2nd Annual SRPC Talent Night

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven". Track 4, "Souter Creek".

August 16, 2007

I went home at six o’clock after work and had just enough time to tidy up and eat a bit of supper before my family left for the 2nd Annual SRPC talent night at the community center. The talent night started at seven o’clock, in the old gymnasium that’s been refurbished. When we got there, a bit late, nothing had started. Four rows of chairs had been set up in front of the stage, but Stephanie was still busy organizing the refreshment table, and the little ones were running around, shouting and playing at the other end of the gym. I flopped down in the front row next to Elizabeth and Sarah. Anna and Dani hustled Laura off to put on her Irish dancing outfit. Just about everyone was there: all the Spitlers and Fishers, the Voelkers, my family (plus grandparents), Jon, Jonathan, Logan, the Wagners with Miss Hannah, a smattering of Brocatos, and the complete contingent of Parnells and Carrolls, not forgetting the Yosts.

Mr. Yost opened up the festivities. As emcee, it was his job to introduce each act. He came out on stage with Joseph perched on his shoulder. Joseph said hi to everyone, and, fascinated by the noise, babbled into the microphone while everyone (including his father) laughed at him. The first act was not on the program. Our Master of Ceremonies moved the microphone down and stepped off the stage, and Christa came bouncing on. The mic was right at her height, and without further ado, she began to recite “The Woodpecker”, complete with gestures. She got through it with only a couple of slips, and was coached through those by ECF mouthing the words at her from the front row. Everyone laughed and applauded wildly.

Next we had Nathan and Calvin come onstage. Nathan set up his drum and announced to everyone, “This is what happens to someone who tries to touch my dad’s books!” Calvin toddled around behind Nathan wearing a grey jacket and a big yellow smiley face ball on top of his head under the jacket hood. Nathan struck up a patter on his drum, and Greg stepped out of the wings with a big plastic sword and whacked off Calvin’s “head”. That brought more laughs, especially from Mr. Carroll.

After the “execution”, Bridget and Abigail came up and sang a funny little song about a woodchuck. Their voices were rather too soft to understand the words, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how well they split into harmony, their gentle voices peeling away from one another and then back again into melody.

When they had finished singing, Christi bounced up on stage. “Now everyone,” she said, “I know you’re all getting tired of sitting. So I’ll give you a taste of what my day looks like from about one o’clock to three-thirty.” She proceeded to teach us the exercises that she does with her preschoolers at the Christian school where she’s a PE teacher. Missy put on the CD, and Christi led us through the most ridiculous little dance, consisting of touching various parts of the body while a nutty chap sang out of the stereo. “You all look so silly,” Christi chuckled after the song ended.

But soon we were treated to some real dancing, for next came a string of ceilidh dancing: Abigail and Will with the two-hand; Laura, Hannah, and Rebeka with the three-hand; and Dani, Ruth, and Anna with a special soft shoe dance that involved a lot of kicking. It was beautiful stuff to watch, graceful, perfectly timed to the music.

After they finished, I got up onstage and read a couple of poems, the kite sonnet and “Tulips”.

After I read we had a hilarious interlude by the Roadkill Band. While the Band was setting up, Raychel pranced around on the stage, dancing and bouncing and twirling. The Roadkill Band consisted of four Beanie Babies set up on a bench, with tiny instruments handmade out of bits of trash. The Beanie Babies were manipulated like puppets by Ben (drums), Dani (singer), and Greg (electric guitar), lipsyncing along with a Christian rock song. The gyrations of the guitarist, the bobbing of the singer (a polar bear), and the flat coolness of the drummer (a chipmunk-like creature with a black headband) were quite funny. The Wagner girls, sitting behind us, laughed and laughed.

After the Roadkill Band, we had another wait, while Philip, Jonathan, and Jon set up for a skit. Raychel danced around the stage waving Greg’s plastic sword and striking ferocious Zelda Warrior Princess poses, which made Mr. Yost gape in mock horror. Philip, Jonathan, and Jon performed a skit entitled “The Game of Go”—Jonathan, wearing sweats, and Philip, in a brown cardigan with a golf cap, sat down with “propah” British accents to play Go. Then Jon, the “clueless American” walked on and asked them why they were playing such a stupid game. In response, Philip and Jonathan promptly got up, discarded their accents (and their hats, in favor of dudeish black sunglasses), and started to rap about how Go illustrated every one of the five points of Calvinism, using TULIP as their outline. Philip rapped in such a deep voice that I could hardly understand what he was saying, but Jonathan was more intelligible—and anyway, their actions were funny enough as they acted out the words by making moves on the Go board to prove their point. “You forgot the last one, man! Perseverance of the Saints!” Philip hooted just when Jonathan thought he had won, and Philip proceeded to end the skit by rapping about the last point of Calvinism…! Jon stood off to one side grinning and making goofy faces.

The next act was more Irish dancing—this time, hardshoe dancing by Dani and Anna. Impressive stuff. They didn’t stand onstage, but down on the hardwood floor, their clunky shoes clicking and clapping on the floorboards, kicking and leaping, and making quite a rhythmic racket, in time to the music.

In contrast to their foot-flashing performance, we then had Christi come up on stage for more of her “aerobic exercises”. It made for some pretty funny pictures, especially Christa, who came up to the front with Mary and Emily and Raychel, and the four of them pranced around enthusiastically, flapping their arms.

After that act, Missy sang “Popular” from Wicked, and Beth sang about the “simple joys of maidenhood” from Camelot. The ridiculously outlandish lyrics had everyone laughing, along with the amusing little gestures that the girls used to illustrate their songs—Missy strutting about snobbishly, and Beth sighing for knights to kill each other over her (!).

Then we had quite a different sort of singing, as Logan got up and sang off all the countries in the world, maintaining one of his silliest small-child voices the whole time. That set the Wagner girls laughing again, in chorus.

Our last “real” act was another skit, “Howdy Partner”, performed by the Parnells. Abigail, Mr. Parnell, and Will, all dressed up in cowboy-style hats, stood on the floor at the front of the gym, arms hanging down like those of puppets in a game arcade. Sam came along, the clueless gamer, and punched an imaginary button to start the game. “Howdy, partner,” Mr. Parnell intoned, “pick up the gun at my feet. When I count to three, draw.” Sam did so, and was squirted in the face by Mr. Parnell’s water gun. “Sorry, partner, you lose,” Mr. Parnell growled again, and then flopped down lifelessly. Sam pretended to be very angry and frustrated, and punched the button again. This time, Mr. Parnell “jammed”, and just as Sam was turning away in disgust, Mr. Parnell opened fire. The last time, Sam went up to Mr. Parnell and held his water gun right by Mr. Parnell’s jaw, grimacing horribly as he did so (Mr. Parnell had a very hard time keeping a straight face). Mr. Parnell went through the rigamarole again, but just as Sam was getting ready to shoot, Will and Abigail turned on him, too, so Sam was drenched by all three of them. It was quite funny—made funnier by Sam’s exaggerated faces, and the difficulty of Will, Abigail, and Mr. Parnell as they tried not to laugh.

To end the night, Mr. Yost gave an open call for anyone to come up. Mr. Carroll came up and cracked a few jokes. Then Laura, Anna, Ruth, and Dani danced the four-hand reel—one of my favorite Irish dances, pretty intricate patterns. Then Ben and Greg came onstage. “This is what we do,” Greg explained, “We have a couple of Beanie Babies who can walk on all four paws, but when they try to walk on two paws, this is what happens. We’ll show you.” He and Ben proceeded to lurch about in the most ridiculous fashion, their legs locked but their arms flopping, as though they had suddenly become wooden dummies. Greg fell down, and Ben tried to pick him up at least twice, unsuccessfully, of course—we all went laughing again, as good as a “Three Stooges” routine. “And those were the guys who didn’t make the Irish dance team,” Mr. Yost chuckled as they staggered off stage. The night ended when Laura and Dani got up to play a silly little ditty on the piano.

Then the lights came on, and the audience was released for snacks and talk. After awhile, J.D. and Sam got their laptop hooked up to the projector for the premier of Catgirl, the latest PNT Productions film. It’s not quite finished (it mostly lacks a soundtrack), but they decided to screen it anyway. Pretty soon, everyone was standing about in silent groups, watching—even the adults. The little children climbed up on the stage, and the bigger children stood leaning on the stage. Catgirl is quite an impressive production, combining film clips taken from the past two summers put together to form one cohesive story. Mary is Catgirl herself, with Ruth as her secretary. Jonathan is the mayor, a ridiculous big guy with an annoying laugh. And Logan played Gameboy, the evil villain who creates a remote control that can control the world. The movie was mostly silly, one long spoof on just about everything, from Spider-man to LOTR (in the scene where Gameboy has just managed to control Catgirl but is thwarted by having his remote control run out of batteries, J.D. had put in the clip from the ROTK soundtrack where Frodo and Gollum are struggling on the brink of Mount Doom). The film received a long ovation, but after it ended we had to pick up and leave quickly as the maintenance men were there to lock up.

And there are pictures up on photobucket!

Elfellyn
flook07

good-byes

Syneva is going to be an RUF intern at Belmont College in Nashville, TN.















Danielle is going back to Sterling College in Kansas as a sophomore.







I am going to miss them both, but I give thanks for their friendship.

one more project on the shelf

It's done, at last. It's the first quilt I've made without substantial help from anyone else. My mother and Stephen did assist me with pinning it, but otherwise I did most of the work alone. It's definitely not a perfect quilt: some of the squares are going the wrong direction, and there's a wrinkle in the backing. All the same, I'm fairly pleased with it--a good quilt for a child, perhaps, with the bright colors. I think I'm going to christen the patern "box of crayons" instead of "gumdrop" because with the bright colors highlighted by black it reminds me of a Crayola box with all the different colors inside.

So now my mother can have her laundry room back....


And here's one of my favorite pictures....

I love these little ones!

sitting and thinking (and reading)

Now Playing: Chris Thile, "Stealing Second". Track 4, "Bittersweet Reel".

I suppose the summer is almost over now. It doesn't seem particularly strange that it should be over, but it does seem strange that I have about four more weeks before my school starts. I'm ready to get back to work now, in some ways.

I think that it's been a good summer this year. Last summer was good, too, but for different reasons. That summer was occupied with two mission trips; this summer, there haven't been any mission trips, and I've spent most of my afternoons sitting in a little booth, reading. But I've read so much, and it seems to me that I've learned a lot along the way. It seems that God has taught me through the things I've read--it remains to be seen whether I shall actually put them into practice as I ought. Here's a list:

Seven Agatha Christie mysteries at the beginning of the summer, while I was being trained (I could polish off one in a morning!).

The Complete Stories of Dorothy Sayers, which I started back over Christmas break, and only had a few to finish up. Good fun.

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Weird. Read on the trip to visit the cousins at the end of May. Maybe I was so keen to work on Philip's quilt because I didn't want to have to read this book.

A History of Old English Literature and The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology, as well as a couple of articles on teaching Anglo-Saxon literature and hagiography (that's the body of literature written about saints).

Poems by C.S. Lewis, an excellent collection, which I would advise everyone to read. Also, The Collected Poems of G.K. Chesterton, perhaps not as engaging as Lewis's, but conveying many of the same ideas.

Selected Poems and Prose by Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the most beautifully devoted poets I've ever read, though a Catholic. His prose isn't as good, but his poems are well worth the reading and re-reading that they require in order to be understood. Much of their meaning lies in their artistry, the use of rhythm in particular to emphasize parallels between words and ideas, which is why they are both rather complicated to read and full of meaning.

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, a good practical book about how Christ's work should enable us to rest on Him no matter where we are in life.

Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri. Least said, soonest mended. Milton is way better!

The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, written largely from the perspective of the Republic as far as contemporary times go. A sad look at a sad people who desperately need the peace of Christ to cure their unrest.

Six Wives: The Queens of King Henry VIII, a book focusing on the tiny details of historical policy, with a rather distasteful interest in scandal, and a sensational style. I slogged through it during those long rainy days in June, and so will always associate it with cold omelette and tea.

Letters to a Young Poet/The Possibility of Being by Rainer Maria Rilke. Interesting.... A gift from my grandparents.

Knowing God by J.I. Packer. An excellent book.... I could read and re-read it many times and always be edified, no matter how simple it may seem.

The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, stolen from the Spitlers' bookshelf while I was house-sitting for them at the start of July. Good philosophical books to set a person thinking about the ills of contemporary postmodernism and the cure for those ills.

The Phantom Tolbooth and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, read between these other weighty tomes for the pure enjoyment of something silly and fun--the first one read in a morning, the second one read in a night after everyone else was in bed, both relished thoroughly.

The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges, a good and convicting study of what it means to be like God and what traits in particular may be practiced to draw us closer to Him. Read on the trip to Colorado. A mountain-top experience: awe-inspiring to consider the majesty of God's character while seeing a visible manifestation of it in my surroundings, and humbling to see my small self in relation to that--but also encouraging, for He has set more value on me when I was in rebellion than on those beautiful mute castles of stone.

The Sagas of Icelanders, a series of raw, unedited narratives from pre-Christian Iceland. Do these people never get tired of killing each other?! But some of the poetry inserted in the narratives was really beautiful, full of little metaphors like tiny elaborate pieces of intricately-made gold work. The poets in the stories are always the outcasts, the wildest, nastiest men of the bunch, but kings of other countries give them ships and cloaks and gold in exchange for well-made poems.

So now I'm working on Holiness by J.C. Ryle. With the Packer book and some of those books of poems (Anglo-Saxon, Hopkins, Lewis), probably one of the best books I've read this summer. A stirring style, sound theology, and solid practical questions to convict and encourage. If I finish that in time, I'll skim through some poems by Seamus Heaney, and perhaps read a slender volume about the minor prophets that my father gave me.

A lot of lovely things and some ugly things, and many things to pray about. I really didn't think I'd ever get to read all these! Again, the question is whether I'll actually put into practice what I've learned. Ryle gives a sober warning about Lot and his wife: Lot was a lingerer, and his wife was a looker-back. Lot was saved; his wife wasn't. But it's better not to be either one of them, and instead to be stirred up to be zealous and diligent. Ryle emphasizes that if we aren't doing good for people, we're doing them harm, so we must seek to do good to others in order to be like Christ and glorify Him.

So that's where the adventure really begins....

the way Saturdays should be...

(... except for my father being away on a trip!)

Now Playing: The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, production by Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. Track 4, "The Sailing of the King".

My mother, Laura, and I went grocery shopping this morning. We started off at the Farmer's Market. My mother sauntered up and down the rows of stalls, inspecting the produce, and buying goods from her regular farmers, exchanging good-natured greetings with soft-spoken Oklahoma gents. We bought tomatoes and white winter squash, a very ripe cantaloupe, and one cucumber from a sweet little Asian woman. The morning was already warm. The Farmer's Market was busy, people walking up and down, couples together, or elderly ladies walking little dogs, or college students in pairs, or artsy types with bicycle helmets dangling from their hands.

Next stop was Wal-Mart, of course. My mother always remarks about how fat everyone is in Wal-Mart, but today, aside from the usual collection of painfully obese people, there was a painfully thin girl--her green dress fluttered like a sack from her shoulders and there were no muscles in her arms and legs. Her face and hair were carefully manicured, but her face was terribly sad. Laura and I spotted a chap with dreadlocks three feet long, hanging down his back. We christened him "Octopus Man" on the spot. We bought the most adorable little stuffed koala to send as a baby shower gift to Manabu and Nagisa, who are having a child.

Then we had a couple of errands to run to Hobby Lobby and Mays, and then home, at about eleven-thirty. My mother, Laura, Stephen, and I had a fairly quiet lunch.

The afternoon was long and busy, in a quiet fashion. I finished tying my quilt. All that remains now is to put the binding round the edge. Then, while my mother baked bread, I fixed Inca cookies for dessert tonight, and washed the dishes. It was past the middle of the afternoon by then, so though it was hot outside, I picked up and went for a walk around San Born Lake. The lake seemed very alive this afternoon: a pair of kites overhead; the trees rasping with cicadas; the grass hissing with crickets. Grasshoppers buzzed off the path. Brown dragonflies with blue tips on their wings hovered over the grass. Little things rustled in the thick underbrush, under masses of honeysuckle, juniper, and Johnson grass. Cardinals called to one another, their song like sweet flame through the green leaves. When I was little, my father used to tell me that the cardinals were saying, "Pretty, pretty, pretty!" because I had red hair just the way they did. A warm south wind stirred the trees, great sweeping gusts rising and falling in the cottonwoods and locust trees.

Back at home, I tidied up the house while Laura fixed dinner rolls and my mother worked on supper. I poked around with Mandy in the back yard, and then dried clean dishes and put them away. At about five-thirty, the doorbell rang, and our guests came in for supper: Jonathan, Jon, and Logan. We were still flurrying about. With Logan's help, I set the table and stripped green husks from wet cobs of corn, while my mother made a salad. Danielle showed up a little while later and was greeted by Jon, "Hey, it's the Avon girl!"

Nine of us sat down to supper. A large, good meal it was, and well-seasoned with laughter. The personalities bouncing off each other kept everyone laughing. Logan told us funny stories about the absent-mindedness of guys at work; Jonathan pretended to hate Calvinists while wielding chopsticks, and argued with Logan, Philip, and me about points of grammar; Jon put salad dressing on his corn; Danielle and Jonathan teased each other about being "tubby".

We had dessert, and after dessert, all trooped upstairs to watch the "Captain Thunderbolt" movie. It ends on such a tragic cliff-hanger that it's quite disappointing. The colors of the autumn afternoon lend a lovely patina to the film, despite the silliness. Mary's cameos are great. :o)

After the short film ended, we hung around upstairs. Jonathan took a liking to Curly and fed him carrots, while Jon and Philip drew grotesque pictures on the whiteboard--Jon called Curly a rat, which disgusted Laura. The guys left a little after seven o'clock to finish moving Jonathan into Logan's house. Danielle left shortly after they did. I stood on the driveway with her for awhile, talking. She got her Mustang fixed recently--a rather ramshackle-looking car, but sturdy enough. We laughed about supper and schemed about going to Europe together next summer and traveling around to France and Italy, Greece and Morocco, Egypt and Turkey.

Back inside, I helped my mother clear away some of the supper things, and fiddled around on the computer. Laura drifted in and out, trying to think of a good gmail address for herself. After baths, my mother led us in family worship. As I was wiping down the tablecloth after family worship, my father called, and he and my mother talked on the phone for awhile. I went up to bed.

majesty

Now Playing: Nothing.

I've been thinking about God's majesty this week in connection with Psalm 93.

"The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting."

God is majestic and infinitely high above His creation. What do you think of when you hear the word "majesty"? For me, it connotes the image of a king: someone with absolute authority, someone who is respected and revered by his subjects, someone whose power is beautiful and suits him well, someone who is just and uses his power for the proper means. God is all of these things, certainly. He has absolute authority, and someday He will be revered by all His creation. He clothes Himself with power, and it is fitting for Him, as Creator of the universe, to do so--He does not step beyond the bounds of His authority when He claims infinite power for Himself.

When I think about majesty, I am forced to realize how small I am in comparison to God. I am petty and little, weak and ugly compared to Him. My thoughts are often occupied only with what I'm going to do next, or how hot the afternoon is, or the last song that's gotten stuck in my head--and those things aren't even necessarily sinful! Take sin and put it beside God's majesty, and it weighs the creature down even lower.

But God's majesty isn't just a source of guilt; it's also a source of comfort. God uses His majesty to establish the world, this sinful, wicked little world where we live. Because He is eternal and eternally powerful, we can have confidence that our world, and we ourselves, are cared for eternally by Him. He does not use His majesty to torture or torment us, but instead cares for His people so that they are protected and established by His grace.

"The floods have lifted up, o Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves."

It sometimes seems to me as though I am under attack from all sides. When I listen to the news or read "World" magazine, it sounds as though the church is constantly being destroyed. The nations rage against God and His people. Also, creation itself seems always to be in danger. Men are foolish stewards of the world God has made, and they make bad choices about everything from healthcare to oil drilling. Unwisdom seems to fill the world and seems to be ruining the beauty God has created. And then, when I look into myself, I see sin, sin that I cannot subdue. No matter how I try to fit the battle within myself, sin always seems to gain the victory, by trickery or by force. I am often thrown about by worry and fear, by loneliness and grief over the fleeting nature of this life. So it is that God's people are attacked everywhere: they are persecuted by men; the nature in which they live is crumbling around them; and in themselves they are full of sin and disobedience against the God they profess to love.

"The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, than the mighty waves of the sea. Your testimonies are very sure; holiness adorns Your house, o Lord, forever."

Then comes the glorious truth: because God is majestic, none of these things are to be feared. Though all our enemies rush against us like the mighty waves of the sea, God is more powerful still. As in John's vision in Revelation, the nations lie before Him as still as glass. They are all under his dominion, and from His perspective they are at peace, for world events are unfolding just as He has planned, no matter what men attempt to do. He has established His world and will not let men ruin it beyond what He is able to restore.

Also because God has complete authority, He has authority over our sins as well. God's truth, His Word, tells us that our sins are forgiven in Christ--though we may grieve over sin, and though our sins may seem to rise up against us like strong waves, in His majesty He has the authority to quell our guilt. Because of what Christ has done, God has declared us guiltless and righteous, and since God is the ultimate majestic sovereign, we must bow to His declaration and take hold of the truth of His Word.

Indeed, I can trust that no matter what my circumstances, God will always stand in majesty over whatever happens. As beauty is part of the majesty of God, so I can trust that in His loveliness and goodness, He will take care that nothing evil befalls me--no matter how painful or inconvenient my life may seem at the moment.

When I remember God's majesty, I am comforted. But also I am led to control myself, to keep from sin. Since the majestic God is always present with me, I ought to be more careful in my treatment of His creation, which includes the people around me. As He has authority over me for good, He has authority to discipline me when I do wrong--though I know He does so in love, I would much rather give Him pleasure than grieve Him! So God's majesty ought to be a motivation not only to take confidence but also to treat others with great care, remembering that their Maker, the majestic God, is watching over His creation.

long afternoon

Now Playing: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 11, "The Stone Table".

Poems are up on Through A Glass Darkly for anyone who has nothing better to do. :o)

Happiness is:

Sitting in the back seat squished between Missy and Anna, listening to them discuss amusement parks while a green-and-lavender-blue Oklahoma evening slides past the windows

Arguing with Philip as to whether or not I should get Gmail

Getting whacked in the face by Taffy, the Wagners' dog, and finally seeing all the Wagner girls in the same place at the same time

And telling another segment of another ridiculous tall tale to Emily and Christa, getting them to join in helping me create a thunderstorm to add to the effect of the story by pounding all of our hands and legs on the carpet to make the sound of rain.

none the worse for wear

Now Playing: Nickel Creek, "Nickel Creek". Track 3, "Out of the Woods".

We're back again.

We drove from Russell, KS, today. Not a bad drive. We ate lunch at a very pleasant Panera in Wichita (I had an amazing salad with oranges, blueberries, strawberries, and pineapple in it), and got home before three o'clock this afternoon. As we went through the KTA outpost on the turnpike going south, my mother noticed that the car next to us had an unusual license plate message, which made all of us grin: "FRDOLVS"! Everything was fine at home--the garden running riot in masses of echinacea, basil, and oregano, and even my little weatherbeaten rosebush joyously putting out tiny red flowers. We unpacked and had pizza for supper.

The trip was really wonderful. I know that I'm in the minority as far as my friends at church go, but I have to say that I love Colorado, and would take going to camp in Colorado over going to camp in Iowa every time. As soon as I stepped out of the car Saturday afternoon in the Covenant Heights parking lot, and smelled the mountains, and lifted my eyes to the hills, I felt at home again.

Covenant Heights is a nice camp--perhaps not quite as "fancy" as Horn Creek (no waterslide, no big rec center, no horse stables, no swimming pool), but set in a little valley right in the middle of the mountains with Twin Sisters to the northeast and Long's Peak to the west, about fifteen minutes from Rocky Mountain National Park.

Saturday afternoon I was immediately (and incredibly, to me) befriended by Laura Salgado, from Beaver Falls, PA, but out in Colorado because she'd been on the Wyoming missions team. Together we befriended Emmaline McCollum, who's from Northern Ireland and will be at Queen's University, staying with me at Renwick House in the fall. The three of us usually stuck together, and a lot of the time we had Amelia Ward with us as well, though she's a bit older and so didn't join us when we participated in the CY activities. Amelia shared a room with Emmaline and me, and the three of us had some good fun laughing and discussing the day together before we went to bed every night.

The Sabbath at Covenant Heights was rather more hectic than I would've liked. It seemed as though the CY had a scheduled activity every hour, and there wasn't much time to rest or be alone. We had a Bible quiz bowl in the afternoon and then a Psalm sing before supper. Pastor Work preached his first message about revival in the morning sermon. After supper, I managed to steal away by myself to spend some time with my Lord in His creation.

On Monday morning, Pastor Work gave us his second message about revival. Then we had free time. The CY were broken up into three teams for the next three days, and each morning each team did a different activity. Philip and I were in a team with Emily Graham, Valerie Swigart, Elise Mann, Tava Reese, and others. We did the rock climbing wall on Monday. I was the last one to make it to the top--it was almost worth that blazing view of the mountains, but not quite. My arms were sore for the rest of the week. Ooghh....

Monday afternoon, the CY played kickball and frisbee. I sat and watched. For awhile, Laura S. and I sat in the amphitheatre, and I read The Practice of Godliness while she practiced her flute, which echoed off the mountains. Monday evening, the CY piled into vans and drove down to Estes Park for pizza. Since there weren't enough fifteen passenger vans, I drove our minivan, my first time to take the wheel in the mountains. Emmaline, Laura S., Philip, Liz DeBenedittas, and I sat together during supper and had a jolly time together, arguing as to whether the arts (according to Laura and me) or the sciences (according to Philip and Emmaline) are better. :o)

After supper, we drove into Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) to watch the sun set from the mountains. We went up Trail Ridge Road. We stopped at an outlook almost at the summit, but not quite. We had New Song with us, and added to their irrepressible singing was the noise of giggling and talking from fifty youth. But after everyone else had trailed back up to the cars, I stayed down at the outlook with Philip, who was taking pictures. I stood to one side, staring down into a deep steep valley full of pines, and up to the mountains beyond. I was awed, silenced, and in the silence the roar of the trees came up to me like the singing of a distant congregation....

On Tuesday, we had another good lecture in the morning. Our team did the high ropes course after the lecture. I managed to catch the trapezee at the end of the course, but my hands slipped off. In the afternoon, my parents and I drove into Estes Park. We visited a quilt store, a bookstore, and a paper store, where they let me buy a beautiful little journal with a design like a phoenix (medieval sign of rebirth) or a peacock (medieval sign for immortality) on the covers. We also visited a glassblowers' shop, where a funny little old man gave me a round glass bubble decorated on top with a six-pointed star, and on bottom with tiny colored flecks of glass, purple and saffron and green and blue and red and orange.

Tuesday night, we ate barbecue outside. Philip, Laura, Stephen, and I all ended up at one table together with Laura S., Emmaline, Amelia, and Jeremiah--we had some great fellowship together. New Song sang for us in the evening before campfire.

Early Wednesday morning, Emmaline and I got up early to hike around Lily Lake with my parents and Stephen. The morning was surprisingly warm, and the sunlight on the mountains was rich green-gold. We saw a variety of birds, and spent awhile exploring off the path, scrambling around among big boulders. Stephen and I sniffed a pine tree with red bark--they really do smell like butterscotch.

Back at camp, we had breakfast, then another good message from Pastor Work. Later in the morning, Philip and I with our team did the low ropes course. That one was probably my favorite because it involved the whole team in activities. We all got to know each other a little better and had a lot of fun problem-solving in the process.

Wednesday evening was the consencration service. These are usually fairly sober times, and this service was no different. Pastor Work preached about how the Spirit must come on us to convict us of sin before we can have a revival. After the service, all the CY girls met on an outcrop of boulders near the girls' cabin for a time of prayer and discussion of the service before campfire. We'd had devotions every evening, but we'd been broken up into two groups for those times. This time, we were all together, and most of us prayed.

Because of the threat of rain, campfire was held in the dining hall tonight. We spent most of the time singing Psalms, and the sound of the hundred voices shook the flooboards under my feet. The CY stayed up late tonight. Laura S. and Valerie left with Johanna Hemphill after campfire--it was a hard parting for everyone, but especially for Valerie and Emily. The CY had congregated in the rec room to spend the evening, and Liz DeBenedittas and I sat with Emily, chatting and laughing and watching the other kids. Everyone was playing games and making noise: Pit, Cranium, Presidents, Mao, and hackeysack were all in full swing at various times. I left for bed sometime between one and two in the morning.

The next day, we said our good-byes in the morning. My father packed up the car, and we headed off into Rocky Mountain National Park for the day. We drove all the way up Trail Ridge Road to the top, stopping a couple of times on the way up. The first time, we stopped where the CY had been Monday evening. Here, we saw about half a dozen furry, fleabitten, fat marmots browsing among the rocks, and one pika. The view from the second stop was absolutely stupendous, a view across a valley with a stream winding through its flat floor straight across to the stark red faces of the only volcanic ridge in the Rocky Mountains--ragged red peaks holding sparkling blue lakes in their crevices, lakes like blue fingernails on hands clasped round the mountains' sides.

The view from the top, at the Alpine Visitors' center, was even more beautiful. To the north, west, and east, we were surrounded. To the east, the mountains were black and grey and dark green, looming behemoths. To the north, a long tan slope covered with delicate alpine flowers, white and yellow and silver, ran down into gentle ridges of dark blue hills which rose easily to more mountains. To the northwest, through a gap, it seemed as though we could see all the way to California, ridge after ridge of pale blue mountain. To the west were the red-and-gold, ruddy faces of the volcanic mountains. The whole country was mottled with light and shadow under the noon sunshine--as though all that land were an ocean of great jagged waves with deep troughs between them, rippled through with light.

We ate lunch at the visitors' center and drove down Trail Ridge Road a ways, stopping at Poudre Lake. Then we went back up Trail Ridge Road. On our way back, we were caught in an afternoon fog which walled us thickly on both sides. Through the fog, we caught eerie glimpses of dark peaks with fog rolling down their sides like groping white fingers. Sometimes the mountains would come out suddenly through the fog, like invisible ink showing unexpectedly through white paper, knife-edged ridge after ridge.

We spent the night with my mother's cousins, the Hales, in Boulder. On Friday, we made a trip up to Longmont for some shopping (books and yarn), and then down to Denver to eat lunch with Great Aunt Helen Hale. From there, we left the mountains behind and set off east into Kansas. We ate supper in Hays and spent the night in Russell, and drove back home this morning.

Pictures are up on photobucket. If you want to get a roughly chronological look at our trip, I suggest you begin with the last page of pictures, page 4, and go backwards. There's a place where you can click to get to the last page at the bottom right of the main screen in the album Covenant Heights.

Username Elfellyn
Password flook07

time to hang another "no one home" sign on this thing

Now Playing: (Don't flee, Aunt Lisa, it's mostly static) NPR, also known "affectionately" as the talking pumpkin heads by certain ones among my friends.

I suppose I ought to say something before disappearing for a week so that y'all won't call the police or anything. Not that y'all would do something like that, but hey, it's best to prepare even for the most unlikely contingency, right?

Yes, we're going to Colorado tomorrow, D.V., and won't be back until... sometime. Visiting relatives, going to church camp, and best of all, seeing the mountains again. God's immovable creation, though far more majestic is His Word.

This week has been alright. My father's brother and his family (minus his grown-up daughter) have been in town. We've actually had a pretty good time catching up and getting to know them again. Last night Philip and I took David with us to The Third Place, a coffee shop on The Strip near campus, and we "hung out" with the usual suspects. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly. For lunch today, we went to Panera since the cousins (living in California) have never had the pleasure of visiting such a cozy restaurant. The sound system was playing Vivaldi's "Il Gardelino" concerto while we were in there--I heartily approved. :o)

And thanks to my father I now have internet access in the parking booth where I'm sitting this evening as cashier, letting people out and watching the Mississippi kites, who are having a heyday riding the currents of air that are rising as a large cloud mass builds to the north.

Suppertime now, I guess.

God be with y'all!

nice and short?

Now Playing: Stephen, on the piano.

Well, no one commented at all on that last post, but I know that some people read it, so maybe I'll try again with something shorter.

Last week I spent the week at the Spitlers' house with Sarah since her family was on vacation. It was great fun: we had the whole "ranch" to ourselves. Tuesday night, Elizabeth and Danielle came over for a sleepover, a "silly formal". We ate pizza off china plates, wore dress-up clothes, bounced on the trampoline, and watched Princess Diaries. One of the best times I've ever had--not necessarily because of what we did together, but because of the happiness we had with one another.

The Fourth of July party was on Wednesday in Enid at the Wagners' house, but a huge storm came through, so the fireworks were cancelled at the last minute. The drive back to Stillwater was eerie: the great dark wings of the storm clouds to the north and west, flickering with white lightning; the dark basin of the fields and hills black with evening, and in between clouds and land, sudden bursts of color in rings and wheels, fireworks blazing up and blinking out.

Sarah and I had a little party of our own on Thursday night with sparklers and Casino Royale. Friday night, I went over and bugged the Fishers. Their parents were away, and the boys were at the Carrolls' house, so we made creme sodas for ourselves with caramel and raspberry and coffee syrup, and sat in the study and watched The Return of the Pink Panther. Anna, Elizabeth, and I "slept" in the guest bedroom--we actually stayed up for awhile giggling uncontrollably at each other until we finally fell asleep.

On Saturday I drove up to Tulsa with Syneva and Amanda. We stayed with the Miles family in Tulsa. We went to church at Christ Pres on the Lord's Day, and Syneva and I spent most of Sabbath afternoon sitting upstairs in the Miles' house, talking some and dozing and reading and such.

Vacation Bible School started in Stillwater on Monday. The Fearings arrived Monday evening: Aunt Lisa, Peter, Lillian, Annalee, and Mary. Peter has been helping out with VBS since they arrived, and the girls have been coming to VBS. Yesterday, Aunt Lisa, Grammy, and I went to Tulsa to visit quilt shops. The first shop we went to was closed, so we stopped by Borders, where Aunt Lisa and Grammy bought mystery novels, and then we ate lunch at the coffee shop with Tara, which was delightful. After lunch, we found a quilt shop that was open, and spent awhile poking around in there. Aunt Lisa found a lot of good cloth, but I mostly just looked around the shelves--cloth was piled and stacked everywhere, and it was rather overwhelming.

After supper last night, we went to the city pool to go swimming with other people from church. Today I hear that we're going to see Ratatouille--it's become something of a tradition to go see a silly movie while the Fearings are in town. Over Christmas it was Night at the Museum; a couple of Christmases before it was National Treasure.

There are pictures from VBS and other things up on photobucket. Username: Elfellyn; password: flook07.

Vacation Bible School and other happenings

Now Playing: "July, July" by The Decemberists.

This morning I woke up at about seven o'clock, naturally, but lay in bed until I heard the sounds of splashing in the bathroom: the girls were getting washed and dressed. Missy was still asleep. She's been staying at our house during VBS this week--as have the Fearing cousins, who arrived last night. Not a full complement, but Aunt Lisa with Peter and the three girls in tow.

So once they were done I got myself ready for the morning, woke Missy as gently as I could, and pattered downstairs to eat some breakfast. There were big buttery buns for breakfast, and hot tea. After breakfast, I sat at the oak table in the living room and scrapbooked while Aunt Lisa and my mother talked.

We packed the whole crew, with the addition of Victoria, into our minivan and the Fearings' SUV at about nine-twenty and drove down to the Salvation Army building for our second day of VBS. The Salvation Army has let us use their building for many years now, but this year their basement was flooded out by the rain, and the whole old building reeks of mold. We've been camped out on the second floor, using the sanctuary, which has worked fairly well. We were slightly early, but other kids started to come fairly soon after we got there. Logan snagged most of his helpers into the sanctuary and rehearsed the skit behind closed doors, though a number of small inquisitive boys stood with their faces pressed against the glass slits in the doors, peeking in, while a swarm of little girls played Simon Says in a corner outside the sanctuary. There were quite a few more girls than boys, and all of them were making their presence heard, it seemed. Missy and Laura patiently made nametags with pieces of masking tape for all the kids. The Fisher boys, Ben, Greg, and Calvin, had come to VBS decked out in plaid shirts, jeans, boots, and black cowboy hats, with bandanas--quite a dangerous looking bunch.

At about ten o'clock, Sarah opened the sanctuary doors and motioned the kids inside in a kindly fashion. She helped my mother lead the children in singing: they're learning Psalm 148 this year. Then came the skit, a delightful adaptaion of Pilgrim's Progress with a Western theme. Logan reads the script while the helpers act it out. Stephen stood in for Daniel as Christian today; Ruth did herself proud as a very funny and flippant Mrs. Worldly Wiseman; and Peter performed as the Ranch Manager. We also had two of the kids, Christa and Vinny, as nasty coyotes, guarding the entrance to the Ranch Beautiful.

After opening exercises, Mr. Parnell split the kids up into three groups: boys, under the rigorous eyes of J.D., Stephen, and Peter; older girls, and younger girls. I was in charge of crafts again today, as yesterday, but had plenty of help from Missy and Aunt Lisa. We had the boys first, then the little girls, and last the older girls. The little girls all busied themselves decorating their little brown paper books with stickers--horse stickers, mainly, until their books looked like the Kentucky Derby during race season.

The kids cycled through the stations--crafts, Bible memory work, and Bible lesson. Then they all went outside for sports with Christi, in the lushly green patch behind the church building, and snacks, for which they perched on the long concrete wheelchair ramp while Missy served them banana bread and water. The morning was humid, the grass still wet from last night, and the clover in the grass buzzing with red wasps.

At about eleven forty-five, the children were bundled inside again for closing exercises. Mrs. Kreider encouraged them in our mission activity for the week, which involves gathering items in good condition for Action Packs for VOM to send to the Christians suffering in Sudan. Mr. Parnell prayed with the children, and then dismissed them. There was the usual racket as the whole zoo-ful went bouncing and shouting outside to hang out (literally!) on the wheelchair ramp until their parents came to fetch them.

My mother went home with Aunt Lisa, Laura, Annalee, Lillian, and Mary. I, on the other hand, drove the minivan with Peter, Stephen, and Missy over to the Parnells' house. We got there before anyone was home, so we hung out on the front porch. Missy and I chatted, reminiscing about past VBSs, until the Parnells showed up. All the helpers trooped inside for lunch, crowding around the Parnells' battered dining room table. Mr. Parnell gave thanks, and we ate the lunches we'd brought along.

We have a good if rather young crew of helpers for this VBS: Dani, Abigail, Ruth, J.D., Stephen, Peter, Betty, Christi, Missy, Victoria, Hannah, and me. I've been surprised and encouraged by how well some of the younger girls, particularly Ruth, have stepped up and really become confident with the kids. After lunch, the other kids sat around the table and played Scattergories. Missy and Christi took catnaps in the living room. I played "musical bookshelves" and sat on the little cloth-seated stool in the living room by the bookshelf in there, looking at a book of Monet paintings and skimming a book by Ryken entitled Redeeming the Time.

At about one-thirty, we piled into the cars, and Mr. Parnell drove the Parnells' van and I drove our van over to the church office. We spent about an hour up in the church office, talking about VBS today and tomorrow. Mr. Parnell read through the skit script for tomorrow. Then he had the helpers share their testimonies. We got about halfway through the group today: Christi, Stephen, J.D., Betty, and Victoria.

When everyone was ready, we drove over to the neighborhood by Skyline Elementary School. An older neighborhood, for the most part--long, low houses under old trees, cottonwood, maple, and oak. Jonathan showed up to help, too. Mr. Parnell split us into seven teams of two. Dani and I were together. We set off down the street in one big group. Instead of taking different streets, we all stayed together, three pairs on one side, four pairs on the other. As usual, there weren't many people home. Dani and I talked to one Catholic and two professed Christians. It was pretty hot in the afternoon sun. We ended at about four o'clock, walked back to the cars, and drove to the Parnells' house. Peter, Stephen, and I drove home from there. Missy and Christi were to spend the evening out with Hannah D., so she didn't come home with us.

At home, we found the girls all playing in the wading pool in the back yard with water balloons. Peter and Stephen evaporated into the cool darkness of the upstairs. I sat and read "World" magazine in the living room, listening to Grammy and Aunt Lisa talk. Then I helped my mother fix supper: I moved and set the tables, poured drinks, and with Annalee's brisk and cheerful help, snapped the green beans.

Logan came over for supper. We sat down to eat at about six-fifteen or so, all thirteen of us at the long table. Lots of talk: The guys at one end discussing accapella singing and engineering antennas; the girls in the middle popping up every five minutes or so to ask for seconds; and the women at the far end laughing over the strange eating habits of their families, Uncle Kirk in particular ("He actually ordered broccoli at Cotton Patch last week, and ate half of it!"). My father had session meeting tonight, so he left early after supper. Once they'd eaten dessert, the other kids disappeared pretty quickly. We heard Annalee, and Mary following her example, go screaming up the stairs.

Logan, Grammy, Aunt Lisa, my mother, and I sat at the table for awhile, talking. The women told funny stories about noisy kids. Mary came prancing into the living room, where Logan and I were talking about work. Mary wanted to be played with. Logan told her to hold her hands rigid at her sides, and when she did, he put his hands under her fists and lifted her up over his head, tossing her so that her blond curls flared out in the lamplight, and she burst into fits of giggles. She ran off but soon came back for more of the same. I rough-housed with her on the sofa, tickling her and holding her upside-down. She giggled and squealed and giggled more. When Laura brought Curly downstairs for us to admire, Mary settled down momentarily: Laura let Mary hold Curly. Mary was surprisingly gentle to the guinea pig, who was almost as big as her torso, and sat hunched-up with his nose under her hair.

I finally captured Mary long enough to whisper in her ear a request that she play upstairs with the other girls. She complied immediately. "But they're not doing anything interesting," she informed me as she pranced off, and she was back in a few minutes, banging down the staircase with the yellow plastic car.

"She did announce as soon as we got here that she was hyper--and that was yesterday," Aunt Lisa said dryly. She and Grammy had transferred themselves to the living room sofa, and my mother had sat down on a nearby chair. They told more funny stories about small children.

My mother gathered the madding crowds at about eight forty-five for family worship. We read Psalm 89, sang, and prayed. Then Logan left. Inside, the younger ones started to get ready for bed. I was upstairs in my room, starting this entry, when Missy suddenly appeared in the doorway. "It's Missy," I said cheerily, "Hi!" I glanced up at her and noticed that her face was flushed and tear-stained. "My grandfather just died," she sobbed. We stood there in the doorway, our arms around each other. I helped her carry her things downstairs, where Christi was waiting. My mother and I escorted Christi and Missy out to the car--they're staying with Hannah D. tonight, then driving home tomorrow morning. We stood for awhile outside, chatting. My mother and Christi talked in low voices to one side. Missy and I sat on the back bumper of the little red car, looking up at the stars and laughing about silly things. The stars were crystal-clear, yellow and white, burning bright and big in the deep blue sky, answered by fireflies blinking in the deep green shadows of the trees. The two girls left finally, after requesting prayer, and my mother and I went inside. There was a big moth with butterfly black-and-orange wings fluttering vainly around the porch light outside the front door.

Inside, I went into the boys' room to say good-night. Philip, Peter, Stephen, and I stood around laughing at each other and arguing in a friendly fashion until my mother came in to say good-night. Then I retreated to my room. The house has quieted down gradually, sounds paring away, until now it's only the buzz of my fluorescent light and Loreena McKennitt playing quietly on the little laptop speakers.

With all this rain, the cats are stuck inside, bored. So Mandy wants to learn how to quilt, too. :o)


The water is almost up over the bridge on Lakeview Road!

But the wildflowers are doing well....

My mother wanted me to post this picture of the spiderweb on our back porch.

I love my friends! Thank you for the carwash/Bible study/lunch/movie today!

on rain

Now Playing: Loreena McKennitt, "An Ancient Muse". Track 5, "Kecharitomene".

I retitled this blog "Sitting and thinking for a summer", but I haven't done much thinking on here yet, though I have done plenty of thinking in other places--largely my own mind, which is generally the best place for such activities.

So, what to think about on here? Water suggests itself, and rain in particular, since there's rather a lot of it around right now. We were sent home at an unprecedentedly early hour tonight from work because of the rain. It poured for two solid hours this evening, complete with thunder and lightning. Then it let up, giving our boss time to call and tell us to get ourselves home before it started up again. So we did, and then it did: It's raining again now, water pattering endlessly off the maple leaves, off the eaves, off the shingles, gurgling down the slant of the roof outside my south window, rustling and jostling and dripping and dropping, a ceaseless counterpointed rhythm marking out the minutes.

I used to think that there could be no such thing as having too much rain. Schooled by years of living in Oklahoma where drought is a part of life, and rain is a blessing summer or winter, I am still reluctant to say that we have had "too much rain". To my mind, the blessing of rain is like the blessing of the Holy Spirit. But I think I am beginning to be proven wrong: the Holy Spirt alone cannot be had too much of, whereas rain is merely a creation, a type of the Spirit, and can be had too much of, apparently, at least according to our neighbors, who are outside right now bailing and sweeping water off their driveway away from their house in the pouring rain.

My mother was wishing today that we could save up this rain against the droughts to come, and I heartily agree. I love the copiousness of water dripping off leaves, and the luxury of hearing it splash in the streets, but I wish I could save it up somewhere, horde it, for the times when everything is aching and cracking because of drought. In the same way I sometimes wish that I could store up the joy in Christ's Spirit with which I am occasionally blessed for the long times of barrenness and despair that I tend to encounter. That's one good reason for keeping a journal, as a way of recording God's goodness in times past. But better still is God's Word, like a reservoir that is never empty but always overflowing.

We've prayed and prayed for rain. I have prayed for rain, for years through the drought, pleading for rain in Oklahoma and Kansas and Colorado, places where there are churches that depend on agriculture, on physical rain, just as on the presence of God's Spirit, to be maintained. And now all of a sudden God has sent rain, as though He had stored up all our prayers and then let them out all at once, starting back in that last week of November with the big snow, and continuing on through this last week of June. I would be hard pressed to find seven months in my memory in which more precipitation has fallen.

I wonder if all the other things I've prayed about so painfully will have similar outcome: whether God will, all of a sudden, release all my prayers all at once. And I wonder if it will be good or bad. The rain is good, and I'm inclined to rejoice in it--to be have a little sparkle of glee every time I've woken up for the past fifteen days straight and have heard rain falling outside my open windows. Yet at the same time I'm beginning to recognize the blessings of blue sky as I've never done before: being constantly under this canopy of cloud, like being constantly under the thick leaves of a great grey forest, is beginning to make me feel claustrophobic! If God does release my prayers all at once, what will it be like? Certainly, if the rain is any pattern, it will be unexpected, and unexpectedly lavish and generous. But it may also be a different way of living in certain pockets of my life, new patterns to have to adjust to, new sorts of contentment to learn.

What would it look like, though, if not only I myself but the church, the whole country were suddenly to be drenched with the Spirit of God as we've been drenched with rain? I don't mean a Pentecostal sort of Spirit, sending people clapping and jumping up and down, but God's Spirit that would make us love one another actively and apply zealously Christ-like diligence and a Puritanly-holy particularness to every area of life. Somewhere, I remember a verse that talks about the righteousness of Christ covering the earth as the waters cover the sea, and I begin to understand what that means....

Baptism is another thing I think about. Be patient, now. The lushness of the land when full of water is absolutely incredible. Fields full of coreopsis as though the grass had imprisoned those distant days of sunshine. Bays in the woods stocked with budding snow-on-the-mountain, promising green-and-white, starred blooms later in August. Wildflowers that I've never seen before: spiky green rattlesnake master, and pale purple stuff in great drifts like heaps of anemones or swarms of miniature octopuses. Golardias and Indian paintbrush, vetch and sweet yellow clover, pink primroses and white fleabane, and grass up over my head. All because of a little snow and a little water. Seems strange that so much plain clear water should go down, and so much incredible lush color should come shooting and teeming and tearing and springing back up again. Cypress and cottonwood trees like fountains frozen in a picture, waterweed white with tiny flowers like the most distant stars.

Thus, baptism. A little bit of water on a child's head (and interesting, isn't it, that the three things present on the cross--body, blood, and water--are in our sacraments as bread, wine, and water?), some words, a prayer. No tongues of fire, no thunderclaps or whirlwinds, no obvious deluge of the Spirit. But then, by God's grace and at His will, years later the change is evident, and that clear water, by the work of the unseen Spirit, makes the heart of the child fertile to the word. Then the Gospel is sown, and again by God's grace and at the working of His power, all the gifts and graces of the Spirit begin to appear, like the first few flowers in the fields. Then, N.B., "glorified" in Romans 8 is in the past tense. We are already glorified, already perfect in Christ. And when the Son rises, there will be seen, by His grace, our characters like lush fields, the fruits of the Spirit (pun, yes?) springing up.

So these are my thoughts for the night....

It's raining harder outside!

not much

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven". Track 5, "Asturian Way", one of my favorites on my CD because of the way the flutes interplay toward the end.

My latest poem:

I prayed for rain
So I won't complain.

Haha. *cough*

It's so wet that they cancelled the Fourth of July celebration at Boomer Lake because there isn't anywhere for anyone to park! And we've set a record of fifteen consecutive days with rain: the last time it rained so much was back in 1937 (Dustbowl? Hmmm....).

In keeping with the wet weather, my mother and I went to O'Higgins, the garden store, and bought a hydrangea bush that has the most amazingly beautiful blue flowers on it, the color of butterfly wings. We also bought two mahonia bushes, which look as though they're relics from the Jurassic period (if you'll pardon the momentary slip into political corectness), all spiky and spiny.

There are a couple of poems of doubtful merit up on Through A Glass Darkly, for anyone who's interested.

a day of rest

Now Playing: Nothing! My father is reading aloud Caught in the Web, a book by Faith Cook about Protestants in the era of King Henry VIII, in particular about Lady Jane Grey.

Pictures are up on photobucket. (Name: Elfellyn; password: flook07) I love my church! :o) Rachel (RAS, not RCS) let me take her picture, which turned out beautifully as she is, and Emily and Christa posed very cutely. As my mother pointed out, I have yet to take one of Sam and Renee, but I caught Joseph in the act of eating the Communion bread after second service. :o)

To go with the pictures....

Today was the Lord's Day, and Lord's Days are the one day during the week that are almost always the same. Wake up, dress, eat breakfast, then take a few quiet moments to read over the passage that I'm supposed to teach to the little guys in Sabbath school, while Laura fixes enchiladas in the crock pot for fellowship lunch later. A Psalm CD is usually playing on the kitchen stereo until we leave for church.

At church, Logan and some of the Parnells (today all of them) had started and nearly completed the process of setting up. My mother and Mrs. Parnell work on making coffee and tea in the cafeteria, while I set up the literature table in the sanctuary. Usually the Parnell kids, Laura, Philip, Stephen, Logan, and I stand around talking.

When the literature table was set up, I went over to the cafeteria and talked to Logan. Then Jonathan arrived, early as he noisily pointed out, and the Fishers, early than they usually are when Mr. Fisher is home (he and Mr. Spitler are away at the ASHRAE conference, or "ashtray" as it's lovingly called). We stood around talking: Logan told us some about his plans for the VBS skits (the Celestial City has taken on the pseudonym the Great Western City, a nod which I appreciate). Anna and Elizabeth told Laura and me about their trip to Oklahoma City yesterday to visit the Omniplex and hang out in the mall.

Anna, Elizabeth, and I had to scurry over to the other building when the adult Sabbath school class started. Mr. Parnell was leading all the children in opening exercises in the sanctuary, singing "the steps of a good man", "keep me Lord as the apple of Your eye", and the first verse of Psalm 46C. Then he prayed, and the kids were dismissed. The little boys that Anna and I teach rioted out to the table where we meet, in the long entry hall of the community center. Anna and Greg always race to get to one chair. Greg declared that he'd beat Anna today, but she scooted his chair over and pulled up her own, wrapping her arm around his head. "Eww," said Will. "She does worse things at home!" squeaked Greg, and we all laughed. There are five boys in the class: Ben, William, Greg, Will, and Vinny. We learned about Paul's trial before Festus this morning.

After Sabbath school, I chatted with Elizabeth and Anna about getting together, and about the autograph that Anna got from Edgar Meyer. Anna led the singing this morning during the service. The sermon was good, about 2 Corinthians 11 and the distinction between false teachers who take advantage of God's people and those who have God's authority and lovingly correct God's people.

When the service ended, I chatted with Danielle, with Elizabeth, with Brioni. Anna, Elizabeth, Danielle, Brioni, and I sat together during lunch. I told them about how nervous I am with study abroad coming nearer and nearer. Danielle laughed at me. "Are you kidding? This is the chance of a lifetime, or it would be for me! Tell me if you see any leprechauns," she chuckled. "Eh, I only want the pot of gold," said Elizabeth, cradling baby Renee in her arms. "Ooh, we'll all come over and mooch off you. We'll be Moochers," said Anna gleefully. We all burst out laughing and planning what we would do if I found a thousand leprechauns with three hundred fifty dollars' worth of gold each (to circumvent government taxation regulations), and how we'd buy all of Ireland, etc. Very silly.

I told a story to Christa and Emily, about a very exciting evening in which they thwarted robbers and a fire. Then I stood next to Anna, who was sitting by Mrs. Spitler, Mrs. Brocato, and Rachel. We listened to the women tell travel horror stories and talk about movies. Anna, Rachel, and I talked about birthday presents for Rachel and Laura, whose birthdays are this coming week.

When it was time for second service, I said good-bye to Brioni. In second service today, we had the Lord's Supper. After Pastor Parnell pronounced the benediction, Christa and Emily broke out with boisterous "Yays!" and scampered outside. Elizabeth, Danielle, and I were talking about our Bible study this evening when we noticed that little tow-headed Joseph had clambered up into one of the chairs at the Communion table and had proceeded to grab the largest chunk of Communion bread and eat it enthusiastically. Elizabeth rescued the plate with the rest of the bread on it, and the three of us stood laughing at him until Mr. Yost noticed what was going on. He couldn't help laughing, too, and joked that he hoped none of the elders had seen.

Elizabeth, Danielle, and I went outside. Christa and Emily were playing games on the porch. Mrs. Spitler was calling Sarah on her cellphone since Sarah has been having travel difficulties, but Mrs. Spitler let me talk briefly to Sarah, just to say hi. I chatted with Rachel about the omniplex--the shadow-stopper, the tree that lights up at noise, etc. Logan came by and said good-bye. Elizabeth and I laughed as Mr. Carroll rounded up both his own children and the Fishers' children and marched them off to the car. "He said that if he ever went to Australia, he'd trade Nathan for a tub of wallaby jerky," Elizabeth giggled.

We left a little while later. My father has been reading to us. Victoria came over--she's staying with the Yosts just down the street. She and Laura are working on a puzzle. The afternoon outside is hot and sunny, with white clouds marching over.

"Goodness and mercy all my life
Shall surely follow me
And in God's house forevermore
My dwelling place shall be."

there ain't no more

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 8, "Flight to the Ford".

I suppose I ought to make another post on here, but there's not really much to say. It's been a fairly quiet week. I worked evenings twice, and on Tuesday evening there was an amazing lightning storm. I had ridden my bike to work, so I had to call my father to come and pick me up. I stood outside while I waited for him. It was exciting and rather nerve-wracking to be out-of-doors with so much lightning in the air. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I worked mornings, which are generally busier than evenings. But I finished two-and-a-half books (The Anglo-Saxon World, The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, and the poems in Selected Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins) and wrote four poems of my own.

Last night my grandmother and Logan both came over for supper, and it was lovely having them over, and then Danielle came and spent the night. She and I took a walk around Boomer Lake and were out until about eleven o'clock. This morning we moseyed over to San Born Lake and saw, among other things, hordes of tiny brown frogs, a big blue heron, and the most hideously ugly alligator snapping turtle ever created. It was really cool. :o)

And Danielle left her straightening iron behind... go figure!

some terza rima for a change

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven". Track 5, "Asturian Way".

Three hundred and first post!

Here's a poem, a rather unorthodox look at the incarnation, perhaps. Not intended to be a direct allegory for any coming of Christ, but one way of thinking about how His work might appear from the perspective of an unbeliever. Partly due to Sufjan Stevens's song in "Illinoise", and partly due to C.S. Lewis's poetry, which often mixes modern and ancient, and the form of course taken from Dante's Divine Comedy.

Invasion

“They made an alien-man—you could be next!”
The face half-recognized, a new creation
Glares from the tabloid through the smeary text.

They landed nights ago—incorporation,
A family trio—father, son, and ghost,
Announced to all their horrible intention

To rule the world by making eerie hosts.
What brought them here? Their ship shone like a star—
By interplanetary chance, they chose

This world, somehow by blazing eyes from far
Marked in the depths of space and time. And when
They landed in the desert, their hot car

Exploded sands with waters in the dim.
Our papers, blogs, our radios, TVs
Were interrupted by their song as, swift, unplanned,

In every language went the news. We seethed
To hear them state their plans for world dominion:
To sap all average people’s normalcy,

So populate the planet with their minions,
Remaking every tribe and tongue and nation
After their image. Our opinions

Raged back—we’ve waited, planned for an invasion,
Predicted, even fantasized in movies,
But this—this did not suit imagination,

This sweetly stated global making spree.
It wasn’t even our image of progress.
We do not need some aliens to make peace.

(World terrorism stopped since their ingress.)
But we are fighting over-population,
So why be grateful for a coming press

Of wide-eyed faces, even though they can
Look straight into the sun? We fear these men,
New men, who breathe and love and eat and stand.

We had just started to clean up mayhem
That happened when they landed, just begun
To learn their language—then came this! New persons

Come flocking through their ship in twos and tens.
A burst in evolution? No, not these—
Strange fusion, strange re-mix. So, who will win?

The human race is put at bay by these,
These otherworldly makers and their sons
Who strengthen, serve, and seek their neighbors’ peace,

Who, dying, live, and, crushed, the faster run.
So our world trembles, in the balance frets,
And waits for fate from transcendental hands,

While we, we few poor humans shudder, left
To wait our own re-clothing, opened eyes.
We fight but cannot win—worlds will be next,
As all await the new creations’ rise.

wet days and some dry humor

Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique".

Last night at work while I was reading Dante's Divine Comedy, I was listening to an old cassette recording of this symphony, a cassette that Philip found at a library sale one time. It reminded me of the last Signature Symphony season, and those crazy fun rides to concerts with Syneva and Alisha. Such wonderful music.... And that one time, last year, when the Symphony played the "Fountains of Rome", and at the very end, during the magnificent fanfare, trumpeters suddenly started to play up in the balcony above the audience so that it sounded as though a grand army was marching up behind in victorious procession. So brave that it brought tears to my eyes.

A couple of days ago, my mother took Laura and Stephen to piano lessons. Laura actually rode her bike, leaving the garage door open. I left for work, shutting all the doors behind me, so I didn't see what awaited them: When they got back, there was an immense turtle sitting disconsolately in the garage. "It was the size of a football!" said my mother later. Apparently the large creature was staring dolefully at the door to the outside, so my mother took it outside and carried it across the street, pointing it in the direction of the creek. She couldn't figure out how on earth it had gotten into the garage. Stephen and I surmised that it was actually a wasp that had found the old broken down transmogrifier we keep in the garage, and that it had accidentally blundered into the transmogrifier and had been transmogrified into a turtle. Sounds like the most sensible explanation, right?

(Go look at "Calvin and Hobbes" if you don't know what a transmogrifier is.)

Today my mother and I went shopping at the "new" Wal-Mart in town. The place is huge and smells like rubber. It reminds me of Tesco in Scotland. We were looking for Asian noodles in the Asian section, and I was startled when I saw three bottles of rooster sauce in a row staring balefully up at me from the shelf. "Hey, Kevin carries that stuff with him everywhere, and puts it on everything," I said. My mother looked at it, read over the ingredients, and decided to get some...! No, I am not going to start carrying it around in my knapsack.

Before we went shopping, we dropped Laura off at my grandmother's house to do some baking. Unfortunately, upon investigating the stores of flour, we discovered weevils in it. Of course it couldn't be left that way. So while Laura went merrily outside to put seed in the birdfeeder, my mother took all the packages of flour, sugar, etc. out of the cupboard and inspected them, while my grandmother held open a garbage bag so that the infested goods could be thrown away. When the cupboard was empty, I went after the nasty little squirmy things with boiling hot soapy water and Raid. Death to all such villainous creatures!

It keeps raining and raining here. Pretty soon we'll all be marshwiggles. On the way home from the store, we saw someone driving down the street with a green canoe strapped to the top of their SUV. "Do they know something we don't?" my mother chuckled wryly. I like the rain, at least for the most part: it does have a tendency to drive bugs into the houses, and then when the low places get full, the water decides to come into the houses and join the party. But our house hasn't had any trouble at least with water... yet.

At least everything is so green that it really looks like the Shire right now. The wildflowers are simply stunning, and along the fencerows the grass is taller than I am. All the birds are out, meadowlarks and starlings, chickadees and cardinals, kites and swallows and finches.

Oh, look.... It's raining again!

scatterings

Now Playing: "Pilgrim's First Progress" (an adaptation of Pilgrim's Progress in Western style by The Shadow for VBS in July).

My apologies to my aunt: certainly not crazy but enthusiastic. :o) That quilting post was much edited, but apparently not edited enough!

Last night was a night of smells, biking home from work at the parking garage: the reek of rubbing alcohol from a rag abandoned on the sidewalk; spicy coolness from a freshly-cut juniper hedge; cigarette smoke from a porch where a bunch of college guys were sitting around and talking; the smells of food from Pizza Hut and Kyoto, the fancy Japanese restaurant, across the street from each other; the throat-catching tang of gasoline at the corner station; and finally the sweet relief of woods, water, and grass at the entrance to our street where the creek flows past.

Pictures from the Memorial Day picnic are up on photobucket. Check a recent post somewhere down there for the username and password.

I went back to Tulsa on Sabbath afternoon to see friends there. It was good to see them again--to have tea with Tara Monday morning, and to ride fifty miles an hour in Jenny S.'s car with the moonroof open. Joanna was having a birthday party, so a bunch of RUFfians were there for that, most of the people who are still in Tulsa. I actually got to see just about everyone because after the birthday party, Jenny, Tara, and I stopped by the Knorrs' house, too, and visited briefly with them.

On Monday I had to run some brief errands on campus. It was strange to see campus so empty, not to be able to go into the dorms or see familiar people walking across the lawn. Strange to go by Tyrrell Hall and not hear the noises of people practicing in the basement.

When I was younger, I always used to think that when Christ said, "He who keeps his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for My sake will find it," He meant that you actually had to lose your life, to die as a martyr, for Him. But I wonder if that verse doesn't have a broader application. In some sense I feel as though I lose my life, the life that I try to build for myself, giving it up (imperfectly and sinfully) in order to follow His calling.

As I consider finding life, though, I think of Christ's promise of Heaven, and the Psalm, "In Your glorious presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures for me evermore." In Tulsa I looked at one of my friends and thought what an awe-some creature she will be when she comes to Heaven. Imagine having Christ's work perfect in each of us, being able to serve Him fully together as one unified body, as His church. In one sense, clinging so much to the people on this earth is like clinging to a person's shadow when the person is walking toward you: certainly, we are to love the other members of Christ's body, but we are not what we will be when we come before Him, and indeed even in Heaven we will still only be reflections of His glory. So every moment past is more time moving us toward that glorious reality, finding life in Him.

I just finished reading The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, a Puritan author. An excellent study, I thought. He encouraged faithfulness for those who were discontent with the job that they had because it seemed "mean and worthless", as he might put it. He talked about how God rewards those who are faithful even in small things. God Himself is faithful in small things: He built a world packed with thousands and thousands of tiny details, from the grain of the wood in the dining room table to the way the molecules interact in photosynthesis in every leaf of the maple trees outside my window. So by being faithful in the apparently insignificant callings to which He may call us, we are actually reflecting an important part of His character (important because He has filled the world with it!).

What else is on my reading list for this summer? Well, let's start by what I've already finished: seven Agatha Christie mysteries (picked them up at the OKC library booksale, so I felt obligated to read them); The Complete Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers; A History of Old English Literature; Poems by C.S. Lewis (excellent!); and The Rare Jewel (as mentioned above).

I am now in the midst of Collected Poems by G.K. Chesterton, which I actually don't like as much as C.S. Lewis's (sorry, RCS :o). The only really amazing poem so far has been "The Ballad of the White Horse", which I'm in the middle of right now--very stirring, with beautiful word-pairings reminding me of Anglo-Saxon kenning. Oh, and I'm also reading The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, an incredibly battered copy that I bought at the OKC booksale years ago (with Anna) because I liked a picture of a medieval chalice that I found in it. It's proving to be somewhat useful in getting ready for study abroad, though I wish I knew Gaelic so that I could pronounce the names properly!

Coming up: The Divine Comedy by Dante (with beautiful illustrations by William Blake), Selected Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Opened Ground by Seamus Heaney (we'll see how far I get through that one--the only contemporary poet on my list for the summer!), and a book of poems and prose by Rilke that my grandparents gave me awhile ago. Possibly also Spenser's Faerie Queene, though I have a bad copy of it, so I'm reluctant to try it. Then of course there's a biography of King Henry VIII, a History of Wales (from Tara), and an anthology of Anglo-Saxon literature, as well as another book about Anglo-Saxon poetry that I really should read before I go to Ireland. Also, Grace in Winter, a book of Samuel Rutherford's work in verse from my parents.

Then there's a long list of more "religious" books: God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis, Heart Aflame by Calvin (but that's a day-by-day sort of thing), Knowing God, by Packer, and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. These are lower down on the list simply because I don't have copies of them, whereas I have copies of all the ones listed above.

It looks like a long list, but believe me, when you have thirty-six hours a week to read, the books go by fast!

hot and sweaty

Last post for the day....

Pictures from Nacogdoches, TX are up on photobucket.

Username Elfellyn
Password flook07

another one

Well, there's another fairytale up on Through A Glass Darkly for those of you with too much time on your hands. :o)

Right now the wildlife count between OSU and my house, seen from my bicycle, stands at:

Two kites;

Assorted vultures;

One large dog (standing in the middle of the sidewalk while I was biking home from work a couple of nights ago; it ran off to one side and stood and glowered at me as I passed);

Cats (two kittens with mother near the mobile home park that I bike past);

Two raccoons (down in the culvert by TCS; one of them sat and stared at me for a long time);

No rabbits or deer yet, but I have hopes.

And why, may I ask, are all the posts about "100 Years of Oklahoma Weather" on www.wunderground.com so incredibly gloomy? It seems as though every day was the anniversary of a tornado that ripped up a town out in the boondocks, or a hailstone that damaged mobile homes, or a big wind that blew someone's car away. *humph*

how to

Now Playing: Stravinsky, "The Firebird", "Ronde de Princesses".

Since very few of you commented on that last serious and deeply philosophical *hem* post, time to try something different. (And my thanks to those who did comment.)

So, you may be asking, what did I do that whole week while I was in Texas? Actually, you're probably not asking, but I'm going to tell you anyway. :o)

Laura, Lillian, and Annalee built a complex system of mud towns and watch-posts down in the creek, while Peter and Stephen annoyed them by building dams and cutting off the water supply to the towns. Andrew worked with the lawn care company that employs him, and Ross worked at his internship as a mechanical engineer at a manufacturing plant, coming by the house for occasional evening visits. Philip did things on his laptop, including teaching Go to Andrew in his spare moments, and indoctrinating five-year-old Mary into the wonders of "La Bamba", which is probably one of the stupidest Spanish guitar songs you'll ever hear, and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (from Disney!) and Mark O'Connor Cajun music. But she loved it.

Uncle Kirk worked, but came home more often than in the past, usually "just in time for a meal" (as Pippin would say :o), and my father sat in the living room and read books about the sacraments.

Aunt Lisa, my grandmother, my mother, and I worked on a comforter for Philip. Aunt Lisa provided technical support since she was working on her own quilt at the same time. My mother helped with the ironing, and Grammy helped with the pinning. Now, in case you were wondering again (and I'm assuming that today you're in an inquisitive frame of mind, whoever "you" is), here are the steps for making a quilt:

1. Scrounge up fabric. Random places are best for this. Stephen picked up a bunch of frog fabric at a Cottontails going-out-of-business sale. My mother rummaged through her scrap collection, and I went through my basket of odds-and-ends, mostly leftovers from cloak-making projects.

2. Measure the size of the blanket you want--this will take some thinking, a blunt pencil, a piece of scratch paper, and any arithmetic you happen to remember from highschool--and figure the number of squares necessary.

3. Start to cut out squares, generally speaking to the size you want them. Fudging is acceptable. I was all set to do it the old fashioned way, cutting out the squares one by one with a cardboard template, but my aunt (and hopefully yours) is more up-to-date. She produced a rotary cutting mat with inches neatly marked out and a rotary cutter, and initiated me into the art of rotary cutting which, if done right, will result in neat stacks of squares in about half-an-hour. N.B.: If the power goes out because of a thunderstorm while you're doing this, ask your aunt to hold a flashlight for you. Mine was most obliging....

4. When the fabric you've assembled turns out to be lacking color, go to your aunt and ask her to look through her fabric collection. If your aunt is anything like mine, her collection will turn out to fill a couple of monstrous cabinets stuffed with cloth in all colors and patterns, including but not limited to florals, cats, cranes, butterflies, insects, frogs, jungle animals, swirls, polka dots, stripes, zig-zags, stars, and chickens. To keep Stephen's frogs company, insects are best, especially if in between the insects are words that say "Gross!", "Slimy!", "Yuck!", and the like.

5. Once you've got your squares, sew them together into blocks of four. This is where mother and grandmother are splendidly diligent to assist--mother to iron, grandmother to pin.

6. Now comes the fun of laying out all the blocks, and seeing how they look together. More than likely, the chickens you chose because they were weird won't "fit", and that's where the insects come in. With your aunt and grandmother overseeing the process, lay out your blocks on the living room carpet, six across by eight down. Aunt and grandmother will give you tips about how quilters usually do this sort of thing, telling you that it's not "done" to have dark colors running in odd directions--instead, all the dark colors should be lined up in diagonals going one way, and all the light colors in diagonals in the other way, like a chess board. Also, they'll hint that it might look more artistic if you put all the predominately dark blocks along the edges, and the lighter ones in the middle, gradually going outward, so that you get a sort of explosion effect.

7. Once you've arranged all the blocks in a color-coordinated fashion, so that the quilt really does look like an artistic study in greens and blues (with bugs, frogs, and blue Spiderman fabric thrown in for good measure), ask your aunt to help you keep it organized. Ten-to-one, she'll have a clever system of squares cut from index cards, each square with a letter and a number on it. Together, she and you will pin these squares to your blocks so that each block has its letter and each row has its number--very efficient, and saves a good deal of fussing later on.

8. Sew the blocks together into strips, and the strips into blocks. Mother and grandmother here were again wonderfully helpful, and with their help the comforter top came together in the matter of an afternoon.

9. Now that you have the top all finished, the real work begins. Because you came down to Texas expecting to be making squares in the plodding old-fashioned way, you didn't bring your backing or batting with you. But my aunt took me to Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby, where we bought a full sized navy blue sheet for the backing, batting, needles, and bright green pearl cotton thread. (And I was very grateful....)

10. Next morning, having gone out to supper at Cotton Patch between finishing the top and starting the process of finishing the comforter (after all, the sheet needs to be washed, dried and ironed, and the seams ripped!), push the dining room table aside, sweep the floor, and lay the sheet down very carefully on the dining room floor, which in my cousins' case was tile (it's a bad idea to use the living room because it is carpeted, and carpet is not part of your quilt). At your aunt's suggestion, take packing tape and tape the sheet flat and taut to the floor. Spread it out carefully so as to avoid all wrinkles. Then lay the batting down, and the top of the comforter last so that it all makes a sort of batting sandwich.

11. Now, if you have any stray cousins or siblings lying around, the way I did, this is the best time to make use of them. Scout them out from the creek, the computer, the back bedroom, or wherever else they may happen to be, and get them to help you pin it. With all eight of you, including aunt and mother, working on it, the pinning will probably only take about fifteen minutes, tops. Safety pins will do, but most likely your aunt (if as wonderful as mine) will have proper quilter's pins, which are bent and so pop back up through the fabric obligingly.

12. Once you have all three layers pinned together, rip the tape off the floor--most likely your little girl cousins will be most enthusiastic about this part, and you'll get to help the littlest one make an immense, sticky wad of tape--and roll the whole bundle up. Move the dining room table back into place, lay the bundle on the table, and ask your mother and your aunt to help you tie. This will probably take an hour or so, with all three of you working on it. You do have to be careful to get all three layers (top, batting, backing) into the knot, or else it won't be any good--the best thing to do is after you think you've finished, turn the quilt over and look to see where you missed spots. In my case, the bright green thread stood out nicely against the navy blue backing, so it was quite obvious where a knot hadn't gone through. Retie the ones you missed. And because everyone is getting hungry and wants to use the dining room table for lunch, they'll all be very eager to help you unpin the quilt so that it can be draped over the sofa during the meal.

13. After eating lunch, your aunt may suggest that you, your mother, and grandmother drive to a nearby small town where there's a quilt shop. For the fun of it, go along. My aunt advised that I put a binding on the quilt, but I was skeptical. She finally said that she would buy the fabric and help me put it on because she was so sure that it would add so much to the quilt. So when you get to the quilt shop, choose out a fabric that coordinates with the top. I chose a green one, mottled to look like lily pads or stagnant water--it would help out the frogs.

14. Of course, once you buy the fabric, it has to be washed and ironed. The rest of the afternoon, after you return from the quilt shop, will be spent mucking around in the creek, taking a group picture of all your very unwilling siblings and cousins (at your grandmother's instigation, and with your mother as accomplice), and writing in your journal.

15. After supper comes the process of making the batting. Sew the fabric into two-and-a-half-inch strips. Sew the strips together at right angles, then sew them on raw edges to the quilt itself.

16. The last step is hand sewing the binding onto the quilt, folding over the unsewn edge and tacking it down with hem stitch to the back of the quilt so that it neatly covers the open edges of the quilt where the batting pokes out. My mother, aunt, and I all worked on it, while everyone else was watching an Albert Campion mystery (BBC TV show). It took us about an hour, all told.

17. Then finished product is to be held up and admired. A comforter with a binding all round the edge is like a picture with a frame.

18. The last step is your brother's responsibility: to lay the comforter on his bed, in his college dorm room, for everyone who comes into his room to exclaim over, laugh at, examine, praise, or make fun of, as the whim takes them.

And that is what I did while I was in Texas.

Now Playing: "Michigan: The Great Lakes State" by Sufjan Stevens. Track 15, "Vito's Ordination Song".

"I've made a crown for you
and put it in your room....
and when you write a poem
I know the words
I know the sounds
before you write it down....
Rest in my arms
sleep in my bed
there is a design
to what I did and said...."

Philip reminded me of this song recently, and it is comforting somehow. As the Psalmist occasionally does, the lyricist speaks as though with the tone of God speaking to one of His children, using Biblical ideas of predestination. It's a good song about the practicality of doctrine, and how the doctrine of predestination--God's foreknowledge and forethought into every detail of life, from what I put on in the morning to what I write in an English essay--ought to be a comfort, a matter of peace, a fixed resting place amid all the rushing confusion of life.

Now, as I feel rubbed raw after the past month's good-byes, I go back to this idea and am comforted. It was worse in that first month of May, saying good-bye to Rachel. I could hardly think clearly for that weekend when I was in Stillwater between the end of finals and going to Summer Conference. The good-byes at Summer Conference were not as hard because of the week of fellowship that blunted the pain, and especially because of the worship of that week that turned me to find greater comfort in the truth of Christ's High Priestly prayer in John. Realizing, as Syneva said, that the desire for unity among my friends and family in all their disparate places is not wrong, but instead is a way in which I am allowed to mirror Christ--that realization is somehow reassuring. It does not remove the pain completely, but at least it reminds me that I am being allowed to suffer along with Christ, who desires the unity of His people more than I could ever imagine, and who died to promote that unity with more suffering than I could ever undergo. In being like Christ I find joy, and from joy comes strength to persevere until the redemption of the promised possession.

So it's fitting to be thinking about these things the evening before going to church. Someone was telling me this evening that they were longing to be back at church, in fellowship with believers. "I want to hear a good sermon," were this person's emphatic words. I've been surprised these past few weeks by how happy I've been to be at church. The peculiarities of the people around me are not embarrassing but beautiful, somehow--to see everyone behaving with their own idiosyncracies week after week is something that delights me. It was the same at RUF large group: I'd look around the room after the service ended and think that the room looked like a scene out of "Star Wars" where all the hundreds of different kinds of aliens are standing around talking to each other, no two alike, all of them slightly ridiculous but fitting together somehow and amazingly loving one another.

Perhaps I'm in a serious mood this evening because serious things have been happening here. We went away to Texas to visit my mother's brother and his crazy family :o), and came back this evening to find that one of our neighbors, the old Russian woman who lived on the corner, had died on Wednesday, and that the whole town had flooded last night, leaving our neighbors across the street with a partially-ruined house. On the upside of matters, one of my friends here found a perfect job this week, and her family bought a car so that she can drive to her job, not to mention the fact that one of my other friends returned safely from almost a semester away from home last weekend (one of her first times to be away from home for so long). So it's a Sufjan Stevens night, thoughtful and poignant.

"You came to take us....
To recreate us...."

And God has recreated us, will complete His work, until we are perfect and whole before Him. What a blessing it is to know that every part of every day, every good-bye, every meeting, is part of that recreation, and will finally be understood as part of His glorious work.