Fragments

Perhaps reading Crime and Punishment leaves one thinking in fragments, but I don't believe I can really blame Dostoevsky for this. After all, a number of my posts are fragmentary. This one will be so too.

I've been exploring grad school seriously for the first time in my life, partly because it is one of several options for 2010, partly because the Master of Fine Arts/Master of Letters program at Mary Baldwin is utterly enticing (who wouldn't want to go to school down the street from the world's only replica of Shakespeare's private theater, especially if "school" meant spending all one's time learning to direct his plays?), and partly just for the sake of giving my mind a new toy.

This morning, Danya asked me to sum up 1300 years (500-1800 AD) in three words. I told him that "Age of Christendom" was the only thing that struck me as even remotely appropriate, and suddenly found myself blinking in the jeweled dazzle of stained-glass images on his computer screen. I had forgotten, so very much forgotten, about the glory of cathedral windows. It took me backward to a quiet afternoon at the National Cathedral, so I let the sweet lovely memory have its way with me. I thought how there is nothing on earth quite like the silent passion of the glass, telling stories without words and speaking volumes without sound and bleeding . . . not heart's blood, but sun's blood: light. If I had to give a name and a picture to human worship, I would call it colored light and say that it is like a stained-glass window of the Gospel.

Reading, reading, reading... I read two books in the last two days, and that was just during my free time. One I found immensely disappointing: I should have known better than to give a Jane Austen rip-off a chance. The other was moderately encouraging: a Christian novel not devoid of power and artistry, though---alas---still pasty to my mind and feelings. Why do we Christians find it so difficult to write our own most passionate beliefs in a way that makes the truth appear at least a particle as startling and heavy as it in fact is? Why are our words so often cardboard rather than stained glass? Is it because we plunge in too far... or not far enough?

Jeff Purswell's chapter on loving the world (the final chapter in C.J.'s new book Worldliness) is such an important reminder, and so helpful in the way it laces together elements which seem to me to be very rarely grouped under that heading. Loving work, loving the world around us, loving evangelism, loving life, loving the grand story of the Bible... in a book on worldliness? It goes to a deep place in my soul and unseals a fountain of delight. Gaudeo!

After almost a year of barely-contained unhappiness, I am surprised to find myself deeply happy. My circumstances have not changed, but I have changed. I told God, "Let me skip the road with you. Look, I'll put a pebble in my shoe! Watch me walk. I can walk and walk." And I have walked with a pebble in my shoe, and when it galled me, He carried me, and I grew strong, and I can walk much better now. I don't know whether that has made me happy, but I am grateful to be released from the low ceilings and narrow rooms of the mind, that I lived in for many months. I am grateful to see blue sky again.

It is winter; it is cold; every day I am cold because I live in the basement. I love the cold. It goes through and through me---I welcome it with singing. I feel clean and renewed. My head is clearing at last. The pale sunsets at this time of year are gold and lavender; I want to drink them. Ah, joy, is it you? Welcome, old friend! Too long have you been away, and it is all my own fault, because I forgot, I forgot to preach the Gospel to myself. But now I do, and all the colors come flaming back.

Flames. The hearth in this house, upstairs, leaps most evenings with real fire. I embrace it as readily as I do the cold air. Am I not a creature of air and fire and water, as well as earth? Water, too---Sarah gave me water-star lanterns for my birthday: star-shaped lamps made of brass plates and blue-green bottle-glass. I have filled them with sea glass; I have put a white candle in each of them; when I touch flame to the candle, the light dances out through watery glass and there I have fire and water together. It is a stained-glass lamp. So few people have water-star eyes, but those who do, their eyes are like my lamps, shining and blue-green and starry. Danya has eyes like that; Casey sometimes has eyes like that. They are my water-star friends.

Dear God, thank you for making words and voices and language and song, and the long fluid motions of dance, and the sonorous violins, and the poems, and the stories. Thank you for the trees and the quivering sunlit waters. Thank you for bright eyes and rubies and silver cups. Thank you for fur and laughter. Thank you for my soul---and for saving it.

Te adoro.

The Office --- Season 8: "All for Love, WorldBook, and Ghandi"

“David’s idea of fun is being married to Casey.” – Christy
“You know, that’s actually true.” – David

“No, my first impulse was to feed you; my second impulse was to enslave you.” – Christy to Marjorie (who was protesting about being asked to carry in groceries).

“You rock!” – Juli to Ray
“Oh, I’m really more of a pebble.” – Ray

“So why did people suddenly decide that marriage was all about love, anyway?” – Christy, working on an article about nineteenth-century literature
“Anger.” – David

“Poets have been dumb about women for a long time.” – David

“How 'bout you and I write all the articles to replace WorldBook?” – David to Ray
“That may be quicker.” – Ray

And so it begins: Historical Articles by David and Ray (no, not for real)...

"George Washington was this guy who was President or something." – Ray
“Article on the French and Indian Wars: "This is when Napoleon and Ghandi took up arms against one another." – David
“Civil War: ‘A particularly polite controversy which consisted of much sneering and a few murmured aspersions.’" – David
“The Cotton Gin: ‘The first homemade alcoholic beverage made from this fibrous plant.’" – David

And then they got onto their favorite subject: fictional bands....

“I was in a band called Sneer and the Murmured Aspersions. I was one of the Aspersions. Reggae doo-wop.” – Ray
“Wow.” – David
“I looked GOOD in dreds.” - Ray
“I want to hear this.” – David
“Sadly, all the [music] records were burned. About twenty minutes ago.” – Ray

“I hate romantic love.” – Christy, sighing over a long article on the subject that is giving her a headache
::David, Amy, Julie, and Brittainy, all of whom are either engaged or married, look at her::
“Um… sorry… I didn’t mean it quite that way…” – Christy

“So in many ways we have our cake and eat it too. We just don’t have a bottle of champagne.” – David on the pros and cons of the ebook for the new DE project

“I was merely trying to ascertain your wishes…” – Christy to Amy

“Tell me something scary, something to shake me out of my apathy.” – Christy to Brittainy
“How ‘bout ‘Little girls who don’t do their work get eaten by monsters under the bed.’” – Amy
“That’ll do.” – Christy

Mornings at the Gym

I used to think that a gym is basically a gerbil farm, with such-and-such a number of gerbils running mindless races for X minutes a day and paying Y dollars per month for the privilege of this unproductive (in the sense that nothing is accomplished by the expenditure of energy) round of activities. "The least they could do," I thought, cynically, "would be to hook up all the treadmills to an electrical factory or something." As for the gerbils, I wished they would make gardens or buildings or do something more meaningful than gerbilling.

As usual, I was wrong. It turns out that gyms are not gerbil farms and are actually quite productive in their own way. They provide a place where one can get 30-120 minutes of good exercise, regardless of weather, without having to provide oneself with gardening tools, axes for cutting wood, or other "productive" paraphernalia. Of course one gives up a good deal---oh scent of leaves, oh emerald grasses and blue-bright sky!---but in the winter especially there is much to be grateful for in a gym.

The way I have come to think of gyms is, unsurprisingly, ancient. I think of them as Roman baths and gymansia: a place to relax and meet friends as well as work muscles. Each morning around 7:30 I roll out of bed and put my hair in a knot and drag an old sweatshirt out of the closet so that I can go someplace warm and fragrant to wake up while I work out. Since I'm one of those people who can read on the elliptical, I also have a guaranteed stretch of time to meet with God. I also have opportunities to interact with unbelievers---sometimes hilariously!

I love the pull of weights against my arm muscles, even when a round of ten machines makes them ache; I love the long, soothing stretches; I love the smooth rounded motion of the elliptical and cycle machines; I love even the groan of muscles in my legs and back from the rowing machine. In keeping with my "Roman baths" mentality, I have decided that using the rowing machine is "playing galley slave."

What I like best is when Daddy and I go to the gym together, which usually occurs on Wednesdays. Sometimes we do weights. Sometimes we sit in the huge jacuzzi pool and talk while the heat works into our strained muscles. Today we did the rowing machines. Dad was a rowing champ in his youth (it's a Dartmouth thing) and his older brother was too. Today he knocked out 10,000 meters on iste exhausting machine while telling me stories of Uncle Ed's triumphs. Sitting beside him and pulling in rhythm on my own machine, I could almost see it: long cool river at dawn, feathering of oars, cries of coxswain, dip and roll of paper-thin boat, and reach-pull-lean---reach-pull-lean rhythm. Don't catch a crab!---that is, don't tangle your long water-scooping oar with somebody else's.

"If I ever want to write about rowing in a story," I thought dreamily, "I'll know how to do it. I can picture it all..."

I like to work out---Dad likes to work himself in.... into the ground. Consequently I went to curl up with my Bible while he finished the second half of his exertions. I had about ten minutes alone with the book of John (1:1-18) and Isaiah (9) when an adorable troupe of older ladies and gentlemen come up to take possession of the lounge area. They chatted, argued, and laughed in a strong accent (New York, I think) and talked about whether or not Venice is sinking. One (her name was Thelma) chatted agreeably with me. Somehow we got on to the subject of her grandchildren. She said, "You must be younger than my grandsons!"

"I'm twenty-five."
"Oh, well, the one I mentioned is twenty-six."
"How old do I look to you?" I asked, curious.
"About eighteen."
I groaned. "Everybody says that!"
"Well, someday you'll be grateful for it."

What could I do but grin sheepishly? That's what everybody says: "Someday you'll be grateful for it." Anyway, Dad came and we went, and snap!---the day flashed by. Now I sit here eagerly anticipating tomorrow morning, another morning at the gym. Maybe I can get up to 55 lbs on the arm-press tomorrow.... ;-)

Complaints About Getting Old

I had a birthday on Monday. My twenty-fifth. I was rather curious to see what my reaction to it would be, since this is traditionally the last birthday that people welcome with open arms and an exclamation of "Yay!" rather than "Oh no!"

God, being Himself, was unspeakably kind. He planted this train of thought in my mind:

"I'm alive. I've actually survived twenty-five years. If this were the Middle Ages, or a concentration camp in Siberia, or any number of other situations, I'd stand a good chance of being dead. But God has graciously sustained me for twenty-five years. That's millions of seconds. And next year, if I live that long, it'll be even more of a wonder. Why do people complain about growing older? What would they rather be---dead? Why don't we see it as a gift, a miracle? Why this grumbling?"

It was one of those moments in which something settles permanently into place in your mind and soul: click. Having been granted this perspective, I intend only to strengthen it as the years progress. God has been kind to me; I don't believe I have wasted a single year of my life since I was saved. On the contrary, the last ten years have been extraordinarily productive. And that is one more thing to celebrate: my first decade in Christ. If you want to think of it that way, dear reader, I am only ten years old.

Oh, and here's a secret about growing up after you've been born for the second time---it only gets better and better. I shall be stronger, wiser, more beautiful, happier, every day I walk with God from now until the uttermost of eternity.

There is no room for complaints when one faces such a reality. There is only room for delight.