Now Playing: Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack, "Amon Hen."

As on most Tuesday mornings, this morning I biked over to the coffeeshop by campus to meet Mary and Beth at nine o'clock. We always meet to discuss the weekend's readings for the medieval lit class. Unlike most mornings, though, this morning I got to use my sweet North Face jacket! A thin layer of frost actually lay on the windscreens of cars and the roofs of houses as I worked my way over to campus.

Mary, Beth, and I had an intense discussion about The Sultan of Babylon today--a Middle English Charlemagne romance with lots of feasts in it, so we talked about the feasts for about two hours while we drank coffee, until it was time for class.

I'm enjoying medieval romances much more than I thought I would. Not really sure why. They're like popcorn, or a box of chocolates: you never know what's going to happen next, and weird things keep bouncing to the surface. Magical girdles, fourteen-foot giants' babies, fried snakes, trees with white flowers, and of course plenty of bloody mortal combats.

After class I biked home and spent the afternoon alone in the house. I ate lunch, read our next romance, The Siege of Milan, drank tea, and practiced my flute for an hour. Then--wonder of wonders, wonder worthy of a romance all its own!--I rang Anna, and she actually answered the phone! We've been playing phone tag for over a month now.

So I went for a long walk for an hour-and-a-half while I talked to her. Maples blazed against the late afternoon sky. I walked through a neighborhood full of young maples, many of them crimson, and then I walked down into some woods behind one of the apartment complexes, where I sat under a sweetgum tree in a clearing--in a clearing on a crunchy carpet of yellow leaves, with a yellow ceiling. Walked down to a dry creek on deep drifts of yellow leaves, and then back up through a hillside full of Johnson grass and asters.

After I said good-bye to Anna, Lisa, Laura, and I went over to campus to pick Lindsay up from class, and then the four of us went for our housemates' night out: to the mall.

The food court was our first stop, Chick-Fil-A, to be precise. While we ate Lindsay told us about a "robot study" she participated in today. We devoured our lemonade and waffle fries and then shopped for awhile: American Eagle, Payless, Target. Lisa and I both bought jeans, and we left Target richer by a welcome mat and a bag of animal crackers.

At home the girls settled down to watch two episodes of Friends. I slogged through writing a poem while listening to FOTR. My candle burns on my desk. Lisa and Lindsay are both working now, too, and I can hear Laura talking on the phone downstairs.

Now Playing: Bach, B Minor Mass, "Confiteor unum baptisma...."

Life is very normal right now. I've been trying to work/not work all day today, and even though I have a list of things to do, and most of it is done, it's been hard to focus. My thoughts keep jumping ahead to the big papers and projects lurking at the end of the semester as I wonder whether I'll be able to pass muster as a "real" grad student.

For some reason fall is one of the hardest times of year for me. I just realize how much time I spend being unhappy. It's really ridiculous. The voice inside my head mutters away all day about how meaningless reading psychoanalytic theory and Chaucer is, how foolish other people must think me, how guilty I am before God because of all my sins....

One morning last week I was sitting on my floor, doing my quiet time, and I happened to look up and see the plant sitting in the windowsill. One leaf was illuminated by the sun, a long bright green arc. Somehow God displays His glory there, in how perfectly calibrated leaf and light are to each other, and as He provides sunshine for that plant and keeps all its cells fine-tuned, enabled to do their work.

It's humbling, but that's what my attitude needs to be, too. Live like a plant. Simply for God's glory, simply enabled by His grace. I want to have learned the lesson and be done with it, be able to live life effortlessly in His love.

But God is a God who "waits to be gracious to you," who "exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all who wait for Him." Always thought I was a patient person, but I'm really not at all--I want to be happy and full of God's love now. Perhaps this is what it means to exercise faith.

White rabbit!

Now Playing: Cherish the Ladies, "Woman of the House", "Sweet Thames Flow Softly."

I'm procrastinating on going to sleep right now, so here's what I did this past weekend. I drove to Nashville and visited Syneva! I could rattle off a list of all the things we did: shopped at a flea market, visited the library, walked around downtown, walked around a lake, went out for Italian food, went to City Church, cooked food, watched a DVD.

Scratch that. Sounds like a to-do list. Try some snapshots instead.

On Friday evening, we drove through a sudden thunderstorm to get frozen yogurt. Oblongs of yellow light through glass doors in the mansions along Belmont Boulevard glowed like the facets of a chandelier. We listened to Brahms's sonata for clarinet and piano, and the sky was green with lightning.

Saturday afternoon we spent hours sifting through trays of tarnished jewelery and crumbling postcards, piles of kitchenware, and old furniture at the flea market. Syneva bought a flour sifter, and I bought a silver ring for three dollars.

That night we had the house to ourselves and made Mexican food. I made tortillas for the first time ever, rolling extremely sticky balls of dough in piles of flour while we talked about North and South and Foyle's War.

Sabbath morning we sat on the front porch, drinking spiced black tea, eating pumpkin bread with dried dates and walnuts, and talking about Shostakovich.

When I drove back to Indiana through Kentucky, the forests were beginning to be veined with warm colors, copper flowing up through the dark green trees. In Indiana all the pumpkin patches and corn mazes were open for business.

Since I came back, it's been work as usual, though the weather has finally cooled off here, and I had to wear a hoodie when I ran this morning.

Photos from Nashville, TN here.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack, Track 15, "The Great River."

A few photos from today are here.

It's been a long week. The saga of computer problems never seems to end! Last Wednesday, I locked myself out of my computer, launching my dad and me into a labyrinth of computer programming questions. We both spent what seemed like hours poking around on the internet and fiddling with my laptop. Finally, on Saturday night, with the help of Lindsay's old laptop and a blank CD, I managed to burn a program to solve the problem. My dad walked me through the process on the phone. Saturday night I went to bed with a functional computer, a slightly better knowledge of how it works, and a deeper appreciation for my dad's patience!

Then on Wednesday we woke up and the internet was mysteriously not working. I spent some time that afternoon trying to coax the router to work and ended up calling AT&T, but they were unhelpful. It took Laura an hour on Thursday night to get the thing fixed. In the meantime, I was biking around campus with my laptop, notebook, and Norton anthologies or Riverside Chaucer in my bag! Either helped my stamina or ruined my shoulders; I'm not sure which yet.

Computer issues aside, good things have happened this week, too. Lindsay and I both registered for library cards on Thursday, and on Friday I checked out a glorious stack of Bach and Brahms CDs that I've never listened to before. Friday was also the day I ate lunch with Cindy at the Runcible Spoon, and we spent a delightful couple of hours talking about Europe.

Last night Lisa and I were left to our own devices, Lindsay and Laura both having gone on short weekend trips. We worked dutifully (mostly dutifully, anyway) until nine o'clock, when we took a break to eat ice cream and watch Letters to Juliet. Chick flick, anyone? It was amusing. This afternoon we joined some people from the RPC on a short hike--more like a walk through the woods--at a state park an hour away from Bloomington. It was pleasant to be outside, walking under the tall oak trees, and laughing at all the wee kids scampering about.

Lisa is baking chocolate cake and lemon bars for Fireside Chat tomorrow night.

All things considered, I'm very thankful that tomorrow is the Sabbath.

Now Playing: Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B Flat.

In the post just below this there's a link to some photos from the past two weekends as well as of our wee house. On Saturday Lindsay and Lisa, who are beasts, hauled in Laura's tiny pickup truck an almost new blue plush sofa from a family about twenty minutes away. They got it out of the truck and into our living room, rearranged the furniture, hung pictures on the walls, and generally made the living space downstairs look like home. My heart gives a little patter of happy surprise every time I go down there now.

Today while poking around on the internet for Digital Humanities, I found some gorgeous photos from the Staffordshire Hoard, a collection of Anglo-Saxon objects from the 5th-7th centuries (roughly). The hoard was only just discovered in 2009, so many of the objects haven't been catalogued or fully cleaned yet, but their website has some stunning images. Here are a couple:














One of these is broken gold with fish and eagle details. The other is a gold strip with a verse from Numbers etched onto it in Latin, calling God to arise and scatter His enemies. Today I spent two hours in Dr. M's office with three other students as we discussed our projects for this class. I think that some how Dr. M talked me into putting together a sort of annotated bibliography of digital resources to use for teaching and researching, though I initially wanted to try for a syllabus. We'll see. The idea of trying to put together a syllabus daunts me, which is partly why I want to try it. But either way the work will be useful later on.

Photos from the last week or so are here.

Very thankful right now: My computer is fixed! Hooray! My dad is amazing, and so are my housemates.

Now Playing: Bach, Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543.

Tonight I've been revising poetry. At some point the words start to swim on the screen, and then it's time to stop and just print it off, whether it sounds good or not.

This week in Bloomington got off to a good start, or at least last week ended well. Rachel drove over from Illinois for a visit on Saturday morning. We went downtown to the arts festival on Saturday afternoon and spent a happy couple of hours wandering up and down the street among the pavilions.

Now, that image perhaps isn't precise enough. When we reached Fourth Street, we found ourselves looking up a long, gentle hill running up to the university gates. On either side of the street are international restaurants and Asian grocers, set back from the road. Trees, gold and green, overhang the road, and under them were the white roofs of the booths. But the street itself was completely invisible, hidden by a mass of people. Rachel and I had to push our way up toward the university through the crowd like salmon up a river.

On Sunday I made a happy discovery after evening worship: Cindy, the library sciences student who sat in the pew behind us, knows Syneva!

Sunday evening the "fireside chats" started at the Hs' house. About fifteen students, mostly grad students, met at their house, and Amy H fed us enchiladas, and we sat on their screened-in back deck and talked until it was dark outside. Then we gathered inside, and Pastor H led us in an introductory study designed to resume their progress through the Westminster Confession.

Yesterday, like good little grad students, Rachel and I studied in the morning and then went downtown to poke around the bookshops. We made tea together, the first meal I've made here that actually tasted good, and then she went back to Illinois.

Today I had another pleasant experience, that of beginning to form friendships with my fellow grad students. I met a couple of other first-years, Beth and Mary, at a coffee shop by campus to discuss the week's readings before class. Sitting at the table, I was very distracted by the windows: Broad, floor-to-ceiling arched panes, framing crowded sidewalk, full bike rack, busy one-way street, leaves yellow with sunshine, green lawn, and grey stone building. All very close, immediate, like a postcard illustration.

Tonight Lisa's parents were in town and took us out to eat pizza. As we were making our way through the crowded restaurant, I glanced to one side, and there was Katie! It was a bit surreal; I felt as though my frame of reference had tipped. She's in town to visit the art history department, and we had a nice chat.

Tomorrow will be busy: Song School (Middle English reading group), a professor's office hours, a lecture, poetry class.

Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 in E minor.

As of today I have finally had all my classes. “All” seems like an overstatement since I’m only taking three. It’s a weird schedule: class Wednesday night, Thursday night, and then for an hour on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Medieval literature so far has proved to be the most inscrutable of the three. The professors (it’s team-taught) are both lovely, but the critical literary theory we’ve been reading is like deep, dark mud. The vocabulary is nearly impenetrable, and as far as I can tell the ideas are rather divorced from reality. Nonetheless, we had a good discussion in class today about the reading. There’s a definite satisfaction to be had from struggling through a text and beginning to understand what it says. I will be quite thankful when we move on to Chaucer, though!

Creative writing is probably going to be similar to most of the other poetry classes I’ve taken. We’re starting out by reading W.H. Auden, who seems tame compared to some of the contemporary stuff Dr. J assigned in that senior-level poetry class! But I’m happy to be writing poetry again.

Digital Humanities promises to be quite the experience. It’s also team-taught, but by four people. Apparently there’s a whole world of resources out on the internet waiting to be used. This evening I discovered Early English Books Online as well as a database that lets you search the whole Old English corpus! Pretty amazing. The class will be quite practical and so involve a lot of work. We’re supposed to be helping out with encoding texts into digital archives. And now cue all those snide jokes about the awful grunt work grad students are given….

Think it will be a decent term, once I figure out where everything will fall. Having so many open hours during the day feels very strange.

Now Playing: Seabird, “Rocks into Rivers”.

Walking the streets here has been an adventure. Last night I went for a long walk around the area where we live, which isn’t the most scenic but yielded a couple of oddities: an apartment complex named Stonehenge, dressed with those atrocious wooden shingles and a long, low roof that made it look like a hood rat, and the back of Bloomington Hospital, where an enormous chimney rising into the air reminded me of City Hospital by the train station in Belfast—all sorts of sinister mental images of ominous “biohazard” bags being burned, especially since the parking spot right next to it was reserved for the coroner!

This morning I parked by the RP church on First Street and walked down First Street to Ballantine Street, and so up to campus. It was a lovely walk. The neighborhoods around campus are full of old, well-cared for houses with lush gardens. Jasmine grew on a wrought iron fence; naked ladies poked out of deep green grass; riotous zinnias exploded around front porches.

Despite the classy Better Homes and Gardens appearance of the neighborhood, I did notice one strange phenomenon. Someone seems to have a penchant for throwing shoes up onto electrical lines so that they dangle by their laces—one stretch of electrical line was as thick with pairs of shoes as it would be in Oklahoma right now with migrating starlings.

The crowning pleasure of the day, aside from talking to Sarah, my mother, and Stephen on the phone, was discovering that the Lilly Library will be hosting an exhibition of its medieval manuscripts and incunabula in October! Can’t wait. To whet my appetite, today they had on display, among others, a copy of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene with annotations by J.R.R. Tolkien himself. :o)

  Now Playing: Andrew Peterson, “Many Roads” from “Counting Stars”.

You want to know what life is like in Bloomington, Indiana? Well….

First impressions weren’t terribly inviting. My mother, Laura, and I pulled in fairly late Monday night and promptly got lost while trying to find our hosts’ house. The town appeared to be a blur of fluorescent lights streaking and spreading into each other, a mélange worthy of a Jackson Pollock painting. (Yes, I had to go look that word up, so you should, too.) We hit a roundabout, and my reflex was to start around it clockwise instead of counterclockwise! The effects of those driving adventures in Northern Ireland still haven’t worn off, apparently. 

Tuesday morning was move-in time. Pastor H rounded up a couple of math grad students, who obligingly screwed together the Ikea bed and desk that Laura S left behind for me. They had an apparently magic toolkit that contained every implement known to man for wrestling with recalcitrant furniture.

The townhouse is in good shape, though the washing machine leaks, I’ve heard. I like my wee room. It’s taken a couple of different iterations of furniture arrangements, but now the posters are up on the walls, the books are on the bookshelves, and the clothes are in the closet. The other three girls seem to be nice enough. No instant friendships, but perhaps that would be too much to ask. We’ve all been keeping to ourselves for the most part.

One of the best parts of the week, aside from having my mother and sister here to help with the transition, was having Laura and Elizabeth stay for a couple of days on their way up to Geneva. Yesterday we cooked all afternoon. Here’s Elizabeth with “Jeffery”, the chicken, boiling happily in “his” spa bath with one toe sticking daintily out. Unfortunately, today we realized that “Jeffery” was probably a hen, but by that time “she” was nicely pulled to bits and frozen for future meals. I won’t recount the rest of our grisly entertainment; suffice it to say that now I have a stash of cooked ground beef, chili, and broth to last me for awhile.

Our other adventure yesterday was finding a tension rod from which to hang a curtain. We went to Wal-Mart (my second time that day!), but they were out of tension rods—a swarm of freshmen had obviously severely depleted their stock. Said freshmen were still wandering all over the store in appalling numbers, so we escaped as quickly as possible. We went to Target, but the infestation had reached it, too, and nary a tension rod was to be had!

So we marched nearly the whole length of College Mall, from Macy’s to Sears. Macy’s was too highbrow to have a tension rod, but at the very back of Sears, tucked modestly away in a corner, was our quarry! I think the clerk was a bit incredulous about how ecstatic we were.

Today the girls left to go on to Geneva. I’m missing them already. I spent the day in the townhouse, settling in. In the afternoon I went out again (my third visit to the Center of the Universe in two days!) to get a key cut. I was astonished that none of the freshman needed keys—it only took five minutes and one dollar and forty-seven cents before I waltzed out of the store with my new house key.

This evening I think I’m going to go for a walk and maybe finish North and South. I’ve got nearly all my textbooks purchased from Amazon—despite what the other grad students said, ABE books was not cheaper—and can’t do much more until tomorrow. It’s a lovely evening, cool and clear.

 

Now Playing: “Suite for Flute and Orchestra in A minor.”

The good-byes just keep happening.

At two o’clock this afternoon I was supposed to meet Anna downtown to go resale shopping. I thought I was going to be late, but I ended up hanging about Elite Repeat for a wee bit before she and Elizabeth arrived. We spent the rest of the afternoon together and had a grand old time! We poked all over Elite Repeat first. Elizabeth plunked out some sour notes on the baby grand piano that someone donated. We inspected the china collection, the knickknacks, the baskets, the photo frames. Anna found a Harry Potter poster for her room at the Ws’ house. We looked at all the used kitchenware, Mason jar glasses, old flatware, potholders, and all sorts of odds and ends. Anna found a pair of adorable black-and-white shoes. Elizabeth found a whole stack of children’s books. I found a couple of tops. We combed that whole store, and at the very end, back among the knickknacks, I found a tiny pewter owl, just a wee figurine, its wings tucked elegantly about its feet. Seventy-five cents, and the owl is sitting on my desk, watching me, debonair.

We continued our stroll down Main Street and came upon a boutique that I’d never been in. “Let’s go in here,” I said on a whim, so we did. Poked about. All pretty, artsy, hippy stuff—purses made out of rice sacks that enchanted Elizabeth, various creative wire holders for photos, candles shaped like apples or hyacinths, Fair Trade jewelry, glassware, journals, etc. Colorful extravagant “eco-friendly” stuff. Then we went down to the Antique Mall.

The dusty, moldy air nearly choked me. Claustrophobia ensued as we dove into tiny rooms crammed with so, so, so much stuff: antique furniture, endless shelves of glassware, old clothes, LPs and cassette tapes, books, mirrors, photos in frames, dolls, baskets, jewelry, an endless assortment of people’s possessions, faded, tarnished, scratched, scuffed, torn, set aside for whatever reason. Some of the bric-a-brac had tags that proclaimed that such-and-such a piece was a collector’s item, but most of it was shoved together higgledy-piggledy. Near the front there were some handmade tie-dye clothes by a local artist, and Anna bought a pretty aqua-and-gold skirt. There was a whole shrine dedicated to Elvis and to artists from the 80s. Somewhere in the middle of the labyrinth we found the children’s books, and lo and behold, I found a copy of Harry Potter VII! Been looking everywhere for it, and here it was, hardback. I probably paid more for it than I would have paid for a new paperback, but I’ve finally met my goal of buying all the books used and not from Amazon. The three of us pored over the children’s books, exclaiming as we found ones that jogged our memories: Make Way for Ducklings, the Dear America diaries, Beatrix Potter (of course!).

By this time Elizabeth was starting to get parched, so we paid for our finds and walked back up Main Street to Aspen, chattering away merrily. Aspen, too, was nearly deserted. We sat at a table by the window and talked for an hour or so. Sweet time. Sitting at tea later, I realized suddenly that that time had passed and was strangely heartbroken. The three of us talked nonsense. A gorgeous spicebush swallowtail butterfly landed on a chair just on the other side of the window. Sparrows ate breadcrumbs from the sidewalk. The shadows lengthened across the storefronts across the street. When it was close to tea time, we walked back to our cars, and I said good-bye to Anna and drove home.

Now Playing: Tenth Avenue North, "The Light Meets the Dark", "The Truth Is Who You Are."

If you go outside tonight this evening and you're living in Oklahoma, you'll see something beautiful. On the western horizon, just above and to the left of where the sun set, four planets have conjoined. Venus is the bright one (you can always see Venus thanks to the fact that she's very bright and closely follows the sun) close to the horizon. Up a little and to the right is Mercury, slightly dimmer. Up a bit more and to the left is Mars, also dim (they'll both look red thanks to the hazy atmosphere). Equidistant between Mars and Mercury is Saturn, so faint that he can hardly be seen, but he's there. Together Venus, Mercury, and Mars form an elegant triangle, with Saturn in the middle of the hypotenuse.

If you look a bit more, you can also see some of the summer constellations. Scorpius, as my father pointed out, is the huge loopy V in the southwest. The Big Dipper is in the upper northwest, and Cygnus, one of my favorites, is the huge shining cross in the middle of the sky, slightly to the east. Cassiopeia is probably up there somewhere, too, as would be the Little Dipper.

To the northeast are the Perseids, and if you feel like staying up late this week, you can catch the Perseid meteor shower. I've already seen a couple of meteors this week at about ten o'clock, but the shower is supposed to be best between midnight and four a.m.

All of these are bright enough to be seen in the middle of the city, even with the dust-filled atmosphere. Simply gorgeous.

Now Playing: KOSU.

It's begun... again. Moving is never my favorite thing to do. Is it anyone's? The only truly rewarding part is knowing that when you get wherever you're going, you'll get to organize everything just the way you like it all over again. Or something like that.

The downsides of moving far outweigh the benefits, though. I've spent the last two weekends saying good-bye to people. Not as bad as the last time this happened, but good-byes have never been my strong suit.

Then these past two afternoons have been spent boxing things up. Amazing, the amount of stuff that accumulates, even when you're not a homeowner! I've produced about twenty boxes' worth of stuff--journals, photo albums, letters, kitchen utensils, blankets, old dolls--that all has to go somewhere conveniently out of the way. Hence Laura, Stephen, and I worked up good appetites this morning hauling boxes up the attic steps. We used a bucket brigade technique: Laura heaved the box up the ladder to Stephen, who hefted it up on his shoulder to me, where I knelt on the dusty plywood of the attic floor.

Our attic is surprisingly small for such a big house, and a large part of the space is already occupied by old computer boxes and a guinea pig cage. Laura and I managed to make room for most of the boxes, though we had to clear space in a corner of the green attic for the really heavy ones, the ones that none of us could get up the ladder. (Did I mention that the ladder is wooden and creaks ominously even when Laura or I step on it?)

Once that ordeal was over, and I had all the things I'm not taking out of the way, it was time to pack what I am taking. Thankfully, Laura sold me her bed and desk, so I don't have to worry about those--but I'm determined to get my big blue wing chair up to Bloomington, as well as two bookshelves, two lamps, and a set of plastic drawers.

And that's just the furniture. I've managed to fill three suitcases with books and clothes, not to mention the several boxes full of miscellany. It seems like an impossibly large amount of things. I keep wondering whether the new place will have space for it all and wishing that I were equipped with Harry Potter-style powers and could just move the boxes effortlessly.

So the gypsy caravan is preparing to be back on the road again, knees, neck, back, arms, and hands aching. Good times! Humans are ridiculous creatures. Why bother placing so much importance on material goods? We can't even haul them along when we die, though of course we've tried.

I'm inclined to laugh as I write this. It's been a bonding experience for Laura, Stephen, and me already.

There's something humbling and comical about seeing all of one's earthly possessions done up in cardboard and packing tape--comical because all of those boxes put together weigh at least three times as much as I do; humbling because it's a reminder to me, as my muscles and joints tremble under the weight of one box of journals, that in God's eyes I am not much more durable than that cardboard.

But thanks to God's loving hands, I hold something that cardboard could never contain: "We have this treasure in jars of clay, that the surpassing power may belong to God...."

Now Playing: Secondhand Lions, watching it with my grandmother F and my family.

It's been an eventful month! Two weeks of VBS, beginning July 5, were gloriously exhausting. Haven't laughed that hard or heard so much complete inappropriateness in a long time, thanks to Stephen and Megs. During the second week of VBS, in Enid, I gained a new appendage, thanks to wee blond-haired Leah H, who demanded that I go with her everywhere. We did a lot of door-to-door. Megs and I met a lovely old man who told us all about his family and his trust in Christ.

Third week of July meant Horn Creek! Anna and I couldn't stop grinning when we finally climbed out of the car after twelve hours of driving. The speaker challenged us to deal with the hard issues of our faith honestly.

This last week has been random guests week: Keith P for a couple of days, the N cousins for a couple of days, Elizabeth for a couple of days. All good fun. We went to the peach orchard, went on lots of walks, and cleaned the house twice.

So now it's on to the last things that need to be done before school starts: visiting Tulsa and Enid, cleaning up, packing up.... Have to confess the horrible wave of insecurity that always hits as this process begins. I just don't trust that God's love can get me through this, even after a good month of outreach. I don't trust that if people don't like me, Christ is still king--because I think that I'm king. Thankfully my foolishness doesn't end God's love, as the last year has proved abundantly.

Pictures from this week are here.

At the risk of being overly personal, I thought I’d post this little exercise that we did for our missions week this year. This is an edited version of the testimony I gave to the CY. It’s not an opportunity for pity or sympathy, rather it’s an example of God’s power doing “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”

“When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’ The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”

I’d like to use this Psalm, Psalm 126, to talk about what God has done in my life. Like the author of this Psalm, I look back on my life and see great, good things God has done for me. He gave me Christian parents who raised me to know the Bible and who lived out its truths in love. He provided scholarships for me to attend university; He supplied good grades for grad school. He surrounded me with Christian friends and put me in a church where I heard the Gospel preached every week; He gave me opportunities to serve, such as the wonderful Bible studies with the college and highschool groups this year. These things might look like the results of hard work or part of Midwestern culture, but I wouldn’t have any of them without my Lord’s care. He has arranged every aspect of my life as lovingly as a gardener puts each plant in place.

Though I believe everything I just said, I don’t want you to have the wrong idea. If you want an image that sums up my life as a believer, think of a sidewalk. It’s hard, uneven, and painful to fall against. But it’s also full of cracks where grass is starting to push through.

Over the last two years, I’ve been seeing my sin more and more, and it feels like being body-slammed into a concrete slab. My life is a slow process of realizing how much I need Christ to satisfy me. This is good but painful. Most recently, during my senior year at university, events collided so that I was forced to confront the hardness inside me. I came back from a study abroad experience to an American culture where I was lonely for the friends I’d left behind. Soon after, I left a relationship that looked perfect to my community, and to crown it all, a close mentor left due to serious sin.

Those events forced me to confront the sins that remain in me despite Christ’s ongoing work. I saw that I’ve worshipped friends, manipulating them to satisfy my craving for relationship. I saw that I need to earn people’s approval, a need so strong that without an academic setting, where I normally satisfy that need, I felt naked. Even my relationship with my parents was only one more ploy to make me feel good about myself as I tried to earn their favor. I had perverted the good gifts God had given me to make them satisfy me in ways that only He should.

So at this point I’m not one of those “everything’s great” Christians. I’m raw from running into those sins that make my heart hard as concrete. I’m tired of relationships, and so more selfish than ever. Over this past year I worked in a restaurant, and I’d get angry at customers or coworkers for making simple requests. That’s only one example. Even though I take these sins to Christ and ask for His forgiveness, I doubt whether He actually hears me because I don’t feel it. Worship—public and private—feels empty. Though I know in my head that Christ’s love should satisfy me, I don’t live that way. I still work to be a good person in the hopes that in obedience or emotions I’ll finally find the fulfillment I need.

“Restore our fortunes, o LORD, like streams in the Negev! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

In this last half of this Psalm, the author begs God to make his heart blossom like the desert, the Negev. Having looked back at God’s great works in the past, the author of the Psalm trusts that God can demonstrate His love again, even more powerfully in the future. He’s asking God for joy. Like the writer of this Psalm, I’m waiting for God to make the desert of my heart into a garden—to “restore to me the joy of Your salvation”, Psalm 51:12. It feels like a long wait. But I have hope—God has done great things for me. I’ve mentioned my family, friends, and school. Most importantly, though, His Son Jesus Christ died in my place, took my hard heart with Him, and replaced it with the fruit of His perfect life. Because of that, it’s only a matter of time until His love will make me completely like Him, satisfying me fully. Then I will be fully glad in Him.

Photos from Horn Creek here.

Now Playing: Jars of Clay, “The Long Fall Back to Earth.”

This past week, we’ve been immersed in RPM team activities. Our team consists of Stephen, Megs, Grace, Megan, Keith, and Jonah, a lively but mismatched bunch. We all get on alright. Laura and I are sleeping in the study, and the upstairs is “mission team land”.

So far this has been far and away the most chaotic VBS ever. Highlights:

- Rain on the Fourth of July, so no fireworks and a very mucky ultimate frisbee game

- Fourth of July, so no VBS on Monday

- More rain on Tuesday, so the YMCA kids couldn’t join us at the park because of state regulations that prevent them from playing in the rain—though the shower only lasted five minutes!

- Total confusion as to who is going where when and how they’re going to get there

- And, best of all, a woolly bear attacking Megs! “Evil wee monster” and “the devil incarnate” were two very appropriate names that were bestowed upon the nasty fuzzy caterpillar that crawled up Megs’s leg and kindly embedded its toxic fur in her knee. We spent an hour yesterday afternoon pulling the fur, which is full of irritants, out of her skin.

- Rain today so that we had to reschedule door-to-door.

And all in good fun, of course! It’s been a delight having the team living at our house. I feel as though it’s an incredible privilege to have them all and Peter here for the week. Their energy, commitment, dedication, and willingness to work together are impressive.

After tomorrow, it’s on to Enid for another week of the same!

Now Playing: Dr Who in the other room.

Our psychotic cat is wandering around the living room, whining and carrying a stuffed otter in her mouth. She thinks it's her baby, but then she also bites and kicks it, so maybe not.

Outside bats are zooming arabesques across the evening sky. It's been a long time since I've seen them out like this, hunting mosquitoes and fireflies. They can change direction so abruptly, in the middle of a turn. It's awesome to watch.

Now Playing: Iva Davies et al, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, title track.

At the Fs’ house tonight, I should have had a clue from the moment I walked into Christa’s room that I was entering a danger zone. Emily had just given Christa a brand-new package of dolls—what I dubbed “stinky dolls”, scented to smell like strawberries (supposedly).

Christa was bouncing on the bed with excitement, and Elizabeth tried to calm them down by putting on Ratatouille—though first we had to watch the short about the history of rats, which was really hilarious. Elizabeth, Sarah, and I laughed more than the two wee girls sitting on the floor.

As soon as the short was over, I should have beaten a hasty retreat with Sarah and Elizabeth. I should’ve known better. I should’ve scrambled for the door with all the speed I could muster. But no… before I could react, two little fiends, giggling madly, had set upon me. Christa held me pinned to the bed while Emily’s fingers went to my throat. “Are you ticklish?” were the last words I heard before my head went down and I met my fate.

At nine o'clock this morning you would have found the majority of us gathered around Ross's computer. A small event, the World Cup U.S. vs Algeria match, managed to keep everyone (except the mothers and wee Mary) entertained for an hour-and-a-half. There we were, riveted to the laptop, while the Deep Horizon well spits oil into the Gulf, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz kill each other, and our economy continues to waffle, watching a handful of men scramble around on a green field.

I must say that I've always enjoyed soccer--not the way the rest of the world enjoys it, true, but with a mild, wide-eyed appreciation for athleticism that's always far beyond my reach. The finesse involved in a good match is as impressive as the skill required for Olympic gymnasts or skaters, all of it played out against the buzzing-bee whine of the vuvuzelas.

Of course, in the moment, one is rarely thinking that. We were all on the edges of our seats, literally, shouting when the referees annulled Dempsey's goal as an offsides--again! And when we brought the ball up to the Algerians, and they brought it to us, again and again, but without a score.... I was so disappointed when I had to leave for work at half ten.

When I walked into the restaurant, all three of the cooks were discussing the match. One of them ran over to McDonald's on his break to catch the match on their flatscreen. And, a couple of hours later, the cook from Burkina Faso met me at the counter with a huge grin: "Congratulations, E--! You won!"

I could say all the warm fuzzy things about how soccer brings us together, etc. It was good fun while it lasted. When I came home, the house had gone to sleep, except for the girls, squealing outside in the wading pool.

Now Playing: Cousins!

When I came home from Enid Sunday evening, I found that the house had been descended upon. The girls were already giggling upstairs; the adults hadn't got beyond the entryway, already busy talking.

Conversation is the best part of having the F cousins here. My mother, grandmother, aunt, and Ross sit around the dining room table, talking. We talk about Obama and healthcare; my aunt, a doctor's wife, fills me in on all the problems in store--and this morning it bled into us dissecting modern European politics through the lens of Soviet Russia and the Gulag Archipelago. Ross and I talk about morphological change in Greek and English, which silences my mother and Andrew, who were getting carried away with a discussion of carbon transfer. Of course, since both mothers homeschooled their families, there are the inevitable discourses on curriculum, teaching techniques, activities, coops, and state laws.

Since Aunt Lisa can't sit still without having something to do, she knits, all day long, and Laura, my mother, and grandmother join her. I feel vaguely shut out because I've made several ineffectual attempts to learn to knit but have been defeated every time. So I drink mint iced tea and listen. Occasionally (every five minutes if she's not watching Shaun the Sheep with Annalee and Lillian in the study), wee Mary wanders in to announce to her mother that she's bored and hungry.

And then there are the inevitable laptop parties. Stephen and Peter might both be playing computer games while I write this. Ross has just put away his Greek books--or rather, piled them on the living room floor in preparation for tea. We're waiting for Philip to roar in for a visit. The high living room windows give green-and-yellow snapshots of broad catalpa leaves rocking slightly in a south breeze--long pods dangling from the branches like exclamation points across the calm curving patterns of leaves and slanting light.

My mother seems to be cooking constantly while the cousins are here. We ate up one batch of blueberry muffins at breakfast this morning, so she just made another batch with the fresh blueberries they brought. "Pineapple cut up, yay!" she says, sweating a little from the crock pot of chili sitting on the kitchen counter.

Work today was as usual, although I worked with two of the new wait staff, so I was the "senior member" for a change. And we nearly ran out of change, so I had to give customers handfuls of dimes and nickels in return for fifty- or hundred-dollar bills. After I came home from work today, I found the girls in the kitchen, making smoothies with an old smoothie machine. Bridget came over for a visit, and all the girls went upstairs to play Signs and squeal and sing at each other. They kept the knitting circle downstairs entertained with their sound effects for a couple of hours.

I've been reading Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner. Despite her liberal theology, I love the repeated note of the Incarnation, of God's love. Like Winner, I never cease to be amazed that I am a "beloved child of light"--when I remember it, that is. Wading through her descriptions of life in the northeast, I stumble on gems that remind me that God pursued us out of His love for us, that He chooses to glorify Himself by revealing His power in weakness. That He is a Personality, holy and relational. He walked, ate, sweated in a body in a definite place at a documented time. This, I think, quietly sanctifies the mundane particulars of life.

Now Playing: Laura on the piano.

This week I finished Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain. The book examines the connection between scientific progress, specifically progress in physics, and art, specifically visual art. Although Shlain's primary focus is the tie between modern physics and modern art, he also gives a comprehensive look at art/science since Classical times. His premise is that art foretells developments in physics: visionary artists unconsciously foreshadow new insights about the physical world, which leads him to speculate about the "collective unconscious", the left and right hemispheres of the brain, etc.

If nothing else, Shlain's work presents an interesting examination of both art and physics across the ages in accessible terms. Also, his analyses of specific pieces of modern art provide good insights into an opaque field.

I was disappointed that Shlain adopted the modern idea that the Middle Ages are the Dark Ages; that is, that art and science after Rome and before the Renaissance disappeared for a few hundred years thanks to the church. Of course I'm biased, but I do get rather tired of hearing people pontificate about how the "Dark Ages" are a barren plain for the arts and sciences because everyone was enslaved to faith!


Despite that weak point, Shlain's work is a creative synthesis of two apparently disparate fields.

One more highlight: Bridget and I got to go horseback riding this morning at long last! Unfortunately I haven’t outgrown that obsession with horses…

Now Playing: Mark O’Connor, “30-Year Retrospective”, “Jerusalem’s Ridge.”

Recently it seems I’ve been complaining rather too much about my job. As this is quite unfair, I seek to make amends. What do I like about it?

- Hearing the Okie accent every day

- Feeding fried food to hefty people

- Bussing tables

Woo hoo. Maybe not. Seriously, though, there are good things about it, aside from the obvious financial provision.

- For one thing, I can use the time while I’m cleaning to memorize Scripture.

- I’ve gotten to know unbelieving coworkers while working for Christian employers, both of which have been good in many ways.

-  All those virtues we so often pray for but don’t really want to practice? Try waiting tables! Patience when it’s really busy but the customer decides to deliberate; humility when one makes mistakes or is cleaning a particularly filthy mess; faithfulness when one has the opportunity to be dishonest.

I don’t think I’m going to miss this particular job, but looking back I can see the grace of God in providing for me on so many levels—ironically, through a vocation I swore I’d never return to.

Now Playing: Chris Thile, “Stealing Second”, “Clear the Tracks”.

In the interim since I last posted, I’ve been reading a couple of books. One I finished a couple of weeks ago is Claudius the God by Robert Graves. The sequel to I, Claudius, Claudius the God depicts Claudius during his stint as emperor. Graves again demonstrates methodic attention to detail. I was again amazed by how faithfully he replicates the rambling prose style of some Latin authors, not to mention the intrigues of Roman Imperial politics.

This week I blundered my way through Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard. This happens to be one of the very few “real” philosophy books I’ve ever read, along with Aristotle and Plato. Some parts I enjoyed: he describes how a person can practice the actions of swimming by being suspended from the ceiling on a belt, but they can’t actually swim until they’re thrown into the water—this being comparable to faith. Also his critique of the modern era’s rejection of faith as being “too primitive”. However, I took issue with his portrayal of Abraham’s predicament when God called him to sacrifice Isaac. It seems to me that K. depersonalizes God, focusing on Abraham’s predicament far more than on the character of God and the relationship between God and Abraham. I fully grant that Abraham’s predicament was horrific; however, his faith was in a relational Being who had revealed Himself to be loving and faithful, and perhaps K. downplays that pivotal aspect of faith.

Next on the reading list: Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain, at Rachel’s suggestion. We’ll see how far I get.

Photos from the Memorial Day picnic at the Ss' house here.

Now Playing: Jars of Clay, “Who We Are Instead,” Track 1.

A slightly surreal experience for me this evening: I’m typing this post on my brand new Dell 13” using this Windows Live Writer program, which is completely foreign to me, while my old Inspiron sits on the desk beside me, running iTunes.

Today my family went to Woolaroc in eastern Oklahoma for a field trip. It was a surreal experience to say the least. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have had vivid memories, a whole photo gallery of them, from field trips to Woolaroc. The place is almost completely unchanged, so today was a wander back into childhood.

We started off driving down the turnpike, then turned off onto a two-lane highway with spiderwort and sweet yellow clover blooming in enormous masses on either side. Lovely hills, too—thick with trees, green-and-gold like lush moss. We drove through a string of tiny towns, all of them just barely clinging to existence, some in better shape than others. Hominy, for example, boasts a series of murals by a local artist, but another wee place was notable mainly for its burned-out buildings.

Woolaroc rather takes one by surprise around a bend in the road. On the grounds we followed a narrow road that wound through parkland sprinkled with trees. Ungulates grazed in the shade: Frank Philips, who established the ranch, imported Scottish highland cattle, fallow deer from England, sika deer from Japan, emus, ostriches, mountain goats, water buffalo, elk, and bison, specimens of which gazed at us sleepily as we drove past.

At the ranch we visited the animals in the petting enclosures. As I said, everything was nearly unchanged, from the statues in the front grounds to the chapel with the stained-glass window to one side (I have vivid memories of fuming as a child in one of the “pews” while they played “America the Beautiful”, which was sacrilege to me).

We walked down to the old Frank Philips house, and in the living room we were confronted by his fine collection of stuffed animals. Fantastic, weird, eerie would all be good adjectives to describe the sight that met us. Hawks, an eagle, and an owl hung suspended from the rafters; deer, sheep, boars, elk, bears, and big cats gazed or growled down from the walls. There were even an elephant and a giraffe!

Then we went over to the Woolaroc Museum, where the Frank Philips collections are housed. I remember it particularly for its hideous entrance facade—some aspiring artist in the 1970s must have thought that mosaics of Native Americans embedded in a weird shade of bright blue were just the height of fashion….

The museum inside hasn’t changed probably in forty years at least. I felt queasy from the smell of formaldehyde. Every display case had an animal perched on top, and there was even another, larger elephant head. There were collections of Native American artifacts, 101 Ranch memorabilia, a Colt revolver collection, a doll collection, and on and on….

The museum also has paintings, hung on the walls with very little regard to the actual quality of the work or the time period in which it was executed. A lovely small Bierstadt, for example, hung below some dubious portraits of famous explorers. The whole collection is hardly organized at all, which is rather sad, really—a smart curator could make some user-friendly displays out of the raw material, but at this point, housed in glass cases decades old, against fading paint, the collections are less than impressive. My father and I speculated that money is probably the problem.

Out of the whole collection, my favorite piece was possibly a birch bark canoe. Hanging from the ceiling, the canoe had a sleekness and purity of line that was really quite special—the last of its kind, apparently.

Anyway, I was thankful when we left the museum to eat lunch outside. We climbed onto the rocks behind the Frank Philips house and sat under an oak tree to eat. The house perches on a cliff above Clyde Lake, and the cliff face is a maze of big sandstone boulders and paths, with water rushing merrily over the rocks, and irises blooming in crevices. A nice garden gone wild. We ate and explored.

After lunch we started back. On the way, we drove the loop around the parkland to see the rest of the animals and made a stop at the living history mountain man camp. “Mountain man” might seem like an oxymoron here, but it’s a generic term for trappers who appear to have lived in tipis like the natives. The dressed-up docent taught my mother how to throw a tomahawk and showed another guest how to fire a flintlock rifle. Meanwhile, a pair of glossy gorgeous horses grazed on thick grass in the open pasture, blue wood smoke curled out of the opening of the big white tipi, and the sunshine hung hazily on the small creek behind the camp.

On our drive back to Stillwater, we went through a large thunderstorm. At home I ate a bagel, changed clothes, and went to work at half four. Work tonight wasn’t unusually busy or unusually slow. I was home by about half nine. Ate tea, read Claudius the God (a biography of the emperor Claudius), said good-night to my parents, and came upstairs.

I was glad to be able to go with my family today to Woolaroc, even if parts of the trip felt rather weird. It’s a quirky slice of Oklahoma history. Photos from today here.

Photos from last weekend here.

Now Playing: Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony."

Google's online "library" is its Google Books cache, a collection of books scanned into the database and available for free to the public. Current controversy has centred mostly on copyright violation, but in the article I posted, other issues are also at stake. It could be an amazing resource--my personal opinion is that it's going to take time before all the issues are resolved sufficiently.

Two pieces of art I've encountered recently have raised questions about the value of life against the backdrop of its brevity, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and a DVD dramatization of Wit, a play by Margaret Edson.

Woolf's book presents a challenge to readers unfamiliar with the stream-of-consciousness writing style in vogue at the turn of the last century, but her dense narrative yields descriptive gems that are worth the time they take to discover. A description of evening falling over London is particularly beautiful. Woolf's story follows a handful of characters over the course of a normal day, hours marked by the tolling of Big Ben and a recurring phrase, "The leaden circles dissolved...."

Each character experiences the rhythm of time differently, though. One character, mad from PTSD, fills his hours with "messages" about the freedom of love. Other characters primarily spend their time remembering the past, memories triggered by events in the present. Through these vignettes, Woolf seems to argue for an open-handed attitude toward life, an attitude embodied by her heroine, whose pure enjoyment of life's pleasures draws the admiration of other characters.

In contrast to the novella, Wit, which stars Emma Thompson, emphasizes the futility of human life when stripped of its pleasures. The play's main character, Vivian, is dying rapidly from cancer, and the film follows her, ruthlessly portraying her decline. She begins the play stoically facing pain, but by the end her resolve has broken, and the viewer is given excruciating scenes of her terror as death approaches.

Vivian's slow death provides other characters in the play the opportunity to enact their attitudes toward human life. The two doctors quickly demonstrate that they view life in purely utilitarian terms, while the primary nurse shows a deep, practical compassion for her patient's suffering. The nurse's compassion dignifies Vivian's death, and in the end her respect for human life provides hope for the audience.

A link to an interesting article about Google's online "library" here.

This particular quote in the article stood out. A howler, if I ever saw one:

'As Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, puts it: "We just feel this is part of our core mission. There is fantastic information in books. Often when I do a search, what is in a book is miles ahead of what I find on a Web site."'

No, really?! Books have been the repository of our civilization for centuries, and you're surprised that they are more impressive than the internet? As the author of the article accurately points out, books aren't just tools for conveying information!

Now Playing: Patrick Doyle, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, "The Maze."

It's taken me awhile to write up another book because the one I've been working on recently is rather a sprawling creation, The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. Published in 1881, the novel follows its heroine, Isabel Archer, from idealistic youth to the verge of disappointed middle age.

I enjoyed the beginning of the novel much more than its end, partly because I identified strongly with Isabel Archer's younger self--her idealism, her concern with authenticity while at the same time desiring to please others, her vague ideas about the real implications of wealth and responsibility, her desire to travel. She judges quickly, using her ideal standards as the litmus for her valuations of people's characters, exemplifying her naivete.

James pursues a bright, detailed style throughout the first half of the novel, until Isabel decides to marry the man with whom she spends the rest of the book. At that point James's descriptions fail, as though Isabel's courtship, wedding, and first years of marriage are too uncharacteristic for the novelist to pursue. As a reader, I was left with a bewildering sense of emptiness and foreboding by the lack of description regarding these important events.

Of course, James as a master novelist doesn't leave out these key moments for no reason. Their absence foreshadows the absence of happiness in Isabel's later life. The latter half of the book becomes an exploration of regret and a revelation of Isabel's blindness. When she thought she had been judging so accurately, she was actually completely fooled by those around her. When she thought she was behaving freely, she was locking herself in a cage. The superficiality to which she resigns herself is painful to read.

The final chapters, however, provide some glimmer of hope. Isabel becomes the foil against which the reader sees the integrity of the characters around her (or their lack thereof). The faithfulness of particular individuals results in the final hope for Isabel (and the reader) that the future will not be completely fruitless.

Now Playing: Handel, Messiah, "He Shall Feed."

Aside from visiting Tulsa this weekend, Sarah and I were also in Tulsa for a girls' day out on Thursday. We spent plenty of money on new summer clothes and met up with Philip and Alyson at Doubleshot for a bit.

Friday evening, the high school girls' Bible study had its final party. I really love these girls; they're such a dynamic, warm, faithful group. It's always a delight to be around them, and this was no exception. We played progressive charades and four-on-a-couch, and, as you can tell from the photos, had some exuberant fun.

So photos from this past week are here.

Now Playing: Handel, Messiah, "Behold, A Virgin Shall Conceive."

On Saturday at lunch I joined the Sch. clan in Woodward Park to celebrate Amy's and Rachel's graduations. The day couldn't have been more perfect, unless perhaps it had been a bit warmer. Tulsans in all their finery filled the gardens--grads, brides, girls ready for prom, kids in white shirts, all decked out to take pictures against the lush trees and rose gardens. The Schs. had reserved the pavilion and had set up a picnic lunch. I was greeted in an exuberant rush by Amy, who was so happy that she could barely contain herself. Every part of her radiated happiness. Crystal, Asher and Leslie, Kevin and Holly, DMac, Ange, Grant G., Nicole and Matlock, Avis, Joseph, and of course Amy and Rachel were all there so that lunch felt a wee bit like the days back in freshman year when we tried to see how many of us we could crowd around one table in the caf.

I sat beside Denise K at lunch and got to catch up with her--a very rare and valuable occurrence. As Nicole and I discussed later, we stand in the middle of a miracle of God's grace and see the church as it ought to be when we talk to them. The boys started a game of frisbee in a sunny patch after the meal. Nicole, Avis, Hannah, Grant, and I sat on the grass in the sunshine, warming up and talking about our plans for next year.

Slowly, people began to leave. Rachel and her family started to clean up. Nicole and I left to spend the afternoon together, Matlock having given me strict instructions to return her. We strolled around the rose gardens for most of the afternoon. I feel warm all over again as I remember the wealth of sunshine on arms and face, the burden of the brilliant flowers against their dark stems, and the faint ineffably sweet smell lifted on the breeze. We stooped to smell the roses at every turn. My favorites were Grenada, a pink-and-yellow rose with a classic sweet rose smell, and Pope John Paul II, an enormous white rose with a strong citrus smell. Of course there were also Rio Samba, which managed a bewildering array of tropical colors on one stalk, Mr. Lincoln, enormous deep red flowers on tall thick stems, and Wild Blue Yonder, which was deep, deep purple.

In the middle of the upper garden, a large party was having afternoon tea, men, women, and children festive in sleek formal clothes--quite a diverse group, appropriate for this part of Tulsa, I suppose. Wee girls scampered past us in fluffy dresses. We were amazed, dazzled, overwhelmed by the splendour of the gardens. Everything seemed to be blooming, everything seemed to be alive. Even the flat dark reflecting pools were starred with pink and white water lilies.

For tea we drove up to Hideaway on 15th Street to meet Kevin and Holly and their parents. Grant G, Spencer, Jenny, Cory, and Danny also showed up. We sat at one of the long tables, and at one end were Kevin, Holly, Jenny, Spencer, Grant, Nicole, and me, so we had a good time together.

Nicole tried very hard during tea to find someone to join herself, Matlock, and me to see Ironman 2 in the cinema, but everyone was busy--everyone! It was a wee bit ridiculous. It ended up being just the three of us, but it was fine. We went to the half nine showing at the cinema down by 41st St.

The film was fairly good--amusing. It was long. We got out at about half eleven. I said good-night to Matlock and Nicole and drove up to Tara's house. I waited for her in the dark in the car. I nearly fell asleep with my head on the steering wheel, trying to decide whether to go to CPC tomorrow or to drive back to Stillwater in the morning. When Tara came home, we sat up chatting for a wee bit, but went to bed by about one o'clock. I feel right to sleep again, so exhausted from the day.

Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, "Violin Concerto in E Minor - Allegro Appassionato - Andante."

The world this evening was really beautiful. Clear, cool skies, and the north breeze had died down so that the air was perfectly still. Scents hung on it. We walked down a long arcade under locust trees, their pendent white flowers heavy overhead, filling the air with scent. In the meadow above the lake, Indian paintbrush was coming up among blue-eyed grass, scarlet against vivid green and purple, like erupting fireworks.

Down the path by the lake, masses of honeysuckle were flowering under cottonwood trees. Their smell was purely sweet, naked, overpowering. A long water moccasin whipped out of the creek and up the bank as we crossed the bridge. In the meadow again, trumpet vine crowning sumac made the bushes blaze as red again as they were last fall.

Spring, this spring, has a beauty that attacks the mind. Beds and beds of purple and white irises bloomed in green dusk. A miniature Versailles, petals fountained from upright stems. The tops of the trees were still sunlit, yellow-green against pale blue sky, slashed with a male cardinal’s line of flight.

In these days I catch my breath when I remember that this world was made for us in Christ. Yes, for the glory of God. Yes, to display His creative power. But not without observers and participants. We talked last week about Psalm 8 and the incredible truth that God made the world as a home for us--He displays His glory here in a unique way, uniquely suited to be enjoyed and praised by humans.

I cannot believe that the beauty in this world is a product of evolution, that my visceral response to a green field full of flowers is a distilled form of some primordial grazing instinct. Humanity depends so much on our ability to create and appreciate art when we see it, and we see it every moment as we are surrounded by the greatest piece of performance art ever made.

Praise God that He is a God of pleasure, rhythm, beauty, fruitfulness, and peace.

Now Playing: Not much.

Top hits from last week:

Finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Delightful book. Looking behind the scenes, definitely postmodern, but it's a masterful retelling of Arthurian legend. Humorous but not too irreverent, poignant but not sentimental.

On Monday who should eat lunch at the restaurant where I work but Apollo Ohno! Of all people! Didn't recognize him until he was walking out, at which point I thought, "Hmm, I wonder where I've seen that guy before." Then a very excited customer scurried up to me at the register, agog because they'd gotten him to autograph a napkin.

We now have plants to go in the garden: zinnias, marigolds, bell peppers, banana peppers, basil, thornless blackberry, and something called a pincushion plant, maybe? It has blue flowers, anyway, and is a replacement for the bachelor's buttons that I'd set my heart on, but which apparently don't come as baby plants, only as seeds. It's quite pretty, but the garden will have to dry out some before we can plant anything.

Visited my grandmother on Saturday to talk about mysteries, quilting, and politics.

A possum ran across our back porch yesterday morning, which infuriated the cats, as one would imagine.

And now I've started Aeschylus's Oresteia, as a change of pace...!

Now Playing: Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack, "The Black Gate Is Closed."

Yesterday evening I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Up front: this piece of literature would be R-rated for those of you who don't like language, sex, and violence. Hemingway's use of the objectionable elements in his narrative isn't necessarily gratuitous, but it's not exactly a light read either.

Set in the Spanish Civil War in the 1900s, For Whom the Bell Tolls focuses not so much on war itself as on everyday life. However, although the war may not occupy the novel's foreground, its pressure forces into startling clarity the tiny details of human existence: smells, sounds, moods, tastes. The novel's characters live in an intensified reality, a reality that exacts every particle of their attention. One of the themes is perfectly summed up in Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress":

"Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life...."

Facing the transience of life due to the pressure of war, Hemingway's characters experience as much of life as they can, both pleasure and pain. Indeed, experience, not faith, is at the heart of the novel. In the final scenes, as two of the main characters say good-bye, the dialogue echoes that of John 17, where Christ prays that He will be in His disciples and they in Him. Hemingway reverses this prayer: the character promising an eternal presence with his beloved has been a liar throughout the novel.

Although the novel may be a critique of faith in some ways, in other ways it beautifully captures the transient pleasures of human existence. Hemingway's narrative style permits moments of intense narrative clarity and powerfully realistic depictions of changes in human emotion. At any given point in the novel, the characters function as a photographically accurate microcosm of humanity.

The startling accuracy of Hemingway's style, coupled with a poignant foreshortening of human life against the backdrop of war, make the book a worthwhile read.

Now Playing: Tenth Avenue North, "Love Is Here."

Normally I'd avoid this sort of post, but today was good enough that it could bear repeating. Background information: As of last night, I was certain that I'd be going to Michigan in September.

This morning I went to the gym for the first time in awhile. Since my membership runs out at the end of May, I've made a pact to go to the gym three times a week; we'll see if it happens. Not that I don't want to, but it's difficult to find the time. Today I listened to the second sermon on Ruth in a series by Pastor D, which finished with the idea that though our lives may appear to be tangled and confused now, soon we will look at them and see God's love clearly emerging from the mess.

It was a lovely morning, warm, sunny, with the promise of strong wind later in the day from the south. Exercise definitely helped morale. I went to work at half ten, and, in an odd coincidence, we had a very slow lunch rush--Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are generally quite busy.

After work I had time to take a shower and was just toweling myself off when Sarah rang. She came over at about ten past three, and we drove my family's minivan down to the Ys' house. Sarah had the idea that we should volunteer to play aunt this afternoon so that Stephanie could have some time to herself.

Stephanie warned me that Raychel and Joseph were hyper because they'd heard we were coming, and she wasn't exaggerating. As we pulled up next to the kerb, we were greeted by two extremely enthusiastic children, jumping up and down and throwing maple seeds in the air. They dragged us into the back yard to see their "tree house" (under a juniper tree) while Stephanie got Renee up from her nap. Then it was sandals and sunscreen all round, and the kids piled into the minivan.

We drove over to Boomer Lake--just across the street, really, but "the street" happens to be a highway, and I didn't feel like trying to scamper across it with three small children. We went to the playground and spent most of our time there. Some thoughtful person had poured an empty concrete slab near the playground, so Raychel and Joseph drew with chalk, and I told Raychel part of her favorite story (involving a river of lemonade and chocolate bushes). Photos are here.

We kicked a soccer ball around, swung on the swings, and climbed on the playground equipment. Renee and Joseph climbed up the slide. Joseph wanted to walk to the bridge, so we walked over to the bridge and spent quite awhile watching the ducks. A couple of guys threw some bread into the water, and we watched the ducks eat. Joseph poked at spiderwebs with a toy. Raychel dropped her flip-flop into the lake by accident. Renee squealed whenever anyone walking a dog went past.

Then it was back to the playground for snacks: grapes and lemonade. The wind was so strong that it threatened to blow the cups away, even when they were full of liquid. The kids played on the playground. Renee decided that her favorite thing in the world was to go across the monkey bars with me holding her by the hips, then for me to roar at her in order to scare her into going down the slide. "Again! Again!" So it was again and again, and Raychel joined in the fun. The child has quite a squeal when roared at (upon request)!

Drenched in wind and sunshine, we drove back to the Ys house at about five o'clock. Somehow the kids had managed to keep all their energy, and Stephanie immediately had chaos on her hands all over again. We said good-bye and went back to my house. Sarah left. I changed clothes for going out to tea tonight: it's my grandmother's birthday.

My parents and I went out to my grandmother's house, picked her up, and drove her over to Freddie Paul's, a steakhouse on the east side of town. It was quite a pleasant evening. My grandfather told us stories about his experiences in World War II, and the adults talked about family, gardening, politics....

Outside, the sun began to set. We were home by about eight o'clock. My father and I had the last in a series of long discussions about grad school. Hours and hours we've spent talking.

Now Playing: Kate Rusby, "Underneath the Stars", "The White Cockade".

This is the post for old favorites. Kate Rusby reminds me of warm afternoons and beautiful summer evenings in highschool, hanging out with the girls. And this week I read another old favorite, The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. Lewis's work is an excellent discussion of human love, even a redemptive discussion:

     "William Morris wrote a poem called 'Love Is Enough' and someone is said to have reviewed it briefly in the words 'It isn't.'... The natural loves are not self-sufficient. Something else, at first vaguely described as 'decency and common sense,' but later revealed as goodness, and finally as the whole Christian life in one particular relation, must come to the help of the mere feeling if the feeling is to be kept sweet."

I begin with this quotation from the last chapter of the book since this theme pervades Lewis's discussion of liking and loves for the sub-human, affection, friendship, and Eros. Though each of these human loves are good and necessary parts of human life, none of them is complete in and of itself. As he discusses these four kinds of love, Lewis wisely warns against the pitfalls inherent in each. Need-Love and Gift-Love can result in atrocities: witness patriotism and the injustices perpetrated in its name. Affection can become predatory, requiring the Beloved to satisfy the insatiable desires of the Lover. Friendship can become snobbery, which ignores the outside world and leads groups of friends to become blind to their flaws. Eros, one of the most powerful loves experienced by human beings, is capricious, a drive that can lead to mere foolishness or, worse, to a demonic obsession.

On the other hand, Lewis also portrays the beauties of each of these human loves. His favorite phrase is "The highest cannot stand without the lowest," and so his honest, often humorous approach to the human loves is wonderfully balanced. He neither idealizes nor degrades. Although he acknowledges the dangers of these loves, he also points out their beauty and dignity. The liking for the sub-human enables our appreciation of nature, which, as Lewis points out in his final chapter, can at least point us toward an appreciation of God Himself. Affection is the glue of family life. Friendship spurs us on to become totally immersed in something other than ourselves--an ideal, an interest, a truth--through the lens of other humans. Eros, of course, mirrors to us the relationship between Christ and His people most powerfully.

Yet none of these loves is complete without the final love: Charity. This is the love of God, the divine love that "desires simply what is best for the beloved."This is the love that supersedes all other loves, that demands a terribly total allegiance from us, that enables us to give ourselves to God while reveling in our total helplessness without Him. This is the love that enables us to love others, that enables us to be vulnerable to heartbreak and exhaustion. This is the love that redeems all our earthly loves, that transports them into eternal life. Lewis's last paragraphs are among the most beautiful:

      "When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained, and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do."

Now Playing: More Romantic piano music. Laura is sitting across from me, studying for Piano Literature.

My weekend consisted of some of the very most "traditional" activities available to our family. Philip came back last night in honor of Easter, so for twenty-four hours we're all under the same roof again, and what ensues is no one's responsibility.... Laura, my mother, and I went to the opening of the Farmer's Market today, "traditional" activity number one. When we got home, my mother cut Philip's hair, and he made exactly the same face as he's making in an old photo from at least fifteen years ago on the same occasion. He also pushed me into the mud in my socks...!

And my father made chili con queso for lunch, and after lunch Laura and I made challah bread, an activity that ended up taking most of the afternoon. My parents also did yard work; we went on a walk around the lake; Philip and Stephen played basketball, and my father finished out the day by barbecuing chicken. Laura has been banging on the piano; she, Philip, and I have been wrestling while Stephen watches and laughs at us; Annie has been going berserk with a paper bag.... The Ns At Home! 

The post wouldn't be complete without some photos of our lovely challah, fresh out of the oven.

The link to the recipe is: http://confessionsoftart.blogspot.com/2010/02/challah.html if anyone is interested.

Now Playing: Copious Romantic piano music by Liszt and Chopin thanks to Laura.

I now have a grand total of four books to review, in part reflective of the fact that I spent the last week traveling. Last Wednesday I flew to Detroit, Michigan, to visit the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. After an intense two days of meeting professors and current students, I returned to Tulsa, and flew out again on the following Monday to Indianapolis. I stayed overnight in Bloomington in order to meet faculty and students at Indiana University before flying back to Tulsa. On Wednesday I visited friends in Tulsa and picked up Laura from the airport since she's coming back for Easter break.

Thanks to six flights over as many days, I managed to read three books, starting with Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. Tara suggested this one. It's a devotional book really, written in an extremely simple style, refreshing in contrast to the cerebral style of most Reformed authors. Since Nouwen is a Catholic priest, though, I didn't agree with everything he said: he tended to be pluralistic in his philosophy. That caveat aside, I deeply appreciated his emphasis on the love of God for the believer. His theory is that we cannot love others properly until we understand that we are the Beloved of God.

The book hinges on four words that Nouwen uses to explore this concept. Beginning with the word "Chosen", Nouwen discusses our position as those who have been loved by God before time began. He draws on some of the richest language in Scripture to support this idea, and the verses he uses are some of the most fruitful for meditation. I ended up with a page-long list of verses about the love of God for His people--incredibly comforting, particularly if you're reading them alone in a hotel in a strange city with a big decision ahead of you!

The second book I read on my trip was I, Claudius by Robert Graves. This is the first book in a two-part autobiography of Claudius, one of the early Roman emperors. It focuses on the years of Claudius's life before his reign and deals mostly with the intrigue of the emperors who precede him. Graves somehow manages to capture the Latin style perfectly. I've never been able to define Latin style, but it has a distinct quality. Partly it's the language's forcefulness, partly a tendency on the part of Latin authors to digress.

Since I took a course on Roman imperial history last spring, I had a deeper appreciation for this book. I've always been fascinated by Classical history, but until that course the timeline I had in my head was quite muddled. Thanks to that course, when I read this book I actually understood who the major players were and when things were happening in relation to each other. The strength of Graves's retelling is the first-person perspective of a figure who is at first inconspicuous and then vital to his contemporaries. This permits an engaging aura of authenticity to the intrigues.

On the flight back from Indianapolis, I read and finished Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I must say that I enjoyed this book less than I thought I would. Parts of it are very funny, with typical Austen humour, but other parts feel rather overworked. The book lacks the snarkiness of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and, more importantly, the stark social commentary. Although Austen's trademark sarcasm and social reporting are both present, they're less stringent than in her other works. As a result, though I could still appreciate Austen's parody of Gothic literature, I wouldn't necessarily reread the book.

Finally, over this weekend I read The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. I must say that of the four books I read this week, The Tale of Despereaux was one of my favorites. I could quote Missy on this one since she's the one who made me read it in the first place! The story itself is lovely--unusually thoughtful for a children's book, using cliches creatively. I really liked DiCamillo's narrative style. She pauses occasionally to explain words and concepts in simple, lucid prose. She speaks directly to her readers, inviting them to enter into the story.

But perhaps what I liked best were the themes in the story: love, hope, forgiveness. DiCamillo explains them on the level of action as well as in her trademark pauses so that her audience can grasp these ideas not only as abstractions but also as realities that shape people's lives. Most beautiful of all are DiCamillo's opening and closing words: "The world is dark, and light is precious...." Without sentimentality she conveys the preciousness of hope in a broken world, hope that saves.

Now Playing: Tenth Avenue North, "Satisfy."

Pictures from last week are here

  We had a wonderful time in Colorado skiing. I really wasn't sure how I would manage learning to ski, but Mr. W spent all morning on the first day teaching me on an easy slope. Every time I fell down, I had the consolation of looking up at a spectacular panorama of mountains on the other side of the valley. That first day we skiied at Ski Cooper, a small resort about three hours northwest of the Springs.

The drive to that resort was absolutely gorgeous. It had just snowed on Sunday, so we drove through a white world, up into the mountains. At the top of a pass we encountered a thick fog bank. As we came down from the pass, the fog lifted far away, low, giving us a glimpse of the feet of the distant mountains, burning gold as the sun rose with white fields of snow before them.

In the afternoon the drive back was equally spectacular. A brief afternoon storm had blown up, and the mountains that had been gold and white in the morning were now white and silver, shining like new steel against dark clouds. Then, out in the valley, we were driving through fields of snow with the mountains stretching away for miles and miles to the north, long white and blue ranges. I have never seen anything that so perfectly embodied the awesome terrifying purity of the Creator.

We skiied at a larger resort, Monarch, on Tuesday and Thursday. As the week went on the fresh powder became icy, but I also increased in confidence so that by the end of the week I was actually having fun. On Thursday Missy and I flew down the mountain together for our last run of the week.

The car decided to break down on Wednesday, so we took Wednesday off and visited the Garden of the Gods in the afternoon. The contrast between the arid red rocks and the silver-and-white majesty of Pike's Peak to the west was striking. It was a warm day, so the park was full of people--especially rock climbers scaling the nearly sheer faces of the largest outcrops. Pigeons flew in and out of honeycombed holes in the rock.

We drove back to Oklahoma on Friday through a snowstorm. Though I had planned to return to Stillwater on Saturday, I ended up spending an extra day with the Ws because a two-foot-high drift at the end of their subdivision was keeping the whole neighborhood snowed in. It really was a totally wonderful time, though. The unexpected, completely undeserved blessing of the whole trip kept me rejoicing every moment in the spectacular goodness of God.

Now Playing: Tenth Avenue North, "Times."

Just back from a glorious spring break trip to Colorado with the Ws, and I have a couple of books to review.

First of all, The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall. Missy recommended it; it's a light, easy read, a children's book. The subtitle of the book is "A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy," and that sums it up neatly. Birdsall has a simple, engaging style. Her characters are charming, and over the course of the story each character undergoes some sort of transformation--no teenage angst; the pathos of the characters' mistakes is gentle, not overdone. Parts of the book are absolutely hilarious and reminded me delightfully of books I read when I was in elementary school.

When I came back, I finished Annie Dillard's Tickets for a Prayer Wheel. Dillard is a contemporary American author known for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book of essays. Tickets was her first book and is a collection of her poetry. Dillard's style is distinctive as she combines stark images from nature with vivid pictures from human life (perhaps her personal experience). She seems to be a Christian of the same variety as Madeleine L'Engle, which, from my perspective as a Christian, enriches her writing. The title poem of the book, the last poem, was my favorite. No matter what her religious convictions, Dillard stands in awe of a mysterious Creator God, and her title poem beautifully but austerely captures God's Otherness. 

Now Playing: Felix Mendelssohn, "Violin Concerto in E Minor".

Story: Last Wednesday night in our college Bible study, I requested prayer for graduate school decisions, specifically that I would hear back from Harvard and Indiana in the near future since those were two of the places I really wanted to go. (At that point I had been accepted at Michigan and Iowa.)

When Stephen and I came home from Bible study, my father met us with a huge grin at the door. "E--, Indiana rang while you were away! You've been accepted!"

Yes, it does really happen that way sometimes. Who knew our God was so good? I forget!

Now Playing: Edward Elgar, "The Lark Ascending."

Today was a Custard the Dragon day: "Custard kept crying for his nice safe cage...."

I just finished Green Dolphin Street, by Elizabeth Goudge. Published in 1944, the novel is set in Victorian Europe and New Zealand and follows two sisters and their childhood friend. In some ways the premise of the book follows an inversion of the classic love triangle, two sisters being in love with the same boy. However, Goudge's lush writing style elevates the simple plot far above the stereotype of the "Victorian" novel.

The power of Green Dolphin Street lies in Goudge's genius for marrying the physical landscape of her world to the spiritual and emotional states of her characters. Throughout the book dazzling descriptions of the tiny Norman island where the characters grow up and of New Zealand, where two of the characters eventually live, reflect the deeper spiritual truths with which the characters struggle. External and internal landscapes respond to one another so beautifully that the most staggering portions of the book involve both photographic real scenery and spiritual truth.

One reason why the book resonated so deeply with me was the skill with which Goudge depicted each character's journey toward God. She creates three categories of person: the Savior, the Comforter, and the Creator. Each of her characters fits one of these categories, and for each character salvation only comes through his or her particular situation. Each character must confront his/her strengths and weaknesses in the midst of events that on the surface appear to be mundane but that trigger tremendous spiritual conflict.

Though for some people Goudge's attitude toward "spirituality" might appear to be too general, references throughout the novel to the Book of Ruth and the Psalms direct the reader to the true source of salvation. Her subjectivity is only the subjectivity necessary to honor each character's individuality--salvation comes from the same source for all, but it fits itself to the needs of the specific personality at hand.

So I'll finish with a quote from the book, one of the passages I loved best, in which Marguerite finds her salvation.

"… and with her that belief she thought she had lost, that certainty that one’s life is a complete, rounded, timeless thing rooted in eternity, that what we once had is ours forever, that what we will have is already present with us, that at no time in our lives are we ever anything but immeasurably and inconceivably rich and blessed." (275)

It's March, and the wind is blowing lots of

WHITE RABBITS

around outside.