Stream of Consciousness

Take 1:

I wonder whether Daddy is right about blogs maybe they really are a representation of how human society functions like a huge neural network but I don't want to be part of a giant brain! oh well Rome wasn't built in a day I wonder whether I was just being silly about self-expression versus trying to bless others as an underlying concept for art but I just can't believe that the Romantics and Freudians were right all along ugh so now I have to ask myself whether this blog of mine is merely self-expression and has no real artistic purpose not to mention being selfish and driven by a craving for attention. Help! But wait there must be something useful about self-expression since so many exquisite works of literature can be grouped in that category so does that just mean that you have to be trying to approximate truth for it to work? sometimes I wish I'd never gotten into literature why do I think about this stuff it doesn't really matter or make any difference!

Take 2:

Today was a pretty good day but I'll be swamped Monday how can I wrap my mind around ancient Egyptian literature well enough to stay ahead of the production schedule and edit the weekplans as they come out at the same time? I'm an idiot but oh I do love my work and I love my life only now I'm tired and a little sad I don't know why--why?--and I've never enjoyed the stream of consciousness style but maybe I can do something with it if I keep practicing every so often oh bother!

Take 3:

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised for whom have I in heaven but you? and earth has nothing that I desire besides you the daystar the dayspring and God himself shall be with them as their God and they will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they shall reign forever and ever God is light and in him there is no darkness at all Aslan's country the Summerlands and the great mountain and the city oh the city! what a city it must be I wonder if it's finished yet or if they are still building it I wonder if God just spoke it into being or if it has to be built I wonder what it is like to walk through a gate that's made all of one enormous pearl do they paint the pearl or carve designs into it or anything? if the streets of gold are as clear as glass, then what do you see when you look down is there dirt under there or are there maybe giant painted murals of God acting throughout history so that you can finally know what he was doing when he planned this or that oh how I would love to know the why behind some of those stories from history does one ever get to missing night when one lives in eternal day? I won't ever miss night I hate the dark more than anything else in the world except sin and living with the morning star sounds wonderful to me oh wow---to think that God is and that he loves me! I can't take it in.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas here has been wet without, wonderful within, and overall a fitting celebration of the Christ's nativity. Merry Christmas to all my friends, and I hope that your day was equally delightful!

In Honor of the Timelessness of Boys

In honor of Danya and my cousin Ned, I wish to offer the following Egyptian love poem. It just goes to show that boys haven't changed much at all in the last half-dozen or so millenia. ;-)

It is entitled (I kid you not): I Think I'll Go Home and Lie Very Still

I think I'll go home and lie very still,
feigning terminal illness.
Then the neighbors will all troop over to stare,
my love, perhaps, among them.
How she'll smile while the specialists
Snarl in their teeth! --

She perfectly well knows what ails me.

Translated by John L. Foster, Ancient Egyptian Literature (Texas: University of Texas Press, 2001), 25.

This is, to me, the last word in Egyptian free verse and boyish mischief. I dedicate it to Danya, who insists that he wants to propose to his future wife (what future wife?) with the Gaston Song, and to Ned, who was explaining to me today about the gaggle of (invisible) girls who find him irresistable.

Gentlemen, I salute you.

Mau and Mea Familia

Well, the family played Mau tonight.

Actually, let me back up....

So the grandparents and the cousins left for Mexico today: Sarah will remain there permanently, with her family (my uncle, his wife, and their eight children are missionaries in Mexico), Ned will remain for Christmas Break, and the grandparents will visit for two weeks.

This afternoon at the office, in between dancing with my big brother Nate (Deej, aka Danya, was doing his DJ thing--hence the nickname Deej--and he had Rhapsody), petting Samwise the not-so-little-any-more-puppy, I actually did manage to get some work done.

I'll tell you, there are few things that I get a bigger kick out of than writing high school level DQ's for ancient Egyptian literature. If you ever wondered how Psalm 110 compares to The Prayer of King Ramesses II, I can tell you all about it and throw in a few learned comments on the couplet structure of the average Egyptian hymn. I've learned something new about literature--actually, about twelve somethings new--in the last 72 hours. This pleases me. :-)

But I get this call from Mom late in the afternoon. She wants to know what I think of the announcement posts and all subsequent posts, etc. Bizspeak. So we kicked it (Maryland slang, apologies to my friends) for awhile, and then she said, "It's just us tonight, and we're having pizza."

"Wow," I thought. "It is just us!"

Just us meaning just Dad, Mom, me, Nate (who has his own house--just--but was coming home for dinner anyway), Marj (it's her 15th birthday today!), Charity, and Deej (Danya, Davy, Blue Eyes, etc.) were alone in the house. That's right--the size 12 family has shrunk to a mere size 7 in a little matter of five hours. Pretty slick diet, if you ask me. ;-)

So Mom has never played Mau...

So we played Mau. I won't try to explain it, because you would absolutely have had to be there. But put it this way: Mau is the most legalistic card game I've ever heard of, and it acquires rules as it goes. On top of that, it's being played by a lawyer and his family. On top of that, we all quote stuff all the time (this complicates matters in Mau, believe me).

It. Was. Insane.

And sooooo much fun!

Busy Young Executive

"I feel as though my feet don't touch the ground but only dangle over the edge of the 'Managing Editor's Chair,'" I wrote to a friend.

"You don't belong here." The thought whispers through all the passages of my mind, hissing round corners and squeezing under the doors that almost shut against it. "You can't do this; what made you think you could do this? God didn't call you to this!"

I try to joke it off. My away message used to read: "Here's the world-famous Lit major, doing X, Y, or Z." A pun on old Peanuts cartoons. Now it says: "Here's the busy young executive, pretending for just a moment that she's still a Lit major." A whimsy, but a wistful one.

I spent an hour on the phone today with our chief booklist editor. I tried to explain what literature is (even Lit majors don't really know, but the textbooks have a definition or two that sound good), and why I don't think we can include works like Ben Hur in the list. She was wonderful, more than wonderful.

And now, thanks to my own ideas, I have to read, comprehend, and write an intro and questions (with answers) for a volume of ancient Egyptian literature. An anthology. Translated from hieroglyphics. For my classmates, this is the equivalent of writing four sets of DQ's for a Dr. Noe Lit class on Catullus... when you've never taken Latin. Due Wednesday.

Some of the titles are funny, like The Eighth Peasant's Complaint, or I Think I'll Go Home and Lie Very Still. That's what I felt like doing when I dragged myself home at 5:30--I wanted to go lie still. Some are profound. For example, The Debate Between A Man Tired of Life and His Soul. Much of it is very beautiful. Here are a few lines from For a Portrait of the Queen:

This was a princess.

Of the line royal, a lady most praiseworthy
and a woman of charm, sweet for love,
Yet Mistress ruling two countries
the Twin Lands of Sedge and Papyri.

See her, her hands here shaking the sistra
to bring pleasure to God, her father Amun.
How lovely she moves,
her hair bound with fillets,
Songstress with perfect features,
a beauty in double-plumed headdress,
And first among harim women
to Horus, Lord of the Palace.

Pleasure there is in her lips' motions,
all that she says, it is done for her gladly,
Her heart is all kindness, her words
gentle to those upon earth.
One lives just to hear her voice.

Translated by John L. Foster, Ancient Egyptian Literature (Texas: University of Texas Press, 2001), 101.

You see? It reminds me of the Bible. So there is richness and beauty in what I am doing, but that does not prevent the head from drooping, nor can it fire the spirit which is sick with longing for my gazebo and the smooth blue-shadowed ripples of Lake Bob.

"There will be hard times, you know---times when you can't just be doing it for me, or for the job. You need to know that God called you to this." Mama's timely words spoken in the midst of The Decision.
"I know," I murmured, gripping the phone, staring out the dorm window at my pond, facing the thought of facing the Big World four months sooner than I ever intended. "I know."

Today was a hard day.

But I know that God called me to this.

I Reformations

I'm so glad that there isn't a book of the Bible called Reformations, be it I Reformations, 2 Reformations, or 3 Reformations (hey, there are three John's, right?) My life over the last day or two has been like this...

Christy: Mama, my left arm has been going kinda numb off and on, and I'm having muscle twitches. What do you suppose?
Mom: Honey, you need Potassium, and you need to eat more/more balanced.
Christy: [with a deep sigh] Yeah....

Christy: So, self, about unpacking---ready to go?
Self: Not until Nate moves out of the basement and Sarah moves out of my room and Marjorie moves out of my new study and Charity and Marjorie move to the basement and Dave moves to Charity's room.
Christy: Oh. Right.
Self: You can unpack your books and clothes starting... oh... maybe the 23rd.
Christy: And until then?
Self: It's called "living out of a suitcase."
Christy: I hate living out of a suitcase.
Self: So now you get to learn unselfcenteredness.
Christy: Coming from you, that's actually somewhat amusing.

Christy: [sinning] Why am I sinning?!?!
Holy Spirit: You have heat in your life which is tempting you.
Christy: But I don't sin like this at school!
Holy Spirit: You don't have heat like this at school.

Etc.

There have been a thousand wonderful moments since I got home. Today, for example, I spent four hours shopping for Christmas presents with my little sister, who is about the most adorable person currently in shoe leather. I have had multiple opportunities to hang out with Mom, Mom and Dave, Mom and Dad, Charity and Sarah, Nate and Dave, and other combinations. Nate surprised me by giving me the big gorgeous rolltop desk at the office---the golden oak one---for my personal space. <:0) I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams, and though I'm beginning to be slightly apprehensive at how seriously everybody is taking my new position (I hadn't realized that becoming "Managing Editor" at TOG was such a big deal) I figure they all know me well enough not to overestimate my abilities, so it's probably all good.

I hope.

I haven't conversed with a single soul from PHC for 36 hours... which is a little bit of a switch, and weird in its own right. On the other hand, I have talked to Sarah Lewis (HUZZAH!), and I went to see King Kong with Courtney until all hours last night (GOOD MOVIE). We are up to our ears in familial stuff around here, as usual. I've got Marjorie and Charity about 1/3 convinced that they need to do Yoga with me this spring---and I'm not going to join the health club after all, since the girls would prefer long walks in the woods, and we have an elliptical for cardio workouts. I'll take an occasional horsebackriding lesson, do my Yoga twice a week, the elliptical otherwise, and call it good.

But here's where the 1 Reformations comes in. Observe the list of habits which I must modify and/or acquire:

Eating three balanced meals a day (my current average is 1.5, and the content oscillates wildly. For example, lunch yesterday was a large carrot.)
Getting up at 6 AM every morning (since I have to leave for PHC with Dad at 7:15 AM, and I want my QT and exercise before we go)
Spending two days a week at the office, three days a week at school, and most evenings at home.
Having free evenings (GASP!)
Doing ALPHA and caregroup (not to mention church) at CLC.
Widen/establish my circle of acquaintances here at home. My family wants me to get out more.
Take a crash course with Dad in setting up and running a budget. I've never had money before, really, so now I need to learn to manage it.
Setting up/decorating/maintaining/cleaning a suite of two rooms and a bathroom (my incredibly generous family has given me lots of space, but what do I do with it!?!?!

Not to reference Huxley, but it really is a brave new world, and I think it's braver than I am.

And bigger.

A lot bigger.

And I feel very, very small.

<:-?

Soooo.... let the reformations roll on, including (but not limited to) alterations in dress, diet, schedule, reading habits, relationships, church, family, QT, exercise, cultural milieu, and all the rest. Constant change is here to stay.

I'll tell you what doesn't change in all of this. Absolute beauty is here to stay.

What is absolute beauty, you ask?

I'll give you a hint...

It starts with G. ;-)

Catch A 22

Let me tell you what life at 22 doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be hopeless.
It doesn't have to be raw and aching.
It doesn't have to be lonely.
It doesn't have to be dark.

I've caught a 22. Look, it's two wings are resting between my two cupped hands. There are two glorious black velvet eyes on each pair of indigo wings, and two long, teardrop tails, powdered with two hundred thousand specks of silver. I've caught a falling star, but it lives.

What shall I do with it?

"You know, I don't think I ever imagined being older than 21." Brittainy last night, thoughtful in the half-light of our evening room.
"Me neither," I admitted.

"Twenty-two is a frightful age. You aren't in the bloom and heyday of youth any more. You're just a 'twenty-something.' And from now on, people will continually forget which twenty you are... until you turn thirty, and then everything begins to go downhill."

But it's beautiful! It's alive! How can I treat it as unimportant? Surely, if God created it, he thought it was important.

"God? Oh, yes, that's the rub. Now you're almost out of school, now soon you have to start doing all the things for God that you said you'd do, 'when I'm 22.'"

That's all a lie. Life begins before college, and continues through college. I'm doing now most of the things that I'll have to do the day after graduation. The subject of the work changes: the work, the attitudes, the heart motivations, the orientation of the soul, don't change.

What shall I do with it?

Here, little beauty, I won't keep you. You would be of no use to that great beauty, the absolute Beauty, whom you call Father, if I kept you and stroked the color from your wings and stared at you instead of looking around. Fly up, 22, fly back, and alight in the heart of Beauty, and beat your wings in time to that heartbeat. Be better than last year's golden creature, because you know better how to nestle there. Trust it better to draw you to itself, and you will be better, more lovely, than all last year's loveliness. Don't you know, 22, that each of you do not diminish, but grow bigger and more splendid, stronger and brighter, down through time? 50 will be more beautiful than I can imagine, now. Therefore do not feel my disdain, 22, but hold up your head. Smell the quality of the air, seek the heart of the sun, and strengthen your wings for the long journey by beating them towards sunlight.

Who fears age and death, that knows Beauty waits after them? For you see, the footnote of many a Scripture passage tells us that when the Lord is "glorified," it would be as well to translate thus: "that he may display his beauty." The absolute, the ageless Beauty, won me by absolute suffering, by absolute love, and satisfied absolute truth.

A mortal, it seems, cannot bear the weight of such regard. But it was not only for me; it was so that he may display his beauty.

Display, and let us adore.