Now Playing: Flook, "Haven", "Padraig's".

This last weekend, I drove all over everywhere, it seemed. Friday evening we had our first high school girls' Bible study. I had been concerned that we'd have trouble getting the girls to talk, but of course no such worries with this group. Anna had more trouble keeping the girls from giggling and interrupting each other than she did persuading them to answer the discussion questions. I found it very refreshing to see the girls' genuine eagerness to fellowship with each other and learn about the Christian life. This makes me sound like an old person already, but I really do wish I had been as open, confident, and eager as they seem to be.

After the Bible study, I spent the night with Anna and Ruth at their house since their family was away camping. More specifically, I spent the morning with them since we stayed up until about three o'clock in the morning watching Robin Hood and Merlin episodes, courtesy BBC TV.

On Saturday, I drove to Tulsa for the afternoon and evening. I had been grumbling to myself mentally about only being in Tulsa for a couple of hours and not being able to see many people, but I ended up being there until half ten at night and having some really good conversations. Watching Philip, Alyson, and one of their friends play Scrabble while keeping score on a spreadsheet (such engineers!) made me laugh.

Among the conversations I had with people in Tulsa, the topic of writing kept cropping up. A sense of disillusionment or defeat when it comes to writing. Whenever I hear people talk about their projects, though I enjoy listening to them and giving advice, I also feel hopeless. At the minute some of the people in Stillwater are working on/planning to work on their own personal novel projects. Oh, yes, I've had ideas kicking around in my head for settings, characters, and plots since before high school. Whenever I try to write them down, though, the result is abject failure.

Probably the problem is that I'm requiring too much of myself. Perfection is a pretty high goal to reach even for the best writers. So why ask it of my very first attempts at prose fiction? As someone else said this weekend, it's an issue of pride, of course. Here I could apply the Christian principles of grace: I don't have to be perfect because Christ has redeemed me; I use the abilities He has given me for His glory; He will love me no matter how good or bad the results are.

Those things are true, but they don't address the question in my mind as to why another piece of fiction should be added to the world's already-bulging libraries. Why bother? Everything that needs to be said has already been said a thousand times before, and a thousand times more skillfully than I could manage. That applies not only to my ideas for prose but also for poetic projects that occasionally sprout up. Reading the Norton Anthology--or even my friend's sonnets--is a daunting prospect because I know that as a result I will inevitably be paralyzed when it comes to writing.

Paradoxically, of course, reading other people's pieces, whether they come from the Norton or from a friend's blog, also makes me want to write more. Response, interplay, dialogue with what others have been or are producing has become an important ingredient in my own creative process. Films, music, painting, sculpture, and dance all drive me to respond in writing, to capture my perception of that creative event in a repetitive, reverberating event of my own.

Overshadowed by the Romantic and Modern ideals of art as completely new and original, though, I encounter that barrier of intimidation again and again. It seems so pretentious for me to try to put anything into words and then to demand that others read it, especially when many of those others have written perfectly good things themselves. That's one reason why I love journaling: no one has to read it, not even me. That text puts no expectations on the reader, no demands, no requirements. The books stack up on shelves and boxes, silently, useless except for whatever tiny random facts may be required in the future about flight details or medical appointments.

Yesterday after church, Katie asked me if I'd been writing anything recently. I love talking to Katie, but she invariably touches whatever sore spots I'm trying to hide from myself and everyone else. It was the second time last weekend someone had asked me what I'd been writing and had given me the "older sibling look" when they heard the answer.

So, circling again, the same factor that pushes me away from the keyboard also forces me toward it, the pressure (shame, if you like) from others.

Now Playing: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in G Minor.

It's been raining for the last four days. This afternoon I took our neighbor's dog over to the lake to trudge around in the mud and mist.

She got royally wet and muddy, of course. Every so often she had to stop to shake herself off.

The sumac, goldenrod, and asters are all in bloom right now. It was lovely when the sunflowers and goldenrod were blooming together, in September and early October, but now the sunflowers have been reduced to black spiky dead heads. The sumac leaves hang like flags left over from a gala, glowing but sodden with mist.

The mist fell steadily over the lake. Only two other people were out there, a suspect couple--the man was carrying a rifle and smoking a cigarette, and they both glowered at us as we slogged past.

The woods around the lake were rich with color. 

And a black-and-white to finish it all. Waterlogged asters, bending with the weight of the rain.

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Far Country", "Mountains".

Another garden variety journal entry (ooh, look at that pun...).

My parents, Stephen, and I drove down to Oklahoma City this morning to visit the Crystal Bridge in the Botanical Gardens. The morning was cold, overcast, with a strong north wind. Everything has begun to turn: the Johnson grass is going burgundy and mauve, the sumac, poison ivy, and Virginia creeper are going scarlet, the oak trees are going brown, the elms have already gone gold.

Today happened to be a free day at the gardens, so there were a lot of other people in the long, battery-shaped greenhouse. Nestled in the centre of the downtown area, the Botanical Gardens are built like a big green drainage ditch with a long pond running down the bottom. The Crystal Bridge is built over this pond. At the south entrance, we were captured by a docent who recognized Stephen's hoodie and asked us what our connection was to Horn Creek.

We spent all morning in the greenhouse, wandering on the paths through the plants. At one end, the environment is tropical, and at the other end it's desert, and in between are tropical and temperate plants. A lot of palms, ferns, and banana trees. A lot of orchids, too. We climbed up underneath a waterfall at the tropical end where huge ferns and bromeliads were growing. Then down the walkway that runs a couple of storeys above the floor down one side of the building. We could look down on the broad fronds of the plants, the ferns and cycads, the poinsettas. Long-winged butterflies fluttered around us like leaves trickling from the trees.

At the other end, we came to the desert area. All sorts of weird cacti and succulents and aloes. Stiff leaves in surreal geometric patterns. Of course, it took my mother a long time to work through all the plants. She likes to stop and point everything out to Stephen and my dad. I watched people walking around down below us: a group of Asian tourists, four or five highschoolers who reminded me of Cyprus, elderly couples, and mothers with small flocks of children around them.

Before we left, we looked at the orchids for sale on a big table. So many orchids! Rearing frilled and fronded heads like dragons on their long thin stalks. Some of them smelled like cocoa and vanilla; others like butter. My mother was too daunted by the prospect of caring for one of them properly, so my father just bought her a couple of the flowering stalks in water.

Out of Oklahoma City, we drove to Arcadia, to a new restaurant, Pops. It's built on Route 66 and prides itself on the 500+ varieties of soft drinks it sells. A huge statue of a soft drink bottle stands outside, and the building itself is an odd architectural specimen. The two long walls are glass, lined with shelves, which are lined with glass bottles, all bright fluorescent colors. It's basically a tourist trap. Convenience station, fast food restaurant, and bar combined. We had hamburgers and drinks. My dad and I had milkshakes that were amazing. So chocolatey that I couldn't finish mine.

We took back roads to Stillwater. Because of all the recent rain, it was like driving across a marsh in places. Stock ponds overflowing, creeks and rivers roiling angry red, pastures shimmering with water.

At home, I did loads of wash and helped my mother make tea for tonight. My father's parents, one of his cousins, and one of my grandmother's sisters were all coming over for tea. Quite a grand occasion. Thanks to my grandmother, her sister, and her sister's daughter, there was no lack of conversation at the table. Cousin Betty was happy to talk about her job, about Galveston and Houston, about Texas. My grandmother and her sister unearthed all sorts of memories between the two of them.

After tea, we sat round the living room. The adults laughed about memories of family get-togethers. All sorts of embarrassing stories, especially about my siblings and me. Stephen and I sat and smiled politely. Grandma vividly remembered her father reading "Mr Wiggly" comics and feeding her ice cream when she had her tonsils out; they talked about Halloween and trick-or-treating, about Philip breaking things when he was a toddler, about folding cloth diapers.

At about nine o'clock, we said our good-byes. I went upstairs.

Now Playing: Tenth Avenue North, "Over and Underneath", "By Your Side".

My mother and Stephen at Pops beside a big model of a soft drink bottle. More photos from today here. 

Now Playing: Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale".

For the Christian Reformation Fellowship Bible study, we've been reading Jerry Bridges's book Transforming Grace. It's a good study--I highly recommend it--but it would be even better if I could actually understand the truths that are being said.

Over the last month-and-a-half or so, I've realized just how little I understand the truths of God's grace, justification and sanctification in particular. Those two big words sound dreadfully scholarly. Though I've grown up with them, I've discovered that the common malady which afflicts most born-in-a-Christian-home people has crept insidiously into my life. The big words are just big words.

What do justification and sanctification really mean? Not just as esoteric words that form the basis for countless controversies, but as lived realities? Will it ever be possible for me to live them not just "the way I should" but even a little bit more authentically than I do now?

What does justification itself mean? I could rattle off the catechism answer, but a wise person I've been talking to recently has given me an even simpler idea. Justification means that the sins I have committed, those failures and acts of rebellion that I have performed, are forgiven in the present. They are swept away, are blotted out, are erased by God.

This means that when I feel as though I need to plunge myself into guilt before God will forgive me, I am not understanding this reality. Instead of begging and pleading, I can hold onto the promise that those who confess their sins are forgiven. Justification is thus a completed act in the past that reverberates into the present.

How does the fact that my sins are forgiven change my life in the present? By the power of God's Spirit, I should obey God out of freedom and thankfulness. I have been bought with a price; I belong to God. Redemption is a solemn fact that should encourage me to appreciate what Christ has done by obeying Him.

The "should" there can be treacherous, though, because I can turn "freedom and thankfulness" into duty, too. I can say that because I am not living life freely and thankfully, rejoicing in what God has done, therefore God does not love me.

Thankfully, no matter what I do or what my motives are, God will always continue to love me because of who He is. If I could only see myself from His perspective, maybe I would understand that better. Instead of seeing a failure, He sees Christ in all His delightfulness and vigor.

As I've written these words, I've come face-to-face again with the disturbing fact that these are just words. They flicker on the screen without efficacy to change the way I think, feel, and behave. Every time I sit down to read Bridges's book, I am confronted by my inability and unwillingness to absorb the immense truths he discusses.

Sheer unwillingness, in fact, is part of the problem. Partly I enjoy playing the martyr and being miserable. Partly I am unwilling to let go of what I perceive as being my role in salvation. I am clinging with whitening fingers to "my sanctification", to the "shoulds" and "oughts" and "have tos". I am downright afraid to let go, afraid that if I do let go, I will never even try to obey God again.

Why? Because that obedience has defined my personality, defined my appearance, defined my existence both in my own head and to everyone else around me--Christian and non-Christian alike. Expectations, demands. My mind is full of all the things I ought to do and should be doing and failed to do. Having my definition of Paul's command to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" suddenly ripped away is a terrifying thing, for I am afraid that I will cease to be myself.

If I were honest, I would realize that "myself" isn't really a very pleasant person to be after all. Altogether too proud, too self-absorbed, too restricted, too afraid. Currently, I'm too hard-headed to act in the reality that would release me from this. When the Psalmist says, "I have been like a beast before You," I sympathize. Except that in my case, "have been" should be in present tense.

During a highschool flute lesson, my teacher was showing me new breathing exercises. Coaching me toward  a fuller sound, she was having me breathe more deeply with a different embouchure. Since it was the first time I'd tried this, I was failing. I started to panic, which resulted in cracked notes. My teacher laughed and said, "You're like the two-year-old who is learning how to walk. You're frustrated because you see how it's done, but you can't do it yet yourself."

Mercifully, God doesn't leave anyone to figure this sort of thing out themselves. Understanding grace in sanctification must be part of the process of sanctification. Christ is my wisdom as well as my salvation.

Now Playing: Focus on the Family's dramatized The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Last night, my parents, Anna, and I went to the Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival in Guthrie. We heard three bands play. The last one was Mark O'Connor with two young musicians from Julliard. They were spectacular. I love listening to bluegrass generally speaking. Not because of the singing, of course, which is usually abysmal, but the instrumentals are so exuberant. Heard some incredible mandolin, banjo, and fiddle. 

The stage had flags hung around it: Scotland, Ireland, Canada, U.S., Australia, Italy, France, Germany, and Canada.

 

My parents; me and Anna. We were very, very cold by the time the evening was over. I was shivering in my chair. This, by the way, is Post 600. Woo.

For the first day of October, it's so warm outside that all the

WHITE RABBITS

are melting.

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Carried Along", "Havens Grey".

A few pictures from today: the head of the nature trail.

Pelicans fishing below the dam.

Stephen and my mother digging for selenite crystals.

Now Playing: (One of my favorites) Andrew Peterson, "Love and Thunder", Track 3. 


Today my mother, grandmother, Stephen, and I went to the Great Salt Plains. This was a very different experience than traveling in the clunky Buick with two other college girls. Stephen and I sat in the back seat, he studying Calculus, me reading over notes for the Literature GRE and vocabulary for the general GRE. My mother and grandmother discussed all sorts of small bits and pieces of news, and every time they saw a bird in the fields along the road, they would both exclaim as though it were an earth-shattering event.

The two-hour drive seemed much shorter than I remembered it, probably because I wasn't driving. We went north instead of south and drove along the auto trail first. The nature reserve was deserted. The early autumn morning hung like a flame in the trees, catalpas and cottonwoods turning yellow, elms already shedding their leaves, Virginia creeper and poison ivy neon red, clinging to trunks and branches. The gravel road wound between marshy areas. We saw a couple of deer grazing in beds of cattails, only their heads showing, looking like the heads of sea monsters gazing gravely at us from the thick mats of plants. 


Stephen also spotted a raccoon that vanished in a twinkle almost as soon as he pointed it out. Red-tailed hawks perched ponderously on treetops and vultures circled overhead.


At the head of the nature trail, we stopped, and Stephen and I were bundled off to walk the trail and bring back a thorough report of whatever wildlife we saw, while my mother and grandmother sat in the shade and waited. 


The woods were cool and beautiful. Huge withered catalpa leaves on the ground like discarded terrapin shells. We went out on the overlook to see the birds on the lake. Through the telescope we saw several pelicans with their ungainly heads tucked under their wings, a lineup of great white egrets and great blue herons fishing, and flocks and flocks of ducks and avocets skimming the water. 


Later, I sneezed, and a big brown bird, probably an owl, swooped down the tunnel under the trees above the path. Stephen spotted a doe and her fawn further along. We stopped and stared at them, and they raised their long necks and stared at us. They watched us unblinkingly as we stalked over the bed of silver cottonwood leaves. We were fairly close when the doe flicked her tail, and they galloped away into the trees.


We walked down to the grove of catalpa trees, which was eerie and beautiful. Catalpas can be such odd looking trees--they look as though they belong somewhere tropical because their leaves are so big. Along the path were huge fallen trunks like dinosaur bones. Overhead, cottonwoods going yellow were swathed in crimson creeper.


We ate lunch at the picnic shelter where mother dear and Grammy had been waiting for us. It was quite pleasant. Then we drove over to the dam. Of course we had to stop to explore a couple of the camp sites along the way. At the dam, Grammy stayed in the car, but the rest of us got out and climbed around. A great blue heron was fishing on one of the spillways. The air was full of seagulls, weaving around each other, wings flashing. At the top of the dam there was a flat barren space looking out toward the lake. Desolate, the salt flats a white stripe far away on the horizon.


Down on the red water of the river, three pelicans were fishing. They swam up the river, then turned and let it carry them downstream, dipping their beaks in sync into the water. 


Eventually, we drove through Jet over to the salt flats. Grammy had never seen them before and was absolutely amazed. They are an eerie sight: bare, white as snow, stretching away at water level so that you can't tell what is mirage and what is lakeshore in the distance. 


She stayed in the car, and again the rest of us got out and, armed with shovel and bucket, essayed the salt flats. By scooping just under the surface, we found crystals. The wind wasn't as strong today as it had been last time. We squatted in silence, speaking softly, the great open plain stretching terrifying away around us under a fierce blue sky. Crystals shone like glass in the sand. 


After about half-an-hour, we drove back to Stillwater. The car was very quiet. I read, and we listened to Bach. Stark contrast to the little battered towns through which we passed--nothing grand or Baroque about them, their stiff misery, empty storefronts and deserted houses. 


We were home by about half four.

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Redemption Letters, Vol. II.," "Hosanna".

Pictures from the OSU Botanical Gardens on Monday here.

Pictures from today's expedition to Great Salt Plains here.

SRPC campout happened last night at Lake Carl Blackwell. Mr. C built a nice big campfire at one of the camp sites. The wee kids ran around everywhere, squealing and poking along the lake shore, while the older kids disappeared to play a game of ultimate frisbee somewhere. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the middle of the proceedings, it began to sprinkle. The result was some slightly damp napkins and this rainbow.

 I told a story to these three little goons in one of the big tents. They only sat still for about ten seconds at a time. Most of the time, they were zipping and unzipping the window flaps, playing with a broom, and telling each other to be quiet. 

 

Now Playing: Mozart, Requiem, "Benedictus".

Another one of those cheesy cat-and-computer shots so popular among people who fancy themselves to be creative types.

This, however, is the people-eating (not people-pleasing) cat, Annie. The one, Emmaline, who was sneaking around my room earlier today. 

Shortly after I took this photo she jumped into my chair and decided to stalk me.

 

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Love and Thunder", "High Noon".

Miss these friends!

Spent all day today revising for the GRE, o joyous activity. In the morning, took a practice test, and in the afternoon, read chapter after chapter of The Princeton Review's guide to this wonderful exam. If I ever write a book, there shall be a mock heroic account of the hero doing battle with a fearsome standardized test monster.

Our cat Annie likes to jump up onto my windowsill and look out the window while I'm working. She bathes herself and sleeps up there, and wakes up if she hears the slightest sound outside. I'm a little bit afraid that someday she'll pull a boy-in-the-window trick as in the Book of Acts and fall out during one of her naps.

I've decided to make a tour of my music collection this fall and listen to it from start to finish. There are a lot of albums that I don't listen to at all, so it's high time for me to become reacquainted with whatever I have floating around in iTunes.

Ruth and I presented about our RP missions trips on Sunday. Hooray for Lorna and her straighteners! Petros's hair will never be the same (especially after that last haircut right before we left!). It was good to get to talk about what happened in Cyprus. I miss full time missions work. Maybe it's not really because I miss the actual service but because it made me feel good. Such is my heart. After I've been reading about God's grace, I come to God with my requests for the day and for my friends and relatives. And instead of asking purely with faith, expecting to receive whatever God decides is best, I come rationalizing, editing, choosing my words so that they'll be as pleasing as possible and make me look as good as possible. Prayer has become very difficult, especially, for some reason, after reading C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. I'm afraid that I'm just praying to the page. But how do I know for sure? Christ promises that we will ask the Father and that He will hear our requests because He loves us. But the enemy in my head whispers doubts constantly while I'm trying to pray so that praying becomes an effort, slogging it out, never sure whether I'm supposed to be "relying on the Spirit" or "excercising my responsibility", or something in between. 

Don't we all just love the tensions of the Christian life?

Now Playing: "Artificial Animals Riding on Neverland".

Good visit to Tulsa this weekend.

Philip and I hatched nefarious schemes on Thursday afternoon. Tara and I sat on the Bs' front porch and ate watermelon with their wee girls (except for the one who doesn't like watermelon, who pedaled a red tricycle around the porch) on Friday morning.

I ate lunch with Alyson--oh, how I've missed that absolutely deliciously gourmet ACAC food--on Friday and went to Woodward Park with Amy in the afternoon. I made the acquaintance of Amy's and Hannah's new cat, Piglet.

Amanda, Tara, and I ate at the restaurant where Crystal works on Thursday night, and on Friday night I met Alisha at the coffee shop, where we relaxed and poked quiet fun of some guy playing an awful piece on the out-of-tune piano.

Jenny and I visited the Farmer's Market this morning, and she bought an exuberant bouquet of zinnias, and we smelled packets of spices and taste-tested hot peppers (she did, anyway). Crystal bought the first Harry Potter book for me at the Ps' yard sale, and I talked poetry with Matt at Doubleshot in the afternoon.

Amanda, Tara, and I ate a late picnic lunch in Woodward Park under the big old oak trees before I came back to Stillwater.

Now Playing: Harry Gregson-Williams, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian soundtrack, "The Door in the Air".

Decided that it was too late to fill out graduate school applications, but not too late to blog. Go figure.

I spent the morning studying for the GRE, of course. The Hs came over so that my mother could help wee David with his reading. During lunch, my mother, Stephen, and I started to watch the old BBC Bleak House TV series.

On Sunday, Ruth and I are supposed to present about our RPM teams this past summer, so after lunch I went over my presentation a couple of times. I'm always so paranoid about being too long and too boring that when I actually read the presentation through, it was just barely long enough.

Going back over the photos and experiences from Cyprus has been really good, though, as a reminder of God's faithfulness. I saw God answer prayers spectacularly, immediately there: saw Him provide food for our weekend when we hadn't thought there was enough money, saw Him convert a guy who'd been sitting on the fence with regards to the faith, saw Him stirring the young people to ask questions about the Bible, saw Him protect us and provide grace for us.

Yesterday in my quiet time I read Psalm 136 with the refrain "His steadfast love endures forever". From Creation to the Exodus, God's love has been fastened on His people. He loves us patiently, persistently, powerfully. It's awesome to remember that the power that called the sun and stars into existence loves us.

In the afternoon, I ran errands. Stillwater is such an odd town. I drove down to the bank that we've gone to since I was less than five years old. Now I go there myself to cash my own checks. The teller, Charlotte, talks to me about the weather.

Then I walked across the street to the post office to post a letter to Catherine. I miss being able to walk to the post office in ACAC at TU. I have to drive all the way downtown to send international post now, and the post office is always absolutely packed with people standing in line.

The main excitement of the afternoon was gift hunting, though. I poked my nose into Murphy's, where the three shopkeepers were gossiping by the cash register. They let me browse among the colorful kitchenware unmolested. Then I went down to Elite Repeat, just out of curiosity. Mrs. O, our next door neighbor, was behind the counter. She asked me how Laura is doing--she has a particular soft spot for Laura.

Then I went over to Hallmark. I persisted past the racks of greeting cards to the far corner of the shop. Stationery and journals. Beautiful, beautiful things. Textiles, jewelry, and well-made printed matter--some of my favorite indulgences in life. I found some gorgeous journals.

Further down the street, I visited The Beadery. They have cats, sitting among the elegant bureaus and wardrobes and mirrors and racks full of jewelry.

Then I drove up Main Street. Turned at the art gallery. On one side of the street is a scooter shop, where rednecks and hip-hop types were working together on an ATV. Across the street is the international food market, which largely stocks Middle Eastern and Indian foods. I did manage to find a couple of boxes of PG Tips tea, though.

At home again, dragging my feet, I started to work on graduate school applications at last. Just then, of course, my mother called us for an early tea. My father and Stephen drive an hour north to Ponca City every Tuesday and Thursday for basketball practice now, and they have to leave at six o'clock.

Sarah and I met at the Marble Slab, over by OSU, this evening. It was a busy place tonight. Group after group kept coming in: sorority girls, guys from Countryside Baptist college group, families, couples, freshmen, giggling, greeting each other noisily.

Sarah and I ordered our ice cream and sat at a side table for an hour-and-a-half or so, talking. It got dark outside quickly. At about half eight, we walked around campus for awhile. Campus was quiet tonight. Everyone seemed to be studying in the library. We walked past the Student Union and Gundersen Hall, along behind the Civil Engineering Laboratory and the Library, past the Botany Department/Arts and Sciences Offices (we could see plants growing in a lab through a window), and onto the porch of the library. We walked down the lawn to the Student Union. We went up and stood on the balcony, looking at the dark formal gardens. The bell in the library tower struck nine o'clock.

When I got home, I had to weave my way through half-a-dozen spiderwebs hung along our front porch. My mother was sitting alone in the living room, knitting. We talked until the guys came home.

The wind outside slides through the trees, stroking the windchimes across the streets, and crickets purr gently.

Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, "Overture: The Hebrides".

Mendelssohn and Vivaldi both always put me in a good mood. Such joyful music.

Time for a change of layout, I felt. Still can't get rid of that lime green, though.

Now Playing: Brahms, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77, "Adagio".

An adagio seems appropriate for a day like this. Early September, always full of the high, sharp-edged hum of crickets in the grass, like the whir of a bicycle chain. Sky is overcast, as it has been for most of the week, and all the windows are open.

I finally managed to make a start on all those applications this week. So far I have three of ten forms filled out and one fairly solid draft of a personal statement. At least, I hope it's fairly solid. We'll see what the professorial types say when they get their hands on it. Despite having graduated, I still live in awe of my undergraduate advisor and her pencil.

As usually happens when I've been away somewhere and come back, a foolish prodigal idea has crept into my head. And as also usually happens, it's taken about a year to work its way into the blinding light of day. (If anyone is counting, this is a record, because when I decided to cut my hair nice and short, that had been about six years in the making at least.)

I've decided to paint "my" room. Yellow, as a matter of fact. We'll see if it actually happens or not, though at this point I'm determined enough that it just might. Need some paint, a roller, loads of newspapers, a steamer and other unsavory items for stripping wallpaper, and probably some help. Don't worry, father dear, you won't be asked to paint: just move the dresser over there.... And would you mind managing the bed and all those bookshelves, too?

I'm thinking of making some curtains while I'm at it. Green? Yes, please. That way it will look like spring in November.

Of course this will all take time and effort and money, which I'm currently rather short on. The curtains may have to wait. But it's amusing to think about anyway.

On Wednesday I fished around and found a volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier downstairs in the basket by the piano. I tried to play Prelude No. 2, and was shocked by the state of my piano abilities. It has been over ten years, I guess, since I played seriously. Still!

Not to mention the fact that my poor family will probably get sick and tired of hearing me play Bach. Bach on the piano, Bach on the flute, with a little Vivaldi thrown in for good measure. Nothing like Baroque music to cheer things up. I'm not much one for crash-and-bang Romantic stuff, not to play, though I don't mind listening to it (as the current music choice shows).

Tomorrow is Sunday. With typical human attitude, I want my rest today, not tomorrow. To-do lists and I have a love-hate relationship. Their tyranny depresses me when I don't get as much done as I planned, but writing down everything I have to do helps me pretend that I have already done it, which alleviates stress. Always a good thing.

So now I'm going to cross "blog" off my list and write some e-mails.

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Love and Thunder", Track 3.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm bothering to post on here. Today I meant to start filling out the basics of graduate school applications, but I didn't even begin to bookmark them online. So much for making a good start, though this is just the beginning of the week.

Listening to Andrew Peterson in the evening has become my m.o. so far this fall. I wake up with his songs running through my head, songs about grace.

It's become increasingly evident that I don't understand grace at all. For months and months I've been trying to do the right thing. It's always in the back of my mind. Have I prayed with exactly the right mixture of truth and emotion? Have I participated with every ounce of my being in the worship service? Have I thought about God every moment today? Are my motives completely pure?

Of course this leads to a battle with assurance. Christ said, "Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you." In my quiet times I've been working through a list of the names of Christ, trying to know Him better. Last week I came to John 6, Christ as the Bread of Life. My father read that chapter to me when I came to him one night, teary-eyed, a little girl asking for help.

I have the same question of that chapter now as then, but it's not as easily answered: "Am I saved?" Now the question is complicated: "Have I come to Christ truly? Have I really and truly looked for Him?" Haunted by Hebrews 12 and the words about Esau who could not find repentance, "though he sought it diligently, with tears".

That response doesn't understand grace--at least, I don't think it does. Does my salvation rest on my coming to Christ, or on the work of Christ? The two are so closely intertwined, faith and salvation to faith, that I can't separate them. What if I don't have that faith?

None of this is helped by an undefinable sense of failure. The culture informs me in no uncertain terms that I'm a loser, someone with a B.A. who's living at home, and jobless for now. Which creates guilt, shame, loneliness, and resentment. An event in my life that I didn't plan isn't very flattering to my sense of control.

The "what ifs" crowd around. What if the relationships had gone smoothly? What if I had found some awesome missions opportunity for the year? If this time is part of God's plan, it feels completely unreasonable, almost petty. There's nothing grand or wonderful about it, just the challenge of obedience to the mundane.

In the end, though, I think it's basically a matter of perspective based on a misunderstanding of grace. If I understood the grace of God, I would know, as Mr. C puts it, that every day is God's gift to me; that what I have today is the very best thing God could give me for today.

Like the woman at the well, I'm thirsty but too confused to recognize the Savior sitting in front of me.

I've been missing the

WHITE RABBITS.

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Resurrection Letters, Vol. II", "The Good Confession (I Believe)".

Another of those apparently idyllic days, Crystal.

The alarm went off at six o'clock this morning. My mother, pastor's wife, and a couple of other women from church go out walking together at six o'clock, except for when one of them has a birthday. Then they meet at Panera for breakfast at half six in the morning.

The sunrise was beautiful, eyebrow pink and purple clouds raised across aquamarine sky, burnt umber and orange just along the horizon, rich, gritty colors. Panera was nearly deserted at that hour, as is to be expected in a town full of university students. There are a couple of "regulars" who are always there, every morning, including one slim older woman who said, "Oh, you all are back! I've missed you!" and gave up her seat on the sofas behind the fireplace just for us.

Mrs. P, Mrs. C, and my mother settled themselves chuckling on the fat leather sofas, pleased. Stephanie joined us. We ordered breakfast. Cinnamon crunch bagels and ginger tea, very good. The women chattered and giggled about all sorts of things--mostly having to do with their children. Dawn came quickly outside.

We went our separate ways at about eight o'clock. My father had already left for work by the time we were home. I went straight upstairs, changed out of my nice clothes into running clothes, and sat down at my desk to revise for the GRE. Maths. Percentages, fractions, square roots, and absolute values--oh, yes, my best friends ever, particularly at that hour of the morning.

In the middle of revising, the phone rang. It was a woman at the library requesting an interview with me this Thursday for the position I've applied for. First call back to date. (Incidentally, after lunch, Mrs. E, our neighbor across the street who's been taking a lively interest in the job hunt proceedings, came over with the business card of a friend of hers who runs the Domestic Violence Shelter here. My mother glowed with pleasure. I, on the other hand, feel as overwhelmed as ever, sick to my stomach with all the expectations.)

By ten o'clock I had had enough maths, and I went outside to get the neighbor's dog, Moochy. (Laura and I object to the name somewhat since it sounds ridiculous when shouted.) She was full of life, as usual, which meant two enormous muddy paw prints on my shirt by the time I managed to clip the lead onto her collar.

My mother decided to come with me. We walked over to Boomer Lake and around it. The morning was amazingly cool. Moochy trotted happily beside the path, sniffing everything and greeting every dog we met. A big heron eyed us dourly from a log under a bank, and geese flew crying through the chilly sky.

My mother showed us a grove of trees on the hilltop above the lake. One of the women who lives in a house adjacent to the lake keeps a gorgeous garden, full of flowers, and a cooler of water by her back gate for frisbee golf players who get thirsty. My mother gave Moochy a drink out of a plastic cup, and then we walked home.

It was a quarter past noon by the time we were back. I showered. Stephen came back from his Latin class, and we ate lunch. Then I sat down to finish revising for today.

After that, work was just beginning. I had finished a couple of e-mails and was on Facebook replying to Mr. L when Catherine messaged me. So I sat down on the floor under the window and talked to her on Skype for an hour-and-a-half. Since I was sitting on the floor by the bookshelf, I opened two of the photo albums from two years ago. Laughed with her on the phone about all those times.

After that, I worked on an e-mail to Naomi for awhile. At about a quarter to six, Nicole rang. Caught up on each other's lives. We talked a lot about books, too: Wodehouse, Allingham, Woolf, Hugo. And when she rang off, Anna rang.

As a result, I missed eating tea with my parents and Stephen. But when I got downstairs to eat, Laura had just rung, and my mother was talking to her on the phone while my father started to wash the dishes. I sat by the phone and listened in on the conversation. My mother was full of questions, and Laura was full of answers and more questions, so between the two of them they were talking away happily.

After she rang off, my father read Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. We had family worship.

When I went upstairs to bed, Annie came and sat in my lap. She purred and put her head on my chest and nudged me whenever I stopped rubbing her ears. To me being with this cat (in a good mood) is relaxing and reassuring. She's so complacent, so content, so happy with the pleasure of the moment.

Photos from end-of-summer adventures here.

Summer reading this year has consisted of:

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges
Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead
Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse (who else?!)
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty (I should hope so!)
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

In progress:

Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Resurrection Letters", Track 2.

I said good-bye to Tara this morning and went to meet my family at the aquarium in Jenks.

The drive down to Jenks was nerve wracking. Not only is the road full of tremendous potholes from all the rain this summer, but it's also a tangle of construction (to fix the potholes, of course). Sliding down treacherous interstate ramps with the rain pounding on my windshield made for a few tense moments, and then of course I got off the highway too early and had to pick my way through south Tulsa, along Riverside, until I found a bridge that took me across the river to Jenks.

At half ten, my mother, Laura, and Stephen pulled up beside me. By the time we had bought our tickets, it was nearly eleven o'clock. The otters and beavers were going to be fed at eleven o'clock, so we walked back to the Oklahoma exhibit. The keeper teased the beavers out of their untidy burrow with a big bowl full of grapes, apples, bananas, and sweet potato slices. The beavers were like enormous guinea pigs: fat, furry, and content.

The otters, on the other hand, were much more gratifying to watch. The keeper tossed freshwater clams into their tank. The three lithe beasts popped out of their den, slithered down a concrete slide, and splashed into the shallow water, where they whirled around and around in circles, gnawing at the blue clamshells. Even after they finished eating, they swam and swam, paddling, somersaulting, flipping, whirling, twisting, and bobbing up occasionally to make sure that we were still watching. Meanwhile, the racoons in the next cage sedately ate their mixture of fruit and cat food.

So we went back to the beginning and looked at the tanks. Tanks of crustaceans: hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, big Carribbean crabs, lobsters. Also, starfish, sea urchins, anemones, sea hares, and sea cucumbers. Then a series of tanks full of shape-shifters: pufferfish, box fish, mud skippers, lungfish, lookdowns (shiny aluminum foil fish with weird straight heads), and so forth. On the other side of the main hall was a series of ocean creatures: four varieties of jellyfish, absolutely mesmerizing to watch, dreamily expanding and contracting, trailing their tentacles like comets' tails. Also, a couple of tanks of small sharks, pirhanas, arrowfish, and an electric eel. The eel's tank was set up so that its shocks registered as sonic bursts from a speaker just above the glass.

There were also seahorses, tiny ones and bigger ones. Solemn, like old women fluttering around their tank. Lionfish, extravagantly elegant, rayed and finned like Chinese dragon kites. A lonely cuttlefish scooting around in green dim water. Next door on one side was a nautilus; on the other side, there was, of all things, an octopus. Not just any octopus, though: a monstrous creature, gigantic bulbous head, eight suckered arms seeping everywhere. Arms rippling, it opened itself against the glass like a terrible star. Huge, hideously fast, it wove around its tank.

We walked on out into the ocean area. In the centre, the tank of rays, bat-winged sleek creatures flying around their tank. A couple of petting pools with crabs, starfish, and small sharks and rays. Tanks full of coral reef fish. Beds of anemones, iridescent, fluorescent pink, yellow, and green.

We stepped out to eat lunch on the back deck overlooking the river. The rain had stopped, but the wooden benches were wet. Then we went back inside, in time for the shark feeding at half one. The aquarium's shark tank is arranged so that a tunnel runs down underneath the tank itself, permitting the viewer to look up at the sharks as well as to either side. The beasts have gotten bigger over the years we've been coming here. Lemon, bull, and nurse sharks swam expectantly around the tank. I counted about fifteen sharks. The largest one was about nine feet long, and the next one wasn't much smaller. They were enormous, powerful, stunningly fast. Sleek bodies wove from side to side as they soared through the water, overhead, around us.

At feeding time, the tunnel under the tank was full of people. Lights above the tank were switched on. The first few chunks of raw fish were ignored by the beasts, but after one of the nurse sharks found a big piece and burst it apart, the others began to be excited. Big round slices of salmon, whole dead fish, and clouds of shrimp were released into the water gradually over a period of fifteen or twenty minutes. The sharks whipped through the water, seizing the meat in their mouths, gulping it, spitting it back out, thrashing their heads to break the chunks apart. The water filled with a haze of particles and fish organs. It was awesome and terrifying.

We watched and watched. It was fascinating, mesmerizing, to watch the rhythm of the big animals as they swathed through the water. After a few minutes, the crowd dispersed, but we stayed until the sharks had obviously eaten their fill. Then we walked back to the sea area. We visited the biggest coral reef tank, where some sort of angelfish took an interest in Laura and me and swam up and down against the glass where we were sitting.

We went back to the Oklahoma exhibit then. Oklahoma fish aren't nearly as colorful, but they make up for it with size. Gargantuan alligator snapping turtles, gars, paddlefish, and catfish, gargantuan shapes suspended in vague green depths.

Back at home, after tea, at seven o'clock, Laura and I drove over to the Aspen in Fountain Square to meet Sarah, Rachel, Elizabeth, and Anna. Sunshine on the storefronts was warm. Laura and I joined Sarah and Rachel, waiting outside for Elizabeth and Anna.

When they showed up, Rachel left because she's caught THE cold (I generously gave it to Anna, who shared it with Rachel), but the rest of us went inside and ordered. The coffee shop wasn't too busy this early in the evening. We chose a snug back corner with a big armchair and a long sofa done in pretty copper-and-green upholstery. After we got our drinks, we handed them around, all taking a taste. Then we spent the whole evening talking and laughing.

As the evening went on, more and more people drifted into the coffee shop. Most of them were students, coming in groups or alone to study. Outside it quickly became dark. We were all reluctant to leave, but at about half ten Laura started to wilt onto Elizabeth. Stepping into the evening, we were met by strange musty humidity. The evening smelled like a mildewed library.

Laura and I drove home. The streets were quiet. Eerie ground fog was seeping up below the dam, silver in the light from the intramural field. The windscreen misted with humidity. Unnaturally cold night air made me shiver and was full of weird furtive smells, musky smells, animal and plant smells. The stars hung bright and close in the black sky above it all.

part ii.

Now Playing: More crickets.

"Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff; you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory", vs. 14-16.

The last two transformations are my favorites. This one is surreal: from worm to threshing sledge. Worm is easy enough, a little slimy squidgy creature squirming around on the sidewalk after it rains. When I think of threshing sledge, I think of an enormous combine crawling through a field of wheat. Or of the clutters of agricultural tools I've seen in sheds, all sharp curved teeth, steel blades, interlocked slashing parts.

The mountains here, Pastor explained today, are the obstacles we face in life, the problems, pains, and decisions we encounter. And God promises that these worms, us, will go from being helpless to being so powerful that we slash the mountains into dust. Beat our problems fine as sand. This doesn't mean that God will take away the challenges. Instead, as we go through them, He will conquer them through us. All the suffering, all the evil, winnowed and blown away. All the fruit left behind: rejoicing in God.

"When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it", vs. 17-20.

A beautiful final transformation: desert to garden. This transformation comes as the direct result of our prayers as God promises to "answer" us. Hope! So much hope. If I am in the wilderness, the garden is coming. God Himself transforms barrenness, loneliness, and danger into fruitfulness, fellowship, and peace. He creates a paradise in response to His people's prayers. I can't imagine that the prayers here are extremely articulate: people whose tongues are "parched with thirst" probably aren't the best communicators. Yet God in His grace answers our weakness with far more than we could ever imagine. Restoration, return to an Eden made even more lovely.

What does this mean?

When Satan comes and tells me that because I have sinned again, God will not accept me--when he comes and says that because my heart is hard, God will not listen to my request for forgiveness--that I am to stand on the welcome of Christ. Stand on the truth of His unshakeable work. Stand on the truth of His promise that the enemy will be defeated.

When my fear tells me that I will never get through "this" (whatever it is), that I will never be happy again, that I will always be lonely, useless, and afraid--that I am to pray to the God who makes worms into sharp weapons, who makes deserts into gardens. No matter how weak and inarticulate the prayer is, He will hear me, and His answer will be staggeringly gorgeous. Ultimately, Christ Himself.

part i.

Now Playing: Crickets.

Isaiah 41:1-20 was the sermon text this morning for the Stillwater RPC. I read through it in my quiet time beforehand. The passage is full of transformation, of turning, of metamorphosis. God's majesty, like the mountains along the skyline, is displayed in His ability to change one thing into another.

"But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, 'You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off'; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand," vs. 8-10.

Israel goes from being taken "from the ends of the earth" to being welcomed by God. God's people go from being on the outside to being on the inside, from being cast off to being chosen, from being alone at the farthest corners to being at God's side. This is the act of salvation, of entering into right relationship with God. I forget that it is at once so simple yet so monumental. When I ask for forgiveness, forgiveness is something that I must buy with the proper amount of feeling bad. I have to agonize and cry and work up the proper emotions before I can feel forgiven.

But as Lloyd-Jones says earlier in the chapter I quoted a couple of posts ago, forgiveness is much simpler than that. "Ask, and it will be given." There is no need for me to press and hound myself and feel even guiltier for my hard heart. As soon as I ask that my sins are forgiven, they are forgiven--the gift of faith enables me then to believe. Christ's work stands untouched by whatever mood happens to be passing over me, so His forgiveness is always the same. It is simple, pure, kind, gentle. Because of His free grace, He makes me welcome.

"Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you'," vs. 11-13.

In a sense, the passage follows a sort of narrative. If the last three verses were about going from being outside to being in God's fellowship, these verses remind me of the struggle that immediately begins between the sinner and sin. As soon as I believe in Christ, my sins become my enemies. I might have cherished them before, but now they are angry at me, and I am angry at them. Another transformation.

God's promise here goes beyond just opening my eyes to this transformation. He promises a further change: my enemies, my sins, "shall be as nothing and shall perish". I find myself engaged in warfare. The further I go with God, the more conscious I become of this warfare. Everyone is probably exhausted by now of my constant references to The Screwtape Letters, but my recent rereading of them reminded me of the pressing reality of the conflict. Satan uses anything, anything--how tired I am, how hungry I am, what hormones happen to be in my system, how other people behave, whether it's sunny or cloudy--to make me stumble.

But this is God's promise. Those sins and the devil who uses them will both be defeated completely. Instead of fighting and failing again and again, I will not be able to find my sins. God will complete His work, and He will help me.

Now Playing: Sufjan Stevens, "Seven Swans", "All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands".

15 August 2009.

Following in the footsteps of the great Bilbo Baggins, I woke up later this morning than I meant to. On the morning of an adventure, waking up late is always a good sign of more mishaps to come. This particular morning, the mishap of waking up late was accompanied by dismal rain. While I dressed, a short sharp shower rattled on the leaves outside.

I went downstairs and ate breakfast with my parents. We had family worship, and then I packed lunch into a cooler. I loaded the paraphernalia necessary for the day's adventure into the back of the Buick: old newspapers, two very rusty shovels, an empty laundry detergent bucket, two ragged beach towels, a stack of CDs, my bag of odds and ends, bug spray, sun screen, and the cooler.

As I was loading the car, Sarah pulled up in her pickup truck. We added her belongings to the assortment already in the car: another rusty shovel, bug spray, a cooler, a sack full of provisions, a couple of textbooks, and an ill-fated pink plastic bucket. In the midst of our preparations, our third companion arrived in the back of her parents' car. Elizabeth added a wallet of CDs to our collection of junk.

After the appropriate farewells, and a stop to fill the tank of our faithful automobile, the three of us started out on our grand adventure.

Elizabeth sat in the front seat with me and "navigated". Sarah sat in the back seat and revised. We listened to an Indelible Grace CD, The Chieftains, and a mix of Tenth Avenue North and Switchfoot. We drove north, then west, then north again on I-35. The hour-and-a-half passed uneventfully. It was when we turned off I-35 onto Highway 60 that the adventure really began.

We were driving through green Oklahoma countryside--unnaturally green for this time of year. Dry field corn rattled in broad fields and tried to counteract the lushness of the grass growing in the pastures and ditches. We drove through small towns strung along the two-lane highway: Pond Creek, on the far side of a big old metal bridge, Lamont, and Jet. Each town with its big grain silo, its old houses with their broad porches, its school, its smattering of churches and convenience stores. We drove up and down over little hills. Ravines, pastures, plots of purple alfalfa, sorghum, and corn. Cattle and horses. We drove past windbreaks of enormous old trees, American elms and junipers stooped by the wind and hollowed out inside like caverns, their inner branches battered and bare, their outer branches making gaunt shells.

We met a couple of other mishaps during our trip, both of which took the form of brief thunderstorms.

Once we got to Jet, we drove around awhile before we figured out where we needed to be. We could see Great Salt Lake shimmering red and pale blue far away through dips in the trees. Google Maps was only useful to a point. We took a gravel road that branched off Highway 38. As the car bumped through the potholes, it startled a doe and fawn, which bounded off the road and stood to one side, staring. We also scared up a couple of armadillos. We found ourselves on the shore of the lake in a quiet grove of pecan trees.

Then we got back on Highway 38 and drove on until we came to the entrance of Great Salt Plains State Park. It took more winding around before we finally came to a car park and got out. We walked to the edge of the car park and looked down: there was the spillway. Two big concrete dams, with high concrete walls on either side, holding back the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. Sarah and I had both come here as schoolchildren on field trips. It was smaller than I had remembered it being. Disappointing, particularly since everything is meant to be bigger on an adventure.

An enormous vortex of turkey vultures was hovering over the spillway, catching the heat rising from the concrete. Six cormorants and a big white heron were fishing on the edge of the spillway. Whenever the sun came out, the cormorants would stretch out their dark wings. A man was fishing with long rods from the wall that ran beside the spillway. Far below, in the dark green-and-brown pool between the first barrier and the second barrier, fish jumped out of the water. Sleepy splash and ripple. It was about eleven o'clock, but the morning was very quiet. The storm had left the air cool.

We carried snacks down from the car to the small playground. Elizabeth contributed clementines, Sarah contributed animal crackers, and I contributed bug spray. Ants swarmed on the ground. We sat under a big old mulberry tree and talked about children's books. Elizabeth bounced up and down on a see-saw with a chipped and flaking elephant on one side and a grinning horse on the other.

Fortified by our midmorning snack, we drove on around the lake. A swerved to avoid a big copperhead slithering across the road. We drove up to Highway 11, then turned back south into part of the wildlife refuge that borders the lake. Just as we pulled into the car park, a family with a couple of small children pulled in, too. They courteously let us go first. We walked around the Eagle Nesting Nature Trail, a lovely little loop, a mile-and-a-half or so.

We crossed a dry creek on a rickety bridge. We walked through a grove of wild catalpas: beautiful, strong old trees, their big branches writhing up like sea monsters' necks, rearing broad-leafed green canopies high overhead. Catalpas that have been allowed to grow freely like that are rare in the city.

We found a platform overlooking a bay with a telescope mounted on the railing. Birds were feeding and bathing out in the shallow water of the bay. White herons, egrets, great blue herons, small green herons, mallard ducks, ibises. Perhaps some spoonbills, too. We watched them through the telescope. Sleek silhouettes against the silver water, quick graceful actions, flick of beak and wing. The rising wind stirred our hair and ruffled the flat surface of the water.

We walked on, down the broad grassy path under the trees. Tiny tree frogs and grasshoppers bounced out of the way. Elizabeth spotted a couple of big toads. I mistook a water moccasin for a stick. It was shedding its skin, to Sarah's complete disgust. The wind, gathering strength, made sounds of rushing wings in the trees above us, willow trees, tamarisks, cottonwoods, sand plums. In the small marshes on our right, birds were feeding. Startled by our passing, they flew screaming into the air. Eerie cries of herons echoing in the woods.

We found a dragonfly as big as my hand. Smaller dragonflies with bodies like iridescent needles hovered over leaves. Sarah heard the thunder of hooves down in a muddy part of the swamp, and when we peered through the leaves, we saw another doe standing a little distance away, waving her ears at us. A little further on, Elizabeth saw a muddy pool frothing and writhing with baby snakes. Sarah and I were both jumpy and avoided every stick we saw lying on the path.

The path had been high and broad, grassy, built up on a dam through the marshy area, overgrown with willow trees. As we turned back toward the car, it began to run a little more uphill, and we found ourselves walking on gravel through groves of junipers. Under their feathery branches it was very still and aromatic. We walked on and on, through small sunny places where buffalo grass and bluestem and prickly pear cactus were growing, through a grove of cottonwood trees, and finally out into the car park again.

It was half one, and we were all quite hungry by now, so we took our lunches over to a picnic table beside a small green pond. I prayed, and we ate what we had in the coolers: sandwiches, peaches, and some Cadbury's chocolate that I'd brought along. Mosquitoes fluttered over the green water in swarms whenever a turtle decided to surface. Sarah and I fed the crusts of our sandwiches to red-eared turtles and bluegills swimming in the shallows. The wind moved gently in the big tree above us and rustled a thick stand of cattails across the water.

As we were preparing to leave, Elizabeth and I both saw something large and furry "humping" along the far shore. It disappeared behind the cattails. Then it stuck its face out of the cattails above the bank and looked at us quizzically. It was a raccoon! Raccoons are mostly nocturnal, so seeing one during broad daylight was very unusual. It delicately pattered down to the water and washed its paws. It paused a moment, stared at us again, and then turned tail and leisurely made its way back into the woods. We stood, staring at it, until it disappeared.

On the road again, we drove on a trail made specially for cars through the woods. Elizabeth flipped through Anna's CD case, laughing at the selection. Sarah read out the names of the marshes as we passed them: Little, Intermediate, and Big. Most of the marshes were dry, their deep bowl beds full of wild lotus and lily leaves gone brown at the edges like burned paper.

We hit the highway again and drove west. We drove through "hickville", a ridiculously disreputable town meant to be a lakeside resort and consisting mostly of battered old buildings painted bright pink and blue. Then we turned south. Drove through Cherokee, through fields of alfalfa, and then turned off onto a side road. This took us east again, back to the lake, to the selenite crystal digging area.

Because Great Salt Lake was formed by damming the Salt Fork of the river, an unusual geological formation occupies the southwestern corner of the area: 11,000 square acres of salt flats. Driving out onto the salt flats is a surreal experience akin to driving onto the surface of the moon. On either side the white shining salt lies sparkling, perfectly flat, so that the water to the northeast shimmers like a mirage, heat rising from the flats shimmering with the reflection of the water. Battered wooden posts mark the roadway.

Part of the flats have been designated as a public space for crystal digging. By some trick of the soil, the combined salt, sand, and clay form beautiful hexagonal crystals. These are usually right under the surface, in the first six inches or so of soil. Intrepid adventurers that we were, we had pledged never to return home until we had discovered some of the buried treasure. For that purpose, we had come thoroughly equipped. The two buckets, two towels, three shovels, and sun screen were all unearthed from the back of the car, and we set out onto the salt flats to dig.

The digging area of the flats looks even more eerie, in a way, than the untouched areas. It has been littered with shallow holes and small heaps of soil that sparkle where forgotten crystals have been exposed. The combination of holes and mounds gives the place the appearance of a meteor field. Other groups of people were dotted over the expanse. Redneck central, as far as we could tell.

We found a place and started to dig. The sun beat down onto our backs, and the powerful wind scoured over the unbroken expanse of sand and salt. Close to the ground, our voices sounded strangely covert, as though we were inside, because by contrast the wind was so loud in our ears when we stood up. At first we just hacked into the soil, but then we got the hang of it. Elizabeth and I would carefully overturn a small shovelful, and the three of us would each take a clod and begin to break apart the sand and clay. Embedded in the soil, the crystals flashed like glass. I sliced a finger open on one of them. We made a heap of crystals next to us. Unwashed, they looked like chunks of brown sugar.

We spent about an hour on the flats, though it didn't seem like that long. When our heap of crystals got big enough, we put it into Sarah's pink bucket and settled down to digging again. As soon as we took our hands off the bucket, though, an especially strong gust of wind came along. The bucket bucked off the shovel I had leaned on it, scattered our crystals all over the ground, and scudded away. The wind was so strong that it was going much too fast for any of us to catch it. We stood laughing helplessly, watching it as it scudded away from us. Far in the distance, it hit a mound of salt and bounced merrily into the air. In about five minutes it was out of sight.

We laughed ourselves silly, put the crystals into my bucket, and sank my bucket deep into a hole where it would be out of the wind. Some of the crystals we found were as long as my palm.

At about four o'clock, we packed up and walked back to the car. Dazed by sun and wind. Sarah sat in the front seat with me. We listened to a mix CD that Anna had put together: Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, etc. Long black road stretched straight before us, running up and down over the little hills. Lush grass in the ditches rushed and rushed in the wind. We chased blue cloud shadows. Out in the fields, the sun would catch the top of a stand of trees and burn them green and yellow.

We dropped Elizabeth off at her house, and then Sarah and I drove back to my house where her truck was parked. The town is busy with students again. I helped her pack her things into her truck, and we said good-bye. I was very tired.

Now Playing: C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, "Aslan Makes A Door In The Air".

An excellent paragraph from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, the chapter on feelings and their contribution to spiritual depression.

"Finally, let me put it in this way: Do you want to know supreme joy, do you want to experience a happiness that eludes description? There is only one thing to do, really seek Him, seek Him Himself, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you find that your feelings are depressed do not sit down and commiserate with yourself, do not try to work something up but--this is the simple essence of it--go directly to Him and seek His face, as the little child who is miserable and unhappy because somebody else has taken or broken his toy, runs to its father or its mother. So if you and I find ourselves afflicted by this condition, there is only one thing to do, it is to go to Him. If you seek the Lord Jesus Christ and find Him there is no need to worry about your happiness and your joy. He is our joy and our happiness, even as He is our peace. He is our life, He is everything. So avoid the incitements and the temptations of Satan to give feelings this great prominence at the centre. Put at the centre the only One who has a right to be there, the Lord of Glory, Who so loved you that He went to the Cross and bore the punishment and the shame of your sins and died for you. Seek Him, seek His face, and all other things shall be added unto you."

Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, "Resurrection Letters, Vol. II", "I've Got News For You".

This post brought to you courtesy Laura and Stephen.

An amazing video of the night sky here.

If you have some spare time and are trying to break your addiction to Facebook, have a look at some new links in the sidebar! Karen's gorgeous photography under "companions" and an amazing first chapter of a story under "miscellaneous": "the wonderful world of manaqua".

Now Playing: Chris Thile, "Stealing Second", "Ah, Spring".

I didn't expect today to be as eventful as it turned out to be.

Before sitting down to breakfast, I hunted in the laundry room for the box of books Aunt Lisa loaned us. It has been sequestered behind the set of box springs from my apartment, and I had to dig to find the one I wanted: Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham, the first of her Albert Campion mysteries. Laura and I had our usual reading party while we ate breakfast. She's working on The Silmarillion.

After breakfast, I did my quiet time and then went for a bike ride. A strong southeast wind was feeding into a big storm system to the northwest, which was hovering ominously along the horizon. I flew with the wind at my back, then labored along the other side of the lake. Listened to the sermon Pastor D preached at the MWPCY retreat at the end of May. An excellent portrait of Christ from John 1:1-18.

At home, I showered. Both the sink and shower drains in the girls' bathroom have become unaccountably blocked, so Laura and I spent the rest of the morning slogging away at them. The shower drain did absolutely nothing, neither better nor worse. The sink drain, however, spat disgusting clouds of black flakes into the water and reeked of sewage.

We ate an early lunch because a woman was coming at one o'clock to give Laura a Mary Kay makeup consultation. She spent about an hour-and-a-half dabbing spots of products onto sample trays and helping us put on makeup. Laura pulled disgusted faces at me the whole time whenever Mrs. W wasn't looking.

After Mrs. W left, I went upstairs to clean the bathroom. When that was done, I sat down with my laptop to finish registering for GRE exams, buying preparation materials, reading e-mails, and so forth. The mere mention of the GRE makes me tremble from head to toe. I also looked at the NOC website to see if they have any job openings.

At about five o'clock, I settled down for a break with Mystery Mile. A storm was beginning to blow over. All afternoon there had been thunder, but so far the storm had been too small and too far away. Stephen was playing with miniatures in the green attic, and he and Laura kept a fanatic eye on the radar. Laura was ecstatic. The sky became darker and darker. The wind veered around to the northwest and began to tear at the trees. I sat down on my bed, turned on the lamp, and started to read. Laura bounced in with her laptop to join me.

The wind roared in the maple trees, silvering the leaves, pale backs the color of the summer sky. For a long time there was just a gale, but then it started to rain. Sheets and sheets of rain poured down the street and rattled on the windows like artillery fire. The thunder, which had disappeared during the windstorm, returned with renewed fury. Stephen, Laura, and I all watched the storm through the windows. The lamplight made my small room feel like the cabin of a ship reeling through a storm.

My mother called us downstairs for an early tea. Just as my father finished giving thanks (and I in my head praying for God to protect us), the electricity flickered, and the house went dark. Rain pounded on the windows, lightning blazed in the darkness, and thunder cracked overhead. We scrounged candles from the living room and put them in among the dishes on the table. Laura lit them. We ate our leftovers by candlelight.

Laura's laptop had battery power, so she obligingly brought it downstairs so that we could watch The Dick Van Dyke show while we ate dessert. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of the nightly episode.... Outside, the storm was beginning to move away.

The sun came out suddenly, turning the rain to gold. Across the dark east, a double rainbow emerged, and the lower arc rippled into iridescence, adding a third crescent. The colors stood out vividly against the grey sheet of cloud in the east. All around us the golden rain fell shining. Green leaves and branches were scattered everywhere.

When the rainbows disappeared, we went inside. Laura played Ravel on the piano. I read Mystery Mile sitting on the floor in the sunshine streaming through the open front door. My mother, Laura, and I went for a walk. The whole neighborhood was out of power. People were outside cleaning up the debris from the storm. A man down the street had started up a backyard generator. My mother stopped to say hello to everyone, of course.

At the end of the street, we paused to look at the northwest. Another storm was blowing in, dark all over the northwestern sky, hiding the sunset. We walked home again. Laura bounced along, thrilled at the prospect of another storm. My father was reading to Stephen in the living room. Outside, my mother went up and down the yard, calling Annie. The silly cat had crawled through Philip's bedroom window and was running around on the roof in the gloaming.

We did family worship. Now my mother is reading a book about third culture kids. Sandy sits at the front door, looking out into the darkness. The white bell-shaped flowers on the hostas shimmer wetly in the porch light. The other storm is blowing in on a cold north wind that rushes in the maple trees. Annie sits beside me on a chair, bathing herself. The wind eddies through the front door.

Now Playing: The Decemberists, "The Picaresque", "Eli, The Barrow Boy".

Yesterday evening was Noah B.'s ordination service in Enid.

Because delegates from presbytery were coming down early to interview a candidate for the pastorate in Sterling, we planned to leave for Enid at a quarter past twelve. In the afternoon, while my parents were sitting in on the interview, Missy and I went to a coffee shop together. We arrived back at the Christian highschool where the service was to be held "just in time to do nothing". When the meeting with the candidate ended, the delegates came out, and we served them tea.

The ordination service began at half six. It was a very formal service, with plenty of steps to go through, but everyone seemed very happy. Afterward, Noah cut the cake with wee Katie's help, and everyone stayed for the session. Some of the guys immediately took Noah's new frisbee outside to play a game, though the evening was very windy. The big red moon was rising quickly over the trees as we carried the leftover food to the car.

Photos from the event are here.

Lovely evening yesterday! Laura, Sarah, me, Elizabeth, Rachel, and Anna.