Scansion

The Office: Season 9 --- "It's Because of the Economy"

2009-11-10T15:55:00.003-05:00

“Don’t say we were ‘cute.’ Our delicate egos can’t take it.” – David to Christy about himself and Sam

“Okay, math is now officially voodoo.” – Mom, recounting some happy but puzzling news from the company bookkeeper.

“At three o’clock the cone of silence will descend…” – Mom
“Well then, I guess I’d better get out my night terrors now. Aaaaauugh! Aaaaauugh!!” – David

“Why, David, why?” – Christy
“Just to toy with you.” – David
“And to think they used to tell me in college that women are capable of wrapping men around our little fingers. No wonder I didn’t believe them.” – Christy

“And who’s gonna care, anyway?” – Mom
“I am. With all my heart and kidneys… and passion.” – David
“Yeah. Sure.” – Mom
“I’m a carer. I care!” – David

"Possibly the most fun thing to say is 'I got a graduation invitation
from the paparazzi's chihuahuas.' No really, say it out loud." - David

“Can you not tell me something bad right now?” – Mom to Dad about technology
“Oh! Oh, let me! Listen, Mom, I’ll tell you something not bad… All over the country right now, puppies are wriggling their little bottoms with joy and licking small children’s faces!” – David

“I thought you were a carer!” – Christy
“Nope, that was a lie.” – David

“And now David will come out and sing our theme song!” – David, trying to insert himself into Mom’s webinar

“Wait, why am I sitting here while the two girls are doing all the work?” – David
“Because you’re a dork.” – Mom

“Mom, my desk isn’t messy, is it?” – David
“Dave, it’s your desk, so it’s messy.” – Mom
“It’s creative!” – David

“Cursed fruit.” – Sam
“Cursed...?” – David
“As in, accursed.” – Sam
“What about it? I'll tell you what's cursed fruit, D-0, that's cursed fruit.” – David
“There's a kersplash for your accursed fruit.” – Sam
“Cursed fruit.” – David
“Fine, well my accursed fruit falls on A5.” – Sam
“Your fruit is cursed with the same curse as mine.” – David
“Curses.” – Sam
“Fruit.” – David
“I curse your fruit.” – Sam
“iFruit - your curse.” – David
“I refuse to respond to that. Oops, I just did. Cursed froot.” – Sam
“Victory tastes like froot loops. The uncursed kinds.” – David
“Are there uncursed froot loops?” – Sam
“I suppose they're all cursed with sugar, aren't they?” – David
“And red dye no. 40.” – Sam
“Cursed dye.” – David

"Christy, I'm invoking the book laws. Give it back, sweetie." - Dad
"Whimper." – Christy, mildly protesting
"Whimpering is beneath you, honey. The law does not recognize whimpering." - Dad
"Yes, Dad." - Christy, handing the book over
::pause::
“See, this is why I’ll never make a good flirt. Not only do I have the impression that it’s impossible to manipulate men, but also that it’s dishonorable to try.” – Christy to herself

“That is a blissed-out parrot.” – Mom, watching Charity scritch Pippin’s head

“I tried to type "no," and I wrote "bim" instead. I think I'm going to use "bim" for the rest of the day.” – David

“We ran out of cool characters [meaning font characters]. Other than you of course.” – Ray to Sam

“I am at present glaring darkly at a cheerful calendar on my screen. I got the emails [that you sent about it] and promptly deleted them, assuming that they were spam, that they were people masquerading as you (which often happens), and that you couldn't possibly intend to burden my life with a calendar tool, since you know that never in my life have calendar tools worked for me. Obviously, though, I was mistaken...” – Christy to Mom
Later…
“You know, I hate to admit it, but I'm beginning to like this [calendar tool].” – Christy

"Wait a minute... this lady is from Toledo, Washington. I thought Toledo was in Ohio?" – David
"Maybe there's two?" – Sarah
"NO, that's NOT good enough, Sarah! I want a BETTER answer!" – David
"Okay, there's a magical one on Mars?" – Sarah

“Aw, Ben! You went all collegiate on me! Zeitgeist? Good grief.” – Christy
“I know I've seen that word in our curriculum. Just don't ask me to find it.” – Ben
“You don't really expect high school students to follow you into German, do you?” – Christy
“It’s hardly German any more...” – Ben
“But come on... zeitgeist? I don't even know what that means! Except that it translates roughly to ‘spirit of the age’" – Christy
“Yeah, that's what it means.” – Ben
“Then why didn't you say ‘spirit of the age’?” – Christy
“Unwieldy. Also not sufficiently, um... what's the word...? Collegiate.” – Ben

“I'm just ornery that way.” – Ben
“At least you admit it. Just remember that whenever you do it, somebody (i.e. me) has to come along behind you and undo it. So please indulge your orneriness judiciously.” – Christy
“Yes, but I don't care, because I'm ornery. See how it all works out so nicely?” – Ben

“Curse the marketing gods... Oh. Wait. That would be David... Never mind.” – Christy
“Technically, David is not a god.” – Mom

“And why did I do that? Because I’m an idiot!” – Christy
“But you’re a nice idiot. Of all the idiots in the world, you are one of my favorites.” – David

“Except for being dumber than a box of hair, I’m a great programmer!” – Dad, wrestling with programming Beatrice

“See, when we were kids without money or the excuse of separate housing, we had to have the book laws to keep us from fighting over books. Now we just buy copies of our own if somebody else is reading the book we want.” – Christy to Dad

“It probably wouldn’t be a proper Christian response to say what I think about this…” – Dad
“It usually isn’t a proper Christian response to even use the words ‘Internet Explorer’…” – David

“Everybody needs somebody to holler and grouse at. Otherwise you just holler and grouse within yourself.” – David
“Do you holler and grouse at Casey?” – Christy
“No, at Dad. And you may holler and grouse at me.” – David
“But I don’t want to holler and grouse at anybody!” – Christy

“You realize that you’re shoving me headfirst into writing html here…” – Dad to David

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re born to ‘em or marry ‘em. Somerville men just spoil their girls like crazy.” – Christy

“I have three hours. Come to think of it, it takes about three hours to write a [literature class plan] topic.” – Christy
“I could do it in one second.” – David
“Yeah, right. Like I could design a webpage in one second.” – Christy
“No, really. Want me to show you?” – David
“No.” – Christy
“Yes you do.” – David
“No, I don’t.” – Christy
“Yes you do!” – David
“Go away.” – Christy
::David comes to Christy’s computer, brushes her aside, and writes “A topic” in her document::
“There! See?” – David
“You forgot the word ‘Literature.’ It’s a literature topic.” – Christy
“You just said ‘a topic.’ So there.” – David

“What is this obsession of yours with hearing a song through to its end?” – Christy
“But this is ‘All You Need Is Love’!” – David
“And all I need are my eardrums back. Or removed!” – Christy

“He ruffles you up and then he smoothes you down. That’s David.” – Christy
::slight pause::
“And he enjoys it.” – Christy
“Just a little bit.” – David

“Hi!” – Brittainy
“Hi! Is this about Week 23?” – Christy
“Um, yes…” – Brittainy
“In that case I plead the fifth.” – Christy

“All right, you insatiable menace to the populace… Here’s your Week 23.” – Christy to Ben

“She held a parrot over his head and threatened to make it poop on him because she disagreed with his graphic design techniques! This place is getting weirder all the time.” – Christy about Mom and David

“How’s Casey?” – Christy
“About the same. She’s adorable.” – David

“From now on, there’s a new reason for everything. Why does a kid have to go to bed? Because of the economy. Why do we have to eat our vegetables? Because of the economy.” – Dave

“You know, whenever I’m facing a situation like yours, such as when I’m running up this one hill every morning, I just say to myself, ‘this would be so much worse if I had a piranha in my pants.’” – David
“Is that supposed to be comforting?” – Christy
“You know that’s comforting. The absence of piranhas is always comforting.” – David

“Is it comforting to know that the cookies the Girl Scouts are selling don’t have piranhas in them? Yes! Clear logic. It’s not that hard, Chris—just try to keep up.” – David to Christy

“Regarding your google wave, it went over my head because of the economy.” – David to Dad

“This is a very weird corporate culture that we’ve developed here, Dad…” – David
“It’s because of the economy, Dave.” – Dad

“Peter said it’s not that I didn’t have a life before Frederick; it’s just that my life before Frederick doesn’t matter.” – Christy
“I’m going to smite him with a terrible smiting. How dare he! Where does he get off?” – David
“He got off at Frederick.” – Dad
“But here’s the thing, life before Frederick includes David. So it does matter.” – Christy

“Postmodernist! Postmodernist!” – David to Christy

“Oh no you don’t. I have a full jar of peanut butter over here!” – David
“And you’re not afraid to use it?” – Christy
“No, I didn’t say that. If I said that, I feel like the threat would be cliché and therefore not meaningful. Whereas if I just say ‘I have a jar of peanut butter,’ you wonder what I plan to do with it. Imagination is nine tenths of a threat. Take it from an older brother.” – David

“If you misquote me not to my liking, I’ll play ‘All You Need Is Love’ again.” – David to Christy
“Dave, I don’t think you left me any room to be imaginative with that threat.” – Christy

“What got you off on a Beatles kick this afternoon? What have we done to deserve this?” – Christy
“You were very, very good.” – David
“I mean, come on! ‘I wanna hold your hand’? I don’t want to hold their hand!” – Christy
“Christy, blaspheme not the aspidistra.” – David, quoting a well-known (to us) line from Busman’s Honeymoon

“Fine. I’ll collect the pieces of my broken heart and play ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ instead” – David

“Woe to me, musical martyr that I am!” – David

The Office: Season 9 --- "No Branchaws Were Harmed* During the Making of This Quote Book"

2009-05-21T13:46:00.002-04:00

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME? You said ‘That's irrelevant.’ DID YOU CALL ME AN ELEPHANT?!" – Ray
“Well, we really do call you ‘ray of sunshine’” – Christy

“The Alcoholic Yap-Yemens…” – Juli on a fictional band
“Yeah, that was Juli's band. She played lead zither. Lead ELECTRIC zither.” – Ray continuing the fictitious account of Juli’s band
“RAY! You promised not to tell!!” – Juli

“Ha! I know the universe was governed by orderly principles! I said to Casey when I was clipping my nails on Saturday night, ‘Just you wait, someone will offer me an orange tomorrow.’ Then nothing happened on Sunday and I was worried, but now here it is Monday and you offer me an orange! I knew it! Oranges follow fingernails!” – David, ranting

“Well, you’re gonna shoot me… but I think…” – Mom
“I have never yet shot you in my life.” – David

“I saluted you on Facebook and said welcome home.” – Christy to Sam
“I appreciate that.” – Sam
“Sure you do. Now. But just wait until we've worn down your nerves and broken your will to survive.” - Christy

“Thanks for waiting for permission.” – Christy, with mild sarcasm
“Hey, no problem. That's what I'm here for.” – Sam
“You're a problem child and you're here for my sanctification.” – Christy
“Hey, we all need one [problem child] … or three or four.” – Sam

“You know what I just realized? An asterisk can make any sentence sketchy. Take ‘No animals were harmed during the making of this picture.’ You put an asterisk after any one of those words and you get some really interesting clarifications." – David
“Or how about ‘I love you*’" – Sam
“Or ‘I love* you’" – David
“Or 'It's a boy!*’" – Sam
“Yeah.” – David
“This would be a concerning IM for anyone who stumbled upon it.” – Sam
“That's why we keep these things confidential” – David
“Unless we put them in the quote book… which I may or may not have already done” – Sam
“I think you mean, "that's why we keep these things confidential*..." – David

"Possibly the most fun thing to say is 'I got a graduation invitation from the paparazzi's chihuahuas.' No really, say it out loud." –David

“Correlate! That’s the word I wanted this morning.” – Christy
“You were actually saying that this morning.” – Sam
“I was? Oh, my lost sanity.” – Christy
“It’s actually overrated.” – Sam

“So, what’s the ghost doing over there?” – Christy, referring to Ben’s non-corporeal manipulation of one of the computers

“You are not ‘ruggedly handsome.’ You can be handsome in a Greek mythology kind of way, if you absolutely insist, but not ruggedly so.” – Christy to Sam

“Aw, I think Sam has boyish charm!” – Brittainy

“Water?” – Christy
“No thanks.” – Sam
“Never let it be said that I didn’t try to hydrate you.” – Christy
“I’ll remember that when I’m passing out… either that or I’ll just choose to spread vicious rumors.” – Sam

“You know, a purity pillow. It’s a pillow that you put between a guy and a girl when they’re sitting together on a couch.” – Sam

“Tell her that this whole wedding thing is overrated and she should come back,” – Sam to Christy about Brittainy
“Tell him ‘you'll understand one day’ in the most patronizing voice you can muster.” – Brittainy to Christy about Sam
“Maybe I should just let the two of you talk...” – Christy
‘Probably...sometime after I'm married.” – Brittainy
“Okay, dear. We’ll do that.” - Christy

“No, Sam. We can’t take the Tapestry logo off. That is a Tapestry-bearing map. Just like we are created to bear God’s image, that map is created to bear Tapestry’s image.” – David

“Why is the ghost playing with a dead mouse?” – Sam, referring to Ben

“David! Please kill Sam! He just called me a twit.” – Christy
“I don’t think this quite merits death. Maybe I could break a leg. Or twist his arm.”
“Arm-twisting would do.” – Christy
“Sam, is there a good time for arm-twisting in your schedule?” – David
“Umm… how about at 5:30 PM when I’m going crazy wanting to get home?” – Sam
“Okay. I’ll note it down in my date book. If that doesn’t work, we could just do lunch.” – David
“David!” – Christy

“Are you batting you eyelashes at me?” – Christy to Sam
“No, it’s more of a blinking and staring kind of thing.” – Sam to Christy

“The lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn, God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world…. except you…” – Christy to Sam
“I’m here to be annoying and to remind you that the world is fallen.” – Sam to Christy
“Thanks for that.” – Christy

“Okay, now I need to find an amazing, amazing stock picture of bunny slippers. There are times when my job is wonderful.” – David, with complete sincerity.

Season 8: "Giving Up on Mascara"

2009-02-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

“May I cry now?” – Christy
“No. Crying is strictly forbidden.” – David
::pause::
“You may whimper, however…” – David

“Question for you, old buddy old pal...” – Christy to Ray
“Un momento. On telefono con su papa.” – Ray, using random Spanish

“Has anybody seen the whiteboard?” – Christy
“I hid it. I’m secretly opposed to whiteboards.” – Brittainy
“I knew it! I could see it in her eyes.” – David

“I’m sitting here staring at the inscrutable face of this Mac, looking for an ‘on’ button, and saying to myself ‘Now where is that secret knot? It’s impossible to find’….” – David
“I thought Macs were supposed to be ‘so intuitive’” – Christy, referencing David’s earlier comment

“You pulled the rabbit out of the hat. Now Ray will brush the rabbit and polish its little nose.” – David to Dad about the programming magic that Dad has done.

“Did we have any mediocre awakenings?” – David
“Nope. They were all ‘great.’” – Ben
“I had a mediocre awakening this morning” – David

“Oh! I just got to use the phrase ‘exceedingly bleak’—as in ‘there is nothing worse than a sore throat; it’s effects are exceedingly bleak’” – Christy, sneaking Emma references into her week-plan
“I got to use the phrase ‘what a hilarious misunderstanding’ in real life!” – Amy

“So everything that’s bad is David’s fault, and everything that’s good is to Brittainy’s credit.” – Christy
“Yup, pretty much.” – David and Amy

“I just tried to draw Joshua and he turned out to be Saul, so I don’t know that that says. It had something to do with the mouth.” – David

“Well, you’re sweet, but you just don’t make any sense.” – Brittainy to Christy

“This is America, where everybody is entitled to their opinion, no matter how uneducated it is.” – Ben

“This is me. I lack the intelligence of an average baby.” – David

“Good thing I didn’t put any mascara on this morning” – Amy, wiping away tears of laughter

“You know, it’s days like this that I realize how sorry I’m going to be when our team breaks up [in March].” – Amy
“Well, we can always play this…” – Christy, turning on “Graduation”
“NO!” – Amy
“I’m going to give you this album for your birthday.” – David to Amy
“I’m going to excommunicate you from my friendships!” – Amy to David

“Mom IS the quote book.” – David

“Well, that’s what I would do with a husband and a year off if I had them. I’d build the ultimate tree fort!” – Christy

“I’ve given up wearing mascara at work.” – Amy, who always laughs so hard she cries

The Office: Season 8: "Because Fairy Tales Are Basically Baby Myths"

2009-01-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

“So Casey was your Yoda.” – Christy to Amy
“Yes, but Casey was a great deal better looking than Yoda.” – Amy
“Of all the people who are better-looking than Yoda, I think Casey would be at the top of the list.” – David

“When you plugged Christy’s mouse into Amy’s computer, it reset the clock on the computer to 1601 AD. That’s why it hasn’t been working.” – Dad
“Christy’s mouse would do that. It’s scarily appropriate.” – David
“Yep, back when Shakespeare was writing…” – Dad
“What can I say? I don’t belong in this century.” – Christy

“You must come to work with a checklist of things to accomplish!” – David to Lauren
Lauren’s Checklist, By David:
1. Put a little Christmas spirit into Marcia's drink (Marcia doesn’t like Christmas)
2. Help Amy want kids
3. Make sure that John whisks Brittainy off forever
4. Get a quote in Christy's quote book
5. Get David to say something to me that is not sarcastic...

“I feel like Mom is a sultan or an angel or something, because every time I go to see her I have to take off my shoes.” – David
“Why?” – Lauren
“Because she’s sitting on the Death Rug, so you can’t have any shoes on it.” – David

“No, I refuse to photoshop ancient paintings!—except for humorous purposes.” – David

“Recording in the closet… happy thought indeed.” – Mom, misquoting Elizabeth Bennett

“The thing about fairy tales is that they’re like baby myths…” – David

“So The Secret Garden and A Little Princess were written by the same person. I never knew that!” – Christy
“And David was the only one of us who did!” – Brittainy
“And I’m a boy! Tee-hee!” – David

“Comrade David, explain to me why people are so foolish!” – Christy
“Well, see, first there was this pomegranate” – David
“Pomegranate?” – Brittainy
“You’re on the wrong story.” – Christy to David
“Huh?” – David
“You know… Persephone… gets carried off Pluto… eats three pomegranate seeds and has to stay in Hades for three months of the year? Wrong story.”
“Um, well, okay, so first there was this quetzalcoatus” – David
“And now we’re on a Mayan god?” – Christy
“Please, Christy, that’s Quetzalcoatl. I’m talking about a quetzalcoatlus. You know… a winged serpent.”
“I see.” – Christy
“So there was this blonde chick, this pomegranate, and this quetzalcoatlus…”
::How do you spell it?” – Christy
“Everybody knows how to spell it.” – David
“Good. How?” – Christy
“Q-U-um… I think there’s an “E”…” – David
“Right, everybody knows how to spell it.” – Christy

Fragments

2008-12-17T22:28:00.004-05:00

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"

2008-12-08T13:03:00.003-05:00

“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

2008-12-05T19:43:00.007-05:00

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

2008-12-03T10:07:00.002-05:00

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.

Tired. Happy. Most of All: DONE

2008-11-25T22:11:00.005-05:00

Done with what? Y3U3, for those of you who know what that is. For those who don't, think "90 page paper single spaced" and you'll have it about right.

You know it's unit edits week when:

1. Office humor just keeps getting weirder. Don't believe me? Check out the "Flight of the Conchords" episode entitled "Jenny" on youtube.
2. Fixes that should take 20 seconds take 20 minutes; fixes that should take one hour take two or three or six hours. Etc.
3. Anything, anything that can be a break is a break. Including planning the next unit.
4. You may literally roll out of bed and work all day and be going back to bed around midnight or later before you realize that you never stopped for a shower. Yuck. :-P
5. Something that is long-term and totally irrelevant to the unit edits suddenly has to be decided now, and it takes hours to process that decision because at least four people are involved.

Sufficient to say, we're always super happy when one of these weeks is over. And, for me, it basically is. I only have one thing left: tomorrow morning at 8 AM, Brittainy and I are having a race to see if either of us can complete a day-long project in 3 hours. What is the day-long project? Well, it's writing two pages. I'm not kidding: novel summaries are two pages long and they take a day to write. Only we're going to try to do it in 3 hours. Um... yeah.

Then Brittainy leaves for Thanksgiving with her family and fiance, and I get a whole weekend to---goof off? Don't be silly! I'm going to write an exam and a couple of articles on historical backgrounds of literature, and then start reading Crime and Punishment for (gasp!) the next unit. But don't feel sorry for me, dear reader. First of all, I'm completely hardened to my schedule. Second of all, I have three scrumptious new pleasure books coming in. :-D

Speaking of pleasure books, the one that interests me most right now is Ursula K. LeGuin's latest, called Lavinia. It's about the girl who married Aeneas (think Virgil's Aeneid, the thing that goes with Homer's Odyssey and Iliad). I've never seen any author tackle the subject of Lavinia before (besides Virgil, of course), but I have more faith in LeGuin's ability to handle it properly than I would anybody else's... with the possible exceptions of Rosemary Sutcliff or C.S. Lewis.

So I'm looking forward to reading that. Then there's one or two others from the Christian fiction market that I want to get my hands on, mostly to see if they're any good. Hope springs eternal. It's a funny thing, though----lately I find myself wanting to write the kind of story that I had least use for in college: gritty realism. I couldn't really explain why, but I'm pretty sure Crime and Punishment will only increase the impulse. So don't be surprised if you see both realism and grit showing up here in the next few weeks.

Let me see... what else can I tell you? I should say what else will I tell you; there are all sorts of things I can tell you, but won't, because you are a very public person and I really shouldn't trust you with any secrets. That being the case, I think I'll stop here. May your shadow never grow bulkier, dear reader---except on Thursday. ;-)

Roses in November

2008-11-17T15:15:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday, the day we moved, was warm and blustery. The sky seemed to be trying to make up its mind between frowns and smiles. I remember that a tumultuous rainstorm appeared out of nowhere in the late afternoon, but after the rainstorm came such a smile; thinking of it later in our room, Marjorie said to me, "Oh, the trees were made of gold and diamonds!"'

In the sunset, spangled with rain, our many trees do seem to be made of gold and diamonds. This and warm relationships are the wealth of the neighborhood. People here are definitely of the working class, a degree poorer, kinder, and more dangerous than the self-contained propriety of our old street.

On the way back from getting lunch, an Iranian woman standing on the median silently handed us a card explaining that she was out of a job and asking for money to feed and pay rent so that she and her two children could survive. Having no cash, we were forced to smile our sympathy, apologize, and go on. Her expression was closed and she wouldn't meet our eyes.

There are gangs here, on the streets---little knots of young men in black and bling. I can't help shivering when I see them, even though I know that they are just people, like me or anybody. Then too, it is like being in another country: people speak to one another in foreign languages and have foreign customs. I am reminded once again of the extremely sheltered life I have lived, and of my own naivete. How is it possible that I am almost twenty-five and yet know so little of the world? Everywhere I go, here, I'm different. My skin is too white and my veins are too delicately blue; my English is too pure; I carry myself too straight; I know too much out of books and not enough out of harsh realities---in short, I don't belong.

Only a few things here are familiar, and for the first few days I clung to them. Tall mature trees stretching away to the horizon---In the summer their leaves have been and will be molten emeralds. I embraced them at once. The house itself, though it seems tiny and plain from the outside, is spacious (for a townhouse) and filled with the beautiful furniture we brought with us. My mother makes any house seem a palace. And then, the roses. There is only one sort of rose that I really love, and it is the pale pink one---here both in the front and back gardens there are roses of that color blooming. A sprig that I plucked yesterday is sitting on my windowsill in a bottle made of alabaster and filigree.

At first I felt like the girl in that old version of Beauty and the Beast. Though I am in a strange, foreign, winter-struck place, there are roses that welcome me wherever I turned. I wondered, "Will I have the courage to overcome the strangeness and become part of this culture?" I didn't know. I was only a very little girl the last time we lived in a place like this. I want to touch everything; I want to know everybody; I want to love them. But I feel shy and awkward, and even afraid.

It was odd to find myself once more walking through the once-familiar ritual of transition. I have moved fifteen times now, but it has been ten years since the last one and so I am out of practice. Still, the actions come easily enough. You school yourself to call what was home "the old house" or "the wreck" (after Swiss Family Robinson) and what will be home "the new house" or "home." You don't think about your old bedroom, your old yard, your old haunts. You take great delight in exploring all the new advantages of the place you are coming to; you remember only the disadvantages of the place you are leaving.

The best advantage I have found here, so far, is a secret cupboard hidden in the ceiling of my bathroom. That, and the blue that followed us here. I caused my bedroom in the new house to be painted exactly the color of my bedroom in the old house: a delicate blue that falls somewhere between azure and lavender. Everything in my new room, like everything in the old one, is that color or creamy white, or red like a star bursting, or deep sapphire, or dawn-gray, or rich satiny dark wood.

But on the second night, I was afraid. I sleep on this floor by myself, near a door to the outside, and I had to tell myself over and over "The door is locked. The door is locked. No one can get in. The door is locked." There were also noises from the utility room that make me feel eight years old again.

It is all as different from Middletown Valley as it could possibly be, and part of me is almost sick with longing for that golden sight: the smooth bountiful lap of land like a skirt picked out in criss-crossing patterns of farms, the heady sweet air, the intoxicating heights of the hills, and the feeling that if I were a bird I could tilt my wings up, up, up its cool slopes and plunge DOWN again to flirt them among the feathery grasses.

Oh, to have my horse there in those fields and on those slopes! He and I---we would play a fantasia and measure out the beats of a poem in drumming hooves. We would toss our manes at the sun, so that he would know it was us, and in our hearts laugh fit to rival the bubbling streams, and in our legs run fit to play with the dashing breezes.

Oh, to have a garden there, a flowering garland for one of those lofty-browed hills! "Tell me something I don't know about you yet," Brittainy said to me this morning. I smiled and said, "I love flowers." And I do---I love them passionately. Perhaps that is why the roses were so comforting.

Yet, though I am comforted, I also feel... what's the word... perhaps "intrigued." This place, this place!---it's like a bucket of icy water over the head, or a slap, or a fierce kiss. It makes me tremble with curiosity and a sort of boldness mingled with apprehension. I feel as if I have been wakened up from a long sleep and everything strikes, strokes, teases my senses. There is an electricity in this community where elbows cannot help but be rubbed. I can't keep my distance, not here. I can't hold myself aloof. And that's the strangest, most exhilerating, most terrifying thing of all.

This place makes me feel fourteen years old again, having my first serious crush and on the edge of---well---everything!

Baby Take a Bow

2008-11-12T17:40:00.003-05:00

Nope, not the Chris Rice song. Instead it is my pleasure to announce that as of last Saturday, November 8th, Nora is a one-year-old.

Her fond parents had a family party for her, where she was given chocolate cake for the first time and ice cream for the second (it was supposed to be the first time for ice cream too, but her great-grandpa got hold of her last week and, well, these things happen). Uncle Nate presided over the feeding of the cake to my little niece and she promptly smeared it all over her face (how well I remember her father doing the same thing!).

There aren't any pictures of the party posted yet, but as soon as Mike and Jess get around to that (hint hint, kids) I will retrofit them in here. Meanwhile, here's a recent photo of Nora playing... um... well, whatever you do play with a tepee. ;-)

The Office --- Season 8: "It's a Brutal Science"

2008-11-12T15:53:00.001-05:00

“What’s the matter with you?” – Christy to Dad
“He’s high on democracy.” – David

“Mom, do you think that if I had twenty more years and another degree, I could be a clone of you?” – Christy
“Only if you have a life in the middle.” – Mom

“I refuse to be responsible for de-life-ing you!” – Mom to Christy (Mom thinks she has deprived Christy of a life by letting her work for Lampstand)

"I would respond but I'm too busy superciliously sneering at you and casting you aside like an old glove" – David to Christy

"Make Pluto a planet! Donate dirt to be shipped to Pluto!" – Dad

“You know, if this is important I’m willing to commit 500 generations to it [moving dirt to Pluto to make it a planet].” – David
“I’m glad you’re willing.” – Amy
“All I have to do is become Emperor of the World.” – David

“Why don’t we just go live on those nice, civilized, well-behaved moons?” – Dad

“If you go by size, Ganymede is a planet but it isn’t. If you say it depends on orbiting the Sun, well there are practically any number of bodies that do that…” – Dad
“Planetology is sad and unfair.” – Christy
“That’s so true. It’s a brutal science.” – David

“Well, the problem with Pluto started when they realized that there are three or four other bodies the same size floating around out there.” – Dad
“There are enough river gods and nymphs in mythology. Let’s name the extra planets and bring ‘em in! What bugs me here is that you’re losing a major god [Pluto]. I don’t mind if you add gods, but you can’t take one away!” – Christy

“Wait… so basically Pluto isn’t a planet because Jupiter got mad?” – David
“Yep.” – Dad
“That’s actually very much like Greek mythology.” – David

“Pluto is---“ – Dad
“---A cartoon dog” – Amy

“So all you got to do is put a bubble dome over it and … “ – Dad, explaining his post-Obama plan for colonizing the Moon
“You do realize that Dad found a crater on the Moon named after our family, right?” – Christy to David
“Yeah, I know.” – David

“You don’t like Louis Armstrong?” – Amy to Christy
“I like the melodies and the lyrics he sings, but I don’t like his voice. The guy sounds like he’s being strangled.” – Christy

“Okay, we’re done now,” – David, having finished playing What a Wonderful World
“Thank goodness.” – Christy
“How about Somewhere Over the Rainbow?” – Brittainy, wickedly
“Ohhh---good idea!” – David
“You said you were done!” – Christy
“I was, but then I started again.” – David
“You said you were done!” – Christy
“We’ve sort of covered this ground.” – David

“The point of it was, did you hear him scream like a girl? That was awesome!” – Amy
“Yes, that’s the point.” – David

"Isn't it lovely that we all get to be snuffly together?" – David on the office cold that’s going around
“Yes, and make rummy sniffing noises.” – Mom, referencing Jeeves and Wooster

Feast Night (and Moonlit Fantasies)

2008-11-09T20:43:00.013-05:00

Well, dear reader, it's been a busy weekend. On Friday I taught class as usual (starting Les Miserables now). It went off quite well, only of course we didn't get into the half of a third of a quarter of an eighth of all there is to say about the first 100 pages of that magnificent epic. Ah well. That evening I had the opportunity to relax at the home of friends and enjoy fellowship with two or three couples and their children. I got absolutely trounced in a video game playoff with their thirteen-year-old son, but it serves me right for trying to pick up where I left off six years ago---you really do lose the touch after awhile, I guess. Anyway, it was good for my pride.

The next morning was equally pleasant: we had a great Bible study led by the head of the family with whom I was staying; then breakfast and a two-mile walk and suddenly it was time to start getting ready for Feast Night. This particular Feast Night was to involve early nineteenth-century garb, music, poetry readings, pledges, hymns, songs, prayers, a diplomatic game, and dancing.

Through no fault of my own, I found myself Co-MC of the evening. Also through no fault of my own, I was made responsible for three young ladies' hair and teaching the Virginia Reel. I guess I need to stop asking questions like "So, are you all set to MC?" and "Were you going to do a dance or something during the social time?" As for the hairdressing, all I can say is I'm glad I thought to bring my curling iron and pins to do one girl's hair, because otherwise I would've been completely blindsided.

At 2:30 PM the madness began. I guess I swallowed a plateful of food sometime between 11:00 AM and 9 PM, but I don't remember precisely how or when. All I really recall, physically speaking, is that sometime around 4:30 PM my upper back started to ache intolerably from doing hair for two hours and that by 8:30 PM the same sensation occurred in my feet.

Physics aside, I pinned and curled and discussed schedules and fixed cravats and listened to practice poetry recitations and reassured girls that they really did look nice in their dresses and argued and bantered and tried to wrap my mind around the details of the evening (which I only half-understood) until it was time to go. I will say that I was very proud of my young ladies: they looked beautiful in their dresses and I didn't foul anybody's hair (thank God!) and everything was got through mostly on time. What delightful madness it is to dress up for an evening of make-believe! It reminded me of the old days, when we used to have two hours to get a cast of 30 ready for a play performance. And oh!---what fun those nights were! And oh!---how we laughed and joked and teased and bantered! There is magic and mischief and a splendid camaraderie that arise at such times, almost as if the spirit of fun itself gets loose.

To return. On this occasion, once we arrived at the small, rather charming (I thought) community center where the evening's event was to be held, it was time to turn my attention to the dance. I had half-reluctantly, half-eagerly agreed to teach the Virginia Reel if (a big "if") I could remember it, and if I could find the music and if the students could learn it, etc. I was sure that everybody would enjoy it if we could pull it off, but that "if" bothered me something dreadful. My friend and hostess, who has more faith than I, put the dance on the schedule regardless.

When we got there, however, it was time to turn "if" into "yes" or "no" in a hurry. Fortunately, though I only remembered the first half of the dance clearly and completely forgot the "reel" part of the Virginia Reel, my Co-MC remembered the other half, though he was as bad as my teenage boys about doing it in the first place and shocked my students by giving me orders. (As if I cannot be given orders simply because I am their teacher! Silly dears.) The boys tried continually to slip away and we had to haul them periodically out of the bathroom. Fortunately, as I have said, the place was small and there weren't many good hiding spots.

The girls, of course, were as shy as only young girls can be. One of them asked me, anxiously, "You do mean girls partnering girls and boys partnering boys, don't you?"

"No," I said calmly. "I mean boys and girls together."

"Oh."

The only merciful thing to do in such a situation is to assign partners, because otherwise it is horribly awkward for everybody. Somehow, being told to dance with so-and-so obviates the embarrassment---probably because it also removes the responsibility. If you didn't volunteer to dance with Girl A or Boy B, then you can't be blamed for it, can you?

The students caught on to the dance pretty quickly, though I'm sure we were slightly off-tempo every time we did it (which was either my fault or else the MP3 track wasn't arranged for dancing). Anyway, it went off surprisingly well and today I was informed by email that it has started a dance craze which is expected to culminate in contra dancing in my host family's basement sometime in the months ahead. Yikes! More on that in forthcoming posts, doubtless, though really I ought to have foreseen this. Was there ever a small community in which contra dancing did not become a craze as soon as it was introduced? We certainly did enough of it at PHC!

I daresay my teenage boys will put up a fuss. However, I suspect that they enjoy it more than they are presently willing to admit. I suppose their mothers will make them participate in any case and privately I can't help feeling that it's a good thing. Boys ought to learn to dance with poise and skill and enjoyment. Why? Well, I don't know, but they should. How's that for circular reasoning? Anyway, my brothers and father are all excellent dancers, and to me that is enough reason for any of my boy students to learn.

I have to confess that the dressing-up and dancing most interested me, probably because those were the parts of the evening that required an investment of time and effort on my part, and therefore gave me an interest in their success. The diplomatic game was... well... let's call it "tame." The students are either not as stubborn and vengeful or not as enterprising as my own class was when we played the same game several years ago. However, they did their work to the best of their ability, and I was proud of them, and proud of their tall elegance as they went about with glasses of "champagne," arranging last-minute negotiations.

The "champagne" was cider (I had some) and there was dessert (I didn't have any; I never can make myself eat at parties). The tables were beautiful, and so were the displays (I snatched a few minutes to look at them.) There were children dressed up in every imaginable variation of period or semi-period costume. There was even a child who I swear could have passed for a miniature Napoleon!

The role of MC went surprisingly well, much better than I expected. I wasn't eager to take it up, but doing so alleviated some of the strain for the evening's chief organizer, and it was a way to serve and to have something to do, so I agreed. God gave me grace to grasp each thing as it came (and usually just before it came!). I shall never be a stand-up comedian, but ten weeks of teaching have made me a reasonably competent speaker and I had a forgiving audience, so it all went off.

To me perhaps the the loveliest thing about the whole evening was the thirty seconds or so during which I was able to slip out, alone, onto a balcony overlooking the pool attached to the community center. Parties of all sorts, but especially large and noisy parties, are overexciting to me---I always need a few minutes to myself in the middle of things to recover. This time being no exception, I found great pleasure in the cold night scene of gray stone and glistering midnight-blue water. My imagination had conceived half of a fantastical landscape and a quarter of a couple of characters and the beginning of a scene in a story---then pop! I was interrupted with information about the diplomacy game, then asked whether the children might come out to the balcony too, and suddenly there was no more lonely moon-filled night of water and magic.

Of course this is the sort of thing that happens to grown-ups all the time, but on some other evening I hope I shall be able to just play the child dreamer and finish that fragment of story on the balcony overlooking the pool. It reminded me of a solitary turn I took once in a garden outside the place where our annual college ball was being held. I shall never forget the stillness and fragrance of that chilly April night, nor the exhilaration of being alone in a beautiful dress in a moonlit garden. Anything, anything might happen at such a time in such a dress and such a setting. Of course, in a girl's imagination what is really wanted is what never actually occurs: an unexpected meeting with a mysterious TDS (Tall Dark Stranger).

The conversation between lady and TDS is always vaguely understood, in the girlish mind, to consist of equal parts strangeness and sweetness. It is also supposed to leave the impression of having been all a dream. I wonder what they actually would talk about? The garden itself, probably, and doubtless one another's identities. Yes, I think I can begin to see how it would go... as follows:

Scene: Lady, alone, center stage, unmasked, in a beautiful white dress, vivid against the fragrant dark cypress trees. In the foreground, a fountain. In the background, a large lighted house of stone, from which music emenates. Around the fountain and leading to either side among ornamentally-trimmed groves, a maze of graveled paths. Enter TDS, masked and in a black cloak, at stage right from the cover of the grove.

Lady: Hearing a footstep on the gravel, rises uncertainly but silently (excepting a slight gasp) from her seat on the lip of the fountain.

TDS: Catching sight of her in the moonlight. Don't be frightened.

Lady: Oh, I'm not! That is, you merely startled me.

TDS: There's nothing to be afraid of.

Lady: I was just taking the air.

The lady looks down and away. The TDS scrutinizes her silently.

TDS: Shifting his weight, not awkwardly, but there is tenseness or impatience in the movement. Have you a particular fondness for this garden?

Lady: Oh yes! Especially at night.

TDS: Why especially at night?

Lady: Dreamily. I feel the strangeness of it, at night, both awakens and soothes my senses. I am aware of each separate drop of water and every leaf, but yet they all run together in a rushing and rustling dimness.

TDS: Ah.

Lady: Don't you agree?

TDS: A little mocking. In a way. The night certainly heightens a man's senses, no doubt as compensation for the lack of sight in this dim landscape of yours. However, the setting is seldom as tranquil as this, nor the cause for walking in the dark as tame as that of an evening stroll.

Lady: Feeling that he is condescending or even rude, but of course too courteous to show it. I imagine that under more... dangerous circumstances such as you intimate, the darkness and indistinctness might be be rather unnerving than soothing, whereas the perception of individual things may be heightened to a painful extreme.

TDS: Still more drily. You imagine correctly, as naturally a lady of your rank and good breeding would.

Lady: Determined to be courteous, and also in fact a little curious. I give you thanks for that speech... but would give it more properly if I knew whom I addressed?

TDS: Lightly, to turn aside her question. My lady, why should we not both be part of the enchanting indistinctness of this setting---you a whisp of moonlight in your white dress---I nothing but a shadow?

Lady: Now either truly frightened or truly annoyed, but still polite. In that case, moonlight glides on and so shall I, back to my friends in the house.

TDS: Relieved to have her moving back inside, which was the object of his coldness. It is a shadow's part to humbly attend the light---May I follow you to the door?

Lady: She inclines her head in assent, but is sufficiently stung by his previous comments to say, What a pity it is that humility, a beautiful virtue, should be so common to shadows and so comparatively rare in men. Wouldn't you agree?

TDS: I do, and yet if all men were judged with charity, and circumstances taken into account, perhaps their pride would not appear so great to those observing them. Will you take my arm?

Lady: She does so, silently, pondering his words.

The two proceed back up the pathway to the house, mute but studying each other, their shadows streaming like long black fingers behind them, pointing to the fountain. The TDS hands the Lady to the door and stops just outside.

Lady: Aren't you coming in?

TDS: Visibly agitated now. No.

Lady: Again, good breeding prevents her from prying. Good evening, then.

TDS: Good evening. As she turns to go, he reaches inside and catches her hand, speaking rapidly at the same time in a low voice, and with a sudden earnestness of appeal. Listen, moonlight lady! If you have a forgiving spirit as well as a gracious manner, say a prayer tonight for your attendant shadow despite his lack of humility---will you?

Lady: Caught by his tone and responding intuitively to this strange plea for intercession. Yes, that I will!

TDS: Thank you. Unworthy of it though he is, you may judge him better hereafter. And one word more---whatever happens, don't leave the house again. Promise!

Lady: But what---

TDS: Hush! My time is out in bringing you back. Promise!

Lady: I promise.

TDS: And the other ladies, try to keep them in.

Lady: Yes, yes!

TDS: He bows. For this, I thank you---most truly. Good night.

He vanishes into the dimness of the garden, truly like a shadow for silence and quickness. She reenters the ballroom, a little dazed at what has passed. Five minutes pass slowly, and then there is a sudden commotion in the garden: a volley of shots and a cry of pain. The scene fades to black on the lady, standing at the door with her face to the audience and straining to see better into the indistinct garden.

Anyway, it could go like that. But that is precisely what never happens, and so the dreamer is able to dream it alone in a nighttime garden or on a nighttime balcony---until the party reestablishes its existence and prominence. Which is of course what happened to me, and there is nothing left to tell but that when we were finished with our Feast Night the room was disassembled with remarkable efficiency and we collected everything and went home and took pictures and then I drove back down to my house, turning over in my mind the events of the day and tidying them into various files marked A) pleasant memory, B) for further review, C) add this to that list of traits for such-and-such a student or thus-and-such a parent, D) to be studied in greater detail, E) etc.

Most of all, though, I just enjoyed it.

The Freethinker

2008-11-04T20:52:00.003-05:00

From a sermon on the Bible, delivered by C.H. Spurgeon on March 18th, 1855. I was newly saved when I first read this sermon, and when I had finished it I trembled to touch my Bible, because for the first time in my life I was in awe of it. This is one of the passages which then struck me most.

There may be some one here to-night who has come without faith, a man of reason, a freethinker. With him I have no argument at all. I profess not to stand here as a controversialist, but as a preacher of things that I know and feel. But I too, have been like him. There was an evil hour when I once shipped the anchor of my faith; I cut the cable of my belief; I no longer moored myself hard by the coasts of Revelation; I allowed my vessel to drift before the wind; I said to reason, "Be thou my captain;" I said to my own brain, "Be thou my rudder;" and I started on my mad voyage. Thank God, it is all over now; but I will tell you its brief history. It was one hurried sailing over the tempestuous ocean of free thought. I went on, and as I went, the skies began to darken; but to make up for that deficiency, the waters were brilliant with coruscations of brilliancy. I saw sparks flying upward that pleased me, and I thought, "If this be free thought, it is a happy thing." My thoughts seemed gems, and I scattered stars with both my hands; but anon, instead of these coruscations of glory, I saw grim fiends, fierce and horrible, start up from the waters, and as I dashed on, they gnashed their teeth, and grinned upon me; they seized the prow of my ship and dragged me on, while , in part, gloried at the rapidity of my motion, but yet shuddered at the terrific rate with which I passed the old landmarks of my faith. As I hurried forward, with an awful speed, I began to doubt my very existence; I doubted if there were a world, I doubted if there was such a thing as myself. I went to the very verge of the dreary realms of unbelief. I went to the very bottom of the sea of Infidelity. I doubted everything. But here the devil foiled himself: for the very extravagance of the doubt, proved its absurdity. Just when I saw the bottom of that sea, there came a voice which said, "And can this doubt be true?" At this very thought I awoke. I started from that deathdream, which, God knows might have damned my soul, and ruined this, my body, if I had not awoke. When I arose, faith took the helm; from that moment I doubted not. Faith steered me back; faith cried, "Away, away!" I cast my anchor on Calvary; I lifted my eye to God; and here I am, "alive, and out of hell." Therefore, I speak what I do know. I have sailed that perilous voyage; I have come safe to land. Ask me again to be an infidel! No; I have tried it; it was sweet at first, but bitter afterwards. Now, lashed to God's gospel more firmly than ever, standing as on a rock of adamant, I defy the arguments of hell to move me; for "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him."

The Office -- Season 8: "Eutychus on the 17th"

2008-10-30T11:36:00.002-04:00

I realized that I'm showing up a lot in this particular quote list, which is unusual. I can only conclude that it's because my office mates aren't giving me sufficient material. Ray, where are you when I need you!?!?!

“That’s it! That’s our image! A woman kneeling in a turnip patch in the middle of the Civil War, eating turnips and throwing up!” – Mom
“The Turnip Sale! I’ll start sketching some concepts.” – David

“Wow, this does taste awful. Well, the point of PEZ isn’t the taste, is it?” – David
“No. Never was.” – Brittainy

“I was utterly befuddled” – David about not being able to remember Judy Garland’s name

“I don’t back up people who threaten me with comforting songs!” – Amy to David

“Actually, there’s a lot I could tolerate if it would annoy you…” – David to Amy

“What was the name of the kid who fell out of the window in Acts?” – David
“I dunno but I can look it up.” – Christy
::Several seconds pass::
“Eutychus.” – Christy
“Thanks.” – David
“What do you want it for?” – Christy
“We’re looking for a name for this [project].” – David
“Why do you want to call it [the project] ‘Eutychus’?” – Christy to David
“Well, I said the phoenix and Dad said we could be more biblical.” – David

“And now you made it fat.” – Christy, commenting on the bird David is designing
“A fat bird is a cute bird.” – David
“It looks dumb.” – Christy
"It so doesn't." - David
::Time Passes::
“I do not accept that phoenix. It’s fat and it looks like a robin.” – Christy to David

“Show me.” – Christy
“No.” – David
“C’mon, show me!” – Christy
“No!” – David
“May I remind you that I share my food with you?” – Christy to David
“Yes but… but… oh, all right. I feel so dirty for giving in to you.” – David to Christy

Dana on IM: “That's all! Brilliant, you are, old chap!”
Christy on IM: “Wow. Um, thanks old chap.”
Christy to herself: "Is that my Dana?"

“What a relief to know that I’m not unnaturally perfect” – David

“Awww… I was engaged on the same day as Spurgeon!” – Lauren
“When was it?” – Christy
“June 10th.” – Lauren
“Oh, bummer. I can’t follow suit; I have to get engaged on the 17th.” – Christy
“Um, why?” – Lauren
“Because everybody in our family gets engaged on the 17th. Mike was September 17th; David was November 17th. I guess, in order to keep the pattern perfectly, I’d have to get engaged on January 17th.” – Christy
“Like you can control it.” – David
“Sure I can. It’s very simple. I just say, ‘You can ask me to marry you whenever you want, but I won’t give you an answer unless you ask on the 17th.’” – Christy
“Oh sure you would. What if you were madly in love? Do you really think you’d do that?” – David
“Yes I would! Well… or Dad can make it a condition of agreeing to let him ask.” – Christy
“What if he comes to Dad on the 18th of January! Are you going to make him wait a whole year less a day!?” – David
“I’m not that picky about the month. It would be nice, but it doesn’t have to be that way so long as it’s the 17th. The traditions must be preserved.” – Christy
“What if he’s got a tradition of fasting and praying for the nations on the 17th of every month! What’s he going to do, call you between morning and evening prayers? Take you out to dinner and say ‘I really love you, but I can’t eat with you?’” – David
“I wouldn’t want to be proposed to over dinner anyway.” – Christy

Cutting Loose

2008-10-29T22:32:00.005-04:00

Tonight, Brittainy and I cut loose. We took our work to Starbucks for a couple of hours and then watched Hercules---for the first time. Shock and awe. For those who have not experienced this dumbest of dumb Disney movies, I have only two words for you: "Peloponnesian minute."

It was a much-needed break from the strain. We allowed ourselves to be as silly as girls can and laughed a great deal, mostly at in-jokes and old quotes and references. Tonight I was reminded for the upteenth time of the value of a best friend. Also tonight I drank coffee (not the wisest move) and so will be up for several more hours. Oh well.

The next few days will be crucial for our futures in general, but somehow I can't bring myself to worry about it. What do I believe in God for, if I'm going to worry all the time? How does that bring Him glory? Answer: it doesn't, so don't do it. I'm gonna survive. Check that box. So, I figure, the next thing is to survive with joy!

What will I be doing for the next few days? Well, first off, I hope I'll be trusting God. After that, I'll be praying a lot. After that, I'll be cramming my way through the last bits of our current project (tomorrow morning), heading off to attend a birthday party in Frederick (tomorrow afternoon), spending the night with friends up there, doing who-knows-what Friday morning (girliness, doubtless, and probably some work if I can swing it), and wrapping up the unit for my class that afternoon. Phew! At least I don't have triple meetings. Just double meetings. :-P

Then after this weekend comes finishing Unit 3 (yikes), moving house (double yikes), and starting Unit 4 (triple yikes), and all of this by---oh---say---November 15th. Oh yeah, and attending the Feast Night, and talking my kids into actually reading their original poetry aloud to a group of parents. (How am I gonna swing that?) Then too there's the little matter of starting Les Mis...and getting out the unit grades... and... um... oh yes, my birthday happens sometime soon. Gotta plan something appropriate for that, or else my family will lynch me. I've been trying to ignore my birthday since I turned 12, but somehow there are always people who object. Go figure. Mom is the same way, but she always gets talked down too, so I guess I'm in good company.

Anyhow, all this boils down to that Humperdink line... "Frankly, I'm swamped."

I don't really care, though. I'm learning to cut my heart loose from the temptations of complex circumstances and anchor myself in Christ. Let me tell you, dear reader, I can highly recommend that kind of cutting loose. Come on in, the water's fine!

Me? Boil Water?

2008-10-29T11:41:00.003-04:00

I myself am often surprised by life's little quirks. This morning I had just finished making my breakfast when David bounced in.

"Oh! Is that leftover hollandaise sauce?"
"Yes it is, and yes you can have it."
"Yay!"
"Out of curiosity, what do you plan to do with it? Are you going to make yourself eggs and toast to put it on?"
"Yep."
::pause::
"Um, Christy."
"Yes David?"
"Are you supposed to put in enough water so that the eggs are covered, or...."
"You know, I was just writing about this last night. Care and feeding of boys and how they should at least know how to heat soup and scramble eggs."
"I know what I'm doing! I just... yeah..."
"The eggs should be covered."
"Thanks!"
::longer pause::
"So how long should the eggs stay in the water?"
I stared at him, marveling at his boy-ness. Then I asked, "Do you want them soft or hard?"
"Medium."
At this point Dad piped in: "You want three minutes for medium eggs and if you want them hard, seven minutes. To be really sure, you can leave them in for 15 minutes; that will make them hard as anything. Unless you're in Denver, where the boiling point is---"

My dad is Exhibit A of the well-trained boy who knows what to do with a kitchen. In fact, guess who taught me to make dropped eggs on toast with hollandaise sauce?

Bingo.

Ten Tips for the Care and Feeding of Boys

2008-10-28T21:51:00.002-04:00

Yes, really. I did a post on this awhile ago (read "three or four years ago") and now that I have all kinds of new data, it's time I updated it. Buckle your seat belt. Oh, and if it seems like I'm talking about boys as if they were pets, that's because I am. This should be taken as a form of humor, not disrespect. Besides, I assure you that boys have their own "care and feeding" list for girls.

1. The main point about boys is to feed them well. Danya says that basically boys want food and everything else is secondary. Girls with brothers, you already know this. So, the first thing you've got to do with your boy is feed him. The second thing is to feed him well. If you aren't already a good cook, become one. 'Nuff said.

2. Proper care of your boy also involves teaching him to feed himself well, because there will be times when you aren't there to do it. Make sure your boy at least knows how to heat soup and scramble eggs. Also be sure to educate him about the disastrous effects of fast food and direct his attention to healthier alternatives, like Subway.

3. The same applies to other survival skills like sewing. Your boy should be capable of sewing his own buttons back on when necessary. I'll never forget the time when I came across one of my college friends (aged twenty-three at the time) wandering around the dining hall with a suit jacket and a loose button and a lost look on his face. You don't want your boy to be in that difficult position, so make sure he can sew buttons on at least. More difficult and exacting jobs can be left to you. Under no circumstances should you allow your boy to hem his own pants.

4. While we're on the subject of clothes, let's talk about dressing your boy. Obviously he can't dress himself without help, but if you want him to be comfortable you should consult him about his preferences. As my mother used to say, "If you don't like it, you won't wear it." Sometimes you will have to be firm (but gentle) concerning items such as plaid and hawaiian shirts. Also certain types of sunglasses and all manner of t-shirts. Your ability to dress your boy will ultimately depend on what sort of boy he is. Your brothers are furthest from your sphere of influence unless they have exceptionally good sense. Sons are totally under your thumb (be careful not to abuse your power!), as are boys whom you are courting and, to a middling extent, husbands. I commend to you the example of my sister-in-law, Jessica, who by trickery both devious and cunning managed to get hold of Mike's hawaiian shirt (he was deluded enough to think it looked good on him) and handed it over to his sisters to be made into a pillow. Mike wasn't about to quibble with the girl whom he wanted to marry, and the pillow now adorns the seat of my niece's nursery rocking chair. So girls, it can be done, though sometimes it requires guile.

5. Environment (which is also your home). Your boy will become uncomfortable if you surround him with too much pink stuff, too many frills, or too many fragile, cannot-be-broken, cannot-be-dirtied items. Over time he may grow nervous and irritable. Boys have even been known to sicken and die from such environments (they're more delicate than they look). What to do? Some authorities say that it is best to let your boy do as he likes outdoors as a palliative for his indoor experiences. Others advocate that his environment be decorated in relatively neutral colors. Finally, some feel that if your boy owns items which can be broken and dirtied (knives, guns, socks, legos, etc.) then he will not become overwhelmed by a judicious amount of pink stuff. In this matter, perhaps the best rule of thumb is to let your conscience be your guide. Also keep a close eye on your boy for symptoms of fractiousness and illness due to environment.

6. It may seem from what proceeds that it would be best to keep your boy's environment in a slightly dirty state, so as to make him feel more comfortable. Don't fall into that trap! The cleaner and tidier your boy's habitat is, the happier he will be, up to a point. I do not recommend that you make him wash or change clothing more than twice a day (except under extraordinarily muddy or sweaty conditions); otherwise, you cannot keep him too clean.

7. Emotional and mental stability. Contrary to all appearances, boys have feelings which can be hurt. Some of them are even as sensitive as girls about certain topics. Less surprisingly, they often lack mental stability. It is the rule rather than the exception that boys are incapable of finding anything belonging to them, or anything they are asked to find. Likewise they are unable to remember details, appointments, and chores. If you give your boy a list of tasks to perform, a place to be in at a certain time, or ask him to switch the laundry, be assured that you must accompany your instructions and requests with frequent reminders and even then you may not succeed. When this aspect of your boy's nature becomes particularly irksome, be careful to show him more patience, not less. Remember above all that he can't help it, up to a point, and that beyond that point there is hope if you will be persistent in training. Recall, too, that he does have feelings, and that yelling at him won't solve anything.

8. It is good for your boy to experience a certain amount of unsettling from time to time in their life with you. Routines become dull if they are not broken up. Again I commend the example of my sister Jessica, who once or twice locked Mike out of the house as a playful diversion and an opportunity for him to exercises his forced entry skills. To take another instance, my mother recently put ice down Danya's back as an encouragement to him to stop being silly. There are other methods: preparing a favorite meal or dessert is one that your boy will always welcome. Whatever you do, be sure that it unsettles your boy and, if possible, pleases (or at least amuses) him.

9. Remember that most boys (especially small boys) know only two modes: destruction and construction. Try to keep your boy employed in the latter activity as much as possible, though you should also provide periods of healthy destruction. Sometimes the two can be combined: the classic example of this is chopping wood.

10. Love. To put it quite simply, your boy will die without love. Loving him plenty comes even before feeding him plenty. So, whatever else you are doing, be sure to do that.

I Wonder...

2008-10-28T11:30:00.003-04:00

I wonder, sometimes, whether my powers as a writer are more or less directly connected to my awareness of God. Repeatedly I have noticed this cycle, that when my heart is weary, fretful, and far from God (as I am realizing it has been these past two or three months), and caught up in its own misery, then my writing too begins to be repetitive, flat, stale, or otherwise lackluster.

But when God draws me back to Himself, it is as though someone unsealed the fountain of artistry. I draw fresh water, rainbow water, stained-glass colors and crystal brightness, and splash it around and am glad. New ways of writing crowd into my brain. I am aware again of texture, devices, rhetoric, as if being aware of God and in love with Him sharpens and brightens and deepens everything.

It is either very strange or not strange at all, and I can't decide which.

Home

2008-10-27T21:43:00.008-04:00

Tonight my heart aches---not for myself, but for others whom I love who are weary and pressed down. I notice how, when circumstances crowd in and begin to weigh, they have the effect of compressing our spheres of consciousness to a single thought or belief which we hold absolutely. We retreat before the waves, like people deserted on a sandy spit at rising tide, until the water forces us to that one high place, that one bit of rock where we come to stand and in which we believe.

It need not be a hopeful belief. For some, I know, it is a belief that leads to despair. When pressed, a person may be forced to recall that the one belief they hold absolutely is their own utter worthlessness or guilt. That is a terrible belief, because it is part (but not all) of the truth.

Weariness drags at the heart; troubles confuse it; shame or the possibility of shame makes it bleed. Physical pain, too, adds its voice to the clamor of evil clicking and humming and whispering, until the sufferer wishes only to be released into sleep or death or anything, just so it stops.

I don't know what you do at times like this, gentle reader. For myself, it is one of two things. Either I begin at the beginning and tell myself the whole story of the Bible, or I unlock the place in my mind where my mental picture of Heaven lives. For the latter purpose, Revelation 21 has long been a favorite of favorite passages. It tells how the city of Jerusalem has the "glory of God" and a "radiance" like a rare jewel and is "clear as crystal." It tells about the bigness of the city wall and of its twelve gates and the twelve angels that guard the gates. And it tells how the foundations of the city are made of jewels, and the walls of jasper, and how each gate is made of a single pearl.

In another place Scripture explains that there is a rainbow around God's throne, and again in another one reads that the river of the water of life flows from that throne, "bright as crystal," and goes through the middle of the city street, and the tree of life is on either side of it, bearing twelve kinds of fruit every month, with healing leaves.

And this isn't all, for I have not mentioned the glassy sea, nor the lack of temple, nor the fact that the gates are never shut by day and there is no night there, nor the inscriptions on the twelve foundations and at the twelve gates, nor the twenty-four elders, not the streets of gold, which are "transparent as glass."

Don't you find it rather remarkable that God tells us so much about our home? It almost seems to me that He wants us to picture it, to try to imagine what it will be like to live there. Since I was a little girl, I've been doing that---trying to imagine.

One of my favorite pretends was that the bed of that river is all made of jewels instead of pebbles, but that they are soft and squishy like gummi bears, and don't hurt your feet. Another that I like to imagine is that there are flying horses (we know that there are at least a few horses in Heaven) of all colors and that you can ride about on them and have mock battles.

Another favorite idea is that the city is a sort of water-city, almost like Venice, with the river flowing through every street and those groves of trees of life giving shade all up and down them. I like to pretend that the twelve gates, each made of a single pearl, are hollowed-out pearls and that some of them at least are water-gates, so that you can float through the milky center of the pearl and into all that splendor of crystal and gold.

One of my dearest imaginings is that the streets, being transparent as glass, have huge moving murals painting underneath them which show all of the universe's history from God's perspective. By now of course I am beginning to be a little dazzled at it all: the transparency and shiningness, the white and gold and green and slap and rush of water, the singing and the throngs of laughing dancers, the delicate carvings, perhaps, and gorgeous dress of the people who live there, and all that blaze of jewels---sapphire, ruby, emerald, carnelian, lapis lazuli, diamond, topaz, amethyst---and the rainbow.

I am beginning to be overwhelmed, but I don't want to stop. So I go on, and now I see the palaces rising turret on turret. Now I see how at the top of the holy hill (is it a hill, I wonder?) there is no temple, but rather the Lord's throne. The glory of it humbles me to the dust (is there dust?) and exalts me to rapture. And then there is the Christ, and the Father, and the Holy Spirit....

Then I really do get dizzy. Then all at once, my heart is beating high for joy. Then I realize, that when everything presses down and in on me, and I must retreat to one place, that place is this: He is. That would be enough, but He is as Scripture says He is. That is more than enough for Scripture says He is the sum of all perfection, all delight.

Home is not even the city. Home is His heart, for which my soul longs. And that I can have here, now, on earth. Lovers call one another "Love" and "My heart" and "Darling" and so on; I have been much struck by their tendency to describe the beloved either as one's own other self or as love itself. God is not my other self, for He is utterly other than I am. But He is love itself, truly, and His being utterly other does not prevent Him from touching my soul more nearly than any human being ever could.

Welcome, heart's desire---darling love! Make Your home here, poor as it is, and I will make You this home's home.

Check the Stats

2008-10-27T16:48:00.003-04:00

IM status messages have become a form of shared humor for Danya and I. The fact that we sit three feet away from each other all day every day apparently isn't enough: now we also trade insults and jokes by displaying them on our buddy lists.

How do you alert the other party that there is a new jib waiting on the status line? "Hey Dave (or Christy), check the stats."

Messages range from obscure to very obscure. There are in-jokes familiar only to those who have delighted in Bone (phrases like "Hello, small mammal" and "Stupid, stupid rat creatures!"). There are statements from five minutes ago, things like "I merely pointed out that I share my food with you" or "I do not accept that phoenix! It's fat and it looks like a robin!"

It's fun and funny---to us. I sometimes wonder what the rest of cyberspace thinks about it, but I don't worry too much. After all, in theory everybody on my buddy list knows me/us. This means they should know what they're getting into, and if they don't, they can always do what I do when too many changing status messages begin to annoy me: turn off the IM or block the offender.

Meanwhile, we are pleased. Oh, and P.S. for those of you who have long wondered why I call my brother Danya---it's a Russian thing. He studied Russian for a couple years and "Danya" is the affectionate diminutive of his name. He calls me Krasiva or Krasivaya, which sounds like my name but isn't. It actually means "beautiful."

Yes, girls, you can envy me. I have the coolest brothers in the world. :-D

Thanks for All the Weights, Dad!

2008-10-25T20:43:00.004-04:00

You know how it goes. There are the electric blues, where you're melancholy, and the sunny yellows, where you're cheerful, and the blacks, where you just want to die, and the mean reds, where you want to hit something.

Over the years I've developed all sorts of ways of dealing with some of the more unsavory shades of colors. Today, which began as a sunny yellow, took an unexpected and ugly turn towards the mean reds in the late afternoon. I guess I should have expected it: the rainbow has been wobbling for a couple of days because of all the emotional, mental, and spiritual strain associated with work right now. Yesterday, for instance, was a steady working green that sank suddenly into a dangerous degree of exhaustion (is that, what, purple?) just after class and then bounced back up to playful greeny-yellow and finally settled out at a sea-blue (as opposed to electric blue) on the drive home.

So, if you actually followed all that, it wasn't surprising for today's yellow to take a dip into red. What was hard was figuring out what to do about it, because many of the usual options were off-limits for one reason or another. I knew I needed to get out, so I went walking in the rain. Dad, seeing I was upset, asked to come with me.

We went up and down the street for awhile and talked and got soaked, which cooled me down some, and then Dad said, "Hey, we've already showered. How about hitting the gym?"

"Absolutely!" I replied. Dad and Mom and I joined a new gym together recently and we've been enjoying early-morning sessions. This morning we didn't get one, so I was more than ready to work out my frustrations on an elliptical and a bunch of weight machines.

Circuit training is something Dad knows all about because he was a wrestler in high school and college. And the weights section we use has about 12 machines, plus balance balls. It's a perfect recipe for getting rid of the mean reds: you basically press them out through the weights.

When Dad sets up the weights for you, you work for what you get. He's also got a competitive streak as broad and deep as mine. When I tossed off thirty reps on my lower back, Dad said, "Oh, c'mon, you can do more than that. Set it down to 200 lbs."
"Dad! Look how high it is already!"
"You're not working for it, baby."
"The weight of my whole body isn't enough to force this thing down! Look!"
"That's what the handles are for."
He then proceeded to show me, setting the weights as far down as they would go and zipping through his own reps like they were nothing.
"You are a show-off!" I told him, grinning.
He just grinned back.

By the time we'd worked our way through the six or eight upper body machines, I was feeling like a wimp. Dad is ridiculously strong in his biceps, deltoids, and triceps, and he was pressing easily twice or in some cases three times as much as me. The gap closed up a bit, though, on the lower body machines.
"Hah! 90! How far down did you go?"
"120."
"No fair! Girls are supposed to have better leg muscles than guys!"

It's great to work out when you're already wet, because really there isn't much more that can happen to you and it keeps the sweat down. I always find myself swaggering a bit, too, after a really good workout. It just makes you feel clean and strong and on top of the world.

According to Dad, the way you should feel is like you can't walk. ;-)

I wrapped up with a long stretch over a balance ball and then we sat in the jacuzzi for awhile (or rather, Dad did and I paddled my toes in the water), talking about this and that---which for us generally consists of discussions about academia at large and future Tapestry projects in specific, when it isn't metaphysics, imaginary science (don't ask), or politics---and wondering why the bubble jets were turned off.

When we got home we found that Charity had been making a yummy chicken soup and somebody had already gotten out the wines and it was all cozy. I mixed myself a weird drink (nota bene: smirnoff plus fresh grapefruit juice is bangarang!) in a jar and found that somehow the workout had brought the yellow back up dazzling bright.

"No more exercise for you!" Mom said. "You're getting silly!"

So thanks for all the weights, Dad, and for being strong enough to handle the mean reds. I'm so glad you press more than I do---in every area of life. :-)

The Locker-Writer

2008-10-24T21:15:00.002-04:00

This was a very old effort from private high school which I wrote for a contest that required me to include the phrases about a hat being tossed into the bushes and the pigs. Still, I retain a certain fondness for it. :-) Enjoy.

I’ll never forget the morning I met her. It was Monday, the first day of school. As the door of my locker swung back I saw to my utter disbelief that tiny, angular figure scrunched up in it, scribbling in a notebook. I uttered a strangled sound, and the figure looked up.
“Hi...” What does one say to someone in their locker?
“Hi.” it replied calmly, disentangling itself from the locker and emerging into the light of day. She (I could see then it was a she) stood there staring at me, as if trying to read something in my face. She had heavy black hair and gray eyes.
“My name is Jessica, but you can call me Pen.”
I was bewildered. “Pen? What sort of a nickname is Pen?”
“I write.” Pen replied with dignity.
“In my locker?”
“It was my locker last year. It’s the only place where I can get any inspiration. Inspiration is very important to a writer. Without it…” Pen’s head shook mournfully, dislodging a large, pointed hat which slipped down over her ear. Why was she wearing a pointed hat in my locker? I backed away. “Well… it’s… that is… I guess I’ll see you- ”
“Oh, you’ll see me,” Pen interrupted, still staring. “We’re paired to do a short story in English class. By the way, do you know that you have a very interesting facial structure? It reminds me of the Italian Renaissance…”
I fled to the bathroom without another word, and examined my face anxiously for a few minutes. I do not look like the Italian Renaissance, or any Renaissance! Nevertheless, my heels dragged on the way to English class. There sat Pen, notebook at the ready; she looked like a child in a candy store.
“How did you know we would be paired to do a short story together?” I muttered out of the side of my mouth. “We haven’t even had our first class.”
“I asked. I was discussing Shakespearean techniques with the teacher, and she told me ahead.”
I gave her what I’m sure was a pleading, anguished look. Pen merely smiled.
The rest of the class was a nightmare; our teacher wanted a story outline by Wednesday. During study period, I pulled Pen aside for a quiet little strategy session.
“So… any ideas?”
Pen sighed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds while I waited anxiously. Finally, she returned to earth and gazed at me sadly.
“There’s no inspiration. I’m having a bad hat day.” She tapped the pointed hat.
“A bad… hat day?” I asked weakly, afraid of the answer.
“My thinking hat, yes. It’s malfunctioning. Metaphorically speaking, my pointed hat has been tossed into the bushes and I can’t get it out.”
“Ah.” So that was that. Not only was my locker infested with a writer, and not only did she tell me that my face looked like an Italian Renaissance, but she had a writing hat which was metaphorically lost in the bushes! It was too much.
“Call me if you get an idea.” I said tightly, and wrote my number down for her. She took it and shoved it under the hat, staring into space again. She didn’t call.
That night I tossed and turned for hours. I woke up with a single nonsensical sentence spinning around in my head, like one of those bits of paper that have half a word scribbled on them. Next day, my locker door swung open to reveal… Pen. She waved.
“Get out of my locker!” As soon as the words were out, I felt like a tyrant. After all, what had Pen done to me? It wasn’t her fault that her inspiration lived in my locker.
“I’m sorry,” I told her sincerely. “I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that…”
“I’ve failed you.” Pen murmured, actual tears in her eyes. “You may as well run me through now. I’m useless.” She sniffled, and I rushed to forestall an emotional outburst. Later, I was to learn that it is best to let Pen have hysterics if she wants them, but then I only knew that I wanted her sane, if possible.
“No, no, you haven’t failed me.” I gabbled hastily. “It’s just that I have this weird sentence running through my head, like the beginning of a story and…”
A gleam appeared in her eyes. “That’s the best kind! What is it?”
I hesitated, doubted, and finally blurted the sentence out. She could only laugh, after all. “’And no one ever knew where the pigs came from, or why.’”
“An inspiration…” Pen’s whole face lighted up. She quivered, obviously moved. Suddenly, I found that I liked to have my locker haunted by a writer with a pointed hat and gray eyes. The rest of it just took time.

Fragments of Delecta

2008-10-23T21:54:00.006-04:00

I imagine Delecta as the kind of girl who hasn't a consistent bone in her body and is blown about before every wind of her emotions, like a kite. I suppose you could say that her growth trajectory in Prodesse and Delecta is all about growing a backbone and getting anchored. Of course, her changeableness is deeply offensive to Prodesse. Here is a fragment which demonstrates this:

“How little we realize,” said Prodesse, “That God is high and powerful, and solid, so that He cannot be altered.”
“You should say, ‘how little we realize that man is small and weak, and insubstantial and changeable,’” Delecta replied, tossing a pebble into the stream. She watched the ripples attentively. “How beautiful are circles within circles!”
“Delecta.” His tone measured out a spoonful of impatience. Delecta sighed.
“I repent me. You said?”
“I was speaking of things meaningful, and you interrupt me with circles! How will you ever get on with the truth, little woman, if you are so easily distracted?”
“Do you notice that we have applied the word ‘how’ to three different things: our realization of God, the circles, and myself?”
“What has that to do with the question?”
“Or do you ever stop to think that these circles within circles might represent the question—say, the littlest circle is us, and the outermost circle is God—or, say, the outermost circle, that trembles and vanishes soonest, is us, and the innermost circle, which remains longest and spreads to cover everything, is God. You see, Prodesse, you do not think of these things. But am I any less aware of the question because I think in images and patterns? The word ‘how’ we have applied to three things, each time ringing a change on the same word, which is a kind of variety within unity. It would sound well in an address to a crowd—it would move them. Do you not wish to persuade people of the truth that is so near your heart?”

Of course my epic allegory about truth and beauty wouldn't be any good unless Prodesse and Delecta wind up married. Even I know that. However, really powerful love scenes are abominably difficult to write. Still, I keep trying. Here is a fragment from one version, in which Delecta finds herself really caring about somebody besides herself (Prodesse) for the first time. I can't say that she's particularly clear on it or happy about it:

“I love you,” Delecta said, simply. “I would give life’s blood to know what that means, but—all minds fail somewhere. Mine fails here. I use the word that others use when they have got a blow such as mine. I cannot tell what love is, or what I am to do. I ache. I find no peace anywhere in myself, and I believe that whatever else love may be—that it brings me the greatest possible pain. Still, I love you. My life is confusion, and I want to ask ….” She trailed off for a moment, and then went on, brokenly, “I do not understand—I do not—my heart aches, you see. I have got a wound. Some one has bitten at my heart. I think I must bleed. Am I bleeding? Oh, if you can heal me, do it! Throw stones at me—send me away! Or go away yourself, can't you! Oh, gods! Go away!”

The Beginning of Prodesse's Education

2008-10-22T20:33:00.005-04:00

From time to time I pick away at an epic I am writing called Prodesse and Delecta. It is about two halves of things: truth and beauty, content and form, what is and how it is. These fragments were written some time ago and are the fruit of stray connections between the story and my studies in literature---particularly in comparative world literature studies.

The King's mother had been a great lady of the east. Because he was not expected to rule, she had been permitted to keep him with her and her wise men for the greater part of his boyhood. The result was, that when his elder brother died and his turn came to be groomed for succession, he retained an affection for the philosophies of the east. In all other respects he was a western king and wedded a western princess.

In the matter of Prodesse's education, the King followed his own inclination and provided both eastern and western tutors for his son. This his advisers approved to his face; privately, however, they regarded the eastern influence with suspicion, and especially the eastern men.

What neither king nor councilors noticed was that Prodesse himself soon grew confused under his teachers's contradictory instructions---for some advocated silence, and others speech; some differentiation and some unity; some wished to teach the prince chains linked by cause and effect whereas others insisted that all things are as circles. Gradually Prodesse's confusion became cynicism, and anger and a great bitterness, and then despair. When he was but fifteen years old, the prince set fire to his books and fled into the forest with only an old slave who had been with him from childhood. It was believed that his great learning had driven him mad.

The King, who cherished a hope of his son's recovery, forbade any to disturb his solitude. Instead, the boy was left entirely to the green mountainsides and the care of the old slave named Aber.

Aber belonged neither to the east nor to the west, but to the middle lands. It was said that his had once been a holy people, but they were now scattered and brought low. Aber had not forgotten this, but he was not a sullen man. He had the gifts of song, laughter, and storytelling---and wisdom.

Often he would say to Prodesse, when they lay in the shade of their hunting lodge after a chase, "Ahhhh!---To be happy is to be humble, my good lord, for there is nothing like it to make the soul glad."

Prodesse never failed to become angry at these words, like a man who finds a hornet's nest in his garden. "No philosophy!" he would say, "Let us hunt instead."

After a year had passed and his anger was somewhat cooled, the prince fell into deep reverie. It seemed to Prodesse that he stood at an impasse; on the one hand to melt into things and lose himself in them, to imitate life as he saw it instinctive and throbbing around him---to live like an animal. Or, to retain himself as a distinct being, but thereby condemn himself to many years of definition, enumeration, and organization, all without cause or end.

Neither possibility appealed to him. And so, for several years, he gave himself up to drifting thoughts. This did not make him happy, for he felt that it only postponed one of two inevitable paths: unsatisfactory choice or absolute despair. However, he soon gave up the idea of any meaning at all and that numbed him somewhat.

Aber's old eyes saw this, and he frequently broke up the young man's dreaming with questions and comments that pierced him, bringing the prickle and burn of earnest thought.

One midsummer's day, as they rested by a stream some distance from the house, Aber pointed to a towering oak on the farther bank and said, "How like that tree planted by the stream is the upright man! He never lacks for water, my good lord."

Prodesse, who had been tracing the faces of beautiful girls in the clouds, frowned. "How like the babble of the stream are your words, good slave---if they have a meaning, it is meaningless to me."

"My lord has never been thirsty?" Inquired the old man, cunningly.

For reply, the young man lowered his eyes from the clouds and glared. Aber, all innocent as old men alone can be, gave his smile of a thousand wrinkles and said, "Surely a man who hunts knows what it is to lack water, and to long for it."

"You would try the patience of a stone, Aber."

"And," the slave continued, serenely, "surely a man who has lacked water would find meaning in a tree firmly rooted by the stream, where its life is sustained by this ever-flowing source."

"Surely."

"All that remains, therefore," Aber went on, "is to inquire whether the man is upright because he has planted himself beside the stream, or whether the stream flows to him because he is upright."

Prodesse reclined again on the grass and gazed at the sky. "What is your sage opinion, old one?"

"The former, lad, the former."

"Explain this to me, then: why should it be that what is good to keep a man alive is also good to make him upright? What have these to do with each other?"

"This is foolishness, good lord. Where did you observe a blade of grass, a beast of the hills, a ripple of the book, or a cloud in the sky, that while it exists, does not exist uprightly according to the laws of its own kind? The breath of life and the upright have much to do with each other."

"Have it your way," Prodesse returned, getting up. "I am going to dress the game for supper."

He stalked off, stiff-necked, and old Aber looked after him with half a sigh and half a smile. Then he put his face to the stream and took a long drink, and, lying in such a way as to catch the best of the failing afternoon light, slept.

Vacation!!!

2008-10-21T11:53:00.002-04:00

I just got the confirmation that I am indeed going with Mom and Dad to Hawaii in February. They are going to do a conference and I am going to have... oh my .... dare I say it?

A VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course I'll also plan to spend time researching 20th century literature choices, and no doubt there will be teachers who want to talk Tapestry R-level literature, and so on and so forth---I can't just do nothing for a week. But still, if you have to deal with Year 4 literature at all, what better setting? And if you get to serve people by talking to them about Tapestry Lit, what better place?

I feel like somebody has handed me the moon. <:0)

What I Know About Secret Letters

2008-10-20T20:26:00.015-04:00

I am happy and I want to write about something charming. In a biography today I strayed across the story of a young man writing elaborate love notes to his secret betrothed. Immediately I thought how I should like to review what I know about secret letters---I mean the kind handwritten and often in code---for you, because they are now antique and always seem to be a memory lost in the midst of grown-up affairs.

Secret letters are not, however, a mere memory in the minds of children, strategists, and pranksters. When we were children at our war games, we had all manner of coded notes. It gave me quite a thrill, as a seven-year-old, to scribble the simple alphabet-scrambled letters that we wrote with pencil on scraps of paper and slipped breathlessly to one another in the woods behind the house. These were always signs and countersigns, reports from "the front" of the battle, clues to the enemy's whereabouts, and so on. I associate them always in my memory with sticky scented pine sap and our tree fort.

Later, of course, we drew up more important documents: death warrants for whichever of us had suddenly become a desperate criminal; pirate contracts signed in blood (or berry juice), treasure maps, and so on. But these were not secret letters. Then I began to write stories, also in pencil on lined paper, when I was ten---but these were not secret letters. They were only fragments of fancies kept in a tin box, romances wrapped in the smell of summer grass and the history that creeps into one's blood if one is fortunate enough to spend a few years of childhood in a Civil War farmhouse.

The letters came again though, after a while. Dear reader, you will laugh when I tell you that my first experience of love letters was a long series of pranks. I don't remember who began it---I think my brothers did. They took to putting quite elaborate and soupy love letters in my jewelry box when I was a girl of fourteen or fifteen. These were always from a "secret admirer" who was hinted to be a baron or a duke or a count.

Well, I reciprocated of course, and naturally went one better. The anonymous love notes I left in their bathrobe pockets were drenched with the smelliest perfume I could find. This went on for several weeks, back and forth, quite a storm of sentiment. At last we tired of the game and dropped it.

I was not to know secret letters again until my sophomore year in college, when I undertook to teach a few friends how to write in elven. I would leave them letters in a particular book---a volume of fairy tales, as I recall---in the college library. No one ever checked out that book, so we were safe, and it was such fun! I remember the thrill of anticipation I always felt, walking into the library oh-so-ladylike and demure and academic and grown-up, in a long gray skirt and starched white lace blouse, with books in my arms and my hair in crossed braids... and thinking "No one knows! No one knows! No one knows that I have a secret letter! Here! In the library, with everybody else so modern and studious and unsuspecting!"

There were days when I could burst for the sheer delight of it, and when I had my letter I would go across campus to read it in the white gazebo by the pond, and would sit deciphering the curved elvish characters and amusing myself for an hour together, dreaming out across the pond. One day in my senior year, just for fun, I donned that old outfit of gray and white and put on a pink silk shawl (it was a cool autumn day) and went to the gazebo for our Medieval literature class. A classmate called me "the picture of Romanticism." I only made a face at her (she knew I hated the Romantics) and laughed. Sometimes I left secret letters, addressed to no one and telling great secrets, in the eaves of the little gazebo. Perhaps I meant them for the gazebo itself, or perhaps for the fairies.

Anyway, we outgrew that game in the library after awhile, and for a long time there were no more secret letters---for I was growing up. But then one fine day, when I was quite grown up and had no excuse for it whatsoever (except my own mischief), I played a prank on the two leads in the play I was directing. The play was Cyrano de Bergerac, and involved a simply enormous number of love letters and an equal amount of love-letter-writing. I decided that I wanted the boys to practice. To that end, I called together all the girls who happened to be on hand in my dorm and got eight of them to co-author a set of love notes, which we spattered with perfume and wrapped around chocolates and caused to be deposited in their shoes in their dorm room (girls were never allowed in the boys' dorm rooms, but it was not difficult to find a boy willing to act as our accomplice).

Well! That was a lovely prank. And then the boys had to write notes back, for play practice, and leave them in a volume of Aristophanes in the library. I do genuinely believe it improved their roles a little... but of course that wasn't really the point. The point was fun, and what fun the girls had reading their outrageously silly replies to our equally hilarious letters!

Ah, that play was good all the way round. We were all friends; all glad to be nonsensical and play pranks in a cheerful, innocent, happy way. When my producer's birthday came around, the gang of fourteen boys who were in the play all dressed up and sang French songs beneath her window, and we gave her a double-guard procession and an open car all the way from her dorm to the dining hall, where there was sparkling cider and cheesecake. We had royal good times!

But to return. Years have passed without any secret letters---which is sad, now I think of it, and makes me wish for some---and I had not thought of them at all until yesterday. I was trying to quiet a screaming child. From experience I knew that drawing on a chalkboard sometimes does the trick, so I set the little girl on top of a low bookshelf, picked up a piece of yellow chalk, and began to write whatever came into my head---in elvish of course. I didn't much want the rest of the workers in the room to read it.

Then one of them came up and said, "What is that?" By now the little girl was quiet, so I explained how I had adapted the characters for my own use so as to be able to write without other people reading my thoughts. "Is it just a different alphabet?" He asked. "Yes," I replied, "Unless I want to be really secret, and then I write it in Latin and elvish both." He picked up the chalk and said "This is what I used to use to write letters to my high school girlfriend in class." And then, to my astonishment, he began to write nearly perfect cursive---backwards. Truly! If I had had a mirror, it would have been easy to read. As it was, I had to work hard to decipher the letters.

"I wrote her 180 letters that way," he said, proudly. "Wow," I replied. "That's amazing!" And it was.

We are now come full circle to today and the biography I was reading. Now you know all that I know about secret letters, dear reader. What a pity you are nobody and everybody and can't send me some! Wouldn't it be delightful if you could? After all, I tell you so much more than I do almost anybody else (though of course there's a lot I don't tell even to you), and if you could write back we should have so much to talk about! But of course, being nobody and everybody, you can't. Still, I don't mind. You are my nobody and my everybody, and that is enough for me.

Good night, dear beloved reader. Tell the Fairy Queen for me, that I mean to attend her at her water palace in the fourth star to the right at midnight. There is to be dancing there til dawn.

My House of Lost Play

2008-10-19T17:52:00.007-04:00

When I woke up yesterday morning it was with the usual sensation of half-assuaged exhaustion. When I woke up this morning, it was with a feeling of looseness and lightness. I haven't stopped smiling all day. Give me a flexible birch tree to climb and I believe I could fly from the top of it. I'm a bird. Do you hear, sky? I'm a bird, and I'm coming!

What happened in those twenty-four hours to elicit such a change? Ostensibly, nothing: yesterday in my capacity as a teacher I conducted an extracurricular activity for my class---an all-day viewing of the longer Pride and Prejudice movie---and then accompanied the family of one of my students to a party where other students and parents were present.

Nonsense. You can say that's who I was and what I was doing if you want, but it wasn't and I didn't. Yesterday I found my House of Lost Play again, all unexpectedly in Middletown Valley, and played in it. I prayed and fellowshipped in the midst of a family that I love and loved every second of being with them. I did flips on the trampoline. I lay on my back in the sun and counted clouds. I made a fall bouquet. I put leaves in my hair. I saw the heart of a bonfire. I promised a twelve-year-old that I would roll down a hill and kept my promise. I explored the woods in the dark with only a flashlight and a friend. I cuddled a three-year-old and told her stories.

My heart lurched and skipped a beat when I was driven through Middletown Valley for the first time yesterday. The patchwork of farms was like something out of Wordsworth's Lake District or Yellowstone Park. To crown all, it bore the fine burnished patina of autumn. At the festival, while at the rolling-down place (let's call it Suicide Hill), I lost my heart again to a small little boy named Jack. I traded stories and songs with a girl named Julie. I made jokes; I bantered; most of all, I laughed. I laughed all day at everything that was funny and sometimes I laughed for pleasure because I wanted to laugh.

It was pure play. It was a day of gold and red and orange and music and Neoclassical grace and a good romance (the real kind, with sin and growth and passion and forgiveness on both sides) superbly acted, and dear people who love each other and opportunities to do the girls' hair and guitar music and children's shrieks and giggles and the dance of flames in the bonfire pit. There was sky, sky, sky and air, air, air---daysky and dayair; nightsky and nightair; sky and air and fire!

And next time, God willing, I won't be so frail---I'll be able to do more flips, to run and chase and hit the ball with everybody else. I feel like Colin from the Secret Garden, like a person who's been bedridden for years but is going to get well and live for ever and ever.

Dear God, who am I that I should be blessed as much as this? Domine, Domine, te gratias ago. Te gratias ago totissime. Shari and Todd, Ellie and Shane, Julie and Jack and little Chloe, I'll carry the memory of that day with me through many hard days ahead. Thank you! Thank you so much. It meant everything to me to be allowed to play.

The Office ---- Season 8: "Lauren's Quote Debut: 'I Heart George Mueller'"'

2008-10-16T13:20:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah, and the internet's been down for a week. :-P

“This is the part, Amy, where you say ‘I love my job.’” – Mom
“I’m crying right now.” – Amy
“From sadness or from joy?” – Mom
“From laughter.” – Amy

“Has anyone seen a picture of George Mueller?” – Amy on a famous pastor
“Oh, I love George Mueller! He’s so cute!” – Lauren
“He’s just a teddy bear.” – David

Lauren’s status message: “i heart George Mueller”

“Okay, she’s all yours; you can have her.” – Lauren to Christy, upon closing out of Week 18
“She? Her?” – Christy
“Yes, and Week 17 is a he.” – Lauren
“Wow.” – Christy

Dana's son David accidentally IM'd Ray an ISBN instead of IM'ing it to
Dana. Ray googled the ISBN and said: Lemme guess. That's the ISBN for the Kamien CD's, right?
David: lol. you on Amazon?
Ray: No. It's just that I've memorized every ISBN in the world. I need a superhero name now. I'll leave that to you.
David: lol
Ray: "lol" isn't a very good superhero name. You need to be more creative. You give homeschoolers a bad name.

“I totally windexed that one to death.” – David on killing a cricket with Windex

“But what is a Conestoga wagon?” – Christy to David
“Well you see, there was this lady named Connie Stoga…” – David
“Good grief. Why do I ask you when I have the internet?” – Christy to David
“Oh please. When was the last time you trusted the internet?” – David
“Um… every day.” – Amy

“I have a repository of joy right here… and not everybody can say that their ipod is a repository of joy” – David

“Behold yon statusse message.” – David on IM to Christy
“SLAAAAAAAAMMMMBAAAAHHHH deeeeah MAAAAAAAIIIIDD! Green boughs weeheeHEEL COOOOOVAH THEE!” - David’s status message, a textual rendering of Mary’s version of Slumber Dear Maid from the Pride and Prejudice movie.
“What brought that on?” – Christy
“Honestly, I don’t know.” – David

“’Trials, we are told, are sent to trust our fortitude.’” – David, quoting Mary from Pride and Prejudice
“You know what—you were sent to test our fortitude” – Christy to David
“That’s right. That’s what I’m here for.” – David

“Yes. I am a jeweler of pixels.” – David

“Yeah… so… I’m going to go recover my manhood now.” – David, after stepping out of character by giving our newly-engaged Brittainy advice about what is being done with bridesmaids’ dresses these days.

“I’m not about dignity. I’m about results.” – Mom
“That explains so much!” – Christy

“Who, me? Laughing?” – David

“Yes. Whatever else happens, I do want to live forever.” – Christy to David

“There can be internet when you believe!” – David

Smile Moment No. 1 Million

2008-10-15T19:14:00.002-04:00

So I'm driving home from Giant tonight and I see something on the road in front of me that I've never seen before.

There's this very long-bodied half-naked dude (I'm guessing late teens or early twenties, but more on the late teens side) wearing shorts and some kind of a weird string backpack, with long blond hair, just moseying along in the middle of the road on a skateboard.

He was so jaunty and devil-may-care, I had to smile. Especially since my turn was coming up and I did NOT have to slow down for him. ;-)

Ah, the oddities of life.

Baby Shakespeare

2008-10-12T20:09:00.002-04:00

So I signed up for Nursery 2 this year (the one-year-olds in Children's Ministry at church) because Nora belongs to that class. Technically. I'm beginning to have my doubts. During the first week of my tenure I was pulled to go serve in an overstuffed Toddlers classroom (and somebody accidentally yanked the fire alarm---boy was that exciting!), so I only got to spend about 10 minutes with her. This week I wasn't pulled, but when Jess appeared in the doorway with the Lodestar of Our Lives in her arms, it was only to inform me that she fears Nora is getting sick, so my hopes were crushed again.

However, I'm kind of glad they were, because not having Nora there made me focus on getting to know some of the other babies. We had the best class in the world---five adults and seven very well-behaved babies, none of whom cried exorbitantly and all of whom can crawl, make noises, and look adorable. Happiness. :-)

I had fun discussing motherhood with a young mom who was serving, and various education tracks with an older mom who was serving, and ways of solving the energy crisis with a mechanical engineer (husband of the young mom) who was serving, and it was all very pleasant. Then one of the little boys began to kick up a fuss about something, and I went to calm him down, and whoops!---lost my heart.

Again.

I am always falling in love with something. This is a case in point. The baby's name is Jacob and he's medium adorable and has big blue eyes. What absolutely captured me, however, was that he likes to play "Beep" and will grin at a person who is quoting Shakespeare to him.

"Beep" is a noble game of ancient lineage. I beeped his nose in every imaginable tone, beginning with Road Runner beeps and moving on from there. He grinned and beeped back. We had quite an orgy of beeping. Then he tried to climb me (we were seated in a rocking chair) and I let that go on for a little while because babies that age like to do that sort of thing. Then I pulled him off my head and sat him in my lap again and did "Trot Trot to Boston" (nota bene: though his grasp of "Beep" is excellent, he seemed totally nonplussed as to the "we all fall in" aspect of "Trot Trot").

I don't know who started it (let's say he did), but the next thing I knew I was talking nonsense to him the way one does to babies, and all my nonsense came out as random quotes from literature, mostly from Shakespeare. I explained to him very seriously that man is a giddy thing, and we talked about "had we but world enough and time enough" (which is not Shakespeare, but is a poet) and so forth.

Whenever he began to cry (he was a little fussy, I think from being tired or hungry or both, because it certainly wasn't his diaper), I made up or reinstated songs to calm him. In fact, I couldn't seem to stop singing to him. I tried putting him down once or twice, but he very definitely wanted to be held, and to climb me as if I were Mt. Everest, and to be beeped and talked to and sung to. Well, all that I could do. :-)

At last he reached the end of his patience, near the end of the sermon, and became really fussy. Then I turned to Old Faithful, the sink. It might surprise you, dear reader, to discover what a soothing influence running water has on children. He stopped crying immediately and when his mother arrived we were happily splashing. So that was all right Best Beloved Don't You See?

It was exquisitely restful, which is a good thing particularly today because I was up until 2 AM through no fault of work (I foolishly had a cup of coffee and went to see a RedSox game that went until 1:45 AM). Fortunately, I am now well trained to survive on minimal sleep, so staying awake through church was no problem. Then of course somebody had the bright idea of climbing Sugarloaf this afternoon, and I'm pretty sure we picked the steepest trail there is (practically vertical, but no steps: just rocks and slippery dust). Nevertheless, we triumphed, and came out on top and ran into all sorts of people we know and came down again and it was nice.

And that's all! Tune in next week to hear more happy posts from Masterbaby Theater and Special Sunday Report.

Wait a Second...

2008-10-09T19:27:00.009-04:00

About a week ago, I got an email from a dear lady who has become a personal friend---a mom way off in NJ whom I've never met, but who helps me out with feedback on the Lit products that I work on and points out my errors before they hit the national fan. I had been working with her on one such error and she wrote back to give the "all clear." She also said this "I can not even imagine what your days must be like with all you have to do." Well that's a pretty normal comment for people to make, even people who know nothing about my actual schedule. However, she then playfully added,

"Does your husband ever want to crash your computer to get some attention?"

Um.

?

Did I ever give her the impression that I was....

.... you know....

Married?

Yikes.

Suddenly I found myself wondering if there was a husband in my closet that nobody told me about... whether I was married in my sleep... whether, in short, this:

I reviewed my correspondence mentally, and decided that no, there isn't and I wasn't. This is just the sort of assumption that sometimes occurs, especially between friends in the homeschool education community (where, let's face it, just about everybody is married), and especially if those friends have never met in person. I wrote back and 'splained, and playfully reminded her that,

"Single friends are sometimes more fun for married people than married friends. It gives you the opportunity to matchmake."

And I promise you, as a single with two sisters-in-law and a number of married friends, that is the truth. (Married friends, you know who you are. I hope you're blushing right now.) They get a lot more fun out of matchmaking me than I ever will out of being matchmade, but that's okay. I'm here to serve. 0:-) Just let's not go overboard, okay? Avoiding this would be good:

'Cause the fact is, finding "the love of your life" (see subtitle of picture above) is just about the scariest place you can be, short of not being right with God. And I'm not "registering to begin" (see picture above) on it. Not that I ever expect to be ready---I hear it's the sort of thing that happens to you on a "ready or not" kind of basis---but you can see why I'm not jumping onto the roller coaster. ;-) Besides, that lady in the picture looks like she's got a crick in the neck. Is this proof positive that if I do marry it should be a short husband...?

Yes, I'm kidding. They look happy and wonderful and not like a crick in the neck. :-)

Anyway, maybe it's just the soupy love-and-marriage stuff I've been swimming in for the last few days (including the fact that Brittainy just got engaged), but I thought that was hilarious. Also, it fits with my "happy blogs" theme. :-) And finally, whatever else it may be, it was certainly a new one and it had great shock value!

Wow...

2008-10-09T13:37:00.004-04:00

Danya showed me this today. It's a chair and footstool, in case you can't tell. If it were just a little less contemporary and stark, I'd be in love. Even if you could traditionalize it though, I think I'd agree with him: "We'll just Victorianify it up for the next Dinotopia book."

Still, isn't it a pretty cool idea?

Sweetness, Light, and Lucky

2008-10-08T11:38:00.005-04:00

A few days ago I completed one of my semi-annual tours through the backlogs of this blog, and the result is that I'm feeling penitent for a certain lack of "happy posts" in the last eighteen months. Obviously there are reasons for that, but reasons aren't excuses. This blog is overdue for some sweetness and light. :-)

In token of which, I want to share with you a new favorite song of mine. I don't usually flip for love songs, but I had to do something to become reconciled to the romance in Great Expectations, so I gave myself a lethal dose of David's song "Lucky," by Jason Mraz.

I do mean lethal: sixteen or eighteen repetitions in one sitting. But actually it stood up pretty well to that kind of abuse; I still like it. My favorite part of the song, I think, is its completely enslaving folk rhythms. They are right up there with Sixpence None the Richer's "Kiss Me," which I've mentioned elsewhere in the archives of this blog. I'm also quite fond of the chorus in "Lucky":

Lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again

Anyway, all is forgiven, young lovers, and truce to Eros (for now). And those of you who are in love---courting, engaged, married---check out those songs. They are good ones. ;-)

True Confessions

2008-10-07T13:15:00.008-04:00

Every so often, Brittainy and I get on to the subject of sports and activities. To her amusement (and my retrospective surprise), we have discovered that at one time or another in my childhood I participated or was given lessons in a wide range of activities: practically everything except skiing and polo. Here's a partial list:

Girl Scouts
Cleaning (no really, Mom had me go out with professional cleaners a couple of times)
Cooking (in our family this is a three-year crash course which also involves food shopping)
Sewing (yes, I can and have made my own clothes: a few of them)
Flying (honest; they let me steer the plane for a few minutes. SCARY!)
Golf
Tennis
Interior Decorating (including painting and making curtains)
Flower Arrangement
Knitting
Crocheting
Spinning and Weaving (don't ask)
Yoga
Pilates
Air Hockey
Ping Pong
Archery
BB Guns
Paintball
Soccer
Canoing
Kayaking
Sailing
Whitewater Rafting
Marksmanship (they let me fire a handgun, which was heavy, at the CIA. I was very proud of hitting my man-shaped target right in the heart.)
Horseback Riding
Flute
Theater (lots of theater and acting over the years)
Hairdressing (don't ask about that either)
Voice/Choir
Piano
Ballroom Dancing
Swimming
Fencing
Volleyball

It's been a long and varied history, and I'm sure I've left a few things out. Spelunking, backpacking, and wall climbing, for instance. But the first love of my young life doesn't appear on this list either. You're going to laugh, gentle reader, but my first love was ballet.

Yes, ballet. Tutus and slippers and all the rest of it. Between the ages of seven and nine I was permitted to attend a very fine ballet school in Boston, and got to see the Boston Ballet perform the Nutcracker, and was a snowflake and a little Russian girl and all that sort of thing.

I blame my enduring love of dance and music on this early exposure. The reason I mention it now is because one of my all-time favorite ballets, which was made into what is easily my favorite Disney movie, is being re-released. I refer, of course, to Sleeping Beauty.

What I love best about the movie---besides the fact that they miraculously got the cultural feel and the worldview more or less right---is that they used Tchaikovsky's original score from the ballet. And it's coming out again, and is an enduring classic, which just makes me happy. :-)

There are a few things I'd like to do before I die. One is to travel to England and Scotland, the Holy Land and Greece. Another is to ride in a horse-drawn carriage (silly, I know; you'd think I would have done that by now). And the third is to see a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty.

This Is Why

2008-10-05T19:20:00.023-04:00

My friends Shari and Debra ask me every Friday "What are you doing this weekend?" "Work!" I always reply with a grin (admittedly sometimes a wry one). Then they lovingly berate me for not getting more R&R. I appreciate this as a sign of their friendship, though of course I don't usually even attempt to explain what disasters would occur if I took their advice.

Last Friday Debra said to me, "You're twenty-four! You need to... you know.... Be young!"

I had to laugh. "Young? People keep asking me whether I'm Marjorie's younger sister. Really!"

"Well, you look young, but listen to you! You sound old!"

"I am old," I replied, very softly. Then quickly and brightly, "But just wait until I'm done with this Redesign project!"

I don't tell many people what my life is like. I don't really want them to know, because they are kind and they'll be concerned. They worry that I'm letting my heyday pass me by, or that I'm going to get really sick, or that I'm far too busy to spend time doing the things I love (exercise, gardening, long walks outside, pleasure reading, cooking, sewing, theatricals, music), or even normal activities like taking care of myself, going out with friends on a Friday evening (or any evening), finding a guy and settling down, or whatever twenty-somethings are supposed to do.

"I hate it when you say you're married to your job." - Mom
"I'd hate it worse if I were trying to divide my attention between my job and a guy. That wouldn't be fair to anybody." - Me

"Well, aside from changing your job, I don't know what to tell you." - My doctor
"Well, changing my job isn't an option, so I'll keep wearing the wrist guards." - Me

"You need to get a different job so you can have your wisdom teeth out!" - My dentist
"Doc, I promise. Just give me another eighteen months." - Me

"I'm worried about you." - Casey/Jessica/Mom/Brittainy/Shari/Debra/Girls in My Caregroup
"I know." - Me

Somehow, not many people (not counting those who already know the answer) ever ask me why I do it. And that's a shame, because "Why?" is not only a very important question, but it's also the one that I could actually answer. And what an answer I'd give! So, for all of you who worry about me, I'll give it here---now. This is why.

How old was I? Not old enough: a Senior, not yet twenty-two. It was an evening in late November. I was supposed to go see Les Miserables in DC that night, and I sat on my bed waiting for the shower to be free so that I could wash and dress. I was at school; I remember how my dorm windows that semester looked out over the pond. I remember it was almost dark already and the lamps were beginning to glow all over campus.

Against my ear, a cell phone. Mama on the other end. Mom's voice excited, enthusiastic. "Honey, we've just had a big meeting. We're going to do a Redesign project, honey. And we think you're the right person to manage it. You can do your literature revisions too. We want you to consider coming home next semester and working for us."

It was utterly unexpected. No one else was in the room. I remember staring at the wall opposite my bed. I remember thinking of all the people at school whom I would have to leave behind---one or two in particular---the Senior Spring that I would miss---the parties, the gaiety, that last glorious April of childhood. I saw it all so clearly in my mind's eye, as if it had already happened. Being a winter baby, I had always been a little older, a little behind. But now I was being asked to become an adult six months early, and I knew that this April would never, never come again.

It was quiet, but perfectly clear. The Spirit moved in me, and the voice that we Christians know said "Yes." I was so young---I had so little idea of what I would be committing myself to do. But I said "Yes." Like the day six years before when I said "Yes" to the Gospel, it was immediate. Like that day, too, I have never even seriously considered changing my answer.

"But your Senior Spring?" Mom said, concerned already for what I would be giving up. "It doesn't matter," I said. "It doesn't matter. My answer is yes."

When we hung up, I was shaking a little. Four weeks later, I arrived at home for a Winter Break that was not to terminate, as all other Winter Breaks had, in my return to school. Oh, in the months that followed I would return to campus for brief spaces and even live there again for weeks at a time, but I had made an irrevocable transition and nothing would ever be the same. Not for me, and not for the friends from whom I was gradually separated. Not for my fairies, my warm-voiced spirits that lived in the lamps.... not for any of us.

If I had known what I was signing away in this stroke, would I still have done it? I think so. It has cost me dearly, so dearly in mind and heart and friendships and love and time and all else, that if I had had any inkling of the true cost then, I would have shrunk from it in horror. But I would still have had to say yes, for what else can you say to the Spirit?

Besides obedience, however, it is worth asking: "Why do I do it?"

Dear, beloved reader, how can I make you understand? I have no words for this---none adequate for this. What rises before my eyes at three in the morning, when I am bone-weary and stiff and my wrist aches and my mind seems like jello, when my memories crowd in to remind me of all I have foregone, and my enemies whisper "Pity yourself, pity yourself. Look what you gave up and are giving up! Look at how you are spending your youth!" What is it that makes me go on?

Beloved, at first I see the children. I see the quick ones, the slow ones, the talented ones, the ones who feel unsure, the ones who want to love all that is beautiful, and the ones who scarce know what beauty is---those who are already great in their faith and those who, like myself at that age, scarce know what faith is. I see them all and each, and to each I extend my hands, having forgotten completely how they ache: "This is for you. This is so that you will know a little more of beauty, a little more of truth; so that you will see a little more of Christ and enjoy a little more of Him; so that you will be a little better equipped to discern lies; so that you will be a little more satisfied that any experiment in living, no matter how grand, is nothing if it has not God for its basis. It is so that you too, perhaps, will celebrate the Gospel in your stories and poems and plays."

Then just behind the children, I see their mothers. Ah, you queens---you great ladies! Let me to offer you this, humble as it is (and I know as no one else can how really poor a gift it is) for the work that you have accepted from God's hands. My sacrifice is nothing compared to yours, but God grant that it may be a slight support, a hope, an easing of the way, a glimpse of beauty and truth for you too, an encouragement. I honor you, beautiful ones. God bless you!

Children and mothers, I do it for you. And then, when you have been remembered, I have not been forgotten. I am old; bowed down with responsibility and cares beyond my years, true, but also aged by constant contact with the long, strangely lovely, yet also tragic history of the human heart. For I have been given the freedom to wander about these three years in the world's literature, which is the expression of its heart.

How many lives of authors have I touched? How many pangs---joy, grief, struggle, longing---have found an answering ache in my heart? How much artistry has been unveiled to my dazzled and delighted eyes? How many experiments in living have I lived, vicariously, and how much wisdom have they taught me? Above all, how often have I trysted with Christ, always coming upon Him where I least expected to, always finding new cause to call Him best beloved, always, always, always seeing Him at work in the dark places, always discovering Him at the heart of the bright places? How much have I learned to know---to love Him? Oh, much! Much.

From my soul, gentle reader, I will not give up this job unless and until my Lord calls me from it. It is a calling and a ministry. It is a life-work. It is the gift I leave behind, wrought with no great skill (I know this well!), but with all the love that I possess. Dear reader, imagine---what if the children and the mothers see a particle more of Christ's loveliness though my own enthrallment with Him? What if? What if they, by being shown a way, a perspective, that has helped me to adore Him as I do (though not as He deserves!) and adore Him more themselves as a result? What if? And what of my own soul, which is so heated by these fiery trials that it waxes white-hot with love for Him... not always, but often? Is this not worth my youth---any person's youth?

I beg you to believe me. It is.

Let me only stay out of the hospital for one more year, and then you can do what you like with my body. Let my mind only hold together for eighteen more months, and then let it shatter or stand as God wills. Let my heart be cut and cut again by what I read, and by the loneliness of my life, for my heart grows. Let me be plagued with questions, with problems, with deadlines, with sleeplessness. Let me forego the pleasures of my age and situation. Let me (hardest of all) be cut off from the sunlight and the change of seasons day after day.

Let it all be just like that. What though it pains? When did relief from pain become an end in itself? Besides, I carry the sun about with me, down here in the heart of the world, and I will not stop for anything but the Spirit's voice. Let Him say "No" if it is to be no. Let Him say "Stop" if it is to be stop. Or, let Him say "Well done" if it is to be allowed to me to do well---for I know, I know, that if it is well done it was by allowance, by gift, not by anything in me. I have merely had the privilege of sacrificing so that it might come to pass.

Aftermath

2008-10-04T15:08:00.005-04:00

It was a strange night. Something had occurred late yesterday afternoon that troubled me very much, insofar as it touched on an aspect of my interior state of being, the existence of which I have scarce suffered to acknowledge, nor to hear acknowledged, for more than a year now.

It troubled me, as I said. Also, I felt ill---I am sorry to admit that I always do feel a little ill, these days---and weary, and inwardly paining. I went down at 10 PM to work, and I tried to work. No luck. I was restless and unhappy. I thought to lie down on the office couch for a little while... and woke with a start hours later to discover that it was past 4 AM. The noise which I thought had awakened me, which my confused dreams had interpreted as a gunshot, was in fact nothing, or at least not that. (Who was being shot by that gun, in my dream, I cannot remember; but I think it may have been myself.)

I went to bed then, feeling stranger than ever, and more troubled than ever, and fell asleep, and rose, and worked again, all without being able to shake off my interior confusion and complexity. I felt that if anybody so much as tried to speak to me, I should turn on that person and out of my own hurt make myself as fiercely hurtful as I know how to be (which is, sadly, a good deal, and is, sadly, the way a perception of my own vulnerability often takes me).

It was in this state of mental and emotional distress that I at last took up my book and went outside, seeking, like the wild thing I often feel myself to be, for the refuge common to wild things everywhere: sweet-smelling grasses and quiet and sunshine, and the quick bright movements of beetles, and the slow trundling of ants, and the thrum-thrum-thrum of life, and the gold-on-green of sunlight in the trees.

I tried to pray, and did my duty by my book, and lay whole minutes together without moving so that I could explore the feeling of sunshine on my face. I emptied my mind of everything except God and the sound of the breezes, and did much better for it. What a strange creature I am, that I should find beetles and a breeze more comforting at such times than human beings.

Perhaps it is because I know that the created world is much larger than I, and that I cannot hurt it, as I can hurt people when in this vulnerable state and feeling like a wounded and caged falcon. I do know that I never find myself so irrationally distrustful, so sure of being attacked by everybody, or so desperate to get away from the voice and touch of my own kind, as when in that state, as if they were all my mortal enemies. At such times I almost think, perhaps I am not entirely human after all.

Anyway, it was got through somehow, and is better now. As to the original source of my trouble, that is not gone away nor is like to, but on the contrary is expected to grow more difficult in the months ahead. However, this present struggle is past and I can bear to be seen, talked to, and touched again.

I suppose we all wonder at times why God made each of us as He did. I know I do, always most especially after a long bout with this particular mood. It rather leads me on to question, not precisely my sanity (I do believe I am sane), but the fierce passions I find raging in myself, and the equally fierce fears. What has ever been done to me, that I should be so mistrustful? Nothing! Nothing, ever. My life has been remarkably sheltered and I have always been most tenderly loved. Yet here is this thing, this belief, this strong impulse to hold everybody off at a distance, which invariably comes over me strongest when I feel myself most in need of help and love.

Well, it is a mystery to me. But since it has been with me for as long as I can remember, and shows no signs at present of diminishing, I suppose I must just go on living with it inside me and trying to oppose it with as much truth as I know, and as much strength as I am given. I will say this: it is much less terrible than it was before I knew Christ. Before Christ, I wanted to die (not to commit suicide, but just to die) while this mood was on me. Now, after Christ, I merely want to get far away somewhere and feel safe.

And shall I ever feel really safe, among human beings? Shall I ever feel as if I really belong to this race made in the image of God, into which I was born and yet from which I feel so often and so profoundly alienated? Shall I ever be able to accept love without question, or express trust without reservation?

God help me, I don't know.

Life with Dickens

2008-10-01T13:57:00.005-04:00

These days I feel not unlike Dickens himself in this unfinished picture by Robert W. Buss (Charles Dickens daydreaming, with phantoms of his many novel characters appearing around him). My days and nights and dreams are as full of Dickens's characters as his own appear to be.

Pure Worship

2008-09-28T21:10:00.005-04:00

It was a wonderful sermon; dearer than ever. How I love to hear Jeff preach! But even the sermon paled in comparison to this morning's corporate worship. They had full choir of 30-50 people, and they taught us a new song "Glorious and Mighty."

We were supposed to sit throughout the choir's rendering of the song and then rise to sing it together. Well, by the time they were nearing the end, there were individuals all over the auditorium already standing, silent, hands raised in an attitude of utter worship. I think the rest of us had tears on our cheeks; I know I did.

I thought that all my passion had been slowly drained away by the last eighteen months. I thought I was too tired to ever feel much of anything again. I've never been so glad to be so wrong!

I don't know what it was, tune or words or the joy of the singers, or the testimony and baptism that we witnessed just before they began to sing... or all these things. Certainly there was the Holy Spirit. I know that I have seldom had a worship experience which so nearly approximated my imagination of Heaven. We threw our voices up, lifted our hands, and sang, as if we could never get enough of praising God.

Dear reader, it was lifeblood. It was joy and flame and air in our lungs and stars blazing and crowns flung down on the glassy sea and God's robes of splendor filling the temple. It was trembling and adoration. It was ecstasy. It was, in a word, worship. Pure worship.

The human soul has its longings. I often find myself agreeing with Piper that God is the Gospel, in the sense that the Gospel's greatest gift is the satisfaction of the soul's deepest need and desire: God Himself.

Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua, et sapientiae tuae non est numerus. et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia superbis resistis: et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae.tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.

"Great are you, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is you power, and your wisdom is infinite." And man desires to praise you, for he is a part of your creation; he bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that you resist the proud. Still man, only a small part of your creation, desires to praise you. You have spurred him on so that he should delight to praise you, for you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Augustine, Confessions, Book I

Garden of Bright Images

2008-09-25T22:39:00.005-04:00

When I was a freshman at college---how long ago that seems now!---there was a picture on the wall. This picture:
The canvas was simply huge. It must have been about 8 feet by 6 feet, and it hung on the wall on the dias in the dining hall. In other words, it dominated the little elevated platform in a corner of the busiest room on campus, where I spent most of my time.

As a freshman, of course, I didn't study there. I wouldn't have dared. But they set up registration under that picture my very first day on campus, and it presided over my swearing-in as a student. For the next six months, as a self-outcast freshman who did nothing but study, I would sometimes go and stand in front of that picture and try to make it swallow me.

Later, surrounded by happier camaraderie in the heyday of my sophomore year, I and six friends would hold meetings of the Green Apple Club there at dinner. I suppose it was during those hilarious meals that the idea of stepping into the picture was first suggested. The seven of us took turns writing an adventure in which we all found ourselves inside the picture, a la The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was silly and magnificent.

Under that picture, in my junior year, I became editor of a school literary journal. Under that picture I sat in endless planning sessions for various theatricals that I was involved in, from lowly hairdresser's assistant to director in the course of four years. Under that picture I cared for many a dear friend, and there my friends came to minister to me. Under that picture were moments of triumph, emails of good grades and news of two brothers' engagements and happy times at home. Under that picture too was pain, ended friendships and conversations that left me filled with quiet agony, and piled-up moments of suspense, hope, disappointment... all receding at last into memories, as if they were waves falling back on themselves in ripples on the shore. And once, I sat there with a sprained ankle.

Through it all (and oh, how the memories press in on me!) there was that picture. I suppose you could say that it became my separate Eden, my world apart, the place where my imagination liked best to wander: my garden of bright images. It's strange how a picture or a tune or a movie or a book does that sometimes; how it becomes a part of your life. Since I was fourteen I've been playing on the piano a simple melody that I elaborated from something my brother taught me, and it has become the melody of my life for good or ill. Since I was eighteen I've held this picture, like a door or magic portal, in a special place in my mind. When I need to run away and hide, this is where I go.

And it doesn't matter, you see, whether or not I tell you these things. I don't have to be afraid, or worry about whether or not to trust you with this piece of myself. You can't touch it; you can't follow me there; you can't take it from me. It's safe.

It's beautiful too, isn't it? I've scaled the mountain in the center in every conceivable season and at every time of day, from each different side and angle. Personally, I find it easiest from the left, but more exhilarating from the right. I've swum in those waters, especially of a summer evening when the stars are singing and turning in their spheres for love of God. I've sat under the tree in the foreground, half in shade and half in sunlight---Oh, I don't know how many times!

When I was twenty, I went backpacking in the Rocky Mountains---the same range depicted in this picture---and what do you think I found? A real lake and a towering mountain behind it, not as grand as the one in the picture, but in other respects strikingly like. I sat on the banks of that lake for a whole day, as you can read about elsewhere in the archives of this blog, and learned things about God that struck deep into my soul and have worked themselves into the foundations of my being.

I will tell you what I learned from the picture, and from the day I spent really in the picture. I learned that God not only is, but is trustworthy.

And that's what I go back to remember, in my waking dreams and memories, when I step over the picture frame.

In Celebration of My Married Sisters

2008-09-20T09:01:00.003-04:00

There are five Somerville girls in my family: myself, my little sisters (17 and 21, both still in college), and my married sisters (24 and 21, married to two of my brothers).

I adore my college girl sisters, but just now I want to write in praise of my married sisters. Any girl who has been especially close to her brothers knows how hard it can be to give them up to other, and closer, best friends. But not every girl, I suppose, is as thrice-blessed as myself in return for the sacrifice. My married sisters, Jessica and Casey, fill me with joy and thankfulness.

You might say, "What need have you of two more sisters? You've already got two!" Ah, yes, but after a few years with my two new sisters, I wouldn't give them up any more than I would the two I have had for more than a decade. Who would willingly give up Jessica's gentle wisdom and playful warmth? Who would agree to spend less time with Casey, who is ten girls in one and can skip lightly from playmate to counselor to fairy princess?

We have, in the words of a book I am reading right now, such larks! I will give you an instance. Last Sunday, when we were all at the parental house, the boys and Dad were watching football, and the three of us somehow wound up on the same couch across the room, reading books. (Nota bene: my father and brothers are NOT the kind of guys who ignore their wives/sisters/daughters for sports. We gladly gave them up to their game, and they were mindful to serve or entertain us in an instant, should we have asked. So it was all comfortable and not wretched at all.)

By and by (I do not remember how it started), one of us suggested that we get our own movie to watch upstairs. The others agreed, but since all our movies are in storage preparatory to moving, we decided to run over to Nate's house (my sole remaining unmarried brother) and borrow from his several-hundred-movie collection. Then the kissing wars started. You see, neither married couple has any idea of what it means to separate, for however brief a span, without kissing. I don't know where they got this notion, unless it was from my parents, who are just the same way after many years of marriage.

Well, anyway, Mike kissed Jessica and then Casey kissed David more romantically, so then Mike and Jess started in again, and for a moment or two there was a playful competition and quite an orgy of embracing. It is the most entertaining thing in the world, dear reader, to have married siblings in a household where frequent kissing is not only expected but absolutely welcomed and encouraged by long tradition and parental example.

Then we three went trippingly down the driveway, all young and happy in the sunlight, and I thought (for the millionth time) that God has blessed me beyond reason or imagination. In the car I began to share with my sisters about something that has been troubling me a good deal, and immediately they were my wise and sympathetic counselors, full of biblical thoughts and kindness. The memory of it has the power, even now, to move me almost to tears.

When we arrived, the playfulness began again. "Mike says that you always wanted to watch the Ten Commandments when you were kids, Christy."
"Yeah, all right, I was a sucker for the historical epics. What can I say?"
"Where are all the chick flicks?"
"Nate has chick flicks? All I see is war movies."
"I think it's because I already borrowed all the chick flicks."
"Jessica!"
"What about this?"
"You've got to be kidding. What we want here is fluff, not drama."
"These are all too serious."
"Well, what about this one?"
"Strictly Ballroom. Never heard of it."
"It's a cult classic, like The Princess Bride."
"I never really liked The Princess Bride."
"Whoa! You don't?"

After a protracted discussion, and since there was absolutely nothing else, Jess and Casey agreed (with a certain amount of skepticism), to give the Australian cult classic about ballroom dancing a try. I had a good deal of confidence in the movie's power to please, mostly because I've never met a girl who didn't like it. However, my sisters are pretty discriminating and have well-defined tastes in movies, so it wasn't without doubts that I staked my reputation for movie recommendations (which isn't much of one, so I didn't have all that much to lose) on Strictly Ballroom.

Well, when we got home of course the boys' first question was "What are you going to watch?" We told them. David immediately bit his lip and looked anxiously at his wife. "You don't think she'll like it?" I queried. He looked at her. "Well.... no, I don't. Um...just remember that it's an indy, Case." (Later, he admitted that he thought she would hate it.)

So we toted the movie upstairs to my big screen and watched it. Just as things were starting to get romantic, Mike joined us (his football game being over). My brothers are both very well acquainted with this movie, and Mike exclaimed at one point "Oh, this is my favorite part coming up."

"You know this movie? Why didn't you tell me about it!" This from Jessica, who by now was quite engrossed. Casey too. We all laughed a good bit at the mockumentary style of the beginning, but this movie has a way of drawing you in, step by step, until all at once you find that you've fallen in love with it.

Well, a few minutes later the battery died on the laptop we were using, so we switched to the downstairs TV. David had been just coming up, and he immediately joined us. (David likes the movie too, but of course he would have joined us in any case, because that's where Casey was. Married people are like that.) The two couples snuggled up on two couches, much to my private amusement, and watched the end of this surprisingly powerful story about intergenerational redemption, romance, and above all dancing.

"Did you like it?" David asked Casey.
"I loved it!"

Jess liked it too, and my brothers were pleased to discover that their wives enjoyed a movie that they had enjoyed for years. I must admit, I was pleased with myself for having made the gamble to promote it---but I was more pleased that they enjoyed it, regardless of whose idea it was.

So Jack had Jill, nought went ill, and everybody wound up embracing on the dance floor. Or, as Shakespeare did not put it, "hugs and kisses all round." Now, dear reader, who could fail to appreciate such sisters? In the space of just a few hours, they were playful, wise, romantic, humble enough and game enough to take a plunge on an odd-looking movie, and willing to share all they have to give in warm and loving friendship with me, while simultaneously loving my brothers like everything.

Jess and Casey, I think you are the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, funniest, most glorious married sisters a girl could have. Thank you for being so good to me!

My Kids

2008-09-18T03:27:00.006-04:00

It's 3:30 AM and even though I should so very very very much be in bed right now, I'm riding too high on Starbucks and the weekplan I just finished to hit the sack yet. Note, however, that Whitman is affecting my prose---I'm writing slangy. :-P

I don't think that any of my co-op kids have discovered my blog yet, which is a good thing because what I'm about to say would swell their heads something tremendous, and I'm saving that for Christmas encouragement notes. I don't subscribe to the theory that a teacher should never crack a smile or a joke until Christmas (at least, not when you have four moms in the back of the room who are ready and willing to crack heads for you), but I do believe that personal authority has to be maintained somehow (my preferred method is by keeping an Evil Overlord persona up my sleeve---my left sleeve, of course), and anyway it's a little too early for them to relax into the realization that I think they're fabulous. It might lull them into a false sense of security vis-a-vis their grades.

So, thus far I've confined my enthusiasm to the corners of their quizzes and emails to their mothers, and that's how it should probably stay until they fully understand that my being preposterously fond of them doesn't mean I'm going to go soft (because after all, going soft wouldn't benefit them).

However as I said none of them yet know about the existence of this blog, and I have to tell somebody or burst. Guess who's elected, dear reader? That's right. You are.

I will give nicknames to all parties in order to protect both the innocent and the guilty. I have thirteen students and four student teachers. (These are actually parents of students learning from me about how to teach literature, if you can believe that. Them learning from me? Try the other way round!) Anyway, when I first counted them---the students, not the parents; but they are four moms in case you were curious---at the beginning of my first class, I turned to one of the moms and said, "Ah. Thirteen. That's a lucky number."

Of course at that point I was shaking (note to self: how can I still be shaking at the beginning of a new endeavor after all those times teaching co-op?), so it was a pretty weak joke, but yes, I will confess it here (and never to my kids, at least not until we've all been together for a year), I was feeling intimidated.

I go about this vilely. Let me back up to my moms for a second. As I said, they form a quartet... or, if you prefer, a quatrain. Each week I meet with them for half an hour before class, then conduct class for an hour and a half. (Then incidentally I have another two-hour meeting with a coworker right after that. I lead all three meetings. Yeah. Let's just say that I come home utterly exhausted on Fridays.) My moms are, basically, the best. Three of them are three of my favorite people on earth (I'll call them Faith, Hope, and Love, which are appropriate names, believe me), and the fourth is a lady I don't know very well, but she's smart and has done a terrific job with her own kids, so I've got plenty to learn from her (let's just call her Lady).

So we kick it for half an hour and have all kinds of fun. I'm planning to tell them this coming Friday that the invisible three-ring Venn diagram we drew on the board last week (nota bene: bring whiteboard markers!) is actually the literary version of a three ring circus. It's great fun to talk shop about what and how and classroom this and students that, and have I mentioned yet that I learn tons from them? You wouldn't believe. Oh, and the best part is that everything we do right is one more thing I can add to the "Teaching R Lit" doc that I'm compiling for the Loom. Sweetness and light for moms all over the country! I love it when stuff works on two or three levels at once. :-D

Okay, so then the kids. By now I'm well warmed up but also starting to reach for my water and looking for a place to kick off my shoes. My kids are used to this now, I hope. Somehow I can only teach in shoes for so long, and being as it were at home with these people, I take the liberty of losing the leather as soon as I think of it after class begins.

(Oh, by the way, there's a piano in my classroom! Do you know how long it's been since I last had a chance to tickle the ivories? ::happy sigh:: Not that I'll have much of a chance between the pre-meeting, the class, and the post-meeting, but hey, I can still dream!)

Now, back to the kids. I call them O My Students and privately add (and O the Delight of My Eyes!). Thirteen, as I said, and I wouldn't loose a single one to make it a less dangerous number. Call it a baker's dozen, if the thirteen thing bothers you. Three boys and ten girls. Uneven? Oh my yes, and would you believe the guys were silly enough to bunch up in the corner and on the edge of the seating arrangements? You'd think they would have known that I'd want them right under my eye. So of course I stuck 'em smack dab in the middle, flanked by girls from sea to shining sea.

And reader, would you believe it, they are all three fun? Really! One of them is my firebrand---I'll call him Enjolras. He's smart as a whip and likes to test me at every opportunity, but he also takes it almost as well as he dishes it out and I can always count on him for controversy to liven things up. The other two are much quieter: bases to Enjolras's acid. I think of them as Gawain and Galahad. Gawain is a little slower and not the world's greatest quiz-taker, but he's always worth listening to when he makes a comment, and his questions are spang-on. Galahad is quiet but intelligent like nobody's business, and if I could just get him to talk more I think he'd be one of my best and brightest in discussion.

And then there were ten. What was I thinking of... oh yes, the parable of the ten virgins with the oil. I'm pretty sure that that doesn't apply, but at 3:30---no, it's 4:00 now---some loose allusions are to be expected. Well, what makes the girls more confusing is that I've got two sets of twins (none of them are related, but each shares a first name with one of the others). I'll call them .... um.... well, let's say the Annes and the Dianas (Green Gables).

One Anne is dead silent but as determined a student as I've ever seen. If her work isn't perfect, nobody's is. Now if only I could get her to talk more! The other is brilliant and good in discussion, so I find myself working to challenge her. As a point of fact, I'm toying with the idea of splitting the the thirteen into smaller groups of four or five each so that the moms can take turns teaching, but maybe that's next year. In any case, if I do that, I'll handpick my students to be the ones who need the highest level of challenge and can handle the biggest workload, so that they can go as far as possible in the time we have.

The Dianas... well, they're both intelligent and both quiet. In fact, the combination of intelligent and quiet is probably going to be one of my biggest obstacles. Oh, it isn't that my kids don't talk; they do. But I always want more than I have when it comes to talking. I want each of them to say at least one thing that they really want to say each class. That's kind of my goal.

After the Green Gables Girls, I have six left: The Princess (not because she's stuck up, but because she's beautiful and sweet and brilliant and self-contained), Kitten (the name says it all, except for the part about her being one of my most diligent workers), Shy (because she is, and that's saying something in this group: I'm still working on getting her to talk), the Tsarina (she reminds me of a Russian queen), and the two who are actually sisters, whom I shall describe as Margaret and Elizabeth, after the English princesses of the World War II era. They are from one of Those Families where all the children were born brilliant and only want training to do practically anything. All I ask, where they are concerned, is for Margaret to talk a bit more. But by now you are probably sensing a theme on the subject of talking. 0:-)

A word on geography. After making the mistake a dozen times in a row of referring to the place where I teach as if it were out-of-state instead of simply in a different county, I have decided to treat the whole geographical issue in the manner of the English. Where I live is, corresponding to a map of England, London. Where I teach is up north, which would be "the country" in England, or possibly "York" or "Edinburgh," to give it a name. Now the curious thing about the English is that they always speak of going "up" to "town" (by which they mean London), even though this invariably means going south, and of going "down" to the "country," even though this is north.

I therefore have decided to adopt their charming inconsistency (take that my old enemy, the metric system!) and will henceforward refer to going to teach as going "down to the country" and to coming home as "coming up to town."

To return to my kids. Again. Almost 4:30 now, and I must go to bed soon, whether I feel sleepy or not. Anyway, my kids are simply the brightest bunch that anybody could wish, and have such a delightful assortment of personalities for me to learn and love that I sometimes feel quite embarrassed by these sudden riches. I keep waiting for a squad of parents to appear out of the woodwork and say "Ooops, sorry, we didn't realize that you are only 24 and don't know what you're doing. We'll withdraw our children now." Surely somebody ought to do that, but somehow they haven't. Which leads one furiously to ponder....

Is it possible that I shall really have this joy for the next two years?

I must be dreaming already. :-)

Boo Radley's Front Porch

2008-09-15T22:39:00.006-04:00

I'll never forget that line from To Kill a Mockingbird, about standing on Boo Radley's front porch. The gist of it is the importance of being in the other guy's shoes, looking at things through his eyes every so often, etc.

Today, I was coming back to work from something or other (lunch, I think) and Danya said, "Hey, Chris, we've got an intelligent, fun, interesting pagan using Tapestry and writing about it on her blog."

Unique, to say the least. "Shoot me the link," I replied.

After reading her blog and all the comments on it from her friends, I'm inclined not only to agree with David's assessment of this lady but to add descriptives of my own, such as "wonderful sense of humor" and "open-minded" and "what a delightful person!" I was also surprised to discover that there are more pagans (that's their term for themselves, not mine) using TOG than I ever thought.

"This is what Mom always wanted," David said. Yes, I realized, it is. Somehow, God has allowed us to make a curriculum with so much to offer that pagans as well as Christians are using (and enjoying!) it, yet we have not compromised one iota on presenting classical studies from a biblical, gospel-centered worldview. I believe our pagan mom's term for some of our biblical-worldview-based questions is "gag," but that's a good thing. I'd be concerned if I didn't see that comment somewhere. And wow, she's even using some of those biblical worldview questions because she wants her kids to understand the Christian perspective!

My only question now is, does she realize how seductive the Christian perspective can be?

I really, really like this lady. We all do. In fact, I think she's become a sort of This Month's Favorite Mom. In addition to everything else, she's teaching her kids (four boys) Latin and Greek at the same time. How can I not appreciate such a person?

So here's to you, Mom of the One Sixteenth blog! Thanks for letting me stand on your front porch for a few minutes. It's been a little bit strange, but definitely enlightening and encouraging!

The Saga of the Beetle Scrubber: A Cautionary Tale of Deep Philosophy

2008-09-13T21:23:00.003-04:00

Once there was a beetle-scrubber named Gilbert Myle. No finer cleanser of insects existed in all the lands of the earth. Annually this stalwart youth traveled to the fish-market of Sansmens to compete in the Ludi Insectae, and every year he won the prize for beetle-scrubbing.

Gilbert’s charges were the shiniest, best waxed, most elegantly combed creatures in the history of the planets. Rich men brought their pet beetles to Gilbert, where he lived in a little backwater village called Rusticor, and paid him fabulous sums for his effort. Master Myle could have claimed his place in a dozen palaces as a permanent staff-member. Moreover, this young man was an attractive figure, straight-spined and bright-eyed, so that he was the object of much female interest.

Yet Gilbert was not satisfied with justice: the doing of that for which he was best suited. He came of a proud old family, and his father had been a man who bred racing butterflies. The lad felt that beetle-scrubbing was beneath him. This made him surly with the village maids, and churlish with the rich men, and, worst of all, sullen with his mother.

Mistress Myle was one of those women whom one could confidently put forth as Exhibit A in any question of beauty. Although fifty-something, she appeared as fresh as a dewy rose, and not a country-rose at that, but a hothouse rose!

Mistress Myle (her first name was Tabitha, but she felt that this was beneath her) did not tolerate sullenness. Being one of the most beautiful living beings on earth, she felt that surely the rest of the world could make a small effort to live up to her own dazzling charms and at least smile.

Yet Gilbert’s mother – who had married his father because Master Myle Senior’s constant contact with butterflies had made him a man of delicate attentions and exquisite manners – agreed that beetle-scrubbing was no life for her son.

“Gilbert, my son,” she would say, “you must take some of this money which the idle rich thrust upon you, and you must give up beetle-scrubbing.” But Gilbert, although twenty-three and unhappy, had been strictly brought up along Platonist lines, and could not quite bring himself to disregard the perfect justice of his profession.

“Mother dearest, my darling and best beloved only Mother,” he would say, for his father had brought him up to be as perfectly gracious as he himself was, before his untimely demise at the hands of a vagrant and drunken bee (Master Myle Senior was dreadfully allergic to bees), “I know very well that beetle-scrubbing seems to be beneath the son of my father, and I do not deny that I am unhappy in my profession. But Mother, ought I not to make myself happy? If I am truly suited to be a beetle-scrubber, is it for me to overturn The Republic and refuse to be happy, as Plato says that all men engaged in doing what they are best suited to do are happy, and this is happiness defined?” And his mother would shake her head sadly, because she agreed with her son, but did not like it.

So Gilbert brooded, and although he was too conscientious to turn out imperfect work, nevertheless his heart was not in it. Young Myle felt that there simply was not enough in the lot of a beetle-scrubber to challenge and uplift the soul.

“It’s not as if I’m asking so much, am I?” He would ask the well-bucket absently, while pausing from labor to splash a little cool water on his face and the back of his neck. “Is man really meant to plod along dully doing his duty, without any liking for the task? Where’s the pleasure, the passion, the overcoming, the zest?”

Then he would mutter a few discouraged words in Greek, usually from that passage in which Odysseus sat weeping beside the bare horizons of the sea. And Gilbert felt that he too, in his deep heart, had somehow strayed from home.

One day, the area’s itinerant bookseller came to Rusticor. Mistress Myle heard of this while chatting up her butcher for details of his daughter’s housewifely skills, for she had begun to think that only a pretty girl could serve to distract Gilbert from his malaise. Tabitha Myle had no illusions; she knew that there was nowhere in the world a young lady as beautiful as herself. Nevertheless, she had a secret shame. She could not make a good pie-crust. Thus Gilbert’s mother inquired minutely into the pies of the butcher’s daughter.

As she was engaged in this careful questioning, the bookseller’s cry came hazily across the corner of her ear, and this good lady let out a veritable yip of joy. Books! A new book would give Gilbert some blessed relief, for the lad had been brought up well. That is as much as to say, he loved books only slightly less than life and breath.

“Libellum!” She called. “Libellum! I must see your books at once!” Master Libellum waved his fat hands and shook his fat jowls and beamed a smile from every curve of his rotundity.

“Mistress Myle! How exceptionally pleasing, and how multifaceted a joy this is, to proffer my meager booklings for your superlatively beauteous examination!” He drew himself up to an incredible height of five feet and an inch. Then Master Libellum (whose first name, I regret to inform you, was Mordred) dared a thing which he had long wished to dare. He said, “May I comment, may I indeed comment, Mistress Myle, that the pulchritude of your complexion is such as suggests a dewy rose?”

Tabitha, who had heard this comparison applied to herself upon countless occasions, smiled tolerantly. Master Libellum was dazzled. He resolved upon the spot that Mistress Myle should have only the finest and rarest book in his collection. “Try this one, my dear lady.” His perspiring hands left damp marks on the slim volume, but Tabitha could see that it had a limp purple-leather cover and a scripted title, in what must once have been gilt letters.

“This,” she said to herself excitedly, “this must surely be a work of great excellence and importance, for its title was once gilt!” Without pausing to decipher the lettering, Mistress Myle paid the bookseller and ran to her son’s workshop.

“Gilbert!” She cried, “Gilbert, here is a new book!”

Gilbert Myle looked up from his beetle and his tiny scrub-brushes. The expression in his brooding dark eyes (over which the young village girls would sigh for hours together) was that of a man who does not dare to hope.

“A… new book?” He gasped, opening his mouth to goggle more effectively.

“My son, indeed it is!”

Gilbert left his beetles and seized the book which his mother held out to him, snatched it with eager fingers and devoured the first page in twenty seconds. “This is a wonderful book!” He cried.

“What is the title?” Tabitha asked with a slight feeling of guilt, for she had remembered her maternal duty to guard carefully Gilbert’s reading habits.

“It is called Ethics.”

“A most proper book,” approved Mistress Myle, well-pleased. All thought of the butcher’s daughter and her pie-crusts flew from the good lady’s mind.

And so it was that Gilbert Myle came into possession of Aristotle’s Ethics. Had the name of the author not been rubbed from the cover by long usage, and had Tabitha been less anxious to please her son, she might have discovered her iniquitous crime sooner. For she had committed a sin no greater and no smaller than this, that she put her Platonist boy in the way of discovering Aristotelian philosophy.

The result you may easily conjecture. Gilbert devoured the book, and pondered it deeply. He was nearly torn in two by the agitation of his own mind. At last, however, inclination for an escape from the life of beetle-scrubbing, coupled with a profound conviction that Aristotle (because he was so much more systematic and particularized) must have apprehended the truth more nearly than Plato, brought Gilbert to a momentous decision.

“Mother,” he said to his mother. “Alma mater, who brings forth light in her arms for men and frogs alike, whose eyes are the very distillation of the celestially blue skies, whose face in its austere beauty represents the visions that men of old called goddesses…”

Tabitha, who had been born neither yesterday nor the day before yesterday, immediately said, “My son, what unpleasant things have you to relate to me?”

“Mother, I no longer believe that Plato was right in his definition of justice, and I think that he was mistaken also, most grievously, in his understanding of man’s happiness.”

Mistress Myle instantly fainted, and remained insensible for twenty days. At the end of this period, she was recovered enough to receive from her son his impassioned discourses on the virtue of Aristotle, to curse her own lack of foresight, and to resign herself to consequences.

“But Gilbert,” she ventured only once to ask, “What have you now espoused as the proper end of man, of your own life?”

“Why Mother,” responded the youth with surprise, “I thought you knew! Clearly, as Aristotle says, the only perfect thing for a man to do is to think about thinking. To this task I shall now devote myself.”

Tabitha fainted again.

Shortly thereafter Gilbert sold his beetle-scrubbing emporium and became a potato farmer, for the specific reason that potatoes do not require much looking after, and thus he was free to devote the majority of his time to thinking about thinking. In short, he turned Aristotelian. And Gilbert no longer did what he was best suited to do.

This was melancholy. It remained melancholy until Gilbert fell in love with his Phlogistonian fifth cousin, a very comely young girl, whose hairbreadth escape from consanguinity with the love of her life never failed to be, in her words, “a source of constant amazement, for in this we see not only the fixed nature of ether, but fluctuation of the other four elements!”

The only obstacle to their union was, of course, the matter of the fifth cousin’s pie crusts. But that is another story.

The Offender

2008-09-13T15:50:00.003-04:00

Several years ago, this voice cried out in agony in my imagination. I wrote down what he said.

The Offender

Let me out, let me out out out out!
A chemical reaction, that’s me.
Why can’t I face it?
I don’t want to be a silly romantic.
There is no transcendence, O my soul!
The face of my beloved is a skull
Wrapped in rubbery skin
And containing a pair of eyes: blue.

I am not a me, I am an it.
There is no measure to this universe,
This trackless empty wasted space
Of men who millions together struggle as before for:
Item one, food. Item two, reproduction.

Once, I thought – I am ashamed of it! – I thought
That love was… something.
Radiance, or rightness.
And now I have: item one, a body.
Item two, another body.
Item three, a collision of bodies resulting in sensations.

Who is there to let me out? – No one.
It is all chaos, for all things are from chaos,
Are in chaos, and are for chaos.
I am then: item one, so many pounds of quivering flesh.
Item two, so many nerve endings.
Item three, a mind, able to know nothing.
Item four, a something – I used to call it “soul”
Signifying nothing.

Why does it still wail?
Death is no change
Only gloomier fire, more lack of light.
And yet it has: item one, unease.
Item two, apprehension.
Item three, fear.
Item four, terror.
Item five, madness.

Oh God! Why does it still call for God?
How can it still return to that?
It snivels, the coward.
How like a mirror it is, bent on itself
And there is nothing there
Reflecting nothing but itself
And itself a nothing bent on
Reflecting itself!
It is only: item one, mass in kilograms.
Item two, some percent water.
Item three, an object in motion.
Item four, a source of carbon dioxide.
Item five, matter taking up space in four dimensions.
Item six, a collection of atoms.

It has no purpose.
Let it eat, slap, rage, kill, betray, lie,
Fail, spurn, spoil,
Be ill, be crass, be cruel, be dead, be damned!
No one to damn it.
Oh, will no one let me out!

Let it out of what?
Save me! Save me!
Save it from what?
From damnation! I have offended!
No one to damn, no one to be offended.
But I am damned!
How does it know it is damned?

How – O my soul!
I did not see a soul in my beloved’s eyes.
I did not give thanks for food;
I did not honor holy love.
I pleased my flesh;
I seared my nerves with sensation;
I refused to know truth;
I sinned in my soul.
I did not learn from my unease;
I was not driven to question my apprehension,
I did not search out my fear;
I repented nothing in my terror,
I ran mad, responsible for it.
I measured mass, percent, motion,
Source, space, and number of atoms
Without asking – what the purpose?
All this I have done, which was one thing:
Offense, offense!

And I cannot bear it.

Oh, My God...

2008-09-13T15:36:00.003-04:00

Make me not a Job, Lord.
Not that, not, never that!
To question myself Lord,
Endlessly, I can bear that--
But not to question Thee!

The Office: Season 8 --- "Battle of the Bands: Spotty Bananas vs. David and the Respectful Fonts"

2008-09-09T14:51:00.005-04:00

“I know I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but I finally saw the Y3 errata chart. I like it 147.2% better than the one for Y2. You have SUCH a better eye for things like this than I do. Just wanted to give you a ‘Good Job Dana!’ award.” – Ray
“Thanks! I like awards and it has been a while since I got one.” – Dana
“Well you're deserving!” – Ray
“I guess I prefer a gold watch to a nice ink pen, if you are wondering.” – Dana
“Really. Good to know. Not that I'll do anything with that information... “ – Ray

“It’s great that we can all work together as the body of Christ.” – Juli to Dana
“I’m the hangnail.” – Ray

Charity mentioned that her IM buddy icon was a spotty banana, to which Ray replied that he was in a band called "Spotty Banana" ...
"Hey, that 404's. Someone should fix it. Wait, that's me" - Ray, on Charity's message that there was a broken link.
"RAAAAY!! My banana will yammer sternly at you if you do not make happy non-404 noises presently" - Charity
"Stanley Yammer is the lead guitarist for my band, Spotty Banana." - Ray

Later:
"I'm totally seeing a battle of the bands between Spotty Banana and
David and the Respectful Fonts!!!" - Juli

"Everything that has a picture or looks nice is David's work." - Ray

“Amy is getting her lunch. This is tremendously convenient for yours truly.” – David

“You’re supposed to be sleeping” – David to Christy, who is cat-napping on the office floor
“I’m stretching” – Christy
“Slumber dear maid. Green boughs will cover thee” – David, quoting an eighteenth century English song
“Prove it.” – Christy
“Mom, I need to go outside and cut some green boughs now.” – David

On the Computer Mouse
“I hate a weak mouse. Weak mice need not apply.” – Mom
“We will not tolerate weak mice in this office. There will be fewer but better mice.” – David, playing off of a flick called Ninotchka

“Hi. My son is six. Is he too young to apply for the chief advisor position?” – Ray, completely randomly, to Christy on IM one morning
“That all depends. He could be chief advisor to a snail.” – Christy, going with it
“That'd work. Should he fax his resume?” – Ray
“I bet the embassy would take it.” – Christy
“SCOTT JOHNSON
WORK EXPERIENCE
None.
REFERENCES
Mommy and Daddy.” – Ray
“Brilliant. I’m sure the snails will get back to him promptly. They’re polite that way.” – Christy
”So I've heard.” – Ray

“My role models: Matthew (from Anne of Green Gables), the stick figure guy, Sam Gamgee, and the octopus from Oktapodi. None of my models particularly trend towards intelligence, now that I think of it.” – David

“Oh, Christy! Now I know what coquette means! I always wondered, you know, in Enchanted, ‘You are my one coquette.’ I always thought he was talking about an egg.” – Lauren, reading Christy's notes on Les Miserables.

“You get a live animal for your first-year anniversary of working here.” - David
“I want a bunny!” – Amy
"Christy, make a note, Amy gets a bunny. It has to be larger than a rodent though.” – David
"I want a pirahna" - Lauren

“’Cause I would have paid money to see Amy in a turban” – David on the recent Saladin caper and Amy’s tragic absence from it

“You get a gold star.” – Mom to Christy
::Insert indescribable sound of envy and protest from Lauren::
“Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard Lauren have a bad attitude.” – Amy

“I’m just tired of being the only one who ever throws a temper tantrum” – Amy

The natives are getting restless. After all, it is the middle of Unit 2 nine-week insanity. Suddenly, a primitive cry goes up:
"Davy has to go get us Starbucks!" - Mom
“STARBUCKS! STARBUCKS! STARBUCKS!” – Amy, Mom, Brittainy, Lauren, and Christy
"I have to finish these pictures! Brittainy, do you want me to finish these or go get Starbucks?" - Davy, trying to be responsible
"Go get Starbucks" - Brittainy
"You weren't supposed to say that." - David
“Everybody IM David and tell him to go get us Starbucks!” – Mom
“He’s just gonna turn off his IM… see?” – Christy

The madness continues: David is now playing “Causi, Causa” from A Night at the Opera, a Marx brothers movie, and Mom has co-opted a salaried person from Production to go fetch Starbucks because we’re all too busy to go.

"I never said that Brittainy couldn't chant!" - Christy

The Dear Wet of Rain

2008-09-05T21:50:00.004-04:00

It has been a day blessed beyond measure or desert. I came into it so weary, and withal so tightly strung, that the extent to which it went well is nothing short of miraculous. All glory to God for this, and more on it later, but for now I want to tell you about something else God did for me.

I came home from this magnificent, exhausting day, and within an hour found myself helpless in the hands of the worst headache I've had for some time. It gripped my skull just above my eyes and stretched backwards, stabbing in with the careless, cruel, almost personal torture that these things have, as if a Chillingworth had got inside my brain and was amusing himself by slowly destroying it. I finally broke down and took ibuprofen, which is something I do not do at all as a rule because I don't want to become dependent on it for relief from my not-infrequent low-grade headaches.

I lay on the couch for two hours, trying to make it go away. It wasn't the pain (which remained manageable) so much as the persistence that vexed me. Nothing worked. Charity was having a party, and her friends came in and out. One of them, Sean, was looking for Juli. "I want to roll up her windows for her," he said. "It's raining."

"Thank God!" I replied, and followed him outside. I don't know exactly why I did it---but all at once the dear wet black velvet night was there around me, and the musical patterns of the rain fell gratefully on my ears. You who have been outside in the rain, you know that it is possible to breathe music. Merely to stand there was sweet relief, delicious and delicate. I abandoned myself to it, glorying in the drops wetting my wrists and fingers and the bridge of my nose, my throat and eyelids and chin and most of all my throbbing forehead. I turned my arms to catch the drops in the palm of each hand.

And oh, my feet were bare and they touched the wet ground, and oh, my clothes were dry and now they are speckled with dampness, and oh, the lovely cool unexpected wet of rain!---I never knew where the next drop would land, and for just a moment I wanted to laugh with delight at the thought that I was playing a sort of hide-and-seek game with God.

I remember, now that I am back here on the couch, how often when I was melancholy or sad at college I would go and lie down on a bench in the gazebo, if it was raining, and listen to the wet music. Sometimes I tried to trace melodies in it, but more often I simply accepted it as a murmuring symphony too complex to untangle, yet soothing beyond measure. When I see my Lord, I will ask Him, "Christus, Best Beloved, won't you teach me to speak rain?"

Is the headache gone? No. But my heart has gone beyond it, and all my senses are filled with the beauty of a soft late summer night of rain. Sweet gentle friend, Rain, carry my kiss of gratitude on the wind to Heaven, and tell my Best Beloved that I am thinking of Him tonight.

Welcome, Dear Pain

2008-08-24T20:37:00.010-04:00

The last week has been quite a saga, beloved. I don't quite know how to sum it up briefly, but I'll try. On Tuesday, Mama and Dad found an idyllic farm that was for rent and at the same time received an offer for our house. On Wed/Thurs, they counter-offered and finally accepted an offer (lower than what we wanted, but we could swing it) on the strength of hoping to rent this farm, for which we submitted an application. All seemed set in stone; I began to contact farms about buying a horse (and fell in love with one), and we arranged to bring our family out to see the place on Saturday.

We arrived Saturday (ourselves, two live-ins, two cousins, and one married brother with his wife and child, not counting realtors) to find that the present tenants seemed greatly puzzled by our presence there. "But the people who are renting this place are moving in next Friday," they said.

Our hearts plummeted. What had happened was that the realtor responsible for leasing the farm had accepted our application (and application fee) without telling us that it was already rented. And we had accepted an inferior offer for the house on that understanding. We stood around in the yard full of fruit trees and sunlight which will now never be ours, and felt exceedingly awkward because we were numb. Later, we would feel much more than awkwardness.

I don't know, beloved, whether you've ever had your world suddenly turn all golden after a long period of grayness, and then, as though its own brightness were too much for existence, shatter. I don't know whether you've ever seen it happen in the space of less than a week. My poor parents are now in a position of being bound to sell our house (and move by October), but we know not where, except that it shall probably be into suburbia or (still worse) townhouses, which is a thought both dreary and horribly in contrast to the radiant happiness we felt on Friday. What breaks my heart most is how they had their hearts set on this farm. I hadn't seen them so light, so carefree, so happy (my mother in particular) for two years. From that moment until the present, I have scarcely felt for myself---I feel only for them, and that is excruciating enough.

If I were to feel for myself.... well, those who have been reading my blog for a long time can imagine what my feelings would be. You know, beloved. You remember my childhood agony over leaving just such a farm. You remember how it blotted out the sun for me for five bitter years. You know how I felt about horses, how I've missed them now for a decade. You can imagine what it would be like to almost have that rural childhood experience which has shaped so many of my ideals handed back to me---and then not.

But I am not feeling for myself. I won't allow it. I can't, you see. I am hurting enough as it is for my dear ones; were I to add my own pain, it would be beyond my present grace to bear.

In God's perfection (how beautiful He is!), today's sermon was called "Don't Waste Your Suffering." I think we were all in tears at various points, though less for ourselves than for Jon Smith, who in preaching narrated the tragic loss of his infant son, a child that had a rare defect and died---suffocated slowly to death---just a few hours after being born. Our pain is nothing to that of the Smith family, but it was so good, so helpful, to hear from a man who knows what suffering is.

Since this is not my first, nor yet my second or third deep experience of suffering, nothing that Jon said was really new---but to hear something new is not the point. The point is to hear, to be reminded of truth. Phrases, snatches of songs and scripture, and bits of wisdom came crowding back to me. Strength and hope, memories of lessons learned, flooded in at the cracks of my blackened mind, and work most powerfully. I still breathe---miraculously, my soul even sings and exults. How strange it is to follow Christ, who crowds out of one's heart everything but His own sweetness!

Therefore, though you may think it strange, beloved, I say, "Welcome, dear pain!" For since I have known Christ, there has never been a pain which did not draw me still to Him, and that is a blessing worth any cost. I touch God's face at such times. Give me therefore more pain, if more is more of Him, as it is. Burst my heart if necessary; I give it freely to be burnt, for then it goes to Him, for Whom it was made. There are delectables hidden in this bitter pill.

Never fear, beloved. God knows what house, what place, what purpose He has. We will survive. Pray only this: that we survive with joy. He deserves nothing less, and what could be more to our truest happiness?

"Why Aren't You My Mommy?"

2008-08-21T20:04:00.002-04:00

I just came from Nora's room. After half an hour of sobbing, rocking, singing, and fanning (thank God for fans on hot August nights!), she is at last asleep.

Nora is in the clingy stage, the "Why aren't you my mommy and what have you done with her?" stage. Every so often she would leave off crying long enough to look at me, and perceiving that I was not her mother, began to scream again.

Ah, well.

Soon enough I will be teaching her to ride her first pony, and to make apple pie and sew cross-stitch samplers. Soon enough we will be playing dress-up and having piratical adventures on the high seas. All too soon she will be grown, this darling of my heart, and her wide green eyes will be full of intelligent, educated, godly (we devoutly hope!) purpose.... whereas now they are full of tears and rage.

Still, even at this age and this stage of ira in absentia parentorum (as I have decided to call it), there are sweet moments. I DON'T mean the moments when I am trying to give her her bottle between screams---those are the moments where you want to have your phone on 911 standby for a choking baby. No, the ones I mean are those few precious moments after she's too tired to mind that you aren't her mommy, but before she is quite asleep.

You know what I mean: the minutes when it is enough that you are a singing, rocking, back-rubbing person who says "I love you" over and over again. At last, after two hours of patient effort, there came a few seconds when she looked at me and didn't burst into tears. And then there can a time when I stopped singing and rubbing her back, and she looked up to make sure I was still there.

An aunt can live a long time on the memory of such seconds.

The Office -- Season 8: "Ray is Moving to Humpty Doo"

2008-08-20T10:56:00.010-04:00

"That's it. I'm moving to Australia. There's a city in the Northern Territory named "Humpty Doo." - Ray, reviewing one of David's maps on Australia

"good idea,." Ray (via IM, responding to Dana's suggestion)
"That was an extra comma for you ... no charge." - Ray
"wow, that's a true bargain. You won't believe how much the other commas were." - Dana
"I buy them in bulk. The problem with the Sam's Club commas is sometimes they put an apostrophe in the carton. No quality control." - Ray

“Well, you know, once you work your way past the stress reflex, a whole new world of sanctifying experiences opens up." Christy, misquoting Ratatouille (Emile: "You know, once you work your way past the gag reflex, a whole new world of taste sensations opens up") on the subject of insane deadlines.

“Christy. Frameworks is done.” – Brittainy
“YES!! WOOHOOO! Everybody pay attention! Frameworks is DONE!!! That’s two years of work, baby!” – Christy, reaching to turn on the “Celebration” song that we reserve for these moments
Sixty seconds later…
“Christy, can you turn down the music?” - Amy
“Two years, Amy!” – Christy
“Yes, but I’m trying to communicate with Brittainy” – Amy
Twenty seconds later…
“Mom, come look at something.” – David
“No, I want to feed my fish right now!” – Mommy, cutely
“Boy, everybody is being petulant today.” – Christy

"So let it be written, so let it be done. Emphasis on the "done" part. That’s gonna be the theme for the End-of-Redesign project party.” – Christy

"I don't think of you as a beer-bibber. I don't think you have a beer bib." - Dad to Christy

“You hate our guts…” – Christy, singing aloud to the recalcitrant printer
“I don’t either.” – David, walking into the room
“You do, you do!” – Christy
“I love your guts.” – David
“I wasn’t even talking to you.” – Christy
“You have cute guts.” – David

“Gentlemen prefer blondes and moms prefer audio. That’s just the way it is.” – Christy on presentation of information to Tapestry customers

“You bolded your name just because it looked better, didn’t you?” – Christy to David
“Yup.” – David
“You’re such a font nerd.” – Christy

“Don’t use a minced oath when a real one will do. If you’re going to sin, sin boldly. None of this mincy hypocritical pussy-footing around.” – Christy

“Ray and I concur: ‘Gesundheit’ was invented so that the sneezing person wouldn't feel lonely.” – David

“Do you know what we use generators for around here?” – Christy to David
“For our little scaly friends.” – Lauren, referencing the fish

Marcia’s Lessons for Life: “If you’re a guy and a girl is having problems, come and hover. You may not lift a finger, but she’ll feel cared for. If you don’t, or if you offer to help from your seat, you’ll look callous.”

“That’s right. You can’t lose anything by hovering, and you get huge points for being sympathetic.” – Christy
“I know plenty of teenage guys who got into a lot of trouble by hovering.” – David
“That’s because they like the girl.” – Christy
“Those are teenage guys, not big strong men.” – Mom

“Well, I guess that would be the English pronunciation…” – Christy, in tones of disappointment
“Which is the language you speak.” – David
“Not by choice!” – Christy

“Mommy, I’m really really sorry…. For myself” – David

I Looked Again

2008-08-13T11:45:00.002-04:00

Today I looked again at Canto XXX of Dante's Paradiso. And now I can scarcely breathe, or feel past the feeling of utter delight. Oh, beautiful Trinity! Oh, dear poet, how richly you have blessed us with your reminder of the glorious beauty of the happy God!

Just Like Himself

2008-08-09T09:06:00.004-04:00

There is something important which I always forget about hitting rock bottom as a Christian, which is that just about the time you get to the lowest circle of Hell, the whole world flips on its head and you see a light on the other side. (It's all in Dante.) Are you still at the center of the earth? Absolutely. Is it still an impossible climb? Definitely. Are you more weary than you thought possible? Of course! But still... you reach the bottom, and God is waiting there. All doubts, all stress, all exhaustion, all illness, all grief leads to this pure and lifegiving thing: God is there.

I woke today, and He was there, just sitting on the foot of my bed, looking like Himself.
"Hi," I said, very softly.
"Hello, dear heart."
"It's going to be all right, isn't it? Now that you're here?"
"It's going to be better than all right."
I wanted to cry. "I'm glad you came."
He looked sideways at me with a certain smiling way he has that makes me feel about four years old and more than usually forgetful of Important Things. "I'm glad, too."
And then I really did cry, against his shoulder, for all my foolish misery of the last six weeks. Then we talked and talked, and laughed, and remembered, and hoped. At last he rolled up his sleeves, and said "Now then, what's to be done today?"

Today we came to work together. And that will make all the difference.

The Office: Season 7 Finale --- "Samuel Appreciation Weekend"

2008-08-08T09:47:00.009-04:00

We told him that it was "Saladin Appreciation Weekend," part of our office effort to be culturally aware.

This was a massive lie. It was actually Samuel Appreciation Weekend" (or, as David likes to call it, "Samuel Abscondence Weekend" and "Samuel Adieu Weekend").

It was my fault. I woke up Thursday morning and, in an effort to force myself to get out of bed (it had been another late and discouraging night), I prayed "Lord, I need help."

Help came in the most unexpected form. A mental image of Sam in a turban bloomed in my mind, and as I chuckled over it to myself in the mirror, suddenly the thought occurred: Why not?

After all, it was his last two days in the Office...

And so began another brilliant success in the history of Office pranks, which is a grand tradition stretching back to Laura's Love Note. I called David first, of course, and then asked the parents for their blessing, because that is how Somerville children are to do their pranking: ask Mom and Dad to make sure it isn't stupid or harmful, and if they don't veto it (which rarely happens), they'll help you make it better.

P.S. Dad, thanks again for getting me the duct tape for the "Marriage Mart" banners at college. I'll never forget that, and it (among many other things) automatically makes you the coolest Dad alive.

With their blessing (Dad didn't believe it would work and Mom was reluctant, but they gave it nevertheless) I talked to Brittainy and the girls, I IMed Juli, Ray, and Dana, and I called Peter. My phone was tragically toasted at the time, so David called me on Marjorie's cell. Every time he called, the prank got bigger and better. Originally, we had simply intended to all wear turbans and finagle Sam into wearing a hot pink turban for a nonexistent Office tradition.

As the idea grew, it became Saladin Appreciation Weekend and we realized that by duping Sam into wearing a turban on the first day, and then telling him that everybody was supposed to come in full desert regalia on the second day, and then by coming on the second day in normal clothes ourselves and having him be the only one in costume... well, you get the idea.

We had exactly one hour.

It worked. And he was actually much happier about it than he looks: this is his "I'm cool" picture. “I’d say the pink is pretty hot” was his comment.

Sam’s status message, two minutes after I told him what day it was and wound a hot pink turban around his head "because all the other ones are taken" was “Saladin is the Bomb Diggity!”

Responses:
“I almost swallowed my pop when I saw your away message.” – Ray to Sam (who, of course, was in on the joke)
“Your status message just about captures the dignity and respect of the thing.” – Juli to Sam on his status message (she was in on the joke too)

“I have a whole hour and a half of this music,” – Sam on the pseudo-Indian-Arab music that he has put on for “Saladin Appreciation Weekend”

“The nice thing about Sam is that he enters into the spirit of things.” – Christy

“For want of a digital camera, the picture of Dana in a turban was lost.” – Ray
“Dude, he needs to get a digital camera!” – Christy

“Tomorrow, we tell him that SAW actually stands for Samuel Adieu Weekend or Samuel Abscondence Weekend.” – David on IM to Christy
“Perfect” – Christy

“SAW delights the spirit as carbuncles of great price delight the wise and noble merchant!” – David's status message

“Your chances of pulling this off stand at about 0.” – Dad to Christy
“Pessimist. I’ll have you know that he’s already bought it and is wearing the hot pink turban that I provided for him’” – Christy (about Sam)

Throughout the day, IM status messages abounded with Saladin jokes, pronunciation guides, and history-of information. We are such education geeks. Here are a few of the more artistic efforts:

a famous announcer named Madden//while relaxing in his luxurious den//was drinking his bourbon//and put on a turban//and said "look at me! I'm Saladin!" – Sam’s first try at a limerick in honor of Saladin Appreciation Weekend

Depression had so gripped John Madden//that his wife, who was anxious to gladden//poured him some bourbon//and made him a turban//and said "Look, my dear, you're Saladin!" – David and Sam, a second limerick

And on the second day, the results of all our combined efforts and enjoyment: Sam Being Surprised

Lawrence of Arabia. It's just sickening that he looks so good in that outfit! And here's the "Nice one, guys. You got me" look (at the end of Day 1 we had taken pity on him and provided a blue turban).

I'd like to say for the record that Sam has been a fine and splendid sport throughout. We had confidence that he would. Thanks for being humble, Sam! We'll miss you while you're off at school, and don't forget that we've booked your life for next summer. :-D

Amy walked in, having been gone throughout these proceedings, and added the perfect concluding comments:

"You fell for that? I wouldn't have fallen for that!" - Amy to Sam
"Amy, think about the people in this office!" - Sam, meaning that we would actually do something as absurd as Saladin Appreciation Weekend
"Exactly, Sam! Just think about the people in this office!" - Amy, meaning that we would totally pull this kind of prank.

And you know... they're both right.

Here are a few other quotes from the days immediately preceding SAW... before any of us know what the dawn of Thursday would hold. Some of these are strangely prophetic.

“I need you all to be especially funny for the next few days so that I can do a season finale.” – Christy
“When does the season end?” – Sam
“When you leave.” – Christy
“So I’m the season finale!” – Sam
“You’re more like the cliff-hanger.” – Ben

“David.” – Sam
“Yeah?” – David, rocking thoughtfully in his chair
“You’re making noise.” – Sam
“Yeah.” – David
::Pause::
“Sam’s good at identifying stuff.” – David

Sam editing the Office Quotes…
“Here I sit, trying to serve the office and boost morale by keeping a quote book, and all my office-mates are critics!” – Christy
“You missed a quotation mark.” – Sam
“You know what Sam, you don’t deserve me…. And I definitely don’t deserve you.” – Christy

“The rest of the world has accepted my full disclaimer that I sometimes have to re-arrange, add to, or slightly reword things in order to make them understandable for our reading public. The rest of the world is fine with this. But you…” – Christy to Sam

“What was that other infinitesimal and completely non-essential bit of punctuation that I failed to capture immortally, O Editorial One?” – Christy to Sam on a quote book quote
“You missed a line break. It makes it look like it’s one long section.” – Sam
“Your death will be slow and painful.” – Christy

“You missed a line break on this one quote…” – Sam
“SAM! I will smite you! Why do you do this to me when you know how much sleep I’m on!?” – Christy
“Sam, if you mess with Christy’s mental state, I will mess with your mental state.” – David

“If you’d get on IM, Sam, I could send you this quote so that you can check it for errors.” – Christy
“I am on IM. Didn’t you get my new screen name?” – Sam
“Oh. Yes I got it, but I didn’t put it up on my buddy list.” – Christy
“Too lazy, huh?” – Sam
“No! It’s part of my ongoing vendetta against your person, being, and soul!” – Christy, exasperated
“Christy!” – Mom
“I was driven to it, Mom! You haven’t been down here for the last ten minutes!” – Christy

Later…
“Thank you, Sam. That was actually rather cathartic and helpful.” – Christy

“Can I kill him, please?” – Christy to Brittainy about Sam
“No. I’m using him.” – Brittainy
Later…
“Are you done using Sam yet?” – Christy to Brittainy
“No. I need him for at least the next three days.” – Brittainy
“But after that he’ll be gone!” – Christy
“You can kill me on Friday night…” – Sam
“Sam! Don’t tell her that!” – Brittainy
“She was trying to keep you alive, man.” – Christy

“Have you seen Herbie the love snail yet today?” – Mom

The Office: Season 7 -- "Man is a Wack Job"

2008-08-05T12:43:00.005-04:00

“So you’re leaving us in a week. Traitor.” – Christy to Sam
“Christy! No he isn’t!” – Brittainy
“Everybody takes his side.” – Christy
“That’s because you make the most outrageous statements and they need balancing.” – Brittainy
“I was saying that I would miss him. He knew what I meant.” – Christy
“Well, yes…” – Sam
Later…
“See! Sam is mean to me too! This is a two-way street of meanness.” – Christy
“And I rebuked him, didn’t I?” – Brittainy
“Yes, but you didn’t slap him.” – Christy
“Well, I don’t slap you when you’re being mean to Sam!” – Brittainy
“Let’s be honest, here: can any of us really see Brittainy slapping anybody?” – Amy

“David called me three times from the beach. I figured it was important, so I went outside to call him back. But he said he just called me to find out what ‘avuncular’ means.” – Sam
“What?! He should have called me. Now I’m jealous.” – Christy
“I told him I’d look it up.” – Sam, going to look it up
“It means ‘like an uncle’” – Christy
"Oh." - Sam
“Maybe he should have called Christy.” – Amy
Later…
“He said he did call you first, Christy. But your phone was off.” – Sam
“Oh, good.” – Christy
Still later…
“I just want you to know that I forgive you.” – Christy to David
“Since I did call you, there’s nothing to forgive. But you can apologize for judging me.” – David
“Oh. That works too. I’m sorry for judging you.” – Christy
“I forgive you.” – David

Development and Production Offices SAT Scores:
Scott: 1570 (old system)
Ben: 1570 (old system)
Sam: 2250 (new system), 1500 (old system)
Peter: 1970 (new system), “we have no idea, but pretty high” (old system)
Brittainy: 1450 or 1485 (she doesn’t remember which: old system)
David: 1400 (old system)
Marcia: 1260 (old system)
Amy: 1170 (first time, old system) and 12-“something” (second time, old system)
Christy: 1200 (old system)

On Office SAT scores…
“The way I get around this [problem of not being smart enough] is by hiring people who are smarter than me.” – Mom
“Well, you failed with Christy and me. Christy, let’s quit.” – Amy
“If you quit I’ll fire you!” – Mom
"All a high SAT score means is 'congratulations; you're good at answering multiple choice questions.' It doesn't make you smarter." - Sam

“Oh, and Sam says he didn't study for the SAT [which Peter considers cheating]. But his score was actually 2250, not 2350, if that helps. I took it down wrong.” – Christy
“Yeah well. I'm still offended. Tell him his superiority is oppressive.” – Peter
“I told him you only mind because you consider yourself more discriminating than he is.” – Christy
“Hey! No, that's not it…well…. okay so that's part of it” – Peter

“Oh, but look at that! Widows and orphans!” – Christy on formatting fixes
“No, Christy! That’s not our job at this time! Leave them alone!” – Brittainy
“True religion, Brittainy, is to visit the widows and orphans.” – David
“I said ‘at this time!’” – Brittainy
“The woman who refuses to visit widows and orphans, she has no true religion.” – David
Later…
“Ha! It’s gone! They were imaginary widows and orphans.” – Brittainy
“How can you help imaginary widows and orphans?” – David
“By giving them imaginary alms” – Sam
“And being their imaginary friends” – Ben
“Well, if you’re an imaginary friend to an imaginary person, what does that make you?” – David

“I have to be honest with you, I don’t really like The Sound of Music” – Amy
“Amy, you’re fired.” – Mom
“Don’t worry, Amy, you aren’t really fired.” – Lauren
“I know.” Amy
“Being fired is actually a sign of job security around here. It means we’re comfortable enough with you to pretend to fire you.” – Christy
“But Amy, to you I will give the classic response of the guard at the Louvre, who said to the young man who didn’t like the Mona Lisa, ‘Sir, the painting has already been judged a classic. It is now the painting that judges.’” – Mom
“Yeah… I think I just overdosed on it because we watched it every Christmas.” – Amy

“Man is a wack job.” – David the Starving Philosopher

Unusual Sunday

2008-08-03T20:08:00.006-04:00

Ordinarily, my Sunday morning begins at 7:45 AM. I rise, shower, speed-tidy my room, and drive to church, where I must arrive at 8:30 because I am room leader for Kitty Cats 1 (read: three year olds). That concludes around 11:00 or 11:15, at which point I go upstairs, collapse gratefully into the nearest plushy seat, and absorb the atmosphere of happy celebration. After the service, which ends at 1:00, my family gathers at our home or the home of one of my brothers for a big lunch, replete with Baby (yay!) and naps and jokes and political talk and all the other joys of being a large (twelve strong now), loving, tight-knit family. And I love this routine dearly: in fact, I look forward to it all week.

Today, God had other plans.

When my alarm went off at 7:45 and I sat up to turn it off, the room reeled a bit. "Uh-oh," I thought. "It's here." In this case, "it" is the stage of exhaustion-induced semi-illness that I reach when I've been working all day and much of the night for too long. My average limit is about a month, and counting up the days in the back of my mind, I realized that this limit I had now pressed up against. "Not to worry," I thought, "this has been happening intermittently for two years. We can deal with this." This, of course, is further proof (as if any were needed) of my arrogance.

Just after I finished my shower, I realized that no, actually, I couldn't "deal with this." Not today. I tiptoed into the girls' room and woke Marjorie, who works with me in Children's Ministry. After exchanging the usual formalities (it was a good thing I went, because the poor lamb's alarm clock hadn't gone off), I said "Babe, I'm afraid I hit the wall this morning. Can you cover for me?"

She, being the marvelous sister that she is, instantly agreed. I thanked her from the bottom of my heart and returned to bed, where I remained, dreaming off and on of needing to get up and work on Les Miserables, until 11:30. Since I never sleep that late, I realized upon waking up to a still house and everybody gone off to church that I had probably better not push it.

So, I did what I always do when I need a miraculous cure. I got a blanket, a Bible, a journal, a few other books, and tottered off to the back yard. Something about lying still in the grass for an hour or two is, for me, wonderfully refreshing. It also helps that everything outside is astonishing to my eyes because I've been inside all summer---the sight of an actual sky and the feel and sound and taste of actual outdoors sent my senses reeling in quite a different way; this time with pleasure.

I don't know exactly how long I lay there, because absolute unawareness of time is an acutely important part of the procedure. I know that for the first hour or so I had to fight an every-few-minutes rising temptation to go back into the house, sneak into my computer, and work. Fortunately, a lifelong rule inculcated by Daddy----"Do no work on Sunday"----asserted itself, and released me to simply drown myself in the day.

Oh, gentle reader, how grateful I am! I read C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves, and sometimes tossed the book aside in order to stare at the sky and marvel at the sight of trees---actual trees!---over my head. I must have been drowsing when Brittainy appeared. "You opened your eyes," she told me later. "They were very blue."

"Oh." I said. "Yes, I forgot. They are blue." And then it seemed strange to me that I had forgotten, but why should that be strange? I had forgotten that the sky is blue, and that the world is green, and that the grass is fragrant and that the evenings are soft and alluring---why should I not have forgotten also that my eyes are very blue? But now I remembered it all.

"Would you care to guess what the sermon was about?" She asked, as we walked back towards the house.
"Don't waste your leisure?" I inquired, wryly.
"No. Don't waste your job."
She told me the main points, which were mostly about diligence and faithfulness, and we laughed together. "Somehow," I said, "I'm not feeling particularly convicted about not working hard."
"No, somehow I'm not either. But it's good to remember the unto the Lord part."
"Yes indeed," I said.

The family called to ask if I wanted to lunch with them at David and Casey's, but I regretfully declined in favor of solitude. "If I'm going to get better, I need to not think," I explained to Brittainy. "And people gatherings require thinking."

So we went out to lunch and talked of Lewis's comments on friendship-love, and then to a bookshop, and both wrote letters and she messed about with her computer and I messed about with books: I bought War and Peace and the original Girls Handy Book, companion of the Boy Scout handy book. The girl version tells all about games and toys and sewing projects and teas and things. I added it to my library for the sake of my niece.

Then we came home, and I didn't want any dinner so I got a bottle of hard cider and War and Peace and went to the back deck to enjoy twilight. Daddy joined me after a bit, and we talked shop and business plans quite cozily for half-an-hour.

And now, here I am, about to get back to work on Les Miserables (the no-work rule, if you're curious, begins at sundown on Saturday night and lasts until sundown on Sunday: Mom and Dad are rather Hebraic that way). It has been a thoroughly unusual Sunday, but once in a great while such Sundays can be the best thing in the world. I am grateful for this one.

And Then, You Know...

2008-08-02T13:13:00.002-04:00

.... I was thinking today: my life is very beautiful. Beneath me is the fragrant ground, which is comfort and strength. Above me is the sky, which is freedom and laughter. Above that is God, who is everything: more than enough. Far away, somewhere, who knows where, are my sins which He has removed. Just down the street my lovely forest is humming with magic. In front of me are words, words, words, a hundred million meaningful words of all colors: golden, black, red as fire, sea-green, the purple that is more than purple---heaps of gems!

Ah me, it is too much, and yet I would not it were one whit less. Indeed, I even wish for more.

God, please, give me the ability to enjoy more?

And please, Lord, the gift of gratitude? And perhaps some strength?

And Jesus? Just one more glimpse of the city and the river?

You see how greedy I am? But really, it is all just one request.

Be You. And then, permit me to worship.

The Office: Season 7 --- "I'd like to thank..."

2008-07-29T16:01:00.001-04:00

“I'd like to thank all the people who've helped me win this great award ...” – Ray, on getting into the quote book

“I’m just really overwhelmed right now. I feel like this study [of Les Miserables] is never going to be finished.” – Christy
“Aw. Here, take this.” – David
“What is it?” – Christy
“It’s funny.” – David
“Oh.” – Christy
“I haven’t even finished it yet. Greater love hath no boy than this, to let you read his comic book before he does.” – David
::several seconds pass::
“Here. You’ll like it.” – Christy to David
“But did it make you feel better?” – David
“Yes. It did. It’s all good now.” – Christy
“Oh good. See? Trust Davy.” – David
The comic book? Frank and Frank. Caterpillars, the passage of time, and butterflies. ‘Nuff said.

“When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet!” – Dad
“Pluto still is a planet, Dad. Anybody who says differently is selling something.” – Christy, trying to soothe him
“Mostly they are selling textbooks.” – Ben

“What am I doing?” – Christy to herself
“That’s a very good question.” – Sam
“You know what, you’re a very good question.” – Christy, with mild sarcasm
“I’ve noticed that.” – Sam, smugly

“Mrnow. Bdee! Bwow.” – David, commenting to Christy on his own pictures
“Do you have a problem, Dave?” – Dad
“No. I’m just talking with Christy. We’ve progressed beyond the need for words.” – David
“But not beyond the need for sounds and eyebrows.” – Christy

“You know, gloomy ideas. Isn’t there a word for that?” – Dad to Brittainy
“Philosophy.” – David

The David and Sam Show:
“David!” – Sam, invoking on the office fixit deity
“Yes, Sam.” – David
“My computer!” – Sam
“Speak sternly to it.” – David
“It’s being estupido!” – Sam
“A rod for the back of fools, Sam. Kick it.” – David
“If only I could.” – Sam
“I’ll come help you… as soon as I finish the very important job of moving this red line over two pixels.” – David

“Aaargh! You see, if it were enough to be an artistic analyst, I could do that. But it’s not enough. You have to be an amateur theologian, philosopher, historian, writer, audience member, student of human nature, and who-knows-what-else, in order to deal with literature! I can’t do this!” – Christy
“And yet, you love it.” – David
“Well, yes. That is the problem.” – Christy

“A human of student nature?” – David
“Yes! Actually, that would be a great thing for a teacher to say to a student: ‘I am a student of human nature, and you are a human of student nature. We can work with this.’” – Christy
“Yeah, that’s a good one. File that away for future classroom use.” – David

“What did you send me, Christy?” – Mom, who has just received a link via IM
“A brief interlude of hedonistic delight.” – Christy
“No, really. What is it?” – Mom
“Baby.” – Christy
“Oh!” – Mom

“My goal for this back-of-the-book picture is to get Rebecca [marriage] proposals by mail.” – David on the author picture he’s working on
::general chuckling::
“And I think that that’s a good goal!” – David

“This computer is going as slow as a dog that ate a slug that crawled over salt after a particularly depressing Monday.” – David

Enough Already!

2008-07-28T21:37:00.003-04:00

Enough of night and dark and gloom and nightmares! Away with you, ugly things! What is the point of having been given everlasting joy if you don't walk in it?

Here, then, bring the golden brimming cups of life! I raise mine to lovely fountains and fierce pillow-fights, to dancing and the delight of song, to hours by the fire and storytellers' voices. I toast my friends Shari and Debra and their children. Ellie, companion of only a few hours but so much Pride and Prejudice, this one is for you! To the Christian life!

And, of course, to Nora... queen of all our hearts. <:0)

Lighten our Darkness

2008-07-27T18:03:00.010-04:00

I never thought of it until this moment, but most people write black letters on white paper. I, on the other hand, post white letters on a black page---this blog.

Why did I choose a black background template? There were so many others. Most people who know me a little might have expected me to choose blue. Those who know me very well indeed would not have been surprised if I had chosen green. But not even I, in my secretest soul, could have told you why I chose black. Or perhaps I could, and perhaps it would be a highly prosaic reason. "It looked classy," I might say. "Everything else seemed too ordinary."

Ordinary. Extraordinary. It makes me think of pastels versus jewel tones. It also makes me think of Victor Hugo, whose style of writing is so filled with jewel tones and dark backgrounds: bursts of vividness and emotion against the grotesque shadow. He was a master of the art of contrast. He understood black and white.

But did he understand dark and light? When I read of his last words, my heart shuddered. They were, "Je vois une lumiere noire”—“I see a dark light.” I shuddered at them because Christians do not see dark lights when they die. They see dawning lights. Or they see through darkness to light. But they do not see a dark light---dark light is what one associates with the ruddy glow of Hell. Thus, when I read those words, my soul feared for Hugo's soul.

But these last few weeks, I have repeatedly felt Hugo's last words echoed in myself. Lately, the old wildness and aching have come upon me again, and where I turn from darkness I find myself in darkness still. I feel lost, like a little one caught out far from home in a storm. It is always this way with me, since I was really a child. It is my old enemy, the one that sent me almost out of my mind with terror of night, of the black skies and cold stars, of death, of not-being-as-I-am.

It sends me back to the time when I was still a child, one rather like both Hugo's Cosette and his Eponine: bitter, paralyzed, stunted, unable to love, a little girl who seemed born an old woman. Only it was not society that did it to me---it was I, my sin, my self. I believed that love could not be for such as I, such crawling sin as I, and I hated God for being just, because I knew what that meant for me: death.

Oh, how death frightened me! Picture a little girl---eight, ten, thirteen years old, all those years---who would lie still thinking and imagining the not-being of death, and the loneliness of it, and the darkness of it, until she woke screaming from a nightmare she had had without even closing her eyes. To this day, my soul surges out in compassion to all those who hate God and fear death with a terrible heart-cracking fear, because I remember. And sometimes, as during these last weeks, I do not merely remember---I regress.

Oh, that I could rip out those years and bury them! That I could have done with them forever! You, reader---do you know what it is to hate God, to blaspheme Him in your heart, to abhor Scripture, to despise wisdom? Do you know what it is to believe, truly believe for all of ten hellish years, that no one could ever love you, because you are too foul? Did you ever become a master of isolation, a person who knew instinctively how to construct a wall between yourself and every person near you---and did? Have you ever taught yourself how to coldly analyze other human beings down to the last detail, so that you may render them incapable of touching your heart? Have you ever lived without a single particle of trust for any being in the universe, believing them all to be bent on causing you pain? Were you ever such a child? Were you ever so wretchedly self-absorbed, so miserably self-deceived? Did you ever tell yourself the lie that your family hated you? Did you ever imagine and pretend yourself into a waking, walking, living nightmare?

And they want vivid imaginations! Reader, when you have lived ten years caught between my imagination and my sin nature, then you will know what a curse an imagination can be. The sanctified imagination, dear reader, is the only kind worth having. The other will drive you insane.

Was I ought of my mind, truly? I suppose not, but sometimes I thought so. Then... ah, then. He. It was a split-shattering bolt of lightning, when God revealed Himself to me one otherwise-unremarkable evening in late summer. He seared and healed me all at once. He undid and remade me with a few words, which were the most impossible words of all for me to hear. People told me all my life, "God loves you." I did not believe them. Then he ripped open the ceiling of my mind, shocked me with a vision of light and a voice---I believe it was His---that said "I love you." And suddenly, I believed Him.

I still do, and more each day. I thought darkness was unbearable, until I learned that light is still harder to bear---to be shattered by joy is more completely shattering than to be shattered by pain. I am learning to endure more and more of light. Oh happy, happy pain!

But sin has consequences, and they are hard to bear. Mine is the recurring nightmare, which now no longer hangs an inky curtain before my waking eyes---thank God!---but does still come to jab at me with black daggers.

A dream that my parents are dead. A sudden waking in the night, afraid that the house is on fire. A shock because of a slight change in sound, light, or vibration. An acute conviction that I have just been struck. Or, worse of all, a dull leaden certainty that the people whom I love do not, cannot love me. A desire to run away from home. A longing for the silence of absolute solitude, where one might be free from the pain of hearing "you don't matter to me," but at the same time a terror of loneliness.

Such feelings always come when I am weakest: weary from long hours of work, or more often from long hours compounded over the course of weeks, as these last weeks have been. Sometimes I lean my eyes against my hand and sit absolutely still, waiting either for strength to go on or for the clamor in my mind and heart to die down a little so that I can go on. My prayers at such times are the simplest of pleas, a silent begging: "Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!"

No, this is not the first time. That is partly what gives me hope; that I have been brought through this before. I remember a night last winter, a wild, freezing night near Christmas, when my mind and heart were like knives through me, and then I ran and ran through my forest in the bitter cold, longing to feel exhausted by something powerful that was outside myself. I could not bear the tempest of my own emotions. If Cosette in Hugo's story was terrified by the dark forest at night, I was the opposite. I longed for it, for anything that would interfere with my interior struggle and draw my senses out of myself. And I found it, ironically enough, in the black coldness of the night.

For, dear reader, in looking at real sky and real stars, and in feeling a real wind knife through me, and feeling my limbs trembling from real exhaustion, I was forced to think of God. I was too tired to think any more inwardly.

For in such cases it is the inward thoughts that are to be feared. If by grace one can force the thoughts and feelings outwards, towards God, towards truth, towards love for other people, towards anything of that sort, then there is immediate relief, followed by healing. But let the thoughts turn inward, listen to yourself instead of talking to yourself, follow your heart---most fatal choice!---and immediately there is only a black spiral downward, towards a dark light that seems to give off no actual light, but rather suffocation.

Therefore I will look up and away. I refuse the nightmare. If, when I turn from darkness, I find only darkness, I will stand still and quiet, and begin to pray for light. Gentle reader, make no mistake about this: whoever asks, receives. Once God has revealed Himself to you, there is always light available. Always. Only, one must ask.

Petitio, Domine. Petitio.

The Office: Season 7 --- "I'm Naming My Left Foot 'Sprezzatura'"

2008-07-24T15:41:00.004-04:00

“I think I just convinced Sam to change his screen name to sprezzatura.” – Christy to Peter
“I just convinced myself to name my car sprezzatura” – Peter
“Wow. It’s like an epidemic or something.” – Christy
“Or maybe it’s just a good word” – Peter

"I'm naming my left foot 'sprezzatura'" – David, before he knew what the word meant

“Why do you have to be so unspeakably cute?” – Christy to David
“It gets me out of a lot of things.” – David

“Would you just put a sock in it?” – Christy to David
“So give me a sock.” – David
“I don’t have one.” – Christy
“You see? I’m very compliant; I’m just ill-equipped.” – David

“You guys are hysterical!” – Marjorie, appreciating the office humor
“We will be very soon.” – David, taking the comment literally

“The boys need to just suck it up. Besides, there are few things that give you as much leverage with a girl as having read it.” – Sam on Pride and Prejudice

“Australia: The Land has been deleted.” – Ray, removing an out-of-print book from the bookshelf
“Thanks so much!” – Dana
“Well, not the continent. Just the book.” – Ray
“Oh, good! I was afraid you misunderstood.” – Dana

“I’m actually psychic. I know things without having to know them.” – David

“I’m all for women’s rights. Women should have rights.” – Peter

“Infatuation and romantic love? I have no opinion on them, except that they’re a good thing.” – Sam

“You missed a very interesting discussion of infatuation and romantic love in Les Miserables, and also whether or not we should include movies, graphic novels, and modern song lyrics in Year 4 literature.” – Christy to David
“Well, you missed us trying to decide whether to codename our shopping guides ‘Virgil’ and ‘Beatrice’ on the new Bookshelf website, and make them animated characters” – David
"Virgil?" - Christy
"Yeah, except the problem is that he leads Dante through Hell..."
“Um… well, but Virgil is the one who leads Dante through Hell…” – Christy
“Right. So he’s the browser guide, and Beatrice is the ‘our recommendations’ guide. She leads people to Heaven.” – David

“And David is making up a tune to Poe’s ‘The Raven’….” – Christy
“I’m not making it up! It’s this tune!” – David, hitting a song on his playlist

The Office: Season 7 -- "Those Deep-Cleansing Sneezes"

2008-07-21T09:31:00.002-04:00

"I'm not a big sanity person." – Mom, intending to say “I’m not a big sanitary person,” meaning she’s not that big on sanitation.

"You're operating under the erroneous assumption that boys have brains. What they actually have is a stomach, an ego, raw instinct, and a soul. And muscle. Lots of muscle. Beyond that, the girls have the brains. And the looks." –David

“What is it with girls and the horse phase?” – Sam
“It’s a prelude to the boy phase… and, I guess, the child phase.” – Christy
“I have a friend at school who said that 'Girls like horses because they're big, strong, powerful, and they have the minds of five-year-olds. Then they get older, and they realize, "Hey, these things come in guys!'"
"Yup, that." - Christy

“Well, that’s the great thing about them all being dead and me being single. I’m free to have my passions.” – Christy on Dante, Donne, and Frost

“This is in the middle of his life, and normally he'd be doing the bad, mischievous kind of stuff that poets do—but here, all he does is write and publish.” – Peter on Robert Browning

“My next job after this is going to be motherhood, which is kinda freaking me out.” – Amy

“I’ll bet you didn’t know that I have hamsters running around inside me.” – David
“I had my suspicions.” – Christy

“Why are you still alive?” – Sam to a fly
“Go get him, mighty hunter.” – David to Sam

“You see my problem here.” – Sam
“Yes. However, it’s your problem, and that’s the main thing.” – Christy, happy that it isn’t her problem

“I know I’m having a bad attitude, but I just don’t want to do this right now!” – Amy
“Here, let me help you,” – Christy, reaching for the Happy Little Working Song from Enchanted
“You see, things could be so much worse. You could be a Disney princess, singing with vermin.” – David
::David gets hold of the computer and plays Bad Day by Alvin and the Chipmunks::
“Okay, I’m good! Really! You can stop now!” – Amy
“Are you cured yet, Amy?” – Christy
“I am cured five hundred fold! Now make it stop!” – Amy
And the music plays on….
“You know, if Brittainy were here, that music would have been off by now!” – Amy
“Well, she’s not here!” – David
And the song concludes…
“Amy, we’ll comfort you any time you want.” – David
“I don’t ever want to be comforted again!” – Amy
And there was much laughter all round…

“Her last name is bohemian, not Spanish.” – Christy to Amy, about Brittainy
“She is the bohemian rhapsody” – David, about Brittainy

“Ah, you gotta love those deep-cleansing sneezes” – Sam

The Office: Season 7 --- "So Cease Blathering"

2008-07-09T16:29:00.004-04:00

“God is outside of time and I like to live that way. I’ve prayed for the Civil War before.” – David
“…. So that it would turn out differently?” – Christy
“No, so that it would turn out the same way. It was a very faith-filled prayer.” – David

“It’s like beating off a herd of hungry beavers with a stick. They just keep eating the stick!” – David on trying to keep his coworkers from stealing music devices

“Yeah, no wonder. I’d have a French revolution too if I were French and living in that time.” ‑ Peter

“You both said funny things at the same moment, so I think they kinda cancelled each other out.” – David
“Actually, what I said wasn’t that funny” – Sam
“Well then, your blathering cancelled out Ben’s witty comment. So cease blathering.” – David

“So what did you say to him? ‘Good job’?” – Christy
“I wasn’t going to congratulate him for that. I was peeved. ‘Badly done, Emma.’” – David on Sam’s blathering.
“I kinda meant, did you say ‘Good job’ in a sarcastic way.” – Christy
“No, I did not congratulate him even in a facetious manner, because I felt that it was a reprehensible act.” – David

“Sam, you have crass American consumerist tastes, and I’m ashamed to know you.” – David

“My parents are actually lizardologists.” – Marjorie

"I will now go find a wet noodle and commence my penance." - Peter

Something Beautiful

2008-06-24T14:11:00.003-04:00

We've been working like crazy on Les Miserables for the last week, and shall probably continue all this week. This morning I sat at my computer, blinking back tears, trying to get through the last few pages. Finally, we gave up; our emotions were too deeply engaged; it was too painful and far too beautiful. "We'll try again tomorrow."

Then I turned to writing a wedding letter to a friend, and there it was again: something beautiful. I posted the letter and returned to... what? Shakespeare and the gospel---at the same time. Meanwhile, my music had shuffled itself on to the Newsboys song, "Something Beautiful."

It was then I realized that today is going to be one of those days when God sends me His greetings out of every shred of matter, time, and space. Well, what else did you think beauty was? It is the radiance of the real. It is the greeting of the immortal realms. It is, I think, God's kiss.

My day will be suffused with beauty. And when you think what I have in fact deserved of God, my dear, you will see why this gift brings me closer to tears even than Les Miserables, and closer to rapture than even Shakespeare. The branding iron is removed; a kiss falls instead. Who could do it? Only God. I am learning love from Him.

The Office -- Season 7: "You Have Deep Insight Into Light Bulbs"

2008-06-24T09:25:00.002-04:00

“Is the plural of albatross ‘albatross’?” - Brittainy
“I think that’s worthy of being quoted.” - Christy
“You can’t quote that! It was a legitimate question!” - Brittainy
“Yes, and honestly my first thought is ‘I think the plural might be albatrossi’” - Christy
“Okay, then you have to quote that too!” - Brittainy
::Several seconds pass::
“Ha! It is albatross!” - Brittainy
::Another pause::
“Did you know that ‘albatross’ is also a kind of worsted fabric?” - Brittainy

“I didn’t say ‘why not?’ I am not yon sassy [person]!” - David

“If you think about it, all vests are meant to protect you from something. Life vests protect you from drowning; bullet-proof vests protect you from getting shot; and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls.” - Sam

“So what if the goat becomes anthropomorphic and performs the same ceremony on another goat?” - David, who sometimes gets tired of being the designated office scapegoat

“So you’d better be okay with that, or, like, woe.” - David

“Why is there foliage coming out of my ‘r’?” - Christy

“I don’t know anything about flavors” - Peter

"Wait! Since when did I become your frat boy!" - Sam
"You are my frat boy. Deal [with it]." - David

“Actually, listening to breakup songs helped me to write one of my random poems” - Sam

“You have deep insight into light bulbs.” - David to Sara Hobbit

Baby Girl (Nora)

2008-06-14T11:05:00.003-04:00

Season 7: "I'm A Little Nervous About My Lunch"

2008-05-30T13:48:00.004-04:00

“Was it you who doesn’t like Chris Rice? Are you that philistine?” – Christy to David
“Actually, I think of myself as more of a Moabite.” – David

“Yo.” – Mom, on IM to Dana
“Yo, homey dog.” – Dana
::bursts of laughter from Mom fill the office::
“Is this MY Dana?” – Mom
“(Took you by surprise, huh?)” – Dana

“David, I think you’re pretty much the quintessential brother.” – Brittainy
“I think that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.” – David

“His octopus is yelling at me!” – Mom, on Dad’s IM icon

“Let’s all just go to a matinee.” – Mom, in the middle of the work day
“Wow. I think that’s possibly the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard you say.” – Christy

“Finding you can change, Amy. Learning you were wrong!” – Christy, quoting Beauty and the Beast
“I’m not wrong. David’s wrong.” – Amy

“Fun with formatting! Let’s all play with little spaces!” – Mom
“Um… I think maybe you need to take a turn around the house.” – Christy
“One too many clicks with a mouse!” – Mom

“It’s basically the best thing ever in western civilization” – David on McDonald’s

“That’s because I’m focused! I’m doing the work that Mom has for me. And then you come along and say that I’m not being funny enough, and then I get distracted from my work just so that I can come up with lots of hilarious quotes!” – David, waving his arms in the air
“Shhh!” – Mom
“And then that happens!” – David

“Susan smooches Caspian, okay!” – Charity
“That’s horrible!” – Christy
“Maybe it was for luck.” – Marjorie

“I’m a little nervous…. About my lunch.” – Amy, out of nowhere.

“You can’t eat a pancake backwards!” – Amy

“I think that Marjorie and Ben are ready to vote for me as Emperor of the World.” – David
“Why?” – Mom
“Well, Marjorie is on board for the whole ‘square countries’ thing [David said that if he is ever Emperor of the World, he will make all the countries square so that mapmaking will be simpler]… and I think we pretty much won Ben to our side by promising to standardize spelling… we’re gonna get rid of ‘C’ first.” – David, working on an exceptionally squiggly and complex map of the German territories of 1800.

“Body suppressed…! What do you mean, ‘body suppressed’!?” – Christy, talking to her email.

“When I’m Emperor, the world anthem will be ‘Dooby-do’” – David

We Laughed Until We Cried

2008-04-25T21:35:00.002-04:00

There's a new country song out by that name. Whenever I hear it, I think "I know something about that."

It was today, listening to Danya sing "If I Had a Million Dollars" in his funny soprano.

It was yesterday, when we all crowded round Danya's computer for afternoon break to watch "Star Wars According to a Three-Year-Old"

It was last month, and the three months before that, and the year before that, of grim determination mixed with tears mixed with exhaustion mixed with laughter, laughter, laughter. I thank Mama for it; it was she who taught us "When I have to laugh or cry, I prefer to laugh."

What centuries I have lived through in the last two and a half years! What lives I have glimpsed! What words I have read! And what brilliant, selfless, godly people I have worked beside, laughed and cried and ached and worshipped with, in that time! Beside them, I am nothing---I lack all wisdom and humility.

Recently I lifted up my head and all suddenly thought, "The Redesign project will be over in another year and a half." I realized that I do not want it to end so soon.

Lately I have been discouraged. For a month past I have fought the feeling that all my efforts are no use and that I can only fail, because I really know so little about how to do what I am trying to do. But thanks be to God, He has been reminding me of the joy that I have had in this work, and that, after all, it wasn't my choice. It was His. If this is how He wants to use me, who am I to say "What are you doing?"

Farewell, weariness. I don't know you. Welcome, joy!---a thousand times welcome back to my heart! I have missed you, sky-lark of my soul. What Father's love do you bring me? What passionate adoration have you come to kindle in me? What juice of the fruits of the Tree of Life have you brought in the diamond bottle hanging from your neck?

Ah, beloved reader, I was never happy til I knew what love was, and I am never unhappy til I forget it. But though I fall into nightmares time and time again, always He wakens me with singing, and I recognize His greeting again. Do you know what that greeting is? It is beauty, my dear, and the heart of it is truth, and the effect of it is goodness, and the radiance of it is what I breathe to myself when I say "joy!"

April! Happy month! Be all the more silver-golden, green lady, for my joy. Teach the trees to dance the gladness of my heart, and I'll give thee thanks for it---for my heart must speak by any and all means. Beautiful world, I have a secret. Can you guess?

He loves me.

And that being so, I live between laughter and tears of joy.

Ship of Dreams

2008-04-23T23:04:00.008-04:00

I used to spend hours writing stories. Now I spend days, weeks, and months, writing about stories (and poems and plays). I'm not complaining---I love my job, and I believe that if I ever have the opportunity to write imaginative literature, what I have learned will give me more resources than many writers ever have.

But for now, there isn't much time for the imagination. Instead I try to make time for a few minutes outside each day at the mailbox, and an hour at the gym, and a date with my sisters. The three brothers who were my favorite playmates now have households of their own; one sister is in college; the baby of our family enters college (God willing) this fall. I want every moment I can have with them, because the moments are increasingly few. Time to dream and write "my stuff" is, by comparison, of little importance.

Ah, but April is an enchanted month, most difficult to ignore. On nights like this one, with the memory of late afternoon sun still on my skin (I spent a few hours doing my research outside---a rare but wonderful treat), I remember how often I used to catch hold of a silver rope and swing aboard my ship of dreams. Then there was no harbor-sitting! Then it was "Hoist sail!" and "Yonder the horizon, my good ship! Bring me that sun!"

Recently I took out my stories and looked them over. Most of the best ones were begun just after I was saved, in my mid-teens. There is a story called Outremer, about the Crusades. What a project I mean to make of that, someday! I have another, Mountains of Spice, about culture clash, Christianity, and roleplaying fantasy games. One of my favorites is Lebannen. It is the story of a girl who dances with ogres and sincerely believes that she is her own goddess.

There are others. The House in Sorrow Glen is about twelve generations of cursed lovers, and about the nature of true and false love. Kallipolis, named for Plato's Republic, is about an ideal society that isn't really ideal. Luceaferul deals with the matter of a Romanian poem by the same name, about a star who falls in love with a human princess, except that he cannot love, because he has no heart. That story is about learning to trust God.

We Six, the first of a projected series on our family, chronicles the two most idyllic years of my childhood, which were spent in a hundred-year-old farmhouse overlooking the Shenendoah Valley. The Logical Conclusion, a scribble really, is about euthanasia and other problems of our modern society.

And then of course there is Prodesse and Delecta, the most sweeping project I have ever planned for myself, which addresses nothing less than everything human and divine, in the form of an allegorical story about a boy who cares only for the mind and soul, and a girl who loves nothing but the pleasures of heart and body---at first.

Sometimes I take these out, and look them over. While putting them away, I smile a little. "Not yet," I say to myself. If even a third of them were ever fully realized as I imagine they could be, then truly Someone would have given me the sun, and my ship might sit in harbor... except that, of course, it wouldn't. For I shall always be dreaming.

But there are dreams and dreams, my dear. Some dreams are fretful, complaining, full of "if only" and "I wish." That sort of dream can kill your soul. Yet there is also the dream that says "and when" instead of "if only"; it says "I know" or "I expect" instead of "I wish." Those dreams put heart back into you, and it is those that I love best to chase in my yacht, the Daydream.

So, if I never write a single one of those books, or even achieve my present task of building a solid literary studies program, I shall only have lost the sun that I like to chase sometimes. A sun, after all---what is that? Are there not a million others to catch, as when one hunts in a forest that is well stocked with deer? I earnestly seek suns, because they are good to have, but I know and expect to leave their forests of the night, in which they glide and twinkle, and at last turn my prow homeward towards an endless day---but a day unlit by suns.

Where sky and water meet, and where the waves grow sweet... the utter east. Doubt not to find there all you seek. For there, gentle reader, is the "I know," the proper end of all my dreams. There are white shores, and---I believe---green valleys. There is uncreated Light.

Someday my ship of dreams will be done indeed with harbor-sitting. But don't bring me the horizon. Don't bring me a sun.

Bring me home.

The Office -- Season 7: "Dumber than a Box of Hair"

2008-04-18T16:17:00.001-04:00

“Are you a careful bouquet or a wild cluster?” – David to Christy, after reading the latest quote list
“It really depends on the day.” – Christy

“I think you’re a careful bouquet” – Dana on IM to Christy, after seeing the latest batch of quotes.
“Really? I think you’re one too. Let’s get all wild clustery, just to break things up.” – Christy, referencing the “wild cluster” that is the opposite of the “careful bouquet.”
“Yes, let's! I'm breaking out wildly into writing assignments at the moment.” – Dana

“Mom, are you a careful bouquet or a wild cluster?” – Christy
“Neither; I defy analogistic definitions.” – Mom
“I know what I am.” – David
“David, don’t tempt me.” – Mom

“Everybody around here is asking whether everybody else is a careful bouquet or a wild cluster. Care to comment on your own state?” – Christy to Peter, on IM
“I am most likely a leaf of skunk cabbage, which is generally unwanted except occasionally to play an elaborate prank on the world.” – Peter

Lauren, reading a Church History book, spontaneously exclaims: “It’s just so sad! Every single stinking person in this book dies!”

“Okay, I’m going to be dating myself here, but…” – Mom
“Um… ‘dating yourself?’” – Lauren
::bursts of laughter::
“No, not like that! I mean, I’m showing how old I am.” – Mom
“Oh!” – Lauren

"I'm so close to being proud of myself...and yet so far" - Juli, while doing HTML programming

“Oh look at me and my bad self closing my quotation marks…” – Juli

“I’m going to name one of my children, ‘Marjorie’s chocolate chip cookies’” – David, speaking in appreciation of his sister’s baking skills
“I don’t think your child will appreciate that…. Oh, they’re still down here!” – Amy on David’s comment (and Marjorie’s cookies).

“Where is he?” – David, experiencing networking problems and looking for Dad
“He went to see his [new] fish, like a proud father.” – Marjorie
“He needs to be the proud father of the network” – David

“A stick figure has become one of my role models!” – David

“I’m wondering where my script is…” – Lauren
“That’s better than wondering where your gods are” – Christy, referencing Laban
“That’s what Schliermacher is asking” – Brittainy, editing curriculum

“That’s dumber than a box of hair.” – Mom
“Which isn’t dumb to a bird that wants to build a nest.” – Lauren

“He [my husband] just doesn’t get how much fun it is to obsess over curriculum. It so beats housework!” – From a mom on our forum

“Have you met Yvonne? Beautiful? Yea high? Blonde? Likes profit?” – Juli to Christy

Tolkien and the Splintered Heart

2008-04-03T21:22:00.002-04:00

I have few splinterings of heart. Most splinters in my life involve the soul (sin vs. righteousness) or the mind (too many to name here). But my heart, usually, is unified. Where I love, I love completely, and likewise for hate, and likewise for aversion, disgust, admiration, etc.

There are two matters, however, concerning which my heart is split right down the middle. One is Spanish, and we won't go there in this post (it all has to do with one wonderful and one traumatic childhood experience, which between them have left me simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by the language). The other is Tolkien.

My relationship with Tolkien began late, which is perhaps part of the problem. My brothers, of course, being my father's sons, had all read the entire tetralogy and the Silmarillion by the time they were each thirteen or fourteen. I, being averse to reading things "just because all Christian kids are supposed to love them," and deeming them moreover "boys' books," and finally being quite content with Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, didn't pick up Tolkien until I was sixteen.

At which point, of course, I promptly fell in love with them. How could I not? I devoured the tetralogy in two or three weeks of every-spare-minute reading, though I could never quite bring myself to read the Silmarillion. I distinctly recall sitting on the family staircase one day, crying over the end of The Return of the King. I was completely hooked. Tolkien had my whole heart. Later, when I was eighteen, I even learned the Tengwar script that my brothers had long since mastered (Nate also knows dwarvish) and modified it for my own purpose. I can still write fluently in that alphabet, given an hour or two of practice to get back in shape.

But then I went to COLLEGE. Doom. The problem was, you see, that everybody around me revered Tolkien. They didn't love him; they practically worshiped him, and it didn't help at all that the movies were coming out at the time. To me, all this was a huge turn-off. So for three or four years I turned an increasingly deaf ear to the Tolkien rhapsodies, discussions, and arguments, discovering at the same time that Tolkien's characters are... well, at the time I called them one-dimensional, though I have since learned to revise that opinion in light of the right and conventional and necessary nature of epic heroes. But at the time they seemed one-dimensional; I branded them "one-dimensional" in my mind; and, believing that I had found a reason to dislike Tolkien, I put him from my admiration.

Unfortunately, in matters such as these (though not in others), I find it difficult to completely disengage my affections once they have been truly won. Also, after more than two years of studying and writing about world literature, I am now in a much better position to understand Tolkien's goals, the magnificence of his achievement, and the proper way to understand his characters (that is, from an epic perspective). My heart has been wistful about Tolkien for some time, sternly though I have admonished it to forget, and now I find all at once that I have no good reasons any more to turn away from loving him. No college mates now din his wonders into my ears; I am better trained and therefore more alive than ever to those same wonders; and, truth have it, I never did fully disentangle him from my affections.

BUT, I have in the interim acquired a solid four-years habit, a mental wall between myself and the tetralogy, which splinters my heart right down the middle. And thus I don't know whether the half that belongs to Tolkien will ever be able to reunite with the half that has turned from him...

April!

2008-04-01T17:26:00.004-04:00

Most magnificent, most lovely April! Hail, O Lady of green silk and sharp onion scent; hail Queen of growing things; we welcome back your rule!

The Office: Season 6 -- "The Homest Fry"

2008-03-26T16:02:00.002-04:00

Life in The Office continues as hairy and hilarious as ever. Recently we welcomed Peter back to the show, but otherwise the cast remains---considering the state of the brains involved---remarkably stable....

“Wow! I’ve arrived; now I’m a home fry.” – Mom
“You are the homest fry.” – David

“You’re a penguin.” – David to Christy

In the following conversation, David never knew what it was that Christy was “oops-ing” about:

“Oops!” – Christy
“Whoops-a-buttercup.” – David
“Pretty much.” – Christy
“Did you break it?” – David
“No; it was already broken” – Christy

“We’re organizing our lives. It’s this whole ‘turning 50’ thing” – Mom, about herself and Dad
“What do we mean by ‘organizing our lives’?” – Christy
“We mean our faith, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” – Mom
“I think you’ve been doing too much with the Declaration of Independence.” – Christy

“I will uncan a jar of whupping on you if you misquote me.” – David

“That’s false! It as false as a piece of toast….disguised…as a cake!” – David, groping for a way to make his metaphor stick

“Are you a careful bouquet or a wild cluster?” – Christy to David
“Wild cluster all the way.” – David

“Hungry sailors always leads to defeat” – Peter

“Brittainy.” – Christy
“Hmmm?” – Brittainy
“Apparently, we basically got all our hard sciences from the Arabs, via the Crusades. Math, chemistry, biology, everything. Do you know what this means?” – Christy, who is researching the scientific revolution
“Umm…. It means that God had a purpose?” – Brittainy
“No. It means we should never have gone crusading.” – Christy

Aching

2008-03-24T20:41:00.002-04:00

It is rare that I feel truly empty, or truly lonely. My days pass by in extreme busyness, which leaves little time for hurt---also, I have in general little hurt to feel. I am content.

But these last days have been different. I remember past hurts, and it is as if all those yesterdays happened today. My heart aches and is hungry. "For what?" I ask. "Why are you so empty? Why are you so lonely?" No answer.

I think that I miss God. My soul has been far from Him, lately. I don't know why, but somehow I can't seem to make it stop wandering. I want to tell Him I'm sorry, but I can't find the words. I want to press close to Him, but I lost the way. And my heart hurts---oh, it hurts! I stretch my hands out, and there is nothing. Darkness, darkness presses against my eyes.

When I was a young girl, I lived inside this ache all the time. I knew it so well, I could tell you every one of its special tortures. There is the squeezing one that makes it hard to breathe, and the terror one does the same, but from the inside out. There is the one about believing that you can't be loved, that you are too horrible, that it will never happen. That one works from the outside in and the inside out at the same time, and when the two meet in the middle, they shatter you into a million pieces.

I remember the one about being afraid of death, and the one about being afraid of the dark. I remember the one about being tired to your bones of everything. I remember the one where you seem to realize that nothing matters. That's the one that makes you want to die and get it all over with. I remember the one about hating everybody who is happy. I remember the one about wanting to be cruel to other people so that you will have company in your miserableness.

I remember all of them, and tonight they are all swarming over me. I can't call for help, because then they will get in. I can't send them away. And I can't breathe, and I'm so empty. Oh, emptiness hurts! It gnaws at you. It feeds on you.

It aches.

Oh, will the sun never rise again? I can't remember what it feels like to be warm.

Spring

2008-03-21T20:26:00.002-04:00

I let my mind wander today, and it came home to me bearing a slender branch, heavy with redbuds, in its beak. I looked at that branch for several moments, silent and astonished. Then I lifted up my head and saw that, indeed, spring has come.

There are purple crocuses at the feet of the trees, my dear. There are clumps of pungent chives. The air is pristine and very young, not yet hot with summer's sun, not yet strong with summerstorms' tempestuous passion. It is the breeze of playmates, not of lovers. My trees are bare yet, but their bark is smooth and supple, and green inside with sap. The scent of it has the power to drive me mad with joy.

I took a walk today, away from my Romantic poets. I ought to have found them reflected in the spring, for did they not love spring, and is spring not Romantic? But, to my great joy, I found that spring is older than the Romantics, and is in no way bound to their expressions. While their best work reflects it, it does not reflect them. It is far less self-centered, and maintains even in its excesses a restraint, a gravity, and almost a grief, which their expostulations know not.

I broke a long twig from a fallen branch, on my walk, and swung it in my hand, and scraped the earth, and found that I am only twelve years old, not twenty-four. I remember now that when I was fourteen I wrote a letter to myself, to be opened in my twenty-fourth year. I wonder if I have that letter still... I wonder, but I care little. I remember what was in it, and the questions asked by my fourteen-year-old self were--not to put too fine a point on it--rather silly. In another person I would show consideration, but since it is only myself, I will not look for the letter or think of it. I will be twelve, not twenty-four, and different from my self at twelve only in being wiser than I was, and less inclined to nonsense of that sort.

But in the nonsense of spring, which is not nonsense at all, I will wisely revel. Spring is all to me. In April I become more than happy; for that month I am radiant. The days are too short, in April, and the nights too short also. I am in love with every hour. It is a month that answers all my wishes, for it is sad and gay, melancholy and furious, funny, kind, sweet, and above all hopeful and loving. In April I am ruled by April.

It is no accident, to my mind, that April follows immediately upon Easter. I imagine to myself that spring begins with Christ's passion, and that all the angry rainful days of March are the groanings of the passion, and that the glorious morning of Easter Sunday is the first true spring morning, and that after that the whole history of the church can be chronicled in a rising crescendo of things bursting into bloom. Then I think to myself how rich a harvest the autumn of the world will bring, and it seems to me that even the perishing of Earth, in a blaze of fire as rich as red maple leaves, will be magnificent, because after that there shall be no winter, but rather an entirely new season, which leaves my imagination breathless.

Meanwhile, Easter. By now, on that day so many years ago, Jesus would have been in His tomb, perhaps. By now, had I been a disciple then, my heart would be shattered. I would walk in bewilderment about the streets, neither knowing nor caring where I went, aware only of an absolute despair. I would feel, I am sure, that the sun could not ever rise again. Had it not been blacked out when He gave up His last breath? And moreover, I would not want it to shine more on a world that had not Him in it. By now, I would be standing idly, swaying and empty and spent from tears, in the middle of a dusty alley, perhaps, wondering that the dogs still barked and the children still laughed. These things would seem to me unnatural.

If you told me, tonight, then, that I would know joy again... I would only shake my head and stare. So, just for tonight, as I do every year, I will live it over again. He is gone, gone, gone, and I am desolate, though every now and then my heart throbs with a mad hope. For, after all, he raised others from the dead. Is it possible that....?

Fairy Tales

2008-03-20T19:39:00.002-04:00

These last weeks have been thick with work and basement-dwelling. To keep sane, I have been reading fairy tales over lunches and late at night just before bed.

Fairy tales are remarkable citizens of the literary world. As a gens, they remind me of nothing so much as the principles figures for whom they are named: fairies. There is something severe, magnificent, improbable, and proud---with the connotation, now very rarely used, of superb dignity---about the best fairy tales; just as these qualities belong to the best fairies and to Tolkien's elves.

I have been noticing, also, how simple and shocking fairy tales are in plot and narration. They are often grimly violent and bafflingly composed. Consider, for example, this fairy tale which Danya made up and told to me once:

There was a young man who fell in love with a fairy. One evening he stood beneath her balcony and said, "I love you; will you marry me?"

"I cannot marry you," the fairy replied, "for I have no heart."

"Take part of mine," the young man replied. He gave her a piece of his heart and went away. The next evening he came again and said "I love you; will you marry me?"

"I cannot marry you," the fairy replied, "for I have no heart."

"You have a piece of my heart," said the young man.

"It is too small," said the fairy.

"Take another." And the young man gave her another piece of his heart.

On the third night, the young man came again and said, "I love you; will you marry me."

"I cannot marry you," the fairy replied, "for I have no heart."

"You have two pieces of my heart," said the young man.

"They are too small," said the fairy.

"Take another." And the young man gave her another piece of his heart.

This went on until, one evening, the young man gave the fairy the last piece of his heart. When she woke the next morning, the fairy found herself overcome with a sweet painful longing she had never known before. She waited eagerly for evening, but when it came, it did not bring the young man.

The fairy waited three days and then, in desperation, used all her magic to find out where the young man might be. She flew to his house the next night and stood outside his window. "Young man!" She said, "Let me in, for I love you and I will marry you."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot marry you," said the young man. "I have no heart."

Aside from the usual assurances that the fairy is as beautiful as possible, that her palace is the most splendid thing ever seen, and that the young man is both brave and handsome, this fairy tale is perfectly in accord with the rest of its species. But was always surprises me about it is its simplicity, and its utter disregard for what is now known as "realism."

If a young man had given a fairy a piece of his heart (and how, by the way, was he to do that while remaining alive?), he wouldn't surely turn around without another word and not inquire until the next evening whether she felt any effect. Also, we are told nothing about what either thought, or felt, or anything: only what they said. The whole thing could have been performed as a skit with bitter hatred and sarcasm on both sides, and the story would be completely transformed without a syllable of it being altered.

But somehow, the strong narration and simple straightforwardness of it all is captivating to me. I find it more beautiful, and also more painful, than many a fulsomely tragic scene in a novel. The very lack of detail, the unexpected but still conceivable reactions and statements, the passion and coldness and hope and regret, which are all set forward with such austerity, leave plenty of room for my imagination to act.

I do not say that it is better than a fairy tale by C.S. Lewis or George MacDonald, for they are masters who know exactly which details will enrich the story while yet maintaining its simplicity---however, I will say that it stands in my mind in sharp contrast to the "fairy tales" written for young adults nowadays: tales of magic and adventure and young heroes and heroines there are, but they are full of the trite, the foolish, and the fat.

Yes, they are fat with details and descriptions and glimpses of the inner mind, like rosy-lipped Victorian cherubs. Personally, however, I prefer the stately angels of the fairy tales, even they whose smiles are melancholy and made of stone.

Flame Forth

2008-03-10T11:45:00.006-04:00

I have found that being a writer is, very often, a bizarre experience. Take the following case as an example. For days now the phrase "flame forth" has been drumming in my head, demanding to be written---but I had no idea what came after those two words. Then, while watching the sunset last night with paper and a pen, a voice arose to match it and began to speak. All I know of this voice and this character is what I wrote at her dictation, though she never even noticed me. Make of it what you will. She said,

Flame forth, O my words, and speak for me. Say to the long pale lances of the winter sun, "How you die in my west-facing windows! I am dying too." Speak the longing of my eyes, blue as they are, following the light where it falls into blue shadows. May my eyes never grow black, as the shadows do; but let my eyes kindle their sea-colors to fire!---to bring back the sun and his warm hands.

Light! See how he bids tenderest farewell to earth, and everywhere those fingers touch, green life appears. The lilies, the lily-shoots, they grow again. I am mad with joy! My bones are as crystal, and silver my skin; my face is as radiance; jewels of fire are my eyes. I reflect the light, but it and I are dying.

Speak, my words, to the sun for me. Tell him that all my heart is his, and beg to know whether he will meet me again at dawn. Tell him that my room faces the west, and I will sit with him until he and I are dead or sleeping; but tell him that my bed faces east, and that I will open my eyes again when he comes.

Without him I will dream of forests filled with mournful hooting owns, and mist, and dreary frightened deer. But when he appears---ah!---tell him that he brings glory with him, and beauty, and himself best of all. Flame out, my words---tell him that I am sick with love. Follow him burning with my message, as a shooting star should! Track him through all the constellations of the night, and know of him, will he keep faith?

"Will you meet me in the morning with your bursts of song? How your light sings!"

For love is strong as death, stronger than blue shadows and sleeping. The world and the deer of the forest and I---we long to be green, lively, and afire, to reach up into his presense once again. We wish to smile at him. Flame forth, my words, and tell him so for me.

Gaining Personality By the Minute

2008-02-28T09:35:00.004-05:00

As Nora gets older (3 months now), she aquires, or is given by her adoring family, more and more personal traits, items, and nicknames. Because her general expression is one of wide-eyed wonder, we call her Baby Owl or Wol. Because she talks with her eyebrows and often scrunches them in puzzlement at us, we call her the Disapproving Chairwoman who is about to pronounce on our antics. Privately, I also call this her "Queen Victoria" look ("We are not amused").

Her parents have bestowed upon her a small whitish animal doll, which they call Cuddle Bear. I asked Jess why, and she said that "Every small child ought to have a favorite stuffed animal or blanket or something." They are doing their best to make this object indispensable to her.

We're Sitting (Propped) Up!

2008-02-22T08:58:00.002-05:00

Watercolor Day in a Hole

2008-02-22T08:14:00.003-05:00

You have seen watercolor paintings. This day is one of them, all blended gray, white, and black. It is smudgy at the corners, but some details stand out in sharp, startling definition: for example the pinprick holes left in the snow by ice or rain (which one, no one knows, save God).

I was to teach this morning. I was to lift my voice in the musical cadences of seventeenth-century poetry, and try to reveal its beauties to a group of students, and talk with them about it, and laugh, and revel in artistry. But the ice (or rain) pricked my snowy plan, and the colors smudged, and the class was cancelled. I am sorry, yet not sorry, for who that loves God can think it right to be vexed by His sovereignty?

Therefore I shall spend my day at home, at quiet work. I shall be lost in the world of the imagination, where I enter each morning by a magic hole on an obscure hill that I know. The hole is black print and the hill is paper. The wood between the worlds is my library, and today's pool is Pride and Prejudice.

They are all waiting for me there. Lizzy is ready with a sparkling remark, Darcy will shake hands gravely, Bingley is all cheerfulness, and Jane will look more sweetly lovely than ever, for she told me yesterday that she means to wear her blue muslin gown.

Lydia is gone into the north, of course. I hope I shall have a half-hour before tea to see Mr. Bennet's new folio (I understand from Mary that it has arrived), but I'll take care that we go to the book-room to see it, while Mary is not present to pronounce her opinion and Kitty---poor girl!---need not make an effort to look interested.

Mrs. Bennet, I dare say, will want me to stay to tea, and I have no objection. Whatever her other faults may be, she keeps a good table and her hospitality is delightful. After tea there will be cards, but as I do not prefer cards, I shall stand by and watch instead. How bright their faces will be in firelight! How they will laugh and tease and exclaim over their winnings!

I love especially to watch the four lovers; between them there is not only wit but tempered wit, softened by affection, experience, and wisdom. Their eyes are brim-full of joy. Jane's white hand rests momentarily on Bingley's sleeve, and Darcy is smiling down at Lizzy (he is a great tall fellow).

It will be hard to leave them, but at last I shall rise from the corner of the sopha [sic] and make my adieux. The comfortable old brick facade of the house will bid me a warm, but moon-and-ice-silvered farewell as I drive away. Lulled by the clatter-roll-dip-clatter-clop-clop-clop-snap!-creak-jingle-clatter of the carriage and the horses hooves, I will not know whether I am falling asleep or simply falling, falling up out of the hole and the pool, up into the wood between the worlds, my library.

The Office: Season 7 -- "Driven to Chocolate"

2008-02-21T16:24:00.002-05:00

“She was driven to chocolate” – David, in the same tone in which one might say “She was driven to drink.”

“You told me to IM you back! And I am a peach.” – Amy to David

“I am totally crying…” – Amy, who has been laughing too hard.

“Brittainy, when you get to the section on morality…” – Christy
“Skip it!” – interjection by David

“I feel, and I think you will agree with me, that spawning conversations are the best.” – David

“I think your work with lapbooks has affected your judgment.” – Christy to David
“Actually, I feel that I benefited from that time.” ::pause:: “Like Purgatory.” – David

“I feel needed… I feel special….” – Nate
“Good!” – David
“….I feel used.” – Nate

“David, I just ruined what you did. Aren’t you proud of me?” – Mom

“Mother. What can I bring you to fill your stomach and your heart with joy?” – David
::the office laughs::
“What?! There’s nothing wrong with that sentence! I like it.” – Mom

“Muzzle not the aspidistra!” – Mom

"One crisis at a time: my simple plan for world domination" - Dad

Mourning Song

2008-02-15T00:24:00.001-05:00

Tonight I began a movie because I wanted to laugh at it. But in the end, I found that it had chosen its faults well, and I really could not laugh at them. Indeed, quite the opposite. I found myself strangely touched---moved by that queer, exquisite, aching flutter which tells us that someone has struck a chord in our hearts, and disturbed with their stone the smooth unruffled surface of our beings. It was humbling, to be so stirred by a movie that I had intended only to ridicule. I repeat, it was humbling. It was also instructive.

The movie is "Becoming Jane." I had been led to expect that it would include strident feminism and sexual innuendo. There were those things in it. At several points I was glad to be watching with a remote control and the ability to mute or fast-forward scenes. But these things, though egregious, are not always the sum total of a movie. In the story which I intended to mock for its shallowness and anachronisms, I found an element of depth and historical---indeed, universal---accuracy that far exceeded its regrettable accessories.

Boy meets girl. Both are penniless. All hopes of a respectable union are dashed, one after another. He weakens; they part; each becomes engaged to someone else. They meet again, by chance. The agony is unbearable, and so they decide to run away together. On the journey, however, she discovers that his family is dependent on him for money. She cannot bear that their love should be the means of making so many so unhappy, and thereby turn to bitterness. This time, it is she who breaks matters off. She returns home. He marries someone else. Many years later, they meet in a public room. His eldest daughter is with him; he has named the girl after her. She reads her book to his daughter, and in the chosen passage we hear an infinity of what might have been, but without complaint. Then she folds her hands over the book, and is still.

You see, this is a story about pain, and its most unusual feature is that it does not try to hurt you, but cannot avoid doing so, because the reality which it portrays is an open wound. In its best elements I believe is a mourning song, all the more powerful because restrained and quiet, as deep grief so often is. When we are in pain, sometimes we run mad. But those times are rare; more frequently we sit, and rock ourselves, and hold it in, betrayed only by the occasional, shuddering breath. Our minds cry out to us, but our lips are silent. Our bodies shake, but we are also still, too fragile to move for fear of breaking altogether. That is what this movie is like---it is like the stillness of a bowed head and a grief accepted, endured, overcome.

Sometimes I reflect to myself that human beings were not formed for pain. We were not created to suffer it. It bewilders us. But I think that God, in pity, has given us means of suffering without annihilation. We have tears. We have the rituals of lamentation. Our ancestors tore their clothes and cut their hair and covered themselves with ashes. We wear black and shut ourselves away for a time. I wonder, often, whether their methods were not better than ours. Surely it is wiser to express a grief, that it may be removed. Surely that which can describe our pain adequately (there is no such thing as perfection in a matter like this) deserves our thanks.

For we all must feel---and those who do not are the worse for their lack---that evil has entered very deeply into us. We must feel that the tearing of hearts which I witnessed in this movie tonight is not what was created to be. God sovereignly willed it; that is enough for me. But God has also given us means of enduring it, through mourning, and I am grateful for this movie as a lament. Let there be a lament for all the young girls whose hearts have ached to love and found no outlet. Let there be a song of grief for all the young men who overflowed with the desire to love, and were stayed. Let there be mourning for all the hands which stretched but did not grasp.

To those who, like the couple in the movie, loved not without sin, and were sundered by one of the evils that plagues our race: separated by greed, by deceit, by anger, by pride, by selfishness, or by a bullet or disease or a freakish accident, my heart is with you. Have I not sinned? Have I not known pain partly or wholly of my own making?

But if my heart is with these poor sinners (such we all are), then what do I owe to those few who loved more rightly, not in selfishness for the greater part, but in self-sacrifice, and were yet in God's wisdom parted? What does my heart owe to the truly great among lovers? To you, shining ones, I say "My heart stands before you in awe. I would learn of you, you men and women who loved fully and yet gave away freely when the beloved was required of you. I wish to learn how to surrender the friend of my soul, and yet trust God. From you, from you I would learn to grieve. For you have made grief beautiful in its time, because you set your heart on God."

I value "Becoming Jane" because I believe it is a true lament; but I will turn elsewhere to learn the way of grieving, because though in that movie the heart goes on, it does not rejoice. And we were made, after the darkness, to rejoice.

The Great Turnip Conversation

2008-02-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

Tis the season of bridal showers, and soon this year's crop of June weddings will be upon us. It seems that everybody I know (including myself) is due to don the festal garments and attend upon brides and grooms in short season. I don't mind. I like weddings. Where else, after all, can you get a full-blown pageant with ceremony and music and ritual and living imagery of Christ and the Church and beautiful clothes and idyllic settings, not to mention first-time-smooching, which is always sweet and often humorous? Personally, I'm a fan.

Meanwhile, Valentine's Day looms over the singles community, clothed with an awful and dreaded power. (For most of us; somehow I always either forget what day it is or else associate it with failing my first driving test and with my mother's enjoyment of pranks.)

Also meanwhile, but in a more routine sort of way, there are opinions sloshing back and forth across the internet about finding a spouse, or picking a spouse, or loving a spouse, or how you know you've got hold of the right person, or how you know that you are the right person, or whether there is a right person, or what you should do with a person who you think might be right.... etc. etc. and so forth ad infinitum.

Sometimes I wish the singles community would take up a new pet discussion topic, like maybe turnips. "Consider the turnip," somebody might say. "I believe that it is a good gift, and that somewhere out there is a turnip ripe enough to eat, which is provided for me."

"No!" Someone else will howl, "The turnip is an Unclean Plant and a Temptation to All Manner of Evil. I'm pretty sure the Old Testament says so! We had much better abstain from turnips in order to devote ourselves to Better Things!"

"I would be willing to eat a turnip," another chimes in, "if only they grew in my climate. But they do not; there are neither turnips nor turnip-growers in my church community."

This from the first fellow who began by praising turnips: "Don't be limited by geography! Go out and find another location where there are turnips. Try the internet."

Another, seeking to calm the situation, says "If God has a turnip for you, He will bring it along at the proper time."

After this the comments crowd in thick and fast, thus:

"God helps those that help themselves! You can't wait around like an idle sloth waiting for the turnip to find you; you must find your own turnip!"

"There's this great book on turnips, which tells how long to grow a turnip before eating it and has a color chart showing which variety of turnip is right for you and everything! It makes choosing a turnip easy."

"I've read that book. It stinks. Turnip-eating is a process that can't be designed or planned; you've got to just go out in a field and test one turnip after another until you find one that seems right."

"I've tried to grow several turnips but they all died on me. Honestly, man, you don't want the pain of turnip-loss. It'll eat your heart out. Forget the turnips."

"I'm a young single and this whole concept of finding a turnip that's right for me is scary. Also, I don't consider myself very attractive and wonder whether there is a turnip that would like me. Does anybody have advice about this sort of problem?"

"Like I said before, you should try this book on growing turnips. It has a whole chapter explaining that you don't have to be outwardly attractive to a turnip as long as you connect with it on the level of character and shared values."

"The truth is that we all have a turnip-shaped hole in our hearts and nothing but the right turnip will ever fill it. Do you want to go around all your life like that, or do you want to get out there and find your perfect turnip?"

"I don't care who you are, you're never going to find a 'perfect turnip' that agrees with you about everything. The main thing you've got to do is learn to compromise with your turnip, and always be willing to say you're sorry."

"I thought that eating a turnip means you never have to say you're sorry!"

"Sometimes association with a turnip does mean having to say you're sorry. But I also agree with Alfred Tennyson, who said,

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all."

"I agree! And when you really do find the right turnip, it's amazing. You feel like a falling star who has finally found its place next to another in a lovely constellation, where you and your turnip will sparkle in the heavens forever."

"I think that sticking with a turnip is a choice we make from moment to moment. You can't decide once and forever that you will love just this one turnip, but you can make that decision every day like it was the very first time."

"Whatever else we might disagree on, we should agree that we all need turnips."

Ah yes, I can see it now... the Great Turnip Conversation....

(Disclaimer: It is not my intention to mock either the honorable state of matrimony or the sincere efforts of Christian singles to understand how they shall go about entering that state with wisdom and integrity. It's just funny to me, sometimes, how much we stew about it all---especially since there are so many other things in life to think about. For example, turnips. :-))

Starbucks Personalities, Law, and Worldviews

2008-02-05T12:52:00.000-05:00

I am in the midst of a Starbucks craze, which means that I spend a few evenings a week working at Starbucks instead of at home. This happens about twice a year; the coffeeshop ambiance calls to me, siren-like, and for the duration I am more likely to be productive if I answer the Call of the Bean. Fortunately for my pocketbook, sanity, and home life, this Call never continues for more than a few weeks.

So to Starbucks I hie me after dinner and work hard for several hours, until, like an alarm clock, something goes off in my head and I begin to notice people instead of whatever it is that I am studying. Then I ponder, and write, and finally go home happy, having had a thoroughly eclectic experience.

Tonight there are two middle-aged men in the armchairs across the room, who sit still and stare at nothing. Absolutely nothing. They have no books, no computers, not even a cell phone as far as I can tell. What are they thinking about? Why do they sit there, legs crossed, stirring the air with a single foot, in a state of quiet and watchful agitation? Do they wish that someone would talk to them? Or are they lost in memories? Will my eyes ever be as wise and experienced as theirs? They inspire in me a sort of reverent compassion.

That is the view ahead and to my left; to my right, against the plate-glass windows, sit three members of the opposite end of the spectrum: young friends who alternately go outside to smoke and then come inside to gossip. They are vivacious and comfortable with each other. One reads aloud from another's textbook... something about self-esteem that sounds like psychobabble. They seem tired but happy, kicking down the cobbled streets of well-worn conversation.

Directly across, under a foursquare of poster/plaques, sits a representative of a species that I know quite well. It is a student, complete with laptop and headphones and notebooks, working away at who-knows-what. We are comrades, and there is a certain unspoken familiarity between us. Behind and to the left, beneath the slate-colored plaques covered with mildly incoherent writing (I call them the Tablets of the Worship of the Bean), sit a young couple talking. Her knees are drawn up to her chest; he is leaning across and listening intently. I smile at them---why not? The world is full of lovers, and the world loves them.

Finally, in front of the coffee table (the only real coffee table in this Starbucks) sit two women chatting. I have seldom seen an odder pair. Though clearly friends, one looks like an academic and the other is a... a study in contrasts. The academic's long brown hair is pulled straight and a little untidily back. She wears glasses and a thick grey shirt. The other woman's haircut is sharp, short, and slanted. The platinum blondeness of it is clearly a dye, and her eyes are so thickly, blackly made up that they look like two holes in her head. She seems vaguely self-conscious. Her friend the academic looks thoughtful.

And then, I suppose, I am here too. I sit with my feet propped up on a chair, in "studying sweats," at a table scattered with an assortment of books from various time periods and on different subjects (The Universe Next Door, The Knowledge of the Holy, Pride and Prejudice, The Romance of the Rose, and the Bible), a pocket watch (English), pens (blue), an ipod (nano), a leatherbound portfolio for notes, altoids, and my tiny laptop.

(Amusing Interjection: This laptop is called "The Companion of My Future Life II," successor to another of that name, which causes me to chuckle every day with the shutting-down question "Do you want to turn off 'the Companion of My Future Life'?" This name or phrase is also particularly appropriate to the study of Pride and Prejudice, since it originally belonged to Mr. Collins.)

I am in the middle of making notes on Pride and Prejudice when I notice the quote on my Starbucks cup. (Hazelnut caramel, by the way. The barista helped me to invent it a few days ago, and I heartily recommend it.) The quote goes like this:

"The Way I See It #271"

"The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal -- to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can'd end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves." - Scott Turow, Author of Presumed Innocent and Limitations.

Hm.

That's all it takes. My mind is off and running, fueled by the teachings of my father (a constitutional lawyer) and my last few days of studying worldviews (The Universe Next Door is a worldviews catelogue which I have been using for literary studies).

"First," I remark to myself, "that is not how I would define the goal of the law. The first precept of the law, if memory of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin serves, is to cherish good and punish evil. Or am I mixing up my philosophers? Well, I THINK that's what they said. Suppose it is; and if it is, then that goal is subtly different from "make our lives more just," though justice is, I suppose, a noble goal."

"Second, the assumption about how much we can or cannot control seems post-Renaissance and post-modern. It assumes that we can control something, but also that what we can control is severely limited. Interesting. What would change about this gentleman's goal of law if he had a theistic view of human capacity to control?"

"Third, I wonder why he set up 'needs' beside 'rights.' Perhaps the elevation of 'needs' is due to a 'state of nature' view of law?"

"Fourthly, to 'reflect our best vision of ourselves' is an exercise in futility, from a Christian perspective, but is also curiously postmodern, since postmodernism seems to be, on one level at least, all about perception. If the gentlemen took a more objective view of both truth and humanity, would he alter his statement?"

All this train of thought, I now consider, is derived quite without intention from the side of a Starbucks cup and the miscellanious impressions of law, political theory, philosophy, and worldviews, left in my brain after sixteen years of education.And then I began to laugh at myself, for after all I do sometimes feel ridiculously overeducated and like a pompous armchair commentator; and not only that, but as if the knowledge in my brain is disorganized and riddled with holes and flawed memories.

Then, however, I sober... and this is my final thought: "If people really believe the sort of thing that that quote says, then what will be the result of it? Where will we end, if we base our political decisions on such precepts?"

It made me want to pay better attention to the political races now going on around us, not out of anxiety or a belief that God won't direct America as He sees fit, but because I have a responsibility as a citizen to think about these things, and to vote with intelligence, humility, and a biblical perspective.

For the price of ten minutes or so of thinking, I believe that such a reminder is a worthwhile acquisition. And the opportunity to observe and spin mental stories about Starbucks personalities is always worth its weight in beans.

We Moved the Press

2008-02-01T15:06:00.001-05:00

The Development Team at Lampstand Press has been relocated. We are now in our comfortable, climate-controlled basement, with a full kitchen upstairs!!! We are immensely happy about this, and Production, though they envy and miss us like the dickens, is happy to be growing into our old space in the warehouse. They visit us on every pretext, and we feel loved.

So, from our joyous new comfiness, here is the first posting of quotes for the new season (season seven) of The Office. I'd like to dedicate it to Peter, our most recent hire. Keep the faith, man... and the footnotes. ;-)

“You know, if you strictly take the outline of Shakespeare’s face, he looks like Princess Leia.” – David

“Let’s talk about the customers first, and then we can talk about killing Christy. I do appreciate that we don’t want to kill the girl that lays the golden discussion script.” – Mom

Christy, on moving directly from frantic work to finish Year 2, to frantic work to finish Loom documents: “But Rabbit, I wasn’t going to eat freedom! I was just going to taste it!”

“Samuel de Champlain is my facial hair hero.” – David

“Aww, look at the snow! It’s so cute!” – Lauren

“I’m going to write this book when I finish Tapestry…” – Mom
“I thought that when you were finished with Tapestry you were going to stay home, fondling your koi or whatever.” – David
…. Several gasping moments of laughter, accusation, and protestation go by….
“Okay, well, feeding your koi. Whatever!” – David

“That’s of course what I meant.” ::pause:: “Tra-la.” – David

“Easy for you to say…you’ve never gone and just forgotten the definitive literary masterpiece of the Middle Ages!” – Christy, bewailing her own idiocy in leaving Dante out of a list of epics, to Mom, who is attempting to soothe her
“That’s because I’ve never tried to deal with the definitive literary masterpiece of the Middle Ages.” – Mom, imperturbably

“Okay, I love you.” – David, hanging up with Casey
“Why?” – Christy, asks, totally randomly, to the air in general
“Because she’s beautiful, and funny, and godly, and pretty… which is like beautiful, but more casual… and adventuresome. And she thinks she’s a pirate… except for the times when she thinks she’s a monkey… except for the times when she thinks she’s a princess… except for the times when she thinks she’s a rock.” – David, assuming that Christy meant to ask why he’s in love with Casey

"It's okay, Christy. You can name your first child 'Eidelweiss.' I'll let you." - David, out of nowhere
"Wow, you finally relented. I thought you'd never come around." - Christy
"No, I've actually seen the light. It's okay now." - David
"Actually, it's because I bribed Casey to convince you." - Christy
"You want to name your child 'Eidelweiss'?" - Lauren
"No, honey, they're being completely facetious." - Mom, reassuring Lauren
“Casey only convinced me because she tied my seven braids to a loom and then cried out, ‘David! The papyrus designers are upon you!’” – David (He hates the font called “papyrus”).
"That would explain why your hair is so short now." - Christy

Amazed All Over Again

2008-01-30T21:16:00.000-05:00

Love the Children

2008-01-20T17:30:00.000-05:00

Off and on since graduation last May, I have been pondering children and parenting. It is a natural subject for me to ponder, really, since my return home has plunged me into Children's Ministry, and November brought Nora.

One of the biggest things I have been thinking is how tragic---yes, I think can use that word---how tragic a change has occurred in the adult world's attitude towards children. Children are no longer important. In the ancient times, the Middle Ages, and even up until the twentieth century, children have been IMPORTANT. A woman's overall health and strength, and therefore her ability to have healthy and strong children, used to be a weighty factor in the marriage decisions of prospective husbands. Paternity used to matter terribly, and parents used to take the greatest care and trouble about their children's education. Children were seen, not only as the hope of the future, but as the beloved and awe-striking responsibility of the present. They were also the center of their parents' attention.

I am generalizing, of course. There were indifferent parents and even cruel parents (an idea almost, but not quite, beyond my imagination) in those times too. But the general attitude was different. I was reflecting sadly, a few days ago, on a movie in which a young heroine in love made the now-common assumption that, were she to get married, her husband was more likely to NOT want children, than to want them. I have also seen and read and heard stories based on the premise that mothers "can't be bothered" with the children that they do have, and heartily regret having had them, and certainly don't want any more. And I have myself met singles my own age, of both sexes, who confess readily and cheerfully that they do not like children.

How COULD they? How could ANYBODY make such an unnatural, such a monstrous statement, with such ease!? Last Friday night, for the first time, I served in the Nursing Mothers Room at church. There was a special meeting for all the married couples, and we had about twenty young mothers come through the room during the evening. Two I had known in high school, and one of them, now my sister-in-law, brought in the family baby: Nora, who is now the center of her young uncles' and aunts' adoring fascination.

There is not one person in my family who would not gladly and unhesitatingly step between a baby, any baby, and any danger which may present itself, even if that action lead to death. There is no one in my family who ignores babies, or who finds their messes and noises annoying. Not a single one of us would be "bothered" by an infant. On the contrary, we consider children the most amazing source of enjoyment, entertainment, and good productive work.

Who has known happiness who has not been smiled upon by a baby? Who has shown tenderness who has not shown it to a two-year-old's frightened face and huge eyes? Who will curl their lip at a child's terror of the dark? Who will fail to show patience with a little who has hurt his hand? And who can resist the adorable chatter of these small people, with all their eager communications and brimming enthusiasm for a world which to us is old and evil, but becomes fresh, exotic, and beautiful to our eyes again through them?

Oh, I do not know how to account for the adult world! What is WRONG with us all, that we consider our pleasures, our past-times, our work, or---perhaps most ugly of all, because least necessary---our figures, diets, and clothes, more important than these same children? You, my fellow adult, answer me! How dare you? How dare you prefer your golf game or your sports channel, or your books and music, or your job, to your child? How can you fail to enjoy the society of your own flesh and blood? How can you abstain from the opportunity to teach a little girl how shoes are tied, or answer that unfailing question, "Daddy, are bugs glad to be bugs?"

I have been reading Plutarch and Ovid, ancient authors who write without much concern about horrible things, things that I should be ashamed to boast of in my culture. But when I think how they would be ashamed of us, and horrified by us, because of the indifference that we show to children, I am filled with another kind of shame---not for what they were, but for what we have become.

The observation of all this leads me to feel an almost trembling awe and joy in the love that I see flowing from parents whom I know. In the Nursing Mothers Room I saw only mothers whose long slender fingers and smiling lips touched their children with absolute tenderness---a sight that made me want to kiss their feet for very gratitude and respect. They are queens. My sister-in-law, too, who has been a dear friend since high school, I now look up to also as a woman who has passed into the realm where great ladies are made---the realm of motherhood.

And then the children themselves: I think of my little Case, my terrible child, all kicks and screams one moment, all blue-eyed-shining wonder and hugs the next, whom I teach and admonish, and tease, and tickle, and guard and love, and for whom I would gladly die; or Nora, lying like a rosebud wrapped in her petals of pink blankets, asleep in my arms this very afternoon. Her sleeping face was fat and warm and silky-skinned and sweet and beautiful beyond utterance, and when she opened her large gray-blue eyes, they were full of an awakening personality. Her mouth is haunted by smiles. Fairies are her attendants, and the elves are jealous of her.

Beloved reader, love the children, I beg you. Love them always, love them patiently, love them firmly and unselfishly and unindulgently; love them with great tenderness, and plead with God so that He might give you wisdom to lovingly educate them in His law and ways. I have no child of my own, but I love all these with all my soul, and I know it is a gift from God. If you have not this gift, ask for it! If you do not love, learn to love. And, beloved, understand that children are important. They are more important to me, I think sometimes, than my very life. Certainly they are more important than my interests, or even my occupation. If I ever have children of my own, I pray that they will be both interest AND occupation to me.

Biographical Fragment No. 1: My Hour in the Circus Maximus

2008-01-16T18:58:00.000-05:00

The way was darker than I expected, like some back stairwell of an industrial building. I found it suddenly hard to believe that just outside lay sunny Rome in September. We gained the top at last and stood about on something half-demolished. I could see into the unroofed tunnels which were once passages beneath the Circus Maximus. Sunlight blazed all around.
Then I felt one of my flashes.
Heat! I was part of a yelling, seething array of people whose sweat rode the close air. We were bored, hot, savage, and hungry. There was bloodlust in my throat—my own throat. Someone jostled my arm; a reek of garlic on their tongue penetrated my fuzzy senses. We shouted louder, screaming for the ragged, sick, and starving prisoners to be brought. Their blood would make amends for—what?—for something: the heat perhaps, or the boredom, or the hunger. It was interesting to watch people die. Yes, shout! Shout louder! We can almost taste the blood, and blood goes well with sweat.
It had been there—a moment when the taste of all those feelings corroded my mouth. I, left gasping, took a ragged breath to redeem the pipe-ways of my being. What ghost or fury inhabited the great Circus? Looking down into the very entrails of the Circus, which were like opened arteries of stone, I thought of those who staggered through them once, waiting for their blood to be spilled in the autumn sun, and I knew that evil clings to places. I turned to go away, because I was afraid.
“You can see the Wedding Cake from here,” a man’s voice spoke behind me. “See?” He pointed to Emmanuel II’s marble monument, across the Forum.
“This place just doesn’t look as big as it did in Ben Hur.” Another voice chimed in, peevish and dusty.
“Did they really film Ben Hur in Rome? I thought the chariot race was done in Hollywood.”
Someone else asked, “How many would this hold?”
“Not enough for the Rose Bowl!”
There was a general laugh, and the knot of tourists scattered.
“Idiots,” I said to myself, savagely. “What do you know? Can’t you feel anything? I’ll put you down there in the dark, with all these crowds screaming. Then you’ll know. We will order up your blood, and—”
Then I heard my own words.

Story Fragment No. 2: The Beggar's Ring

2008-01-11T16:54:00.000-05:00

The artisan finished his ring before sunset. Prodesse thought the pearl perfect, but wondered at its setting. “Truly,” he said to himself, “it deserves to be set in better metal than this copper band.” As he was thinking this, a very ragged child approached the house and knocked. The old man opened it.
“Welcome, son,” said the artisan. “Have you come for your ring?” He laid it in the boy’s palm.
“I came for bread,” the beggar replied, much amazed.
“This is better than bread,” said the artisan, with lifted eyebrows, “and it is bread, and will get you bread besides.”
“But how can I pay for it—I have nothing.”
“Nevertheless,” the artisan replied, “I made it for you.”
“Oh, sir!” said the boy. He was silent a moment, then cried again, “Oh, sir!”
“Why not, my son? You see the band is only copper; you need not be afraid to take it any more than you fear a copper coin. It will fit your second finger. See? It is yours.”
The child put it on. His mouth worked as though he wanted very much not to cry, but his eyes were shining. The artisan put his hand a moment on the boy’s head and sent him away, whereupon the beggar went forth dazed, and Prodesse stared at the artisan.
“What have you done, Grandfather? That jewel was worth a king's palace!”
“It was worth more than that, my son. Shall we have some dinner?”
Prodesse was not to be diverted. “But why did you give away your pearl?”
The artisan smiled. “Have I given it away?”
“I saw you put it on the hand of a beggar.”
“It is a very old saying, my son,” the artisan said, dryly, “that things are not always as they seem. See here.” And, stooping, he drew the pearl again from the fountain.
“I did not think there were two such pearls on earth!” cried Prodesse, taking it into his hand.
“There is only one such pearl,” the old artisan replied, a little severely.
“Then, how have you got it again from the beggar’s ring? Is it magic?”
“No,” said the artisan, “but it is a very mysterious pearl.”
“That is true!”
“I must make a new setting for it,” murmured the artisan.
“So the boy got only a copper after all,” Prodesse mused. “No better than he deserved, but still it is a hard thing.” He was thinking of the look in the beggar’s eyes when the artisan had said, “It is yours.” The old artisan did not reply at first, but stood gazing at him with a look that struck Prodesse to his soul. There was sadness in it, and hurt, and a kind of pity.
“The child still has his pearl.”
Prodesse grew more and more astonished. “But how is this possible?”
A corner of the artisan’s mouth twitched. “You must learn to attend more closely, my son. Did I not say that it is a very mysterious pearl? When you are older, you shall have a ring also. Now, please set the table for supper.”
The artisan returned to his settings, and Prodesse went to get their dinner.

Defining "Cute": Exhibit A

2008-01-11T16:49:00.001-05:00

I give you Nora Caryl. Need we search further?

This Sums It Up Exactly

2008-01-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

Christy, on moving directly from frantic work to finish Year 2, to frantic work to finish Loom documents: “But Rabbit, I wasn’t going to eat freedom! I was just going to taste it!”

Don't wait for your circumstances to change before you decide to be happy, folks. Even if they do change for the easier, they'll be harder again before you know it, and then you'll have to face the temptation of bitterness. Just decide to be happy regardless of circumstances. It ain't easy, but it's good. This year has taught me that. :-)

Story Fragment No. 1

2008-01-10T20:46:00.000-05:00

I don't know where it came from, or where (if anywhere) it's going, but this is a fragment from the life of Ardent Jones.

“Mr. …”
“Jones, Sir. Ardent Jones. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir. I’ve heard so much about—”
“Ardent, you say? Dear me, that’s rather French. Well, how do you do?”
They shook hands. “My mother’s choice. She was fond of romances.”
“And are you fond of her?”
Ardent paused a moment. The question was so unexpected. “I suppose all men love their mothers, Sir.” He said carefully.
“A weak answer, but expressive. In my day, young man, we did not speak in that singularly deprecating manner of our mothers’ literary tastes. In fact, we said nothing uncomplimentary of our mothers, sisters, wives, and in fact the whole female race, to other gentlemen.” He caressed the word “gentlemen” as it left his lips. Ardent’s ear-tips reddened slightly. The older man saw it and smiled. “I think your mother showed great judgment of character, Jones.”
Ardent, speechless, was grateful that the old goat—as he now mentally described him--next turned away to speak to his aide, who had been standing nearby throughout the exchange; or rather, Ardent thought bitterly, throughout the enjoyment that wealth and age have in victimizing youth and comparative poverty.

It's Over

2008-01-04T11:17:00.000-05:00

Today I finished the last class plan of Year 2. My heart overflows with gratitude, for I see that God has brought me through the most spiritually and mentally difficult year of my life (thus far), and it is marvelous in my eyes. Domine, te adoro.

HAPPY!

2008-01-03T09:50:00.001-05:00

No, I haven't finished Year 2 yet. But I don't care; I'm still happy!!!!

It's a feeling you get sometimes. :-D