing. I did a search and found 85 results for the word "rain," and now am meditating on what I found.

Rain is a blessing for the obedient:

So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today-- to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul--then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. - Deuteronomy 11:13-15

Lack of rain is a judgment on the unfaithful:

Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. - Deuteronomy 11:16-17

Rain is a sign of forgiveness:

When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance. - 1 Kings 8:35-36

Rain is a manifestation of God's miraculous power:

He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. He bestows rain on the earth, he sends water upon the countryside. - Job 5:9-10

He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance. - Job 36:27-31

(If you don't think of rain as miraculous power, please read John Piper's meditation on the subject.)

Rain is a sign of the true king:

Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. . .He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. - Psalm 72:1, 6

When a king's face brightens, it means life; his favor is like a rain cloud in spring. - Proverbs 16:15

Rain makes God the object of praise and thanksgiving:

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, make music to our God on the harp. He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. Psalm 147: 7-8

Rain distinguishes the Lord from idols:

Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O Lord our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this. - Jeremiah 14:22

Rain signifies God's common grace and reminds us to love our enemies:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:44-45

Rain is a testimony to the one true God:

Paul and Barnabas beg the people of Lystra not to worship them, saying that "[God] has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." Acts 14:17

Rain is a symbol of the effect of God's word on our hearts:

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. - Deuteronomy 32: 2

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me!
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away!

Meine Seele

2009-05-17T15:05:00.004-06:00

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity of singing a cantata by Melchior Hoffman at the spring concert of the Big Sky Chamber Ensemble. The piece, Meine Seele Ruehmt und Preist, was originally attributed to J.S. Bach, and is beautifully set with obligato oboe, flute, and violin plus continuo (harpsichord and viola da gamba).

I was thrilled to be a part of this ensemble, but it turned out to be quite a challenge. Since Tuesday I've had a sore throat that got steadily worse, until on Friday night I was practically writhing in pain and could easily categorize it as the worst sore throat of my life. (I did go to the doctor on Thursday to be tested for strep, but it was negative.)

Finally on Saturday evening I tried to warm up - the sound came out okay, but my throat hurt so bad I just ended up bursting into tears. (Mom quickly reminded me that crying was NOT going to help the pain.) After barely any warmup and having maintained mostly silence for days, I took a double dose of tylenol and went to the church chewing Aspergum and toting two travel mugs of Throat Coat tea.

As I sat waiting in dread, I read the English text of my cantata over and over (matching it up in my head with the German I was going to be singing). And as I read, I prayed. And as I prayed, I realized that these were words I wanted to sing under any circumstances. They were worth any pain, because they exalted the God who made me and redeemed me, who gave me a voice...and yes, who allowed me to be stricken with this sore throat at just this time for his good purpose. These words are what carried me through the whole ordeal. Here they are:

Aria

My soul extols and praises God's graciousness and abundant goodness. And my spirit, heart, and my entire soul is gladdened in my God Who stands for my source of salvation and my help.

Recitative

For, if I look at myself and also at my life, then my lips and my voice must break out into these words; God, God! What have You done for me! Not even with a thousand tongues can it be enunciated how good you are, how friendly Your truth, how rich Your love. Hence be extolled by praise, honor, and glorification!

Aria

God has seated Himself high, and looks down upon what is low. Assuming that the world holds me in low and miserable esteem, I am still being held in high esteem, because God has not forgotten me.

Recitative

Oh, what great things do I encounter everywhere which God has done for me and for which I bring Him my heart as an offering. He does it whose might can encompass the heavens, and of Whose name's splendor even the Seraphim are mindful only in humility. He has given me body and life, and also the right to beatification, as well as all that gladdens me both here and beyond, out of His sheer mercy.

Aria

Your goodness, Your mercy, Your mercy endures, God, throughout all time. You show forgiveness to the poor ones devoted to You.

N is for Narnia

2009-05-08T15:23:00.004-06:00

Hey, remember me? Or an even further stretch, remember my "encyclopedia of an ordinary life?" If you do, I am very impressed, because I left off with "M is for Montana" on March 1, 2008.

So here I am, finally bringing you my "N" post while I'm riding the wave of a glorious weekend spent in Narnia. But, to start at the beginning...

Fifteen years ago our pastor's wife decided to direct a play for the kids in our church. She wanted us kids to "own" the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so she adapted the book into a play and started teaching us the fine art of acting. (Maybe I should stay started trying to teach us the fine art of acting. If I remember correctly, not many of us got very far in the craft in that first production.) I still remember the thrill of playing Susan. I still remember the intense embarrassment I felt when the curtain opened early and I started my line before the narration finished. I still remember the horrible head cold I had and how I had to blow my nose every time I went off stage, and how I lost my voice entirely directly after the performance.

The next year we tackled Pilgrim's Progress, and the year after that we were back to Narnia in the most elaborate production we've ever done, The Silver Chair. We performed this in the local professional theater, complete with amazing backdrops and sets created by an artist in our church. The acting talent had come a long way, and it was a powerful production. During the climactic scene the witch tries to convince them that there is no overworld or Aslan. Puddleglum defies her, saying, "I’m on Aslan’s side, even if there isn’t any Aslan. I’m going to live as a Narnian even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thank you kindly, if you all are ready, we’ll be on our way to spend our lives looking for Overworld." A lady in our audience was just about to file for divorce, and at that speech she was convicted that she should stay with her husband - talk about making an impact!

Another production of Lion followed a few years later, and then in 2002 I co-directed the junior highers in another production of Silver Chair.

This past weekend marks RMCC Drama's fifth journey into Narnia. After 2.5 months of preparation, my cast of 25 pulled together and put on a great show for our two large audiences on Friday and Saturday night. From 8.5-year-old Lucy, to the 18-year-old White Witch, to our senior pastor as professor, they all did a fabulous job. For many of the kids this was their first play, and I do think they did better than we did in our first effort! I've said for several years that I vastly prefer acting to directing, but I was so filled with joy at working with these kids and seeing them succeed, that perhaps I need to make that statement less dogmatically. I wouldn't have traded it this time for a starring part! Even though dress rehearsal did just about kill me. :)

To give you just a taste, here's my facebook photo album with some of the pictures we have from the weekend: Through the Wardrobe Door. You'll see what a fantastic team I had working with me on costumes, props, and makeup!

And if I think about how many months work went into the five Narnia plays, I'd say this qualifies to be included as a part of my "ordinary life." :)

Jesus & the Quest for Solitude

2009-04-09T21:57:00.003-06:00

As I read Mark 5-6 yesterday, I was struck by two things. (Besides our Lord's "shocking casualness in the matter of other people's pigs and property," as Dorothy Sayers puts it.) The first was that there on the page I saw the Son of God express a need for something I so often need:

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling worn out, for feeling like I need solitude to "recharge." And sometimes my desire for solitude really does spring from laziness, a lack of servant's heart, or (too often) the desire to escape the hard work of relationships. But this passage reminds me that there are times when it is perfectly legitimate to leave one's ministry for a moment, to seek a solitary place and just...rest. What a comfort that our God provides for our human weakness!

Of course, the story doesn't stop there. People saw Jesus and the disciples leave for their retreat. And they ran on foot around the lake and got there ahead of them! Now, here's where the challenge to be Christlike comes. How does Jesus respond when he reaches shore and instead of finding solitude and rest, finds a crowd? A BIG crowd. As in 5,000-men-big. Well, I know what my response would be--anger, frustration, disappointment. Here's his:

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

And then he fed them. All 5,000. With five loaves of bread and two fish.

Such righteousness and mercy and power take my breath away. And I know he lived such righteousness to fulfill God's requirements for my sake. And in his death, which we particularly mark tomorrow, he bore the punishment for every time I have lacked compassion and reacted selfishly when my solitude and rest are threatened.

Then of course, he sealed the deal when he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven where he now reigns forever. But there's still more: he sent a great Counselor, who moves our hearts with the scriptures and gives us the desire to imitate our Savior.

Oh, what riches!

Favorite Days

2009-04-03T18:01:00.004-06:00

I love days like today. Productive, relaxing, and cozy inside while the spring rain pours down outside.

First, I got to wake up and finish preparing for my class, which happened to involve looking at pictures of Scotland. Rough. It also involved looking at my dissertation - that thing is actually useful!

Next I got to teach, my favorite activity of the week, aside from Sunday activities. Not only did I get to teach, I got to teach J.M. Barrie. And tell them stories of Scotland. And read to them in my faky Scottish brogue. And show them pictures of beautiful Kirriemuir. (We immediately planned a school trip to Scotland. We can dream, can't we?)

I spent the afternoon warm inside my favorite coffee shop while the rain came down...reinforcing the Scottish feeling of this day. I graded papers, edited my website, took care of business correspondence, and queried a magazine. But in addition, I got to visit with my mother and have a long talk with a friend who is facing some very serious cancer issues. His spirit was breathtaking--his confidence resting fully in the Lord, prepared to live his remaining days for God's glory and then go Home willingly when the call comes. I praise God for him and hope Jesus works the same peace and joy into my own heart.

When I got home I found a beautiful, sweet card in the mail from one of my students, telling me she's been praying for my headache situation. Wow.

And now I'm going to a friend's for a build-your-own-pizza movie night.

I'm so thankful for days like this that God gives to refresh my heart for his service!

Meditations on a Headache

2009-03-27T13:24:00.002-06:00

One of my mottoes is "literature for life." Hopefully it's something I'm communicating to my students - how literature isn't escapism, but can be applied to our hearts to deepen our walk with Christ. Today I was teaching the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and was struck by this line. The poet describes his sufferings, and then says,

"Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear."

This was especially moving in contrast to the poetry of Thomas Hardy, which we also studied today. He asks the question "why suffering" as well, but his answer is very different - there is no rhyme or reason, just a blind, senseless fate.

I'm with Hopkins today. My heart is asking "why?" in faith that God has an answer, and his answer is both for his glory and my good. My suffering barely registers on the scale of suffering in the world--I haven't lost a loved one, I haven't lost all my possessions, none of my family has renounced the Lord, I'm not dying of cancer. (Even though my hypochondriac mind makes irrational leaps: Headache Day 5 ---> Brain Tumor! :) But even though a headache is so trivial, my God still cares. He is the one who cares when a sparrow falls. He doesn't say, "get over it, kid; you think YOU have it bad!" He says the same thing to me in my hour of trial as he says to people experiencing much worse things: "Fix your eyes on Me. Cast your cares on Me. I will never leave you nor forsake you." And he is using this tiny suffering (that often seems so big to my limited, self-absorbed eyes) for a holy purpose: to sanctify me, and remove more of the chaff from my soul, leaving "grain sheer and clear."

I hope you understand that I am not intending to complain, but to adjust my perspective to see Christ and try to bear good fruit in response to this "heat." As Hopkins ends another poem, "Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain."

Growing Pains

2009-03-09T17:38:00.004-06:00

It "only" took me a year, but I have finally discovered something. I am no longer a student! Nor am I retired, like those people I used to live with. :) I was confiding in my sister-in-law the other day what a struggle it is to come home from work and have an evening full of work still to do. For nearly all of my life, the post-dinner hours have been free time. Marianne helped me realize that that's not how real life is when she said, "Sounds like good training for having kids. They don't turn off after dinner."

So, I've decided I need to just grow up and stop fighting it. Which means just do what needs to be done, every single night. At least I can escape the guilt that comes from putting things off, and hopefully make my life a bit more content, if not more relaxing. God doesn't call me to relax; he calls me to be faithful in the tasks he has set before me. And believe me, it's only by his grace that I can learn to do so! But I have a sneaking suspicion that by getting my life in order and being diligent, my remaining leisure hours will be that much sweeter. I hope so, anyway!

The Week of U2

2009-03-08T18:10:00.004-06:00

I've been listening to U2 most of the week. After a five year wait, their new album was released on Tuesday. Full disclosure: I'm not an objective reviewer. At this point, I'm pretty much predisposed to love anything U2 does, so after a couple listens I was well and truly hooked. But two songs in particular have been functioning as a kind of "refrain" for my week.

The first is called "Magnificent" and is, well, magnificent. As I watched the band play it on Letterman (via YouTube), I wondered what the crowd made of it. My immediate thought the first time I heard it was, "this is a worship song," and I feel the lyrics bear me out. But if it is so very obvious to me, I wonder why the Wall Street Journal is speculating whether it's about romantic love, or a tribute to Bono's father? But knowing Bono's fondness for the Psalms, I'm pretty sure his capitalization--"you and I will magnify The Magnificent"-- is very intentional:

Magnificent
Magnificent
I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven't had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue
Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise...

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar
Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

The second song that's been encouraging my heart is the upbeat "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight." I don't pretend to understand all the lyrics (one never can with Bono, after all), but the chorus has just sounded like where I'm at in sanctification at the moment...the bottom of the mountain...but not alone...and certain of the end result:

A change of heart comes slow
It's not a hill, it's a mountain
As you start out the climb
Do you believe me, or are you doubting
We're gonna make it all the way to the light

Baby, baby, baby, I know I'm not alone

Oh, but a change of heart comes slow
It's not a hill, it's a mountain
As you start out the climb
Listen for me, I'll be shouting
Shouting to the darkness, squeeze out sparks of light

Hang tough, friends. Make a joyful noise and keep on climbing. (And buy No Line on the Horizon at Amazon for $3.99.)

Circumstances and the Character of God

2009-03-02T21:40:00.005-07:00

Last month in my Victorian Lit class we studied The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. (Generally considered the first English detective novel.) In his preface, Collins makes an interesting claim:

In some of my former novels, the object proposed has been to trace the influence of circumstances upon character. In the present story I have reversed the process. The attempt made, here, is to trace the influence of character on circumstances. The conduct pursued, under a sudden emergency, by a young girl, supplies the foundation on which I have built this book.

The "sudden emergency" is the theft of a diamond, and the actions taken by the young girl, Rachel Verinder, leave the famous detective Cuff with only one conclusion--that she is the thief. Nearly every character in the book responds to this accusation the same way: they declare it to be utterly impossible, because of who she is. Her mother, for one, says:

"I have to tell you, as Miss Verinder's mother, that she is absolutely incapable of doing what you suppose her to have done. Your knowledge of her character dates from a day or two since. My knowledge of her character dates from the beginning of her life. [. . .] the circumstances have fatally misled you."

Such confidence is striking in view of the evidence against her. And yet it is repeated over and over again by different people throughout the story.

Of course, Rachel Verinder (were she real) is a human, and as such is fallible and as capable of falling as the rest of us. But right in the middle of teaching class I had this thought: what if we applied the same type of trust to one who is infallible?

So often circumstances are brought as a charge against the character of God. In the face of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, cancer, accidents, financial troubles, miscarriages, there are always those that will say, "See? These things prove that A) God is not in control, or B) He's in control, but He is not good." Just now my local church is weighed down by many difficult circumstances, and it is a temptation for all of us to doubt God in the midst of them. But our confidence doesn't rest in our present circumstances, but in God's character. And he has proven again and again that his character is good, faithful, just, and merciful. He is absolutely incapable of breaking his promises to us.

The Lord has revealed his character to us in his holy word. In it he displays his long-term faithfulness. We watch in awe as he propels history from the promise of a victorious savior in Genesis 3:15 to the death-defeating resurrection of his Son. Along the way he covenants with his people, reminding them of who he is, and even taking a self-maledictory oath to guarantee his promises (Genesis 15). And then we look back and see his hand upon our own brief lives and acknowledge that his character remains what he declared it to be on Mount Sinai:

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

And thus he ever shall be, world without end, Amen. Whatever the circumstantial evidence may say to the contrary.

Expanding My Vocabulary

2009-03-01T21:16:00.005-07:00

My friend Rebekah blogged about her love of words earlier this week, which was quite timely, since I spent a chunk of last Saturday morning poring over the oldest book in my library: a pocket edition of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1833, original property of Thomas Dillon, Esquire, Insulavita Lodge.

This is a condensed version of the Dictionary, sans the illustrative quotes of the original. To make up for the loss, it includes--as the title page boasts--a Portrait. . ."to which are added, a list of the Cities, Boroughs, and Market Towns in England and Wales; the days on which the markets are held, and how far distant from London in measured miles." I'm sure such information will come in very handy!

I'm particularly fond of the note to the reader from the rather pompous editor:

"An idea, therefore, was suggested, that an edition upon so small a scale as to be a constant companion to the writing-desk would be a valuable acquisition. The experiment was tried, and succeeded; in fact, it is now considered as a necessary appendage, and has contributed not a little to that orthography, which gives to modern correspondence so decided a superiority over the mispelt productions of the last generation."

The sheer number of words in this tiny little book is astonishing. Of course, most of them are not in common use; more's the pity! Regardless, it's a word-lover's paradise. Abracadabra: a superstitious charm. Daggletail: bemired, slattern. Shatterbrained: inattentive, giddy. Occecation: act of blinding or making blind. Wrizled: wrinkled, withered, shrunk. Zootomist: one who dissects brute beasts.

Ah, thank you for the linguistic pleasure, Dr. Johnson.

(Oh, and by the way, the market in Aberford, Yorkshire, is held on Wednesdays and is 185 miles distant from London. )

Musings

2009-01-11T13:57:00.002-07:00

Here I sit, legs curled up beneath me on the porch swing, basking in warm winter sunlight. I didn't realize how much I missed this south-facing glassed-in porch on the old homestead. But it feels so right to be swinging here on a Sunday afternoon, cup of tea in hand. (And wifi, of course!) Anyway, being back on one porch has pushed me back on another...and though my blogging muscles are sorely out of shape, it just feels right to be posting here as well.

Mom and Dad are in Asia (and I'm housesitting; hence the porch) and I've already video chatted with them twice. What a world we live in. I'm still amazed when I truly think about it. Sitting here with a machine on my lap, no wires connecting it to anything, seeing my mom's face and hearing her voice when she's on the other side of the world. The time thing is really weird, though, because it's more than double the difference we had when I was in Scotland. It's usually a totally different day where they are!

The focus of today's service was on church membership, and my heart was filled with gratitude yet again for the incredible gift membership is. The responsibilities are weighty, but the blessings are overwhelming. How precious is this strange community of sinners, bound together by the bonds of Christ, loving one another (so imperfectly) as no other community does. And though we fail so often to be the Bride Christ wants us to be, we are left with the certain hope of this benediction in our ears:

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thess. 5:23-24)

Count Your Blessings, Instead of Sheep

2008-12-31T21:44:00.003-07:00

When the bank teller wished me a happy New Year's Eve - "and a safe one" - I doubt she envisioned me home alone, on my bed, in my pajamas at 9:30. But here I am, and I'm not at all sorry for the time and solitude to reflect on 2008.

I have a little blogging dictum: If you can't post something cheerful, don't post anything at all. In which case, the fact that I've managed nine posts in the last three months might give you a little insight into my inner life. . .

But how will I choose to finish out this year? And I do indeed have a choice. I can have my own little one-attendee pity party until midnight, or I can choose to turn my face from the joylessness and depression clinging to my coattails and instead consider the works of the Lord, who brought me out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I can say to myself,

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

There are many things for which I praise my Savior and my God:

- My small group, who share my burdens, encourage honesty and confession, give great love and counsel, point me to Christ, and lift me before the Throne in prayer.

- My parents, who are also my best friends. My Starbucks cup yesterday had a quote that went something like this: "Success is when your children want to spend time with you after they've grown up." Well, by that definition, my Mom and Dad are very successful indeed.

- My friend Kerry, who, along with my parents, is my foremost comforter, encourager, and prayer warrior. She is a companion in laughter, a partner in song, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on. A woman who has been made gracious, not bitter, by suffering. A woman whom I admire intensely.

- My roommate and friend, Amanda. I know I can be very hard to live with (AND work with all day) and yet her love and kindness never waver. She is a champion at overlooking an offense, and she never holds a grudge.

- The power of Holy Scripture. How is it that God can speak to me, counsel me, and comfort me with words written so long ago? What a gift. The following from Psalm 73 has been my theme for many months, and I think reflecting on it is a fitting finish for this year of our Lord, two thousand and eight:

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

An Observation

2008-12-17T07:07:00.002-07:00

In the last week I have noticed that when I turn the wheel on hard-packed, subzero snow, my car sounds like Treebeard.

Perhaps a reminder to not be hasty when driving in such conditions...

Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T17:58:00.004-07:00

I have so much to be thankful for. To contemplate it is like standing under a waterfall of blessings, surrounded by the mighty roar, the spray, the foam, and the rainbows of God's promises--every one of them "yes and amen" in Jesus Christ.

For eight years I have felt the burden of decision. What will I do with my life? Where will I go to college? What will I do after college? What will I do after grad school? Always facing a new "bend in the road," always trying to figure out the next step. I am so thankful that right now my road is smooth and level. Sure, I have a lot of decisions to make about my schedule in January, but the basics of my course are plotted out. I have two jobs that I love, a house and a roommate that I love, church and community activities to fill my free hours. I don't have to wrestle anymore "what I'm going to do" because I'm doing it!

My heart is full, my list is long. But I'll stop there and just leave you with my in-the-moment thankfulness--for the free internet and fun atmosphere at Off The Leaf and the delicious leftovers waiting for me at home. And it's dinnertime, so I think I'll go enjoy them now.

A Public Service Announcement

2008-11-19T21:26:00.004-07:00

This sad, lonely blog is shaking off the dust and clearing its throat to bring you this public service announcement. If anyone from the Billings area is still reading, I invite you to the following:

1. The Big Sky Chamber Ensemble's St. Cecilia's Day concert. 7 PM on Saturday at RMCC. Admission is $5 to benefit the Billings Food Bank. I am singing an aria from Bach's St. John Passion, complete with flute obligato, as well as a 16th century French chanson.

2. The Magic City Singers' Christmas concert. 3 PM on Sunday December 7th at First Congregational Church. Admission is a non-perishable food item for the Food Bank. Some really beautiful arrangements of Christmas carols with a few fun Santa Claus-type numbers thrown in. (On December 14th we're doing another concert with a local bell choir. If you're interested let me know and I'll give you more details as we get closer.)

Hope to see some of you there!

The Haul

2008-10-19T17:03:00.002-06:00

We are running out of shelf space in our house (and we have bookshelves in every room!), but that didn't stop me from attending this year's library book sale on Friday. For less than half the cost of one new hardback, I carted home the following:

- Twenty-Four Italian Songs and Arias of the 17th & 18th centuries for medium high voice

- Washington Irving's Tales of the Supernatural

- Mrs. Mike (I don't know anything about it, but it was recommended by Ashleigh)

- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

- Schindler's List

- My Antonia (Willa Cather)

- Wait Till Next Year (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

- The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from the Spectator (Addison & Steele)

- Boswell's Journal of a Tour to Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, 1773

- Wit (the play)

- Baseball Techniques Illustrated (from 1951 - it's absolutely adorable)

I love books! :)

Coincidence

2008-10-15T21:11:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday morning I sat in the gate at Philadelphia International Airport, waiting for my flight to Minneapolis. The lady in front of me looked at her ticket and said to the person next to her, "I have to catch a connecting flight to Montana." I said, "You're going to Montana?! So am I!" At which point the lady next to me exclaimed, "So am I!" One to Bozeman, one to Missoula, one to Billings. Talk about weird. As my neighbor said, "The next thing you know, Max Baucus is going to walk by. Except that he probably has a private jet."

On to Minneapolis. Arrive at the gate, see a man from my church waiting for the flight. Chat with him. Board the flight. Greet another friend from Billings sitting in first class.

And just when you think it couldn't possibly get more coincidental, I stood up to exit the plane and looked over my shoulder. Several rows back was a man I sat next to on September 18 on my way to Chicago. He works in the oil fields in Alaska, 21 days on, 21 days off. I was on his flight out of Billings, and three weeks later I was on his flight back into Billings.

How amazing to cross a continent in six hours. To go from beautiful sunny, indian summer to blizzard in half a day. Speaking of blizzard, I had a window seat coming into Billings. I strained my eyes for the entire descent, seeing only blank whiteness. Suddenly - a tree appeared, and we hit the ground. The clouds/fog/snow were just sitting on the rims, and the pilot made an almost entirely blind landing. I wanted to applaud.

Now, three days later, most of the 20 inches of snow is gone. There's no accounting for this state.

The Grand Tour Part 4 - Plans Go Awry

2008-10-07T13:24:00.003-06:00

Well, I got off a couple days, unfortunately--so much for the "this day last year" theme. Maybe I'll catch up before the end, though.

October 5 was a transition day. An early morning bus to London, followed by a walk past Buckingham Palace, lunch at the British Library, and a quick run through the wall at Platform 9 3/4.

Then due to a late bus and road closures, we missed our flight to Rome by one hour. An expensive detour, but the Lord granted us the grace to take it in stride. We enjoyed an evening at the Holiday Inn. In fact, we were extremely thankful for a hot shower and a clean bed after our Funky Hostel experience!

Up Next...ITALY!

The Grand Tour Part 3 - Oxford

2008-10-04T18:08:00.004-06:00

The Princess & The Pea. Okay, so "Funky Hostels" aren't known for the comfort of their beds. Peas? Try a plank just under my hips...I woke feeling like I had been run over by a truck! They aren't known for their hygiene either...

I won't tell hygiene stories, because they are just too gross. Bad, bad memories. It was a beautiful day in Oxford, however, so we got out of the hostel as soon as possible and hit the streets. My journal is very full of quotes from Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night, as we spent a good deal of time enjoying the scenes familiar to Peter and Harriet.

After a bus tour, we climbed Carfax Tower and saw the shining towers (all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them). We took a tour of the Bodleian Library (founded 1598). We picnicked in the botanical garden (and resolutely did not feed the ducks), watched inexperienced punters on the Charwell, wandered Christ Church College, and finished up with dinner at the old-world, wood-paneled Mitre. It was a beautiful day.

Of course, we were also very happy to visit the stomping grounds of C.S. Lewis. Here is Magdalen college, where he spent many years teaching.

We ended the night packed like sardines in a college-student filled movie theater. It was the only thing we could think of doing for the whole evening that would allow us to avoid returning to our hostel!

The Grand Tour Part 2 - York Minster

2008-10-03T07:44:00.000-06:00

Amanda and I longed to visit York Minster ever since our British Lit professor showed us pictures in 2003. Evensong merely whetted our appetite; the following day we spent nearly 5 hours in the Cathedral. You could spend five days there and not begin to catch all the beautiful details! For one hour we had a tour with a York resident who volunteers as a guide. He opened our eyes to things we would never have seen without him--the scope of the church is so large that it is easy to be overwhelmed and not pay close attention. In the circular chapter house connected to the cathedral, for example, people look straight to the 360 degrees of stained glass and often miss the unusual carvings that wrap around the room beneath the windows. Here were my journal impressions:

The amazing details of carving and glass remind me of medieval manuscript illumination. The artist is free to add weird off-the-wall things and be creative. So you get people pulling faces, and mythical creatures, and cats stalking mice, and monkeys playing doctor. None of it of sacred significance, but I bet God appreciates a sense of whimsy!

One of the neatest things about York Minster is that they have a community of stonemasons and artists centered around the church, just as they did in the middle ages when it was being built. This community is not simply there to restore the original; they are given the same encouragement to be creative that the original builders had. The cathedral is still living, in a sense...new artists are carving new scenes and new faces. Just as Amanda and I were leaving, I asked her to go stand in front of the West Door so I could take a picture. After I snapped the photo, she looked up, and immediately beckoned me to come. We spent at least another half hour looking at an amazing sculpture cycle of Genesis that was added to the church in recent years.

The Minster has 128 medieval stained glass windows, and each are packed with artistry and symbolism. My favorite was the "Jesse" window, which shows Jesse lying at the bottom as the root of a tree that spreads up through David and Solomon to Christ at the top.

Before we left we climbed the 275 narrow, winding, uneven stone steps to the roof. Little did we know, this was the first of several climbs...

The Cathedral had us so captivated that we didn't remember to eat lunch until nearly 3PM. We found a little cafe and got soup and bread to take out and then went and picnicked on a section of the Roman wall that is still intact circling the city of York. Ancient stones.

No trip to York is complete without a little mosey down The Shambles, where the medieval houses hang over the street.

The Grand Tour - Part 1

2008-10-02T07:00:00.006-06:00

On this day last year, Amanda and I set off on some great adventures. I never really blogged about the trip properly, so I thought it would be fun to look back at my journal and pictures and share it with you a year after the fact!

On October 2nd 2007, we strapped on our packs and hopped a train for York, England. It was one of those days when the North Sea had its brilliant blue face on, as opposed to restless gray. Just south of Aberdeen the gold of harvested fields added to the color scheme.

I love train travel. So smooth, so quiet, such interesting scenery flashing past. Well, I guess it isn't always quiet, as indicated by this journal note:

When the sign on the train says, "use your phone with consideration for others," I don't think it means turn your phone on speaker so we can all hear both sides of the conversation!

Once in York, we continued the train theme with a stop at the Railway Museum. Those royal train cars - wow! (Sorry, I don't have a good picture of them. You get third-class instead.)

Next, our reason for visiting York: York Minster, the second-largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. We approached to the sound of the bells ringing hymns, calling all to Evensong. The service was sung by a men and boys choir. The sound of those boy sopranos filling that majestic space brought tears to my eyes. A worship service was the perfect way to "meet" the Minster.

(But I do have quibbles about Evensong - I would hate to always have a choir do my singing for me, and to never hear any exposition of the Word, and to always have tourists poking their cameras through the bars of the choir screen gate to take flash pictures of the worship service...)

A Christian service has been held on that site every day for at least 1,000 years. Think about that.

The evening closed with dinner at an Italian restaurant where we ate pizza. Strangely, it never occurred to us to eat pizza when we were in Italy.

Catching Up

2008-09-27T08:36:00.004-06:00

The week's silence here is the after-effect of last weekend's whirlwind trip to Chicago. It was a wonderful trip, in which I saw my lovely friend Deadra happily married. It was also an exhausting trip, which means I've spent this week in catching-up mode.

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment:

Haste to the Wedding

Ben & Deadra Go Downtown

And now, I am taking a stack of student essays and heading off to grade them...in Red Lodge.

Happy Saturday!

What I Do

2008-09-17T20:38:00.003-06:00

My friend Rebekah asked me a great question the other day. And I haven't emailed her back because I was just waiting for the time to answer it on here! (Sorry, Beka!) She wrote,

So, I’ve been meaning to ask you, where are you working these days? You always seem to be doing random things for work and I can’t figure out what kind of job involves all those tasks!

This just made me laugh. I do have one of the craziest jobs in the world. Officially, my job title is "marketing assistant" at Home Science Tools...not very descriptive. In truth, I do a little bit of everything. On any given day I might

- Write catalog copy
- Proofread a new catalog
- Research internet retailing/email marketing best practices
- Brainstorm ways to optimize our website
- Design a new science kit
- Write/revise/improve science kit instructions/study guides
- Photograph products
- Write science projects
- Write fun science articles
- Design email campaigns
- Dissect little critters...so I can write dissection guides
- Update our science kits for curriculum when new editions of the curriculum come out
- Design "grammar refreshers" for our employees
- Evaluate new products
- Plan a photo shoot and work with the models/photographer
- Write product video scripts
- Narrate product videos
- Be filmed for product videos
- Answer customer phone calls (rarely)

The list could probably go on if I thought about it a little bit longer! And the fun of writing science projects is that I get to DO them. The other day, for example, I split water into hydrogen and oxygen using two pencils. Yesterday I studied money (1, 10, 50 dollar bills) under a stereo microscope and took pictures with a microscope camera. Today I practiced a way to take my own fingerprints and grew salt crystals and looked at them under a compound microscope with polarized light.

Yeah, it's a great job. :)

And my other job is taking a lot of my time too, but that's a topic for another post...

Indian Summer

2008-09-15T21:04:00.002-06:00

I don't think it has frosted yet, so it isn't technically Indian Summer. But it still has the same feel and I love it as much as ever.

I love it when I have to drive to work in a coat with the heat on...and come home with my sleeves rolled up and the sunroof open. Perfect.

(Next week will probably be 100 degrees and shatter all my illusions...)

Raffia finestra

2008-09-12T07:23:00.002-06:00

I told you that I've been seeing strange bugs on my window at work, which we identified as sod webworms but dubbed Raffia finestra, because they look like raffia ribbon. Well, the Gazette wrote an article on them! The pictures don't look quite so much like raffia because they are taken from the top and I have only seen the underside of these creatures through my window. Check it out.

More Thoughts on this Seventh Anniversary

2008-09-11T22:34:00.005-06:00

My Patriot Day post was awfully short this morning, mostly because I didn't know what to say that I haven't said before. I still feel everything I have written on the subject for the last few years. I still have a strong emotional reaction every time I see the words "September 11." Coupons expiring "September 11," choir rehearsals starting "September 11"...every time I get a jolt. In seven years I haven't forgotten, and I hope I can say the same in 14.

For now, here's the record of my remembrance:
- 9/11
- Remembrance
- Grand Central Station
- Tuesday Morning

And to quote myself from 2005:

"I bring all this up because I'm convinced we have to keep remembering that awful day. We are coming up on four years without another attack, and it is so easy to get complacent and fall back into the attitude we had before it happened - "that could never happen to us." Indeed it could. It did. Thousands of people lost their lives in the blink of an eye; many to be with Jesus, many others to face judgment with no more time to repent. We should still grieve over 9/11, still pray vigilantly for our country's safety and repentance, and we should be ready for the moment when we may be called to meet Him face to face."

Patriot Day

2008-09-11T07:06:00.001-06:00

Today I am remembering and pondering...

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Luke 13:1-5)

From My Window

2008-09-09T10:07:00.004-06:00

The thing I love most about my office is the huge picture window that makes up one whole wall. Granted, it does make temperature control difficult--it's a wall of heat in the summer and a wall of below-freezingness in the winter. But that inconvenience doesn't compare with the advantages of natural light and the pleasure I find in glancing out every now and then. When I do, here is what I see:

The Flag. Directly out my window, two streets over with only empty lots in between, is the largest American flag I've ever seen, excepting the original star-spangled banner in the Smithsonian. It flies on a massive pole in the parking lot of Truck Country USA. Its red, white, and blue ripple majestically, looking bold and beautiful whether in front of blue skies or gray. It makes me happy, and when TCUSA takes it down for repair I fret until it is returned. If I ever buy a truck, I'm shopping there. I love the flag that much.

The Neighbors. Across the street is MT Sports, whose employees arrive on four-wheelers and who have frequent barbecues in their parking lot. Next door is UPS and Brown is always going to and fro.

The Wildlife. This year I have had the pleasure of watching ducks on our drainage pond (particularly one threesome named Haggis, Neeps, & Tatties), Canadian geese, a hawk named Naaman (he just seemed the fierce general type), a hilarious jack rabbit (Basil Stag Hare, of course), Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, and....the ubiquitous gophers. Even more amusing than the gophers' antics is the sight of my boss out in the field trying to do away with the pests. And during the hottest days of summer I had the strangest looking bugs sunbathing on my window. They really looked just like round raffia ribbon, but with two odd-looking protuberances in front. Of course, working where we do, we just grabbed an Audubon Guide to Insects & Spiders and discovered that they were sod webworm moths. We like our "scientific" name much better: Raffia finestra. (Finestra is Latin for "window.")

Donnie & His Bus. All last school year, "Donnie" (dubbed so by us) would arrive promptly at 8:45AM, park his school bus in front of our building, walk around it to check it out, and walk across the lot to work at UPS. Promptly at 2:20 he would appear again, give his bus another inspection, and drive away. I missed him all summer. School has started again, but no Donnie. I'm upset.

What's in a Brand Name?

2008-09-08T17:42:00.004-06:00

I have long loathed the Abercrombie & Fitch brand. I find their advertising offensive, not to mention nonsensical - why try to sell clothing with pictures of people who aren't really wearing any? But last week they reached a new low in my mind. I don't know why I was shocked to see them spell it out with words when their advertising clearly proclaims it with pictures. On one of the email marketing blogs I read for work I saw a recent A&F email campaign. This was a pure branding effort - not tied to selling any particular product, such as a t-shirt with this slogan. Nope, this was just a company credo. It read:

Fiscally
Republican
Socially
Democrat
Sexually
Liberal

Yep, that's Abercrombie. Hey, kids, ain't promiscuity cool?

So why buy A&F clothes? What is it about the words "abercrombie & fitch" that make one piece of clothing "cooler" than any other piece of clothing?

For that matter - what does ANY brand really have to offer us? How do a few letters on a label or lapel or sleeve seduce us into paying far more than the item is worth? What is it about our human psyche that makes us so ready and willing to enslave ourselves to a brand? To wrap up our identity in what kind of clothes we wear?

I wear Wal-Mart and Ross. I'm cheap. But would I like to wear Anthropologie? You betcha. And not just because their clothes are higher-quality than Ross (I assume)...but because they are...Anthropologie. Their catalogs are beautiful...

Yes, the things of this world have a siren's song. Let me block my ears and cover my eyes and guard my heart with the beauties of heaven.

Back on the Porch

2008-09-07T17:05:00.003-06:00

Two posts in August. Two. In nearly four years of blogging, I have never had such a dry month. As I browse my blog I see a record of God's faithfulness to me over the last three-and-a-half years. I am reminded of his manifold blessings, his hand leading me ever on and on, even when I have no idea where I'm going. I miss blogging. I miss the effort of meditating on, evaluating, and chronicling this life of mine. "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." (Ps. 16) From the mundane tasks to the sublime moments, blogging has been a tool in my life for rejoicing in that inheritance.

It's time to begin again. I'm hesitant to announce this, because I'm afraid that I won't be able to keep it up. But I'm going to try, even if it's just once a week. So there's my intention, for all the world to see. Please hold me to it! :)

Bend in the Road

2008-08-26T23:05:00.003-06:00

For the first time in 21 years (!), I am not going back to school in the fall. (Technically I didn't go "back" to school last fall, but I had school all throughout the summer so it was an unusual circumstance.) It feels a little strange, especially with all the summer crew leaving work for school just as I did for 8 years.

Now I've reached another "bend in the road" and I will start teaching on Friday. As with all new things, I approach it with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. This week the theme of my heart is Psalm 73:23-26:

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Saturday Night Dinner Redux

2008-08-03T15:59:00.003-06:00

Before I went to Scotland my friends Amanda and Brooke and I would have gourmet dinners together on Saturday nights, often inviting other people to join us. We haven't really reinstated the practice since I returned. (Partly, I think, because we all have to cook now on a regular basis and so it isn't as fun any more!)

Next week is Brooke's birthday, so last night we decided to celebrate in style. Molly just happened to post a recipe for Shrimp and Poblano Salad with Tortillas this week, and it was absolutely delicious. We also had Brooke's favorite salad, which is a scrumptious mix of dates, avacados, hazlenuts, and oranges...It actually went quite well with the citrus-y tang of the main dish. Add Brooke's skills with a homemade cocktail shaker, and you have a pretty fantastic meal. Dessert was a tasty British pudding with an unfortunate name. (A Gloucestershire hospital tried unsuccessfully to change the name on their menu to "Spotted Richard".)

After dinner came long conversation about our walk with Christ, at least 95% of which was readdressed in today's church service. (Interesting "coincidence.") Then a hymn sing (Rock of Ages, It is Well With My Soul, Man of Sorrows, There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood, Softly & Tenderly Jesus is Calling, Joy to the World, O Sacred Head Now Wounded...). Then finishing off with birthday presents and a viewing of the old version of Cheaper By the Dozen.

Friends and feasting - how blessed are we.

Instant Gratification

2008-07-31T07:08:00.003-06:00

I just had one of those rare moments. I finished reading Jeremiah 17 and then spent some time in prayer. This morning I was pleading with the Lord about something in particular. I set it before him and then I opened my computer to check my email.

The first thing into my inbox was an email that was a direct answer to my supplication.

How often does that happen?! I know it is definitely for my good that it doesn't happen more often--I must learn to trust Him for the long haul. Nevertheless, I'm so very thankful for this quick response today!

Canopy

2008-07-26T16:50:00.006-06:00

(Tarry, dear sleep, that I may drink this cup till dawn.)

Satellites speed their airless road
shining with reflected light,
whilst Earth, the center of that arc,
itself performs a double spin.

The ground beneath me firm and strong—
the dome above revolving slow—
a sweet breeze blows; an apple falls
as shooting stars descend and burn.

The outline of electric wires
trace railroad tracks into the sky,
and slightly swaying apple boughs
spread out to map infinity.

Briefly I lie alone on Earth,
a privileged witness to its course.
I watch the splendor roll above,
and hear bright heaven's ancient song.

Summer Night

2008-07-25T21:50:00.005-06:00

It's 10PM and I just took a walk around the block. It is a perfect summer night: so quiet and peaceful. The air is cool, but the sidewalk is still warm under my bare feet, except for dark patches damp from evening sprinklers. There's a brilliant planet shining just above the treetops.

It's too nice a night for going to bed. I'm going to lay on a blanket in the backyard, look at the sky, and ponder great things.

Murphy's Law

2008-07-19T11:21:00.003-06:00

I had all sorts of things to blog about last weekend...and I couldn't access my blog for three days.

I have uninterrupted access to my blog this week...and I have nothing to blog about.

Life is a rummy business.

ESPN Dropped The Ball (ha ha)

2008-07-14T21:40:00.005-06:00

No one's going to remember who won the 2008 Home Run Derby. (Except me. And my brother, because I owe him a beer for his far-fetched--and correct--prediction. You know he won't forget that!)

No one will remember Justin Morneau (first baseman for the measly Minnesota Twins) because Josh Hamilton put on an electrifying show, hitting a stunning 28 homers in the first round alone. And no doubt, Josh Hamilton is a great story. A young man who lost his career in baseball due to drug addiction, was out three years, and then came back to tear up the league. (And I mean tear it up - 95 rbi before the All-Star break?!?!) It's rather amusing to hear the announcers stumbling over how to account for such an amazing life turn-around without reference to the One who turns lives around. Josh doesn't suffer from the same problem: "I'd like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I'm so blessed at how God has turned around my life and turned it around so fast."

So Justin's win was a letdown for many (though not me, of course). I totally understand that. But my problem is with how ESPN failed to sell the story.

The home run derby is up for grabs; it always is. Therefore, you'd think it would be in the best interests of the network to set each contestant up to be a "great story." Sell each one as a possible contender, play up the drama of each one. In Justin's case, they could have done a lot with the fact that he was only invited to participate yesterday morning...last-minute pick...unexpected opportunity, etc.

Instead, the first thing they said about him was, "I question his selection...there should have been some black or Hispanic players in this event." Then they proceeded to interview Josh Hamilton (great story) during Justin's first at-bat. They made no comment whatever about the batter. He gets to the second round. What do they do during his second at-bat? Run their second interview of the night, this time with Reggie Jackson. Again, they paid no attention to how he did. (Isn't it strange that they run two interviews...and schedule both of them for Morneau's slot?)

ESPN shot itself in the foot. They were left with nothing to say at the end of the Derby, no story to sell. They fell all over themselves. They caught on camera the embarrassing sight of the announcer waving Justin off to the side right after he won so they could talk to Hamilton instead. The powers that be couldn't even get his name right when awarding him his trophy. (Who is "Jason Marneau"?)

Justin, on the other hand, handled himself with grace and poise, talking more about Josh's feat than his own, and smiling graciously when that blonde-who-should-not-be-allowed-on-a-baseball-field said to him--the WINNER--"Well, congratulations to you as well."

Oh well. The Home Run Derby is a fun little side attraction, but it ain't baseball and never will be. Here's to the Minnesota Twins and their Glorious Second Half.

The Little Minister & Me: A History

2008-07-09T18:34:00.009-06:00

Well, I've come back down to earth again after seeing my name in print in a real book (amazing how exciting that is, when it's really just paper-n-ink). Finding several errors (not of my making) in the introduction helped the descending process! Ah well, such is life. I'm still happy and so thankful for the opportunity to make a contribution. Thanks to my brother for forcing me to send my dissertation to a leading Barrie scholar!

For those of you who don't know the story, here's the gist: a dozen or so years ago my pastor's wife picked up a book called The Little Minister at a used book store and decided to have our church book club read it. It was out of print, so we scrounged copies and passed them around. I loved the book, and even started adapting it for the stage in high school.

Ten years ago I bought my first nice copy, off of ABE books: a beautiful two volume set published in 1891. After that I trolled eBay and "cornered the market," as my dad says. There are more than a dozen different editions from the 1890s, all with extraordinarily beautiful bindings, so the book lover in me was delighted even more than the Little Minister lover in me. (I long wondered how so many different publishers were putting out this book. When I researched for my dissertation I discovered that they were pirating it from the British serialized version! Ah, who cares about copyrights, anyway?) So, I became a collector. I've given at least half a dozen copies away, and I still own 10 copies!

I didn't just collect the book; I read it, too! Brian and I read it out loud to our parents on the back deck one summer; a few friends and I read it aloud in front of the fire one winter--laughing over how certain Scottish accents always seemed to turn North Dakotan; and I read it to my roommate in my freshman year of college. Not to mention countless read-alouds of chapter 10 ("The First Sermon Against Women") to dinner guests at my father's behest.

I went to Scotland intending to write on Barrie and The Little Minister. Just the other day I looked through my school notebook and saw, on an early page, the note, "Query: Barrie--Kailyard???" I had obviously run across "Kailyard" in my research for the first time...Hard to believe I was once ignorant of the term! I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say that "Kailyard" was the biggest can of worms I could have chosen to open. I nearly cut and ran. (My supervisor said that it was a good thing I was an American, because I hadn't been brainwashed to despise J.M. Barrie.)

My goal in my dissertation, as stated in numerous proposals, was to deal with the early fiction of J.M. Barrie (five texts in particular), with special emphasis on The Little Minister. I proposed that my treatment of the novel would be in the genre of a scholarly "critical introduction."

I wrote the dissertation with prayers and sweat and tears, passed my degree, and was asked to write...a scholarly critical introduction for a new edition of The Little Minister. It's amazing how our Heavenly Father always gives us more than we could ask or imagine!

Anyhow, my latest copy of TLM sure isn't as pretty as the rest of my collection, but it will have its place on the shelf nonetheless!

This one's full of photographs from the 1897 Broadway play

I had only one volume of this and my sister-in-law found its mate!

Suede leather and mother of pearl

The only one I purchased from England. Leather, pocket-sized.

Don't know if you've noticed, but thistles are a theme.

I love the engraving on this one. It's one of my oldest copies, but with the tightest binding. This is the version I used to write my dissertation. I wish I'd had my new paperback with the introduction and the wide margins. ;-)

Thistle overload!

My very first copy. 117 years old and the paper is still white.

Fruition

2008-07-07T22:31:00.006-06:00

I got a package in the mail today. Someone sent me a couple free books, which is always welcome. But these particular freebies made me pinch myself a few times. . .

(The paper is white, by the way. I just couldn't wait for daylight to take my pictures!)

Interestingly, it was two years ago today that I received the call from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation that allowed for me to go to Scotland and study Barrie. I'm obviously not the one planning this life...

Holiday

2008-07-04T17:41:00.003-06:00

It's the 4th of July and I didn't have a single plan. Thinking I should probably get out of the house, I decided to do an Aberdeen thing and walk to the coffee shop with my book. About half-way to my destination I realized why this didn't have quite the same feel as an Aberdeen adventure...It doesn't get to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in northeast Scotland. All in all, I'm thankful for City Brew's AC and iced tea!

Where was I last Independence Day? Climbing the Mound in Edinburgh on a gloriously sunny day. (Did you know they had those in Edinburgh?) Up a narrow street, around a corner...and oh say can you see, there was a house decked out with American flags in the window boxes. You can celebrate anywhere!

The Sunshine of His Face

2008-07-03T17:05:00.003-06:00

They say familiarity breeds contempt. It can certainly breed indifference. When was the last time you thought about the Sun? I mean really thought about it? A massive, frightening orb of flaming gas, full of violent storms and gargantuan explosions, spewing forth enough energy in an hour to meet our planet's energy needs for a year (rather, it sends that much energy to Earth alone, never mind how much is streaming out in every other direction). That energy races towards us at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, crossing the 93 million mile void in only 8 minutes.

Once it reaches us, it fuels everything. Period. Plants convert light energy to chemical energy, some of which is converted to kinetic energy by the animals and humans who eat them; some of which decays and fossilizes and becomes coal, natural gas, oil. The Sun is at the bottom of renewable energy, too - without it heating the atmosphere there would be no weather and thus no wind power. Without its role in the water cycle there would be no hydroelectric power.

The Sun is a power of terrifying magnitude. But we who live by its beneficent effects are lulled into forgetting its existence, assuming that it will always serve us the way it has; even assuming that we can somehow control its effects. ("Climate control?" How can we control something we don't begin to understand?)

What is my point? I think you can see it coming. We live and move and have our being in the light of a power far greater than the Sun. A personal power. If we are honest, a terrifying power. The Sun itself obeys him at a word--He speaks to the sun and it does not shine (Job 9:7). It is He who placed our planet at this exact distance from the Sun; He who clothed Earth with atmosphere to protect her from the fiercest rays; He who knit us together in our mother's womb.

And yet there is still more--He personally came to live under the rule of the Sun (a universe-shaking event, if there ever was one) and rescued a creation that had rebelled against him.

How can I forget His existence, assume He will serve me, assume I can control Him? How can I lift my head in pride under the weight of such evidence that proclaims His glory?

Tonight the sun will set, and I will expect it to rise again tomorrow, for His mercies are new every morning.

The Professor and the Rainstorm

2008-07-01T20:20:00.005-06:00

Driving home in the midst of a thunderstorm tonight, I passed my favorite professor's house. The front door was wide open, allowing the rain-filled scent of a fresh summer night to permeate the house. And there he sat, in a pool of lamplight, his white head bent over a book.

Some day, many years in the future, I want to duplicate that scene. I want to hear the thunder and breathe in the rain with a reading lamp behind my white head and great literature in my hand. I want to hold on to my love for the written word...hold on to my desire to learn...hold on to the preciousness of books and lamplight and lightning.

No time like the present for cultivating the habits of later years. Pardon me while I turn my computer off and pick up a good book.

Orphan First Line

2008-06-30T19:27:00.006-06:00

Lying in bed last night, a line crept into my head. It wouldn't go away, as much as I tried to banish it for the sake of my beauty sleep. Finally I turned on the light, grabbed a pen and notebook from my nightstand, and wrote it down. Then I turned out the light, rolled over, and went to sleep.

"It began one summer night, with the windows open and a train whistling in the distance."

Hmm...I wonder what story that belongs to, don't you?

Hot Streak

2008-06-28T08:44:00.003-06:00

I've been very good this year about not turning this into a baseball blog, haven't I? So indulge me this once, please...

A couple weeks ago when I was in Chicago, the Twins were there too. While I enjoyed perfect baseball (weather, food, field, game--all perfect) on the North Side, my Twinkies were getting swept, losing four games on the South Side. That's bad news against direct division rivals. We buried ourselves in the standings and it looked like all was over.

But my brother always says, "it's nothing a ten game winning streak can't fix." And he is right. (But don't tell him!) Because as of last night the Twins have won TEN in a row and are only a half-game out of first place. It reminds me of '06, when we started waking up every day feeling like they couldn't lose. (That year they went 19-1 in a twenty day stretch, not to mention going 71-33 in the second half!) This will probably be no '06, and we're about to face some harder teams and perhaps harder times, so I figured I'd better blog my joy now before it dissolves like a mist.

Last night, a thrilling game ten. Down by three. Came back to tie it in the seventh. Bottom of the eighth, two out, 0-2 count, Joe Mauer hits it outta there.

Thanks, honey.

The Brick Wall in the Sky

2008-06-24T17:29:00.003-06:00

Anyone who has ever read or seen The Right Stuff knows all about the "demon that lives in the air around Mach 1." Before Chuck Yeager proved them wrong in October, 1947, many people thought that an airplane could not fly faster than the speed of sound. As it approached supersonic speed, the controls would freeze up and the the plane would "buffet wildly" as the shock waves piled up in front of it.

But the disastrous instability disappeared once a pilot "punched a hole in the sky;" that is, flew so fast that he poked through the wall of compressed sound waves in front of the plane, and sent those waves spreading out in every direction. (When they reached the ground, the change in air pressure caused a sonic boom.)

Life is one sound barrier after the next. We face the big, scary unknown. We feel jostled and unstable and out of control as we get nearer to it. And then, with God's help, we have a breakthrough. The confusion and the anxiety stream away behind us and we find ourselves flying smoothly again. Until the next trial, challenge, test...the next brick wall in the sky.

Pioneer Picnics

2008-06-20T15:57:00.004-06:00

I wonder how many picnics I've had at Pioneer Park in my lifetime? When I moved to Burlington Avenue at age 11, Pioneer picnics became a regular occurrence. Sonja and Anya were my most frequent companions, and we had our special tree by the creek where we would perch ourselves and eat our lunch. Sometimes we carted along pillows and books and made ourselves comfortable in the branches. In the spring we vigorously attacked the army caterpillar eggs so that we wouldn't have an infestation of the squishy things later in the summer. (Hmm...not sure about that practice now.) We waded in that creek, with no thoughts of parasites or hookworm...we leaped across the water onto our special rock...we raced sticks to the storm sewer...we lived the idyllic childhood.

Today Anya and I grabbed a blanket from the closet and gyros from The Athenian and headed down to our tree. Someone else had the gall to be climbing in it, so we set ourselves up a little ways off and spent the next hour and a half soaking up the sun, drinking root beer, and talking about life past, present, and future.

It's nearly fifteen years since we started picnicking together, and it has lost none of its charm. Thank God for friendship, food, and Pioneer Park.