Now Playing: The Decemberists, "The King Is Dead."

Today has been blissfully peaceful as far as summer days go. I got up to run and listen to a sermon by Pastor D about the beginning of Ephesians 5, loving people. Later on, I had the chance to talk to both my parents, which was good.

This morning I managed to finish a chapter of French before lunch: imperfect, passe anterieur, more faire clauses, and so on. Lisa left for class at about noon. I baked peach scones, cleaned the house a bit while they were in the oven, and then spent the afternoon working on an article about a play for a database. Somehow I managed to finish a rough draft by the time Laura came home from work. She bounced upstairs and sat with me, flipping through pictures from the summer so far.

While I made tea downstairs--chicken, rice, green beans--Lisa sprawled on the sofa, browsing cooking magazines, and Laura sat nearby, strumming hymns on her guitar and singing. We ate together, and then Lisa and I went to Bible study at eight. The women's study this summer is working through Women Counseling Women, a book of essays edited by Elyse Fitzpatrick.

After Bible study I walked home. The evening was perfect, as perfect as a summer evening could be. The wind had changed to be from the northwest in cool gusts; the sky was cloudless; the air was dry and fresh. The sky resonated with deep color, as though it were the undulating silk of a pavilion roof, azure, peach, ochre. Bats zigzagged across it. I talked to Scott on the phone.

Nighttime was actually clear enough to be able to see Cygnus, Casseiopeia, the Big Dipper, and a hint of the Milky Way. Inside, the house smelled like chocolate chips and brownies. Laura had been baking for Mary's party tomorrow. She and I chatted about Les Miserables, which she'd watched while she was cooking, and then I went upstairs.

The new-ish beetle!

With the good ol' Buick still hanging out in the background. Looks like it's going to continue its trek north to Pennsylvania with Laura this fall. No retirement yet!

Today was car shopping day. We set out at about half nine with the goal of ending the morning in Loogootee, Indiana. On the way we stopped at two dealerships in Bloomington. The first salesman was a bit on the slicker side as far as trying to get me to buy things went. We'd found a Mitsubishi Lancer online on the lot that I liked, so I took it for a test drive. It behaved as well as could be expected and had a moon roof as a perk.

Having escaped that salesman, we went on to the next car, a Dodge Neon. The salesman there was an older fellow with an enormous Panama sunhat, who casually gave us the keys and let me take it for a drive. Again, it behaved itself. Its brakes were slightly better than the Lancer's. Always important.

Not terribly impressed so far, though both of those cars were 2005/2006, in my price range, with no terrible flaws, we set out for Loogootee. It's a fair drive from Bloomington, a good forty-five minutes or so. But the highway winds through some of the most beautiful countryside: high, rolling hills covered with thick hardwoods and the occasional grove of pines, sloping fields rich with corn and soybeans, pastures full of white Queen Anne's lace and yellow goldenrod, limestone quarries. It was about noon, and the distant hills were hazy, deep blue. Very peaceful to drive through that landscape.

Loogootee turned out to be a small but mostly prosperous town. The salesman was another older gentleman who put the least pressure of anyone: he actually handed us the keys and didn't stay around to sing the car's praises, but went inside and let me test drive it. The car was a Volkswagen Beetle, and it drove much more nicely than either of the other two. I couldn't believe it. I had set out wanting a Honda Civic or Ford Focus, but neither one of those cars existed in the market at a price that I could afford. It seemed ridiculous to be driving a buggy around, considering the amount of goofiness we always gave them as kids, but it was smooth and solid.

So we went inside the tiny office, and I told the salesman that I wanted to buy the car. After some phone calls to his boss (which were hilarious to overhear--small-town Indiana people are about as laconic as they come), he managed to take off six hundred dollars, which was almost enough to cover the sales tax. So away I went in a little tiny silver VW bug, over to the main dealership to pick up the title, and then back to Bloomington. I was so happy on the drive back that I couldn't stop smiling and thanking God. Had been praying for the last wee while for Him to provide, and He has!

That was just the beginning of the day's adventures, though. Mary came over at about half four, and while Scott kept us company, she and I made pesto and whole wheat noodles for tea tonight. Eric came over, too. Mary had never made pasta before, and I'd only made it with a pasta-maker, so it was rather an adventure. Homemade noodles cook fast, in about two minutes, and swell up to about three times their original size. Whole wheat pasta is pretty heavy, too. All those things were a surprise to us. With fresh pesto (from the basil on the back porch) and a strawberry-peach-spinach salad, though, it wasn't too bad.

We sat around joking for quite awhile after the meal. Laura had joined us; Lindsay has work in the evenings. Scott and Eric teased Lisa no end, which is about usual. At seven we went to the Hs' for our small group on Holding Hands, Holding Hearts. Somehow the Hs manage to pack a ridiculous number of people into their house even in the summer. Adam and Anne were there with wee Micah, and Scott, Mary, Lisa, and me; Laura had come with us, as had Eric, of course; Tom and Mary were there, and so were Russell and Nathaniel.

While Amy cut up brownies for dessert, Mary and I played with Anne and Jane. They rode piggyback on us, and we dashed around the house, with the two of them howling, screaming, and giggling from our backs. Ice cream and brownies for dessert. Scott, Laura, and I chatted with Tom's Mary about wedding plans. The small group discussion was about as usual, just talking about the book and its take on relationships. Good, plain, practical advice.

And so the evening ended with Scott and me back at the townhouse, saying good-night in the little buggy. Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Now Playing: Jon Foreman, "Leaves and Branches," "House of God Forever."

Photos from Colorado are here.

We hiked up the Dry Lakes trail, with Horn Peak on the right. This is the basin that awaited us at the top, where we ate lunch.

More pictures from today here. Good times....

Scott, Laura, and I went to Waukomis today for gelato. Quite a sight, a BMW in Waukomis! The gelato was delicious, and on the way home we saw a tornado.

A small elephant trunk tornado, but a real tornado nonetheless. It was just hanging out in the field, not going anywhere, but it definitely prompted us to go somewhere much more quickly.

For being on holiday, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in coffee shops over the last few days. Working on this project for Gale has been a bear. They've assigned us to write about one twenty-first century play a month as part of their push to put together a database of articles about twenty-first century plays.

The play I wrote about for June was a snarl of offensiveness, but for July I'm writing about an adaptation of Shakespeare's history dramas, the dramas centering on the War of the Roses. It definitely has its unorthodox components, but as a study in contemporary adaptation it's quite interesting. Thankfully the entry is nearly finished.

Highlights from the week so far include meeting Anna and Ruth for coffee on Monday, the traditional Enid Fourth of July party Monday evening, and baking thyme focaccia bread with Laura. Also introducing Scott to Braum's ice cream and Hideaway pizza.

The heat continues to be nearly unbearable. I'm not sure how anything is surviving, and if the heat and drought continue like this, the whole state may go up in flames before autumn comes.

Bridge between two (empty or nearly empty) office buildings in Oklahoma City.

Scott and I are in Oklahoma for the next couple of weeks. On Thursday we went to Tulsa to see TU and hang out with people, and yesterday we went with my mother to Oklahoma City and walked around downtown. It's been brutally hot, but we've still managed to spend quite a lot of time outside somehow. Yesterday afternoon we discovered just how desolate Oklahoma City can be in the middle of the afternoon when it's over 100 F outside: it looks like a set from Inception.

More photos from the trip so far here.

A few photos from Eric's welcome back party yesterday here. Eric has been in Mexico for the last two months, so Scott invited people over to his house to celebrate Eric's return. Thanks to the fact that Lisa's sister Lindsey was in town with her daughter Caitlin, and also to the fact that the Petras and Niesses came (the Petras with baby Eli, the Niesses with wee Micah), the house was comparatively full of kids. It turned out to be a perfect evening to be outside: the kids played with inflatable balls and a frisbee on the grass, while some of the rest of us sat around on the back porch and talked.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris.

 My zinnias have finally started to bloom. So far, they're just pink.

 One Sunday at church, Annie gave Lisa and me a pot of pink splash, miniature ivy, and petunias. Unfortunately, the petunia buds look a lot like the dead flowers, and since they need to be deadheaded regularly, I'm always in danger of pulling off the buds instead of the dead ones.

Our tomatoes have reached absolutely monstrous proportions, as has the lantana. Hopefully the tomatoes will now turn to producing fruit instead of trying to grow higher than the house.

Indiana is lush in June! The top photo is from woods northwest of Bloomington; the bottom one, from the Lilly House formal gardens in Indianapolis.

More photos added to this album.

Now Playing: Indelible Grace, "Rock of Ages."

It's been some month so far...! Last week was VBS in Bloomington. Angie and I were teachers for the first and second graders, which meant that we had five boys and three girls to shepherd around the church all week. More like herd, actually. Some of the boys were quite unruly, which made teaching memory verses, doing worksheets, and even lining up to go outside for games an adventure. I was hoarse by the end of the week. During the closing program on Friday evening, though, all the kids were able to say their memory verses in front of a large group of assembled parents and guests, which was quite encouraging. At least they were paying attention some of the time.

During VBS week, Rachel visited from Illinois, so it was good to have her around. She helped Scott with games for the kids and was invaluable in that role. She also cooked for us two nights in a row, which was pretty delicious. One of those meals was her family's special tacos, white corn tortillas fried in a pan of oil on the stovetop.

The first summer session ended last week as well. We had our French final on Thursday. Now it's down to working on my own in order to pass the French reading proficiency exam sometime in September. I'm just thankful not to have to dedicate so much time to class anymore. Of course, I need to test for Latin proficiency at some point in the near future, too.

Now Playing: Nick Drake, "Five Leaves Left," "The Thoughts of Mary Jane."

It's gotten so warm here this week that birds are panting as they fly. Yesterday evening, while Scott and I were making tea, Laura befriended a cat who's been hanging around our house. She's a young calico cat, mostly grey, and she was lying on our back porch, panting. We sat outside after tea, and the cat stuck around, purring so hard that her whiskers vibrated. The cat didn't even mind when Laura started strumming her guitar. Lisa and Lydia, Lisa's sister who's living with us this summer, were both totally disgusted by how much we were enjoying the cat and how much the cat was enjoying us.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris, for which I have Laura and Peter to thank.

Photos from this weekend here.

Love this photo. So happy to have a new sister in the family!

Philip and Alyson were married this past Saturday. Scott and I drove over to St. Louis for the wedding, and it was a pretty wonderful weekend. Stressful, yes, since Laura, Stephen, and I were all in the wedding party, but really good to see everyone, not only family members, but also TU friends and old family friends. The wedding itself was beautiful and the reception elegant.

After the reception the wedding party went to Forest Park for dinner. It was good to be able to relax in that smaller group (by no means intimate, though it felt intimate after all the panoply of the wedding ceremony and preparation!). We sat on a green lawn by a small lake and watched ducks and white egrets on the water. Philip and some of the other groomsmen threw grapes at the ducks. Caroline, Alyson's wee sister, walked across a tightrope that a couple of random guys had set up between a couple of nearby trees. She was so excited with the experience that she made Alyson walk across it, too, in her wedding dress, with Philip's help--the photographers made the most of the opportunity. (The random guys, thankfully, didn't mind all the attention that their tightrope-walking lesson was drawing!)

Laura, Keith, and I were the last ones at the park. We got to wave Philip and Alyson good-bye as they drove away in a wee red Ford, very similar to the wee red car our parents drove away from their wedding reception.

Trees in Yellowwood. Being from Oklahoma definitely makes one appreciate these magnificent old forests!

Photos from this past weekend added to this album.

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

This afternoon Cindy and Scott came over, and the three of us drove out to Yellowwood State Forest to hike. The drive into the forest was barely marked and turned out to be a pitted gravel road, slashed across by shallow creeks, which Cindy’s small Ford Focus bumped across. We walked a 4.5-mile trail that ran in a long loop around the lake.

The trail ran up and down the spurs of the hills. It snaked up into small valleys between hills in order to ford creeks where they were narrower, before they fanned out into marshes around the lake. We splashed across several small creeks on flat stones, the clear, shallow water flowing fast under ferns. On the hillsides marched the great beeches, red and white oaks, and sugar maples. Massive: the beeches with skin-smooth silver bark, the white oaks with deeply corrugated pale bark, the red oaks with their darker, more finely ridged exteriors. On the hillsides across the lake, sycamores made splashes of celadon against the jungle green of the other trees. We entered arcades of pine trees, again, straight, immensely tall. Our feet were silenced on pine needles, and that wonderful, aromatic smell mixed with the smell of masses of wild white roses growing over fallen trees. 

We came across a much larger creek, dammed with fallen logs. Scott tried to teach Cindy how to skip rocks on a wide patch of smooth, deep water. We walked through a pine wood, absolutely silent, and then back up into the hardwood forest again. The forest was almost absolutely silent. As dusk fell the light deepened almost imperceptibly, until we were walking in a silent greenness. The wind rose in the trees. We finally came out at the dam at the bottom of the lake, where people were fishing. Wild daisies, red clover, and spiderwort were growing there, with Queen-Anne’s-lace. 

The trail required that we cross below the dam, but because of the amount of water flowing over the spillway, we turned back and took the road instead. By this time it was nearly seven. We marched on the extra half-mile to the trailhead. The drive back to Bloomington was lovely: the sun was just seeping through the clouds. Sheets of water on either side of the road shimmered in its vague light—so much water in the fields after all the storms! In Bloomington we went to Kroger to buy things to grill. Courtney came over to our house, and Lindsay came downstairs from her room and joined us. 

Starting the fire on the grill was an adventure. I didn’t put on enough lighter fluid to begin with, so it took several attempts with the lighter and quantities more lighter fluid (thanks to Scott) before the coals were actually burning. We finally put the top on the grill and left it to sit and heat, while we sat inside, snacking and talking. When the coals were hot enough, I went outside to put brats and hot dogs on the grill. Smell of smoke. Cool outdoors. Watched the clouds continue to roll away from the periwinkle sky. 

When the meat was ready, we all sat around the small table, eating hot dogs, brats, chips, fresh cilantro…. Suitably summery. We made s’mores, too, of course. Oddly enough, by this time the coals were properly on fire and extremely hot. Those perfect little rose-petal flames simmering endlessly over the coals. It would’ve been easy to cook meat on them by now, but it had taken them so long to get to this temperature! 

Three leggy Mayflies snuck into the living room, and a big Junebug buzzed onto my shirt and, when I flicked it off, slammed into the porch light. At about eleven Scott, Cindy, and Courtney went home. Sleeping with the windows open tonight for perhaps the last time for awhile—it’s supposed to be hot this week.

Now Playing: Second verse, same as the first.

It's been a busy few weeks since summer session has started. Lisa and I have French every afternoon from 1:10-2:30 p.m. supposedly, although the instructor usually ends about ten minutes early. Tomorrow we have our first exam, and I'm trying to understand direct object pronouns and verb tenses. Been revising my notes since class ended this afternoon. Lindsay is also taking summer classes, though hers, which are in the counseling program, are much more intense.

You might say that that doesn't sound too busy, but somehow since the summer term began our house has contrived to have a crazy social schedule on top of coursework. Last Thursday, of course, was Poetry Dinner III, which featured readings from Jorge Luis Borges and Dr. Seuss, among others. Saturday night Laura grilled for us, and we made s'mores afterward on the back porch over the hot coals. It's been chilly here, so we were all bundled up in blankets.

Monday was Scott's birthday party, which we hosted: mostly people from church. In order to carry on the grand tradition started by Laura-my-sister (remember that angel food cake we baked from scratch last year?), I made a chocolate cake from scratch out of the Joy of Cooking book. It took a solid hour to make, but the process is half the fun (until your wrists start to ache from using the beater for so long!), and anyway, the results were worth it.

Apart from having the luxury of time to spend with people, though, it's also been good to have time for other things: staying on top of e-mail, practicing my flute again, baking scones, a bit of gardening, and reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries. Lisa has been blazing through the Harry Potter books; she's on number five right now, and Laura and I giggle delightedly whenever she drags herself away for long enough to tell us how great Sirius is or whatever.

Now Playing: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in F., Op. 6, No. 3, Largo.

Once again, having fun with the camera: these chrysanthemums have lasted a ridiculously long time, ever since the end of April.

 

Baked blueberry scones today! Loving the new camera....

Some photos from this weekend here.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack.

Last night we had a fantastic party, the third in our poetry-reading sequence. The theme: monsters. Carmen painted these glorious little creatures as favors for everyone to take home after the festivities were over. 

We filled the back seat of Scott's car with plants this week, mostly for his garden. But our house also now has plants: a pot of cilantro, one of oregano, one of parsley, and one of basil, all duly fertilized and watered this morning before class.

Now Playing: Bach, Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1041.

One of the pleasures of being in grad school: sitting at the dining room table, watching a thunderstorm approach, while writing the conclusion to my paper on Heaney's Beowulf. Beside me Scott is working on a paper on the Lutheran appreciation for early modern anatomical texts, and across the table Mary is writing an essay for her Italian take-home exam about comedy and fencing. Tea and biscuits. Soon rain will be rattling against the glass.

Highlights of today:

Finishing everything except for two of my final papers.

Hearing again a conversion story.

Attending a glorious performance of the Brahms Requiem.

Smelling lilacs at night.

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

Today has actually been decent for the most part. After breakfast I went for a run. There's one house that I love to run past down in one of the neighborhoods: it's covered with weather-darkened grey shingles, and outside it grow a big redbud tree, covered thickly with those tiny, vibrant purple flowers, and just below that a big dogwood tree, also covered with flowers, but its flowers a pale green, as though each petal were a tiny china saucer. Love the contrast of the white dogwood against the vivid redbud against the dark shingles.

I did my quiet time outside this morning. The morning was extremely windy from the southwest, so I bundled up in a blanket and propped my Bible open with my phone while I read. I spent the morning grappling with the paper for L746. For some reason writing about Heaney is extremely difficult. A good deal of staring blankly at the screen and at the piles of notes I'd arranged around my desk occupied the morning. I listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and to Bach and Mozart flute concerti. At about one I got completely fed up with the paper and took a break to eat lunch.

After lunch I worked for another hour or so, and then I wheeled my bike out of the garage, where it's been in dormancy all winter. Thankfully there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it aside from the tyres being flat. I biked to Kroger, bought a pint of cherry tomatoes, a red onion, and a container of part-skim ricotta, and biked home. The afternoon was warm: one of these variable spring days, where the sky is a pasty Easter-egg blue color, and the wind comes and goes in gusts through the new leaves, restless. Again I sat outside on the back patio, with my arms and legs bare to the sun, and read Middlemarch for class tomorrow. Starlings, robins, and a thrasher working their way through the detritus on the hillside made noises like plastic bags rustling in the wind.

At about half five I started to make tea. Laura came home. She and I worked in the kitchen together. On my countertop I sliced up the red onion (skin dark purple and silky) and cherry tomatoes, sauteed chicken, boiled pasta. On her countertop she mixed and kneaded dough for cinnamon rolls. Laura, Lindsay, and I ate tea together, discussing wedding invitations: our household seems to have received a sudden influx of them.

After washing the dishes, I biked downtown to meet Mary and Carmen for dessert. We ended up walking up the square to Tallent, a ritzy local restaurant where Carmen worked as a waitress last summer. I felt definitely underdressed--surrounded by people in suits and dresses, in an atmosphere of dim lights and sleek earth tones on the walls, with waitstaff dressed all in black gliding about.

The three of us had a delightful time, though. We ordered carrot cake with cardamom-flavored ice cream, a rhubarb ganache with rosewater-and-pepper flavored ice cream, and a chocolate tart with mint whipped cream and an espresso swirl. So, so delicious. The best part was watching Mary's faces while she ate: when she took the first bite of the ganache, she shut her eyes and fanned herself with her hand, her mouth spreading into a loopy smile. "If this had been the Victorian era, that would've been a swoon!" Carmen laughed.

We sat around and talked for quite awhile, and then we went for a walk, down Walnut, up Fourth Street (where the smells of the Indian restaurants--curry, cinnamon, garlic, cloves--embraced us), and onto campus. Through Dunnes Woods, where rabbits hopped across the path in the silent gloaming under the trees. Campus is incredibly peaceful at night: an expansive, luxuriant silence, the silence of aisles of trees, of empty buildings, elegant, restful. Down past the IMU, and so up Kirkwood, past all the restaurants and bars, people sitting outside at cafe tables, talking, laughing, TVs flashing and stereos playing through open doors and windows, the smells of cigarette smoke, barbecue smoke, grease. And so up past the library and back toward the square. We said good-bye where I had parked my bike.

I walked part of the way home, talking to Scott on the phone until my battery gave out. Biked the rest of the way. At home Laura was helping Lisa write her resume. It's gotten chilly outside, so I closed my window, but I can still hear the sigh of the woods through Lindsay's window. It had started to sprinkle a bit as I wheeled my bike into the garage.

Photos from this evening here. Hang-out time with the girls to celebrate Carmen's MFA completion!

Lisa sent this out this morning from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening.

“Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him.”

Isaiah 3:10

It is well with the righteous always. If it had said, “Say ye to the righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity,” we must have been thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, “It is well with him when under persecution,” we must have been thankful for so sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all time is included. God’s “shalls” must be understood always in their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is his inheritance. It is well with the righteous—well upon divine authority; the mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the creatures contradict him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God’s word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God blesses is blest indeed, and what his lip declares is truth most sure and steadfast.

Now Playing: Dave Crowder Band, "How He Loves."

In a bid to maintain sanity, I took some more photos around campus today.

Now Playing: Bach, Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D minor, BWV 1068: Gigue.

Although it's probably been overplayed, the Air to this particular suite is absolutely beautiful. One of the pleasures in life right now: sitting on my bedroom floor with the window partly open, listening to the tail end of a magnificent thunderstorm. Rain on the eaves, thunder, and a sparrow singing somewhere. When I woke up this morning, the sky was overcast, so overcast, in fact, that I couldn't even see the university library from my window. Everything was very still and humid; it felt as though the rain had already come--but no, a couple of hours later, we were treated to a smack-down, bang-up thunderstorm, complete with thunder, lightning, sheets of rain, and probably some hail. Quite majestic.

This has been a week for catching up with people. Monday I got to hear firsthand about how wonderful Cyprus is from Elizabeth; yesterday Nicole described her wedding plans; this morning Emmaline caught me up on teaching, Renwick dinners, and the latest engagements in N.I., and hopefully this afternoon and tomorrow I'll get to talk to Amy and Anna. 

Somehow all of that is happening around the work that's going on at the same time! So far, I'm pretty much ready to present an article on open syllable lengthening in Middle English in class on Tuesday, and to turn in the last short paper for Middlemarch. Neither one of these projects feels particularly secure as far as quality of work, but then I never feel particularly secure when handing anything in for Middlemarch, and phonetics has never been my strong point (as far as linguistics, I prefer lexis--vocabulary--like a good poet!). This afternoon the goal is to prepare for the Middle English paper that's due in two weeks.

Writing blog posts is rather frustrating because it simply can't capture the subtext of everything else that's been going on here for the past few months, especially over the last few weeks. Trying to come to terms with God's goodness, to accept the fact that He loves me--while being stressed and exhausted from work. But His love is so glaringly obvious right now that I simply can't ignore it. Which is probably a very, very, very good thing.

Now Playing: Bach, Concerto for Violin, Strings, and Continuo in A minor, BWV 1041.

I love this movement from this concerto!

Today before book history, I walked around campus and took a few photos. Unfortunately my camera wasn't too happy with the lighting, but even though it didn't capture the buds coming out on the trees very well, it did capture how beautiful their branches were against the noon sky.

This hillside was covered with daffodils a couple of weeks ago. They're still quite glorious and smell wonderfully of pollen. 

Now Playing: Bach, Mass in B Minor, "Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, Dona Nobis Pacem/Chorus: Osanna."

The first day of April finds me buried under mounds of white rabbits! and schoolwork. Peter, Lindsay, and Laura are downstairs watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty (which is wonderfully dated by the voice of its narrator and the chorus that sings during the first few minutes). But I've been upstairs all evening, listening to Brahms's and Mozart's Requiems, and now finishing Bach's Mass, all in a valiant attempt to impose some order on my extremely chaotic notes.

For the book history seminar this term, I'm writing a paper about Heaney's rendition of Beowulf, which has involved reading all sorts of articles, customer reviews on Amazon.com, manuscripts in the Lilly, press releases, book reviews, etc. 

It turns out that one of the professors who assisted Heaney with the translation happens to be emeritus at IU and donated all of his correspondence about the translation process to the Lilly when he retired. Thanks to him, the Lilly has a large white box full of faxes, e-mails, letters, reviews, newspaper clippings, and endless page proofs, all having to do with Heaney's Beowulf.

So I've been spending afternoons in the Lilly recently, while outside the weather can't decide whether to be warm or cold, and daffodils bloom prolifically under all the trees.

Oh, and other photos here.

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

Went for a very, very long walk yesterday. Though it was a bit chilly, it was so good to be outside! There are lots of saucer magnolias on 1st St., near the church, and several of the trees are in full bloom, absolutely gorgeous.

I also walked down the southernmost part of the B-Line. This particular corner of this field always makes me think of N.I.

There's a lovely footbridge at the end of the B-Line.

Now Playing: Corelli, Violin Sonata in A, Op. 5.

The race to the finish has begun, so I may not be posting much in the next six weeks. Tonight I made a list of all the big deadlines coming up: the first one is 12 April and the last 3 May, at least if professors leave everything where it is now. Between now and then, I have to lead discussion twice, write three papers, one of them a twenty-five-pager, and potentially take a final exam if the midterm today in Middle English didn't go well, which is a distinct possibility, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

On the upside, daffodils are blooming on campus, on the hillside below Bryan House, which is the President's house and sits like a gem at the center of a small diamond of woodland and gardens. I sat outside this afternoon briefly and admired the daffodils and watched a titmouse. It's wonderful that the weather is mild enough to sit outside again, although that won't last for very long!

Despite the amount of work that lies ahead, I've really been spending a ridiculously small amount of time working lately. On Saturday Laura invited people over for a barbecue, and it turned into a party somehow. She bought a wee charcoal grill a couple of weeks ago, and this was its maiden voyage, complete with marinaded chicken, bell peppers, onions, and pineapple. Quite delicious, as you can imagine.

New spring break photos in this album!

Now Playing: Indelible Grace, "Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder."

11 March 2011. Thick frost on everything this morning, but the day warmed quickly into the 50s. I went to the gym alone after breakfast, listened to a sermon by Pastor D on John 7 (Christ as the bread of life—good), came home, did my quiet time, and ate lunch while reading Middlemarch.   

At two Lisa and I went over to the Hs’ house to help them get ready for their spring break trip to Florida. When we pulled up, Amy was outside, cleaning out their van, apparently as cheerful as ever. Inside we played Monopoly and Go Fish with Anne all afternoon. Amy went to pick Maggie and Grace up from school, and then the scramble really began. While Amy and Lisa made sandwiches for tea, I woke Jane up from her nap and sat with her, making faces while she snacked on cheese and crackers. 

They were out the door by about five o’clock. The girls all hugged us as they clambered into the car; we waved them one last good-bye as we walked out of the garage, and as soon as we had left, we heard them give a cheer of excitement. Laughing, we drove home. Spring break in the air! At home Laura was packing up for her weekend trip to Chicago. We said good-bye to her, too. Lisa and I watched part of Beauty and the Beast while she worked on school and I made cards to send to Anna, Laura, Rach, and Crystal. 

At a quarter to seven, Mary showed up, and the three of us drove out to Scott’s house for another readings night. It turned out to be a quiet wee neighborhood tucked away in the forest about ten minutes outside Bloomington, between Bloomington and Ellettsville, a neighborhood of small, low, cream-colored houses, all fairly new, all almost exactly the same. 

Eric and Carmen were already there; Eric was making the main course tonight, but Mary had brought salad, and Lisa had baked a Bailey’s-and-chocolate cheesecake. The first wee while of such a gathering must always be awkward, I suppose, even when we all know each other fairly well. Perhaps it’s the awkwardness that comes from knowing each other—but not being total strangers, because that would lead to conventional small talk—and not being best friends, because that would make us all at ease immediately. The meal, when it came, was wonderful, though, and Mary kept us entertained by explaining to us the differences between saber, epée, and rapier fencing. 

After tea we sat around the living room and had our first round of readings. Lisa warmed us up with some hilarious Shel Silverstein. Then Scott read some French prose from a 16^th-century novel, and Eric read some Spanish poetry about the sea. Carmen followed that with “My Autopsy” by Michael Dickman and a Philip Larkin piece: beautiful, beautiful, eerie, visceral language. She had a perfect voice for it, too, precise, careful, but deep enough that it’s matter-of-fact, serious, as though she’s speaking to you about very important but very real things. Mary read the portion from Moby-Dick about the painting—which was fantastic. She had the drunken sailor voice down pat, and she put her whole heart, soul, and body into it, so that we were all rolling with laughter; l laughed until my face and my chest were aching. So, so funny. 

When she finished reading, we had some of Lisa’s cheesecake, and then embarked upon round two. More Shel Silverstein from Lisa, some of The Siege of Krishnapur from Scott (an excellent, dark-humour sort of passage), some sea poetry from Eric, and a Saki short story from Carmen, a chilling piece about a boy and his ferret. Mary read us a children’s book about a Siamese cat who thought he was a Chihuahua. That had us all in stitches, too. As a finale, Lisa gave us some more Shel Silverstein. It was midnight before we realized it. 

Now Playing: Bach, Mass in B minor, "Gloria/Laudamus te."

So I've been doing an abysmal job of keeping this thing up for the past couple of weeks, but there's good reason for it: last weekend was an embarrassment of riches as far as live music is concerned.

On Friday night we went to an IU Opera production of Gounod's Faust. To start with, since this was the French turn-of-the-last-century opera, everything was in French, and the music was lushly beautiful. This was a new production for IU, though, with freshly-designed sets and costumes, and I must say that it was quite a work of art. Lighting and backdrops resulted in gorgeous, rich textures and colours that enhanced the story beautifully. Of course the singers and instrumentalists were good, too.

The singer who played Mephistopheles was perhaps the creepiest combination of suavity and menace I've ever seen: I had no idea that a big, burly, round-faced man could be so terrifying, but the way his role was staged and directed, he became a terrifying (but not irresistible) force of evil.

The best part about the production, though, was the story itself. One didn't really focus so much on Faust as on Marguerite, his love interest. Her life ruined because of Faust's successful seduction, and facing tremendous temptation from Mephistopheles to renounce her belief in God's forgiveness, she continues to cry out to God in faith for mercy. Finally, recognizing that the devil is trying to trap her, she refuses to turn away from her faith in order to go with Faust. The opera ended with Marguerite freed from her (literal) prison cell, walking away toward a glorious, light-filled backdrop.

Perhaps what made this moment of redemption so powerful was that throughout the performance, I didn't see how any redemption was possible: I knew the story of Faust, but not this particular version of it; I knew that Faust goes to Hell, but not what happens to Marguerite. Seeing her cry out to God from the pit of despair and then have that prayer answered was just really beautiful.

So much for Faust. On Saturday evening we went to see a performance of Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus, put on by the IU choir and Baroque orchestra. It was also very good, but in a completely different way. Whereas a great deal of Faust's appeal lay in the visuals, most of Judas's appeal lay in the intricacy of the music--and in listening for Handel's idiosyncrasies! I couldn't help laughing every so often because he'd do something so very Handel-ish that it was really funny, like bringing in trumpets just when the characters were talking about trumpets, or having an enormous chorus at a particular point in the story.

Despite the nationalistic overtones, this performance also was lovely for its emphasis on God's power to help and save His people when they need it most. The final Hallelujah chorus was delightful for its sheer exuberance.

So that's what I was doing last weekend. This week it's been school, school, school, but on Friday night we're having another reading party, and on Saturday my parents and Stephen are coming for a visit. Hooray!

Now Playing: Bach, Orchestral Suites, No. 4 in D, BWV 1069.

Just for fun, a link to a very interesting blog is here, thanks to Miles.

Now Playing: Bach, "Concerto for Violin, Strings, and Continuo in E major BWV 1042."

Bear with a longer quote from Glorious Freedom by Richard Sibbes, which I was reading this morning with Earl Grey and toast.

Use 3. Let us sustain ourselves, when we walk in darkness, by considering the gloriousness of God's mercy in Jesus Christ.

It is no less mercy than glorious mercy that will satisfy us when our conscience is distressed; and if this will not, what will? Let Satan join with conscience to aggravate our sins as much as he can. But set this glorious mercy against all our worst sins - they are sins of a finite creature. But here is infinite mercy, triumphing and rejoicing over justice, having won the victory over it. Oh, when the time of temptation comes, and the hour of death, and conflict with conscience, and all together that may discourage, Satan will bestir himself. He is cunning and eloquent and will focus completely upon sin, especially in the time of despair. But you, be as cunning to focus upon mercy, glorious mercy. If God were glorious in all other attributes, and not in mercy, what would become of us? The glory of other attributes without mercy leads us to despair: glory in wisdom to find us out, glory in justice to deal with us in rigour. These fill us with dread, but what sweetens all other attributes is his mercy.

What a comfort this is to sinful man, that in casting himself upon Christ and upon God's mercy in Christ, he yields glory to God; that God has joined his glory with our special good; that here is a sweet concurrence between the chief end and the highest good of man! The last end of man is the glory of God, for that is the point from which all came (for he made all for his glory) and in which all ends; so is the chief good.

And so it is in vain for some to think, 'Oh, we must not look to our own salvation so much; this is self-love.' That is true if we sever the consideration of the glory of God's mercy and goodness from it. But we must see that both of these wrapped and indissolubly knit together in our salvation is to God's glory. We hinder God's glory if we do not believe his mercy in Christ to us. So we wrong both ourselves and him. And we wrong him not in a lesser attribute, but in his mercy and goodness, in which he has appointed to glorify himself most of all.

And so I beseech you, let us yield to him the glory of his mercy, and let us think that when we sin we cannot glorify him more than to have recourse to his mercy. When Satan tempts us to run from God and discourages us, as he will do at such times, then keep this in mind: God has set himself to be glorious in mercy above all other attributes. And as this is the primary moving attribute that stirs up all the rest, God will account himself honoured if we have recourse to him. Let this thought be as a city of refuge. When the avenger of blood follows you, flee immediately to this sanctuary. Think: Let me not deny myself comfort and God glory both at once. 'Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more' (Rom. 5:20). Though sins after conversion stain our profession more than sins before conversion, go still to the glorious mercy of God. To seventy times seventy times, there is yet mercy. We beseech you be reconciled, said St Paul to the Corinthians, when they were in the state of grace and already had their pardon. Let us never be discouraged from going to Christ.

'Oh, but I have offended often and grievously.' What does the prophet say? 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts but are as high as the heavens are above the earth' (Isa. 55:8-9). With men, offences often cause permanent alienation, but with God this is not so. As often as we have spirit to go to God for mercy and spread our sins before him with broken and humble hearts, we may receive pardon....

.... And, as I said before, it must be glorious mercy that can satisfy a distressed conscience. In the time of ease and peace we think a little mercy will serve the turn; but when conscience is once awaked, it must be glorious and infinite mercy that allays it.

If you find your conscience at all wounded with any sin, do not hold back from God any longer. Come and yield, lay down your weapons; there is mercy ready. The Lord is glorious in his mercy in Jesus Christ. It is a victorious triumphing mercy over all sin and unworthiness whatever....