looking up

I put up some pictures of the room that Emmaline and I share on photobucket. I added them to the folder Belfast 2, if you're interested.

Had my first lecture and tutorial today, the Discovering the Earliest Writings in English lecture. It's team-taught by two nice, cheerful elderly chaps. They make me want to chuckle because they're both the perfect stereotypes of the British university professor: rotund, grey-haired, red-faced, with 'propah British accents', but to add to the charm, 'wee' little bits of Irish tossed in here and there. Today they took us through some very basic Anglo-Saxon history (which I already knew from reading Rosemary Sutcliff! yay!) and Old English (which I also already knew from the class at OSU). But it was good to have a reminder of these things anyway, and I think the class is going to be fun. One of the professors, Dr. Magennis, is the one whom my advisor got in touch with last schoolyear. He's been e-mailing me, and I went up and introduced myself to him today. He invited me to come to his tutorial and also to be in the Beowulf class, which I'm not enrolled for right now. During the tutorial, which is immediately after the lecture, fifteen of us crammed into Dr. Magennis's office, and he took us through a handout teaching us how to pronounce Old English words. Good old thorn, eth, ash.

Last night I spent some time 'hanging out' with the Renwick crowd. It was the first time they'd actually included me in the fun as a group because before there have just been random people visiting. Last night it was mostly Renwick people, though there were a couple of guys that I met at Emmaline's CY this weekend. We played Rummikub. I find the Northern Irish (not just plain Irish, as Emmaline informed me, but either Northern Irish or British) sense of humor to be quite funny--very dry, lots of sarcasm, and they can keep it going endlessly. Some of the guys were talking about making a spoof of synod...!

Guess that's all for now. I need to go see about arranging classes and such.

holding on

Now Playing: Irish guys talking at the next computer.

*cough*

I'm on the third and top floor of the Seamus Heaney Library in the computer lab. Papers rattle, keyboards tick, voices murmur, and the computers hum. It's been raining this morning. While we were eating breakfast, I saw a rainbow out the kitchen window against a dark wall of cloud, arching over the roofs and chimney pots. Emmaline wasn't impressed. I suppose Northern Irish people see rainbows all the time.

There are more pictures up on photobucket: username Elfellyn, password flook07, file Belfast 2. Though only a few of the pictures are actually from Belfast.

I spent the weekend with Emmaline McCollum, my roommate, and her family. They live between Portrush, which is as far north as you can go in Ireland, and Coleraine, and they go to the Glenmanus RPC, which is in Portrush. I went with Emmaline and her two sisters to CY on Saturday night. Because the Glenmanus church is small, their CY joins forces with the Ballyclabber RPC CY. They're going through Philippians. They had an interesting discussion format: the leader of the study took the group through the passage, a paragraph at a time, and just asked people to say what they thought about the verses in the paragraph, verse-by-verse. No discussion questions or anything, though of course the leader had done study beforehand. Because everyone was willing to talk, the format worked really well. It allowed the members of the CY to come up with applications and ideas on their own, forcing them to think freely about the passage as it applied to them rather than comping up with set easy answers to questions.

I worshipped with the Glenmanus church on Sabbath, but Sabbath evening, instead of going to the evening service, Mr. McCollum took Emmaline, her two sisters, and one of her brothers, and me, to the Drimbolg RPC for a CY praise service. We took a narrow bumpy back country road, where the asphalt had sunk in places because the road was built over a bog. On either side were boggy pastures or thickets of trees where water gleamed between the swampy roots. The praise service consisted of Psalm singing, young people getting up to talk about missions teams they'd been on during the summer, and a brief message. The singing was lovely, about ninety people giving voice in a big fellowship hall. A lot of the churches here have recently refurbished buildings and added fellowship halls or expanded sanctuaries. It's encouraging to see this expansion going on, and also the vitality and eagerness among the young people to serve and do outreach.

Anyhow, the pictures on photobucket are from the Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. Emmaline's family only lives about ten or fifteen minutes away from them. Also there are pictures of the Grand Opera House, where Emmaline and I saw Beauty and the Beast Thursday evening. We ate supper in a Subway sandwich shop beforehand, looking across the busy Belfast street at the Opera House. Nice juxtaposition: American food surrounded by all this Irish history and architecture.

Last night we drove back from Drimbolg to Belfast with Catherine and Amy Morrison. Catherine lives in Renwick on the top floor. She's an English major, and she and I get along quite well. (She reminds me of you, Tara.) Today is the first day of classes at Queen's, but I don't have any classes today, so I've just been trying to take care of all the little necessary details. I need to buy books somehow or other.

today

I spent most of this morning and early afternoon just walking around Belfast. I went down and saw Spires Mall, which is across the street from the hotel where I stayed last Tuesday night. I walked over to Belfast City Hall, and then down through the crowded shopping district, and came out on the other side at St. Anne's Cathedral. A heavy Romanesque building, not nearly as beautiful as Glasgow's cathedral, but I spent a pleasant while in there walking around and thinking. I went up the street and saw a Congregational church and a Catholic church, St. Patrick's, to add to my collection of churches. Belfast is rather a sad city, I think: the shoping areas seem very materialistic, but then there is a lot of poverty and grime in the neighborhoods on the edge of the city. It's not a very clean city, either: old gum and rubbish stuck to the sidewalks, old broadsides plastered to walls and electric boxes, grafitti on blank spaces, parking lots surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. Yesterday I went on a bus tour of Belfast offered as part of the freshman orientation (or Freshers' Week) at Queen's. They took us to the shipyards on the Lagan River, and they took us up the Shankill Road, which is the Unionist, Protestant, British part of Belfast, and then up the Falls Road, which is the liberationist, Catholic, Irish part of Belfast. The two roads are separated still by a high reinforced metal wall that runs through some people's back gardens. There are gates in the wall where you can cross back and forth, but the police still shut the gates every night. The big courthouse on Shankill Road is eerily empty, with smashed windows and pigeons walking in and out over the big Classical portico with Greek-style statues looming overhead. It may be safe now, but the animosities are still present.

Pictures of Queen's, of the hike into the Mountains of Mourne on Saturday, and my walk round Belfast today are up on photobucket. I smuggled them in on my USB card. Still no internet on my laptop....

the Lord's day, to keep it holy

I suppose this must needs be a bit more personal than my usual posts since I can't separate out what would go into a journal entry and what would go into a blog post, having such sporadic access to the internet.

Some people have commented in the past that I always seem to be having nice things to eat and talk about on my blog. Well, this morning Renwick House was as empty and cold and silent as a ship left at anchor. (Imagine all the creakings of an old building, together with the noises of people passing in the street and moving about in the buildings not twelve inches away.) I did my devotions, dressed, and made myself a piece of dry toast, a cup of Earl Grey tea, and a banana (I didn't strictly 'make' this last, of course) for breakfast. Then I sat up in my room and worked on a journal entry, listening to the Brahms 'Requiem' copied from my mother's CD since Alisha still has mine. Outside it was raining. Rain rattled against the windows, cars splashed in the streets, and leaves whirled down the sidewalk. I sat in the common room for awhile downstairs, watching the few cars drive by, and waiting for Claire Wilson to come to take me to Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church at ten o'clock. She was about fifteen minutes past time, but that was alright.

The drive to church was quiet, through the tangled Belfast streets, out onto a highway, and then down again into the narrow village lanes. The Wilsons live in Ballyclare, but Trinity is in a village close by. The Trinity RPC consists of a string of several grey buildings, rectangular and functional, built out of concrete. Much nicer on the inside than the outside. As we came in, Pastor Donnelly and his wife Lorna greeted us. Pastor Donnelly asked me wisely if I were Alan N--'s daughter, and told me warmly that I wouldn't have to go before session before taking communion.

Claire and I went back to join the adult prayer meeting. Before the service, instead of having an adult Sabbath school, while all the children are in their various Sabbath schools, the adults meet in a high-ceilinged room for prayer. And instead of all meeting in one big group for prayer, they break up into smaller circles of chairs, the way the church did in Airdrie, so that you can hear the other groups praying while your own is praying. It's a bit disconcerting to hear the constant murmur of voices, but pleasant, at the same time. I often struggle with being distracted in prayer, but today, mercifully, I was not. Before the prayer time, one of the elders stood up and read 2 Corinthians 5:6-13 (I read the bit before that as well), which was excellent to meditate on as we prayed, moving from thanksgiving for God's mercy of salvation to prayer that He would meet with us in communion, particularly for His blessing on Pastor Donnelly and on the observing covenant children and visitors.

After prayer, we went straight into the service. The sanctuary is large enough to hold the hundred-and-fifty people who make up the congregation, so it has both the usual set of pews in front of the pulpit and a balcony above. A wood ceiling, like in the Seventh Day Adventist building. A row of clear windows down one side let in the grey daylight, but on either side of the pulpit in front were stained glass windows in lush green, clear glass, cream, and mauve. Everyone was fairly silent going in to worship, a murmur of whispers, and children trotting up and down the aisles, but that was all. I sang Psalm 4 to myself in my head, thinking of the church meeting in Stillwater.

The service began with announcements, of course, though the announcements were both proceeded and concluded with mentions of 'if the Lord wills'. Then we sang a Psalm (to a tune I didn't know, of course!). The singing always starts out ragged here, then swells up until the sanctuary is full of singing--absolutely beautiful. The split-leaf Irish Psalters have dynamic markings in the margins (forte, piano, mezzo forte) so that everyone can follow along with lending some expression to the Psalms. Then Pastor Donnelly launched straight into his sermon on John 17:1-5. An excellent sermon: limited atonement, Christ's mediatorial kingship, and, more importantly, how these ideas apply to us--how we are dear to Christ, how we are made to know Him. I thought of lying under the stars with Jenny S. just a couple of weeks ago, and was filled with wonder at the thought of being able to be with Christ 'face to face' with a deeper familiarity and love than I can possibly imagine even with my earthly friends.

We sang another Psalm after the sermon, and then Pastor Donnelly and the elders came forward to begin the communion. For communion, the Trinity church arranges its heavy oak pews in a radiating sort of square around the Table in the centre. Pastor Donnelly read the Irish confession of faith, and I was touched by the last confession, something along the lines of promising, by the strength of the Spirit, to live a life in accordance with 'these vows' (believing in the Word, believing Christ as God's Son, having a teachable heart), for I certainly have not lived such a life just in this week past. But Pastor Donnelly reminded us of our freedom in Christ, that Christ died not for perfect people but for those who need the Table. Then the professed members went forward to receive communion tokens, little oval bits of metal with 'but let each man examine himself' stamped on them. We sat down again, and Pastor Donnelly continued with his sermon for a bit, talking about how it is our duty and delight to know God more. I wondered in my mind why God would want to know people like us, for we are all sinners, and to know us is constantly to know sin. He does put away and forget our sin completely (I know that there are misdeeds of others that I have forgiven, but cannot forget, and I know this is wrong). I wondered at this, though, because sin is so much a part of my personality that if God were to forget sin He would have to forget me. But I remembered something I'd read in C.S. Lewis: Perhaps, as He takes away sin, God gives us His own personality, so that in knowing us He knows Himself--these fruits of the Spirit are Him in us so that He knows Himself in us.

After this all the members gathered from the parts of the sanctuary into the main pews right around the Table so that we were all facing each other. As we sat there, Pastor Donnelly read the words of institution, then spoke to us about how we need to seek out God's will for our lives. He talked about how we should live as Christ lived so that when we die we can say, 'I have accomplished the work you gave me.' Pastor Donnelly assured us that God does not require more of us than we can bear, but that (because of Christ's full work) God gives us exactly what we can do, and we must seek out and do this work to the best of our ability.

At last, then, the bread was broken and handed round, and then the cup, each person eating and drinking as he or she received. After Communion, we gave thanks again, and then we sang, and Pastor Donnelly pronounced the blessing.

People in the States had told me that Irish people always go straight home after church, but here everyone lingered, talking. I met Claire's grandmother, and also an American woman who's married to an Irish man, and also a young woman, one of Claire's friends, named Sarah, I think--she's married to Pastor Donnelly's son. Everyone was quite friendly. As Claire and I left the sanctuary, we were stopped by Pastor and Mrs. Donnelly again. They were both very friendly to me--they invited me to their house some Sabbath, offered to give me their phone number, and told me many times that there was no need to be lonely. 'I know how it feels,' Mrs. Donnelly said kindly, 'so just give me a ring any time.' Both of them speak standing much closer to me than is comfortable, but I've noticed that this seems to be the trend among elderly people, to come right up in your face. It's a bit awkward for me, but they don't seem to be bothered by it.

I went home with the Wilsons. It was about two o'clock, the communion service having lasted about two hours. It had been raining most of the morning, and it started to rain again, heavy drops rattling against the windows. The Wilsons' house is two storied, on the edge of town, with fields just on the other side of a hawthorne hedge. They have beautiful flowers, roses and cannas and fuschias and such, growing round their house. The rooms are all tiny, except for the kitchen, which is a new addition and feels quite large to the rest of the spaces in the house. It was a relief to step into the kitchen out of the chilly afternoon, for Mrs. Wilson had the stove and the oven going. I helped Claire set the table. We had 'proper Irish food' for 'dinner': Yorkshire puddings, which are rather like dry dinner rolls with little dips in the middle for pouring gravy into, broiled potatoes (of course!), chick peas, and roast beef, all covered with a thick gravy. As a special treat, on Sabbath afternoons they drink a sort of fizzy grape juice, sloer (pronounced 'slur'). It was great fun to sit down with them--Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, Claire, and Calvin, who have a relationship rather like mine and Philip's, and are usually teasing each other in the Irish quiet, sarcastic way. They asked me about what my family does on Sabbath afternoons, about Sabbath traditions, etc. Claire asked if we still have Indians in Oklahoma who wear headdresses and loincloths. I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help chuckling a bit. I explained to them about casinos and reservations, and the old RP mission to the Apaches, and mentioned the Kreiders when Claire asked if all Indians nowadays have names like 'Running Water' and 'Big River'. 'Mr. Kreider's name is Jack,' I laughed.

After lunch, we all sat around for awhile, just chatting. We had tea (or coffee) and some chocolate cake. The Wilsons talked about the wedding yesterday. One of Claire's cousins got married. His bride's family was really rich, so the wedding was quite a posh affair. Not at all Claire's style. It was funny to listen to her talk about the 'champagne sorbet' and all that nonsense, as she thought it. 'When there are people starving in the world, it seems wrong somehow to spend all that money on a wedding,' she said. Mrs. Wilson laughed as I heartily agreed with her, 'Claire, you've found someone just like you.'

When the meal was over, Claire set me up in a little study so that I could use their internet. She, Calvin, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson disappeared into other parts of the house for their own forms of rest. I sat down and banged away, e-mail after e-mail, and Facebook posts, too. The house was very quiet. Rain rattled against the window on and off, clouds flowing over the house. Once when I got up for a short break and looked out the kitchen window, the sun had struck through the clouds. The late afternoon light was clear, vividly clear on the bright green grass and the cattle grazing just on the other side of the fence. The fields ran up in a long smooth slope to a distant hill crowned with great wind-slanted trees. Through the low wet rolls of cloud streaks of opal blue sky showed. And over it all, shimmering through the clouds, there was a rainbow.

At about five forty-five, everyone began to materialize out of their cracks and crannies. I sat down in the kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Wilson again, for another cup of tea (their tea is white here, more milk than tea!) and 'biscuits'. Then I went with the whole family back to church. The evening light lingered beautifully on the faces of the houses and on the slopes of fields seen through breaks in the hedges.

Claire, Calvin, and I went into the adult prayer meeting, which was at about six-thirty. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson teach the junior CY (the CY here is big enough that they have two groups, a junior group on Sabbath evenings and a senior group on Friday nights). The small classroom we used for the prayer meeting was packed with people, mostly adults, though there were also some older highschool kids. We spent about fifteen minutes giving thanks for God's blessings through communion, and then another time praying about prayer requests.

The evening service started at seven o'clock. Pastor Donnelly preached for the last time on John 17:1-5. He talked about how Christ gave up glory for our sake, about how His whole life was suffering for us, and how He will take up His glory again. 'But the best part of all this is that He has given this glory to us,' Pastor Donnelly finished, 'and I can't say anything more about that because I don't know how to put it into words. It just boggles my mind.'

We didn't stay too long after the service. Mrs. Wilson and Claire drove me back to Belfast. We went up Sandy Row, one of the most notorious places during the Troubles. 'That hotel,' Claire said, pointing to the Europa Hotel, 'is the most bombed hotel in the world.' 'But don't worry about that now,' Mrs. Wilson assured me hurriedly. We drove past a bar where a bunch of people were hanging about outside, smoking. But Elmwood Avenue was quiet. I thanked them both and hurried into the house. I showered and wrote up yesterday's journal entry on my computer, listening to the Brahms 'Requiem'. I was very thankful during devotions tonight, remembering Pastor Donnelly's excellent messages, the good times of prayer, and the fellowship and the beauty of creation. It's been a good couple of days. As I lay in bed after I turned out the lights, I could hear people moving about in the house, doors slamming, the ceiling creaking. And I wondered about how tomorrow would go, meeting everyone....

here we go

Well, well, hullo there everyone.

I have had no internet access to speak of, so that's why most of you have not had any e-mails and also why there will be no photos in this post. I'm using a computer lab in the Medical Biology Centre (and because I'm in the U.K. now, my spelling has become more Brit-ified than ever :o), listening to other students type and smelling the rather familiar smells of ink and paper.

Everything about Ireland is different. How does one explain it? The signs are different: big, bright colors and lots of pictures. Instead of having those awful red EXIT signs over doorways, they have these awful green signs with a cryptic picture of a man (presumably) running toward a white box (which presumably) stands for a doorway. There's green everywhere--everyone wears it; it's the background for most of the powerpoint shows I've seen; they have big green check marks to show you when you've done something right, say on a cellphone or when making a purchase; green on all the signs, almost it seems as a substitute for red. Also, when one wants to turn on a light, or use the shower, or plug an appliance into an electrical outlet, one has to pull multiple strings and push multiple switches--as though the Irish want to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to use energy. They're very conservation-conscious, making the most of their resources, I suppose. Spelling and punctuation are different. They may be more conserving of their letters, leaving out l's and things (enrolment?!), but they're quite free with hyphens and such. None of the streets are straight. They tend to run off on odd little vs, going here and there and generally meandering about in rather a puzzlnig fashion, so that one feels as though one is not in a city so much as in a rabbit warren--and this feeling is heightened by the fact that (in Belfast at least) the streets, no matter how broad, are all overhung with tall buildings. It seems that the broader the street, the taller the buildings. Most buildings are at least five or six stories tall. There's more rubbish on the streets. Mr. Voelkers mentioned to me before I left that he found European cities cleaner than cities in the U.S., but I remembered this from Scotland--leaves and trash and spilled things seem to linger and get mummified on the sidewalk at rather a disgusting rate. And the whole place just smells differently: the laundry detergents and soap smell pleasantly, but there's sometimes rather a revolting whiff of garbage on the main streets--but beyond that, it just smells differently. I can't really explain it.

Robin has asked about whether there are McDonald's here. Yes, there are, and at rather an alarming rate of multiplication, it seems--they're everywhere, along with the ubiquitous Starbucks. They also have insurance firms that I recognize from the States. And down one of the main roads towards the city centre, there's a Domino's pizza shop.

Logan, the Irish all walk really fast. I quite like it, but the other Americans in my group keep lagging behind whenever we go out anywhere. Part of the problem, of course, is the American girls in their ridiculous little high heels. But you all know what that looks like.

So, what have I been doing?

I am not going to give you the E's-unending-journal version because that would be, well, unending, and probably not profitable. So I'll go for the slightly abridged. Or perhaps the very abridged. First, a bit of business: I apologize to all of you for not sending e-mails: until I get internet on my laptop, I don't have the convenience really to sit down and write e-mails that much, and (oh, horrors!) I can't talk on Skype or post to Photobucket. You'll have to be patient, I'm afraid....

Going back to the dark ages: I woke up at three-fifteen on Monday morning, changed my sheets, dressed, did my devotions, etc. Then my parents and I drove to Tulsa to go to the airport. The drive was eerie: a flame burning like a dragon's flare on the garbage heap outside Stillwater; lightning flashing to the northeast; the red eyes of radio towers blinking on and off; the distant glare of an oil refinery towards Ponca City. It was still quite dark when we got to the airport. I was put into the system and had my tickets all fine. It was hard to say good-bye, that final good-bye, to my parents. Security went fine, though, too.

I sat in the airport for a long time, it seemed, though the airport was quite busy. Dawn came rather suddenly grey in the east, and we lifted off as the sun was cracking gold through the grey clouds. The flight to Newark was smooth. I spent the rest of the day sitting in the Newark airport. I've decided that I have no friendship for the Newark airport. There's absolutely nothing to do, not even any palatable restaurants, not even any nice views out the windows: all shipping dockyards, and cranes, and swamps, and nasty traffic jams. I read The Moonstone (thank you, Kevin!) and the Black Book (though I had to take breaks from reading that because it made me cry so much...) and wrote in my journal. I listened to the announcements over the intercom, the constant drone of the repeated security announcement about abandoned baggage, the endless succession of paging lost customers, the drivel of flights taking off or being cancelled. It was interesting to hear all the different cities they were flying to: Edinburgh, Stockholm, Birmingham, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Berlin, somewhere in Portugal, etc. My flight didn't leave until about nine o'clock, by which time I was quite numb in all parts of my being. The flight to Belfast was smooth. I sat between to bussiness-people, who both dropped nicely to sleep. I actually slept some, too, and as a result was (thankfully) not nearly as groggy and miserable as I'd been last spring going into Gatwick with Missy. Customs went smoothly, the lady who examined my passport even commenting in a friendly fashion on the Tolkien class I'd put down as she looked over my proposed class list. My baggage was mostly intact: the smaller bag was unaccountably damp, and somehow there was oil spilled on the little white jewelry box that I'd put my First Age archer and Lothlorien standard-bearer in. And, to my great grief, the First Age archer had been snapped off his base. Stephen will have to glue it back when I return. I stood waiting for a long time in the baggage claim, while everyone else who'd been on the flight filed out. There was a crowd of elderly Americans, all very noisy and garrulous, constantly snapping pictures, who had come to look over their geneaologies. I waited and waited, until a friendly stewardess came in and escorted me out to where Belinda and Margaret had been waiting for me. Belinda and Margaret are two of the people who look after Renwick House. Belinda is about my mother's age, sturdy and rather short, quite cordial. Margaret is a bit older, also sturdy and friendly. They immediately made me welcome.

The drive into Belfast took about twenty minutes, perhaps: from the village where Belfast International Airport is located, past fields where sheep and cattle grazed behind stone walls and hawthorne fences, past houses, down into the city itself, which sits beside Belfast Loch (a sea loch; the Titanic was built here) down in a valley, surrounded by high ridges of hills on all sides except to the northeast, where the sea faces out to Scotland. Renwick House turned out to be one in a long row of houses, with a bright blue door. I was delighted when I saw the room that Emmaline and I will share: quite large, with a beautiful big bay window looking out over the street on the second floor, the tall windows hung with red curtains printed all over with brown and blue and cream flowers (not little calico flowers, but lush Art Deco-type florals). I was standing in the middle of my room, quite bewildered and blank, when Belinda came in, took one look at me, and asked me if I'd like to come down for coffee. Now I've only had coffee once in my life before, and it made me ridiculously hyper--but I thought hard to myself, 'If you say no now, there will be no going back,' so I said yes, and managed to drink the whole cup--it was hot and black, but so hot that I could hardly taste the bitterness, and it did absolutely nothing to me, as though I were so numb that nothing could touch me. Belinda introduced me to Rachel, the Warden, the young woman who's looking after the house. She also made me welcome. Meanwhile, Margaret bustled about taking care of housekeeping details, and there was a racket outside of workmen coming and going, installing a new TV antenna.

This post is getting way too long....

I ate lunch with Rachel and one of her friends, Daphne, after Rachel showed me around campus and took me up the Lisburn Road (which runs diagonal to Elmwood Avenue, the road on which I live) to Tesco. After lunch I made my way, by means of a crazy little map that Daphne and Rachel (who are quite funny when they're together) had sketched for me, down to the city centre, to Jury's Inn, where I was to meet the other study abroad students. I was the last to arrive--not late, but all the others had come in early and had had no other place to stay. Up in the room, I found someone asleep on the bed, my roommate, who turned out to be a girl from Connecticut. In the evening, the six of us, plus Fiona and James, our on-site coordinators (they're both Irish) took us out to supper. We walked to a fancy-shmancy Italian restaurant about fifteen minutes away from the Inn. Both the Inn and the restaurant were incredibly done up. The restaurant gave us three courses, and there was so much food...! But the meal was rather awkward because we were all tired. The meal seemed to go on forever.

After we got back to the Inn, the others went 'out', but I paid for an hour of internet and talked on Skype with my mother and the Spitlers, and read people's e-mails and sent replies to as many of you as I could, as fast as I could. Then I took a shower (wonderful to be clean again!) and went to bed. I slept quite well, but woke at six-thirty. Our room faced onto the Inn courtyard, where delivery trucks came and went, and there was a clatter as of people sorting silverware. We ate breakfast in the Inn and spent the whole morning being talked at by Fiona (who's quite bussiness-like but rather distant) and James (who's friendly and reminds me of a cross between Mr. Tumnus and Dr. G--imagine that, RCS! :o). Lots of useful information. We ate lunch in the Inn, the closest we got to having 'real' Irish food--salmon and chocolate cake. Lots of potatoes, though, cooked exactly the same way both in the Italian restaurant and in the Inn. After lunch, James took us into the main shopping district. We all bought cellphones (I felt quite funny--two of the other students were so concerned about the look of their phones, but I and a couple of the other girls bought the cheapest, clunkiest ones we could), and then walked to a store so that the other students could buy linens. After this we took taxis to our housing.

I spent the afternoon unpacking, writing in my journal, etc. I ate a small supper and then walked down to Queen's to meet up with the study abroad group to go to a play. I shall introduce Queen's to you all later (this post is too long!). Suffice it to say that the campus is beautiful, and that I already love Belfast simply for its architecture. We walked down to The Lyric theatre, on a little side street. As in Scotland, all the buildings are in rows. On the corners there are hairdressers and little odd restaurants (pizza places, Chinese, Thai, etc.) and small grocery stores; everything in between is houses, mostly student housing in this area. Glimpses, though, of other things: a green cemetery seen through an iron gate; a Norman church with patterned windows; a fleeting sight of a ridge of green hills in the distance at the end of a long curving down-sloping street of flats. The theatre turned out to be much larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. We saw an Irish adaptation of a play by Moliere. The costumes were sumptuous and the acting was brilliant, but the play itself was absolutely foul. A comedy, but I could hardly laugh at any of the jokes--very awkward, when everyone else is laughing, and one only feels like bursting out in cold anger at the disgusting hideousness of it all.

As we left the theatre, though, looking up at the sky, I saw my first and only star, through a crack in the clouds.

I slept very badly my first night in Renwick House last night. I couldn't sleep, and ended up reading The Moonstone by light of my little desk lamp until I finally felt drowsy. I could hear noises in the street below: cars passing, people laughing, a couple of Chinese guys talking. Also, noises in the houses on either side, bumps and creaks.

This morning I ate a banana for breakfast and then walked up Elmwood toward the Medical Biology Centre, which is on Lisburne at the upper end of Elmwood (the MBC at one end and the Queen's main building at the other--quite a contrast; the MBC a hideous Modern glass and concrete tower with all sorts of odd dingy corners; the Queen's main building a beautiful, regal, Gothic thing). On the way, I ran into the other five students from my program, all buying coffee at the Starbucks on the corner. We spent all morning in the international students' orientation. There must've been over three hundred students, from all countries: a big group from Sweden, people from Pakistan and India, lots of Americans, people from Holland, France, etc. In the States, I'm used to seeing Arab and Pakistani international students, even African students, but European internationals have always had a more exotic flair in my mind. So it was rather pleasantly odd to find myself in a group of internationals mostly made up of Europeans and Americans. At break time, we all stood outside in a little alleyway. I listened to everyone talk: Swedish, Italian, various unmentionable languages from obscure countries in the middle of Asia, American (the loudest, of course...!), Spanish, British English, etc. We ate lunch in the student union. When I say 'we', I mean the other Butler study abroad students, the six of us who've been going around together to all these required things. A fairly fun-loving group of people, though hardly the slightest hint of religion in any of them.

After lunch there was a brief break, and then I went to the English department, which turned out to occupy three row houses on the left side of the Queen's main building, across a side street. We had an English department orientation and then enrolled for classes. So far I'm enrolled in Creative Writing: Poetry, Discovernig the Earliest Writings in English, and Late Medieval Literature for the fall, with Art, History, and Culture of the Anglo-Saxons, the Bible in Medieval English Writing (or something like that), and the History of the English Language for the spring. The woman who helped me choose courses was a kind, soft-spoken person like a withered gnome, very eager to help, and patient with my dithering.

Between the English orientation and the actual one-on-one session in which I registered for classes, I had a blissful half-hour to wander campus and (what else?) take pictures. I don't particularly care that everyone will stare at me, though it does make me somewhat uncomfortable. The place is too beautiful. Doorways painted bright colors and arched with carved stone; windows paned with diagonal veins of glass; gargoyles; spires and carvings everywhere; beds of bright flowers on green lawns; and the green-going-gold trees hovering over it all. As I walked a damp front was blowing in, darker clouds coming over the lighter ones we'd had earlier today, and before the clouds came a wet wind, smelling like autumn and whirling the leaves in the streets.

After I registered, I went back to Renwick, where I finally saw Rachel again, and one of her friends. They wanted to hear all about what I'd been doing, and listened patiently (since I've hardly talked to anyone since I came here, it was a welcome relief--the other students in my group are people to be polite to; they wouldn't care much). They offered to take me up to the MBC for internet access, and on our way they spotted a group of their friends in the Starbucks, so we stopped in to meet them. I met a red-headed girl named Beulah and a fair-faced girl with bright blue eyes, also named Rachel, who thought she recognized me from the International Conference. Both Rachels know people in the states--TFYP students mostly. Eventually we moved on, and Rachel took me up here, through a maze of dark, bleak corridors, to this well-lit lab. I'm almost the only person in here now, and I need to get going: I'm supposed to meet up with the study abroad group for supper tonight at another fancy-shmancy restaurant. Ah, well.

So that's what I've been doing. Hope you all survived the post, sorry it was so long. Believe me, it could've been longer! I want to make you all see the incredible loveliness of the architecture here. It delights me. But I suppose you shall have to wait for pictures, which are almost as good, as the good hard words themselves would take up too much space in this whopping thing.

I miss all of you Stillwater and Tulsa people very much indeed. Laura and Rachel, your doll is on my shelf; Tulsa friends, your Bon Voyage sign is taped to my wall; Alisha and Tara, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are hanging over my desk, along with your beautiful imitation. *grin* I have pictures of many of you over my desk as well. My deep thanks to everyone who wrote in the Black Book. I'll try to write each of you an e-mail, if I can.

God bless.

first day

I'm here....

Ever noticed how hard it is to be cheerful when you're jetlagged and alone in a foreign country?

Now what am I thankful for?

I'm thankful that I and my luggage all arrived in the same place at the same time, with only minor damage.

I'm thankful for Belinda and Margaret, who came to pick me up at the airport, and for the fact that I wasn't so jetlagged that I couldn't hold a rational conversation with them.

I'm thankful for the red ivy growing on the grey stone building across the street from Renwick House.

I'm thankful for the slender, graceful stem of the waterglass I used at the Italian restaurant tonight.

I'm thankful for an internet connection (even though it must be paid for) so that I could talk to my mother and the Spitlers and e-mail those of you who aren't on Skype (hint hint :o).

I'm thankful for the fact that I'm (D.V.) about to take a shower and go to bed!

on my way

Now Playing: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 13, "Only the Beginning of the Adventure".

Yesterday I said good-bye to my family and my church. I felt very numb....



But this third picture is the view to which I was treated this morning as I flew out of Tulsa at seven o'clock. A smooth flight, and now I'm waiting in the Newark airport... and waiting... and waiting....

note

I downloaded Google Earth last night to my computer, just for fun. It's so amazingly wonderful! I can see our house, and the little cypress tree in the middle of San Born Lake, and Renwick House where I'll be living in Belfast, and the Penthouse and Lottie and the dorm where Philip is staying. But the best part are the pictures of the sky: stunningly gorgeous pictures of Orion and Cygnus, of Lyra and Vega, of the Horsehead Nebula and Cassiopeia. I love the hard cold beautiful star names with their hundreds of years of history built up behind them.

Today I went out for lunch with my grandmother to the Crepe Myrtle on The Strip. It was delicious, and fun to sit and chat with her. I also transferred money at the bank today and got a bunch of pounds in travelers' checks. It seems as though the list of things to do will never end....

cleared for take-off (almost)

Now Playing: The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, adaptation by Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. CD 2, Track 2, "The Tombs of the Ancient Kings".

What a week...!

Time to christen this new blog layout.

On Monday afternoon, Philip, Logan, Jon, Laura, and I went poking around in antique shops downtown. It was great fun. All sorts of curious old knick-knacks, old leather jackets, furniture, chandeliers, quilts, and, best of all, books.

I spent Monday and Tuesday nights in Tulsa at the Penthouse. It was a good visit, very restful. I met with A.C. Monday afternoon after I got to Tulsa, and then had a girls' night in Katie and Crystal's apartment with a flock of other RUF girls: Katie, Crystal, Rachel, Tara, Rachael, Kathryn, Amy, Jenny H., Nicole, Holly, and even Esther. We all dressed up and brought food to share. It was a bit awkward, perhaps, but I was thankful to get to see them all in one place and enjoy the quirky conversation for awhile.

After the meal, Tara and I went back to the Penthouse and watched some of Howl's Moving Castle, a fabulous (in all senses of the word) anime film.

Tuesday was dull and rainy. I spent the morning slogging about in the rain trying to get the business office to give me my scholarship money for room and board in Ireland. But I got to eat lunch with Nicole and David Mc., and Rachel, Nicole, and I spent a quiet, peaceful hour or so in Nicole's apartment, drinking hot tea and talking about sisters and angels and government. In the afternoon, as the sky cleared, Alisha and I went to the coffee shop and spent a couple of hours talking and eating a huge chocolate brownie. Alisha told me all about her trips to Peru and Washington D.C. this summer. I was encouraged and delighted to hear about her adventures. She, Tara, and I ate supper together in the Penthouse. We went to RUF at seven-thirty, and of course after RUF began the painful business of saying good-bye to everyone. Jenny H. and I went to the Knorrs' house at about ten o'clock to hang out with people: Crystal, Ange, Joanna, and Karl doing homework; a bunch of people watching the movie 300; Spencer, the Davids, and John fixing sandwiches and eating ice cream. I had a good talk with John about Revelation, which is the book he's preaching on this semester. It was nearly midnight before I left. I stood on the sidewalk outside with John, Ange, and Kali, and John prayed for us. A chilly gust came up from the southeast, stirring the pecan trees in the orange glow of the streetlight--I smelled autumn.

I said good-bye to Jenny S. in the greyness of Wednesday morning, ate breakfast with Rachel, and then went back to The Penthouse to share Tara's mango before saying good-bye to Tara and Alisha. I drove back to Stillwater singing Psalms to myself, desperately trying to keep the enormity of that series of good-byes at bay. I know that I am connected to these dear people through Christ's body no matter where I am, more closely and organically than my arms and legs are connected to my body, but it's still hard to be away.

Wednesday evening was a church picnic in Couch Park to introduce the fall Bible studies. Sarah whispered that she suspected it was just an excuse to have a get-together, which is pretty accurate. We ate, played ultimate frisbee, and then talked about the Bible studies. Priorities? :o)

I've spent all day today packing and cleaning my room thoroughly (except for washing the windows and the curtains... I haven't got quite enough energy for that). I have written a few e-mails and made some thank-you cards, but mostly I've been engaged in the miserable affair of squeezing as much stuff into two suitcases as possible. I wanted to put in more books, but of course was thwarted by the airline's weight limit. And the beautiful cardboard farewell sign that the girls gave me did fit, but it's rather squished and bent. I was absolutely determined to take it along. Hopefully it will straighten out some when I get there.

Add a couple more highlights to my summer:

Climbing all over the Oklahoma Botanical Gardens with Sarah several days ago, enjoying the fresh breeze and the end-of-summer butterflies flickering over the zinnias and marigolds.

Having Jenny S. visit last weekend, lying under the stars and talking with her, laughing at the rednecks at the Fair, climbing all the way up to the top of Gallagher-Iba, and going horseback riding at the picnic on Saturday.

Exploring the antique mall with friends.

Going to Tulsa and talking with people (particularly Rachel, Nicole, Alisha, and Tara), seeing everyone again, having a little while to myself to read and journal Tuesday morning.

And now I'm supposed to go fix supper....

summer highlights

Now Playing: Burlap to Cashmere, "Anyone Out There?" Track 2, "Eileen's Song".

This CD courtesy Beth Wagner. I'm not really sure what I think of it, though I think Tara might like it. It's an unusual combination of Christian lyrics with rock/world styles of instrumentation. The lead singer is Greek, if that gives you any idea of how it might sound. The first track is probably my favorite, with this as the last verse:

"There's a place where I come from
It's the place where I belong
Where you will never die
Wipe the tears off from your eye
Sun and moon and stars above
Never match this perfect love
Leave behind your broken past
Sing this song, we're free at last!"

But I didn't get on here to discuss song lyrics....

My thanks to those of you who commented on the last post and on the poem.

But that wasn't really the reason I got on here either....

Today is the first day of September. Ah, yes, that is the reason I got on here. School won't start for me until the end of this month (honestly I don't know how I'm going to wait that long!), but it seems to me as though the summer is already over. Here a cool front came through, so the morning is chilly, with the first autumn dew on the lawn, spiderwebs hanging from all the porch supports, and the clicking of crickets in the tall hedges of grass.

It was a good summer, better than I expected, in some ways.

Summer Conference was a good way to start the summer, spending that week studying God's Word in the mornings and enjoying His creation in the afternoons. Collecting shells with Amy, listening to Syneva and Amanda read The Moonstone, sharing the long car ride with Tara, Nicole, Mary, and others, and coming home to discover that somehow Jenny H.'s phone feet had hitched a ride.

At the end of May my family went down to Texas to visit the Nacogdoches Fearings, and that was good fun. Having Aunt Lisa and Grammy help me on Philip's quilt sure made the work go faster.

June now seems to me like the longest and slowest month of the summer, a rather lonely month, though of course at the end of the month Elizabeth, Sarah, and Danielle had our carwash, which was good fun. It seems in my memory as though I worked most nights in June and also as though it was constantly either raining or threatening to rain. Not that I necessarily mind rain, but there was one point when I started to feel claustrophobic because I hadn't seen blue sky in about two weeks. I have to say that my job turned out to be an unexpected blessing because it forced me to read without also forcing me to feel guilty about reading. I think that God taught me a lot through my reading, though it will take awhile for the lessons to sink in. The books on holiness by Ryle and Bridges were especially good, and I was reminded, reading Hopkins, of the sheer delight and beauty of language.

I did make a couple of visits to Tulsa, one in June and one in July. It was good to see Jenny S., Tara, Amanda, and Syneva again, but it was strange at the same time....

The first week of July was wonderful--more specifically, the first Tuesday of July was wonderful. A gift from God, because Sarah and I set up housekeeping at the Spitlers' house and then invited Elizabeth and Danielle over for a "silly formal". We had more fun together than we've ever had, took some crazy pictures, ate pizza off china plates, watched The Princess Diaries, and stayed up late talking.

That next week was VBS in Stillwater, and it was fun because the Fearings came and stayed with us. Aunt Lisa, Grammy, and I ate lunch on Thursday in Tulsa with Tara--very pleasant to come into the coffee shop through the drizzling rain outside.

Covenant Heights at the end of July was a blessing also. I made three new friends, one of whom is going to be my roommate (D.V.) in Ireland. We drove up a mountain twice, saw lots of elk, a pika, and some marmots. The scenery in the mountains was rather overwhelming. I enjoyed it, but I think that I was so surrounded and overborne by the weight of it all that it wasn't really stunning or uplifting to me.

Then came August and the flurry of good-byes. Going to the coffeeshop with Danielle, Philip, Logan, Jon, and Jonathan, and being awkward with Danielle's friends. Eating at Panera and talking for two or three hours with Elizabeth. Seeing Syneva and laughing with her about silly old jokes. Attempting to see Macbethwith Philip, Logan, and the Wagners, but getting rained out. Laughing at the SRPC talent show because all four Wagner girls were sitting behind me and laughing in chorus, which somehow made things funnier. Having lunch with Logan on the OSU lawn and discussing John Owen. Going back to Tulsa last week and getting to see people again. Waking up early on Friday to go out to Mom's with my mother for breakfast to celebrate Mrs. Parnell's birthday with the rest of the Dawn Treaders.

And, finally, last night, the church picnic out at a ranch, horseback riding, watching Emily and Jenny S. talk about gross things, watching Sarah coo over Renee, watching Jessie and Dinah ride horseback together. Then afterward driving all the way out to Perkins with Jenny S. (all the windows open to the cool night air, the music blaring, hot drinks in our hands), turning into someone's field, and lying on a blanket and looking at the stars--the Big Dipper, the Milky Way, Cygnus, a huge yellow moon, and a couple of meteors for good measure.

So, yes, a good summer. I struggle with letting it go, with letting these dear people go, though. I know that in the place where I am going there will be no one like this, no one in whose life I feel I can put my hands. But God is good and leads on from "strength to strength". It may be that the next stage will be less enjoyable to me but more honoring and pleasing to Him.

armor

Now Playing: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 9, "To Aslan's Camp". I love this track. It makes me feel strong....

I went up to Tulsa for a meeting and to see people on Tuesday. I was thankful to get to see Rachel and eat supper with her, and to be able to go to RUF. I'd forgotten how good John's sermons are: he thinks differently and reads texts in a way that seems much more alive and powerful.

Last night as I was doing my devotions I ran across the Aaronic blessing in Numbers:

"The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."

I hear these words all the time, and they just seem to run off the tongue. But what do they mean? Hebrew poetry typically has a lot of repetition, and this verse is no different. In the Word of God, however, nothing is superfluous.

So we pray first for God to bless us. When I think of blessing, I think of the material and spiritual gifts that God gives, from the fruits of the Spirit to good weather to the true preaching of His Word to three square meals a day and fellowship with friends. But we don't just pray for these good and pleasant things, which God gives us to enjoy richly. We pray for God to "keep" us. Why? I suppose because blessings are often ephemeral, from our perspective, and tend to slip through our fingers as soon as they've been given. At least that's often the way it seems to me. For instance, when I was driving back to Stillwater from Tulsa, I had an awful moment as I put the pieces of the evening together and realized that the university community I had known wasn't the same. Syneva and Amanda, my "ceiling", as it were, holding everything down, are gone. The RUF community is scattered among the apartments, so there's no longer a central meeting place where everyone congregates. These aren't necessarily bad things, but the blessings I remember from last year, particularly last winter and spring, are gone--the closeness of the community in which I knew all the parts, and all were familiar to me. That was God's blessing, at that time, but He moves us from one blessing to the next. So I think that when we pray, after asking God to bless us, for Him to keep us, it means that we are asking Him to watch over our souls no matter what physical or spiritual situation He has put us in, whether it be loneliness or a time of spiritual drought or full joyful fellowship with Himself and His church. We want God to protect our souls, perhaps especially in times of blessing, so that we will continue to rely on Him and not mistake the gift for the Giver.

Next we ask God to make His face shine on us. This at first sounds very pleasant, but as I was thinking about it, I began to wonder whether the "warm fuzzy feeling" of this could actually be misleading. When the sun shines on a particular plant that Brioni gave me, it nurtures that plant--but only if the plant is in the shade so that the sunshine comes to it filtered, indirectly. As soon as the plant gets out into the full blaze of an August afternoon, it withers. When we ask God to shine on us, we must remember that He is powerful and holy. When His holiness shines down on us, we see our sins, and the danger for us is that we will become discouraged, wither, and die. It is good for us to understand His holiness, and not to underestimate our worthlessness (we are proud creatures and need to be put in our proper place!), but for Christians this realization may be overwhelming. That's why the next petition, for God to be gracious, is so important--we desire God's holiness and to be conformed to it, but unless God filters His holiness (and the accompanying realization of sin in us) through His grace, we will be destroyed. We have to remember Christ's love and God's grace in Christ even as we see God's holiness and understand our sinfulness.

So the final petition, for God to lift up His countenance, sort of sums up these past two. When I'm biking to work down the sidewalk, I usually have my head down to watch where I'm going. But if I should happen to see Logan, for example, if he were biking to class at the same moment, I'd lift up my face to wave hello to him. Perhaps we ask God to lift up His countenance upon us in the same fashion: we desire God to recognize us, to walk with us as a "man walks with his friend", to have the same fellowship with us as He had with Adam and Eve in the Garden before the Fall. Instead of turning His face from us in wrath or holding His head down in shame, we desire Him to lift up His face on us in love and favor. It is only in light of God's favor that we can have peace--but because of God's favor, we should have peace. I struggle painfully with having peace much of the time, but I need to remember that in Christ I am God's "friend", just as Sarah or Tara or Alisha or Elizabeth are my friends, though with God, of course, the relationship runs much more deeply. We should have peace that as God looks on us in friendship and fellowship, He is for us, to help us and to give us those blessings that we need at the beginning of the prayer.

Come to think of it, I've also been reading in 1 Samuel lately, and a phrase from Psalm 36 has been running through my mind, "It is God who arms me with strength." What does it mean for God to arm me with strength?

Well, first it brings to my mind a legend that I recently wrote down, a story that I've come to love very much. In this story, the queen arms the king before he goes out to do battle with a great sea-serpent. She doesn't put his armor on him two weeks before he goes out to battle but right before he goes. So this reminds me that God supplies what I need when I need it. I may start to panic, wondering why He hasn't given me peace or courage or scholarship money, etc., but He knows what I need and will give it to me when I need it--and not before.

More importantly for this Psalm, though, is the life of David, since he presumably was the human author of the Psalm. In 1 Samuel, before David goes out to fight Goliath, Saul gives David his armor to try on. When David puts on Saul's armor, he finds that it doesn't work right. Perhaps David wasn't as enormous as Saul (I tend to think of Saul as the strapping dweeb in the Disney Beauty and the Beast--Gascon, right?, and David as being more the size of a Prince Charming kind of character), or maybe he just wasn't used to the fit of it, but for whatever reason, it didn't work. Perhaps David thought of that when he wrote this Psalm. When God arms us, we don't need to worry about the armor not fitting properly. God made us, so He certainly knows how strong we are--and He knows how much weight we're able to bear; He won't give us armor that's too small or too big or too heavy or too light.

And in David's fight with Goliath, God did arm him with strength. God gave David the skill and strength, the amazing accuracy, to knock that Philistine down with a pebble. (I told this story to Christa Sabbath evening, and she was delighted. :o) God gave David exactly what he needed to do the job for His glory.

One more thought about this. I've been reading Matthew Henry's commentary alongside 1 Samuel, and his comments on the passage where Jonathan gives David his armor seemed very curious to me. When Jonathan gives David his armor and royal garments, they fit David, unlike Saul's armor. Henry compared Jonathan to Christ. Christ gives us His royal garments, His armor--and they fit. Not only is our armor God's strength, but it is perfect because it comes from Christ, and it is eternal, because He is eternal. Christ is the eternal and unfailing source of strength. In a sense we are constantly walking around clothed in a strong eternity: it is on us, as it was on Christ, because He has given it to us to protect us from our enemies and equip us for the work ahead. Christ was "full of grace and truth", and so are we, if we are in Him.

Another poem is up on Through A Glass Darkly.

gardening

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 3, "The Riders of Rohan". (I haven't seen this movie in so long! Even though it's not my favorite, I'd love to watch it again sometime, especially if it was on a screen bigger than my little laptop or our TV.)

Two things: First of all, there are poems up on Through A Glass Darkly, which it appears that no one has read yet. That's fine by me, but some of you do like to know when these things are floating around.... Secondly, there are pictures up on photobucket. Username Elfellyn, password flook07, go to the album OBG.

Thankfully, no good-byes to this friend...yet!

more good-byes!

Now Playing: Soundtrack from the computer game "Myst 4" on the computer in the school room where Stephen is doing his school work.


Elizabeth and Missy left yesterday from church, promptly after lunch. Of course, not quite promptly, because the whole congregation had to say good-bye to them! Missy is going back to Geneva for her sophomore year, and Elizabeth is starting at Geneva as a freshman.


Missy and I at the Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City, where Philip, Logan, and I met the Wagners to watch a Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of Macbeth on Friday night. Unfortunately, we were rained out....











Philip and I at the Botanical Gardens. I said good-bye to him last night before he went to Tulsa to start his freshman year there as a mechanical engineer.

2nd Annual SRPC Talent Night

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

August 16, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And there are pictures up on photobucket!

Elfellyn
flook07

good-byes

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















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







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

one more project on the shelf

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

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


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

I love these little ones!

sitting and thinking (and reading)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the way Saturdays should be...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

majesty

Now Playing: Nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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