We were on a glorious walk in the Mercer Slough with a homeschooling group earlier this month. It was one of the rare days this year that the Puget Sound has actually dared to dress in the garment of spring. We saw ducks galore, dragonflies, hawks, butterflies and the crown-jewel of the nature walk -- a great blue heron. And Sadie found a friend. Katie was an adorable four-year-old, game for playing and exploring, but not prone to talking too much. In other words, a perfect foil for my loquacious daughter. Her mom and I followed behind, enjoying their camaraderie and making chit-chat.
All was going well. Then, out of the blue, my daughter queried in a booming voice, "So, what's the deal? Are you people Christians, or what?"
My heart fell a few stories and lodged itself in my knees, which promptly went squishy. Not only had Sadie asked the million dollar forbidden question in the most brazen and indelicate manner possible, but that question was met by uncomfortable silence all around. Oh dear. What do I say?
Sadie, who is never easily put off, spoke up again. "We're Christians. We know that Jesus is the Lord. How about you? Do you know that Jesus is Lord?"
AAAAAARRRRGH!
I recovered my voice at last. "Sadie! That's not the right conversation to have right now. Why don't you and Katie see how far you can climb in that tree?" Luckily, the heaven-sent tree distracted Sister Sadie Semple McPherson from her revival meeting and the two girls scampered off.
Left alone with Katie's mom, I had two options: engage in a conversation about what just happened or pretend it never existed. Bold confessor of Christ that I am, I chose the latter. And I felt as wretched about that as I had felt embarrassed by Sadie's evangelism. What comes so easily -- if rather crudely -- for her is the most difficult subject in the world for me.
This was not the first time that Sadie's pointed questions and exuberant proclamations have brought the red to my cheek and the stammer to my voice. The last time she and I were in St. Louis visiting my parents, my father took us out to dinner. When Sadie and I said our quiet, unobtrusive grace over the food, it triggered a memory for my little exhorter. She looked across the table at her heathen ancestor and said, "Grandpa, why don't you and Nana believe that Jesus is the Lord -- that He died on a cross to save us from our sins?"
I wanted to crawl under the table.
My dad just laughed like the unrepentant pagan he is and said something to the effect that he was an old sinner and we should be glad that Nana (who is especially against Christianity) wasn't at dinner with us. I said, "Sadie! Don't bring up stuff like that over dinner!" Sadie piped down and ate some french fries, and the atmosphere of discomfort eventually dispelled. And yet, I felt wretched more from my own shortcomings than from Sadie's tactless inquiry.
She hears at church and at home that the most important, wonderful, joyous thing in the world is to know and love Jesus. And I believe it with all my heart. There is no greater gift than our reconciliation with the Holy King of Israel through the sacrifice of the Son's sinless blood. There is no greater hope than the hope we have in His resurrection and His promises. How strange it must seem to Sadie, then, that whenever she tries to express and share that good news, I immediately hush her up!
I fail miserably at the Great Commission every day. There are two reasons that I can think of -- and probably a few more that I don't want to admit. The first reason is that, as a former atheist (never a devout atheist, but more a resigned one), I can sort of imagine how annoying it must be to be bludgeoned with the Gospel when you're not at a place to hear it. Of course, this is where evangelistic tact comes in; planting the little seeds, adding a little fertilizer, pulling some weeds out are all steps that can be done by different believers working faithfully to bring in the Harvest -- then, when the time is right and the heart and mind are ready, it is the next worker who sees the reaping. I'm just mightily afraid that I'll be the one to add too much fertilizer. This is nonsense, of course. What an exaggerated sense of my own importance I must have to feel this way! As if the transformation of a soul could ever be sidelined by my clumsy overtures! When the Lord is working a miracle -- as the turning of any sinful heart inevitably is -- He is not about to let me mess it up. So, my first reason is obviously a paper tiger, and I need to get over myself.
The second reason may have a little more validity, but not much. Ever since I came to know the Truth, it has been such a holy, beautiful, living reality, that I have trouble talking about it. It is so real that it hurts me. Touching the perfection of the Creator does seem to cause pain in a way, doesn't it? Like when you see something in Nature that recalls the Garden, or a sweet, new baby that reminds us of the days before the Fall, or an act of human love that mirrors the Father's -- they all hurt. But it is a good pain, because it presses into our consciousness the fact that there is more in store than the ugliness, futility, and frivolity of the world -- that reconciliation has happened and its fruits are going to be even more palpable in eternity.
Since it hurts, I am afraid to talk about it -- especially to talk about it with someone who may ridicule and spurn the beauty. And yet, the very fact that it has transfigured my life so thoroughly that I cannot speak of it but tears and snot flow copiously could be the thing that makes a cynic stop and pay attention. Everyone created in His image wants to see His love working in a real way with real people; too often, all they see is a pre-packaged, nicely wrapped box of bland, happy religiosity. They really ought to come to my church -- where the "mess and mystery" is lived out daily and, if our pastor does not get choked up in the pulpit, it is a rare sermon, indeed. But, since I cannot bring everyone whom I encounter to my church, they need -- desperately -- to see it in me. Goodness, how I hate the idea of being that vulnerable! But, my Lord was vulnerable even to the point of death.
If Sadie can cultivate her enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel without learning to kowtow to the world's wisdom that makes topics like that verboten, she will be a strong witness for the Lord. After each of the two incidents I mentioned, I made an effort to instill upon Sadie a sense of propriety and timing, but she just looked at me with those big, deep eyes that seem so often to see things beyond the ken of a child of five and said, "But, Mom, people need to know that Jesus is Lord. They need to know it." And how can I argue with that? Maybe, in these late days, a few ruffled feathers, trod upon toes, and uncomfortable silences are a small price to pay for sharing with people the information that they are dying without: Jesus is Lord.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
"It Is A Monstrous Thing . . ."
Sometimes I lament that I do not have a popular blog; that is, I rarely do, except when I have something on hand about which I would love to spark a wild and free-ranging conversation. So, I'm going to go ahead and write about what I wish, and maybe someone or somefew who come along will be inspired to join in. (Somehow I have managed to include far too many "some--" words into one wee paragraph.)
I have been desperately trying to write a summer book recommendation of G.K. Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross, and I am already woefully late. I’ve missed the deadline, but never fear. Now it has turned into more of a quest to expand my understanding and appreciation of this great and puzzling novel, rather than a goal merely to get it published. I am exceedingly discomfited and ever-more mesmerized by this strange tale the more I delve into it.
This is the premise, for those who have never read the book: James Turnbull is a rationalist and atheist who runs a newspaper, properly -- yet unimaginatively -- titled, The Atheist, across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral. Here is no passive blasphemer: Mr. Turnbull is on a mission -- not from God, but against Him and all the irrationality and superstition he associates with belief in the Deity. The only trouble is, he has provoked absolutely no notice from the nominally Christian world of Edwardian London. Day after day he says "the worst thing that could be said; and it seemed accepted and ignored like the ordinary second best of the politicians."
One day, James Turnbull's world opens up; "at last a man came by who treated [his] secularist shop with a real respect and seriousness. He was a young man in grey plaid, and he smashed the window." Evan MacIan has journeyed down from the highlands of Scotland and found a world as alien to him as a distant planet. His sheltered, fervently Catholic upbringing has left him permanently out of step with the values of London, which he only realizes when he reads an article posted by Mr. Turnbull. Upon reading the assertions that the Virgin Birth is merely a Syriac expression of more ancient Mesopotamian myth, MacIan rises up with all the valor and outrage that a man of honor feels upon witnessing desecration. Once he has smashed Turnbull’s window, he challenges the editor to a duel. James Turnbull is delighted.
British law is not so well-pleased. The two are hauled before a judge who tsk-tsks MacIan’s sudden violence and fines him ten pounds. To the magistrate, this display of passion is in outrageous bad taste. Don’t you know, he chides MacIan, “the most religious people are not those who talk about it,” and certainly not those who will fight for it. Turnbull watches the proceedings and approaches MacIan after the hearing. “Well, sir,” said the editor of The Atheist, “Where is the fight to be? Name the field, sir.” And they are on.
The rest of the novel chronicles the attempts of MacIan and Turnbull to fight their duel with honor, while the entire brigade of British police and persons of various philosophical bents thwart them. The conflict in the story comes, therefore, not so much from the argument between the atheist and the Catholic, but more from a determinedly indifferent world “that has grown too cold to tolerate men who not only believe in something, but believe in it enough to fight for it,” as Sean P. Dailey wrote in the excellent introduction to the Barnes & Noble edition.
All this is a lead up to the passage that has been haunting me and that I want to open up for discussion. Early in their adventures, the runaway duelists encounter a man whom Chesterton calls “The Peacemaker.” This expansive personage tries to convince the heroes not to fight. He quotes Tolstoy: “Tolstoy has shown that violence merely breeds violence in the person towards whom it is used, whereas Love on the other hand, breeds Love. So, you see how I am placed. I am reduced to use Love in order to stop you. I am obliged to use love.” MacIan and Turnbull are not moved by this entreaty and prepare to engage. But The Peacemaker is not done. “I must and will stop this shocking crime,” he cries, crimson in the face. “It is against all modern ideas. It is against the principle of love. How do you, sir,” addressing MacIan, “who pretend to be Christian . . .”
MacIan’s interruption is the money quote:
MacIan turned upon him with a white face and bitter lip. “Sir,” he said, “talk about the principle of love as much as you like. You seem to me colder than a lump of stone; but I am willing to believe that you may at sometime have loved a cat, or a dog, or a child. When you were a baby, I suppose you loved your mother. Talk about love, then, until the world is sick of the word. But don’t you talk about Christianity. Don’t you dare say one word, white or black, about it. Christianity is, as far as you are concerned, a horrible mystery. Keep clear of it, keep silent upon it, as you would upon an abomination. It is a thing that has made men slay and torture each other; and you will never know why. It is a thing that has made men do evil that good might come; and you will never understand the evil, let alone the good. Christianity is a thing that could only make you vomit, till you are other than you are. I would not justify it to you, even if I could. Hate it, in God’s name, as Turnbull does, who is a man. It is a monstrous thing, for which men die. And if you will stand here and talk about love for another ten minutes it is very probable that you will see a man die for it.”
When I read this, my heart lunged in my chest. Chesterton pulled the shredded remains of the veil back in a different way for me. Leave it to Gilbert Keith to present a new facet of paradox in Christian faith; flinging it out with jolly little concern for this believer’s good night’s rest. Because I think, despite the general white-washing of many generations – a striving to push Christianity into a neat and tidy box of love and good deeds – every believer knows deep within that there is something horribly mysterious about the God who put on flesh to dwell with us, ultimately allowing His flesh to be pierced and His blood poured to make us holy. To have that God come so close to us that His spirit permeates our beings until we are not as we were, is as uncomfortable as it is comforting. To have our God go to such lengths for our holiness pushes upon us an obligation really to be holy. And the call to holiness is a monstrous thing, because it is uncompromising.
I have been desperately trying to write a summer book recommendation of G.K. Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross, and I am already woefully late. I’ve missed the deadline, but never fear. Now it has turned into more of a quest to expand my understanding and appreciation of this great and puzzling novel, rather than a goal merely to get it published. I am exceedingly discomfited and ever-more mesmerized by this strange tale the more I delve into it.
This is the premise, for those who have never read the book: James Turnbull is a rationalist and atheist who runs a newspaper, properly -- yet unimaginatively -- titled, The Atheist, across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral. Here is no passive blasphemer: Mr. Turnbull is on a mission -- not from God, but against Him and all the irrationality and superstition he associates with belief in the Deity. The only trouble is, he has provoked absolutely no notice from the nominally Christian world of Edwardian London. Day after day he says "the worst thing that could be said; and it seemed accepted and ignored like the ordinary second best of the politicians."
One day, James Turnbull's world opens up; "at last a man came by who treated [his] secularist shop with a real respect and seriousness. He was a young man in grey plaid, and he smashed the window." Evan MacIan has journeyed down from the highlands of Scotland and found a world as alien to him as a distant planet. His sheltered, fervently Catholic upbringing has left him permanently out of step with the values of London, which he only realizes when he reads an article posted by Mr. Turnbull. Upon reading the assertions that the Virgin Birth is merely a Syriac expression of more ancient Mesopotamian myth, MacIan rises up with all the valor and outrage that a man of honor feels upon witnessing desecration. Once he has smashed Turnbull’s window, he challenges the editor to a duel. James Turnbull is delighted.
British law is not so well-pleased. The two are hauled before a judge who tsk-tsks MacIan’s sudden violence and fines him ten pounds. To the magistrate, this display of passion is in outrageous bad taste. Don’t you know, he chides MacIan, “the most religious people are not those who talk about it,” and certainly not those who will fight for it. Turnbull watches the proceedings and approaches MacIan after the hearing. “Well, sir,” said the editor of The Atheist, “Where is the fight to be? Name the field, sir.” And they are on.
The rest of the novel chronicles the attempts of MacIan and Turnbull to fight their duel with honor, while the entire brigade of British police and persons of various philosophical bents thwart them. The conflict in the story comes, therefore, not so much from the argument between the atheist and the Catholic, but more from a determinedly indifferent world “that has grown too cold to tolerate men who not only believe in something, but believe in it enough to fight for it,” as Sean P. Dailey wrote in the excellent introduction to the Barnes & Noble edition.
All this is a lead up to the passage that has been haunting me and that I want to open up for discussion. Early in their adventures, the runaway duelists encounter a man whom Chesterton calls “The Peacemaker.” This expansive personage tries to convince the heroes not to fight. He quotes Tolstoy: “Tolstoy has shown that violence merely breeds violence in the person towards whom it is used, whereas Love on the other hand, breeds Love. So, you see how I am placed. I am reduced to use Love in order to stop you. I am obliged to use love.” MacIan and Turnbull are not moved by this entreaty and prepare to engage. But The Peacemaker is not done. “I must and will stop this shocking crime,” he cries, crimson in the face. “It is against all modern ideas. It is against the principle of love. How do you, sir,” addressing MacIan, “who pretend to be Christian . . .”
MacIan’s interruption is the money quote:
MacIan turned upon him with a white face and bitter lip. “Sir,” he said, “talk about the principle of love as much as you like. You seem to me colder than a lump of stone; but I am willing to believe that you may at sometime have loved a cat, or a dog, or a child. When you were a baby, I suppose you loved your mother. Talk about love, then, until the world is sick of the word. But don’t you talk about Christianity. Don’t you dare say one word, white or black, about it. Christianity is, as far as you are concerned, a horrible mystery. Keep clear of it, keep silent upon it, as you would upon an abomination. It is a thing that has made men slay and torture each other; and you will never know why. It is a thing that has made men do evil that good might come; and you will never understand the evil, let alone the good. Christianity is a thing that could only make you vomit, till you are other than you are. I would not justify it to you, even if I could. Hate it, in God’s name, as Turnbull does, who is a man. It is a monstrous thing, for which men die. And if you will stand here and talk about love for another ten minutes it is very probable that you will see a man die for it.”
When I read this, my heart lunged in my chest. Chesterton pulled the shredded remains of the veil back in a different way for me. Leave it to Gilbert Keith to present a new facet of paradox in Christian faith; flinging it out with jolly little concern for this believer’s good night’s rest. Because I think, despite the general white-washing of many generations – a striving to push Christianity into a neat and tidy box of love and good deeds – every believer knows deep within that there is something horribly mysterious about the God who put on flesh to dwell with us, ultimately allowing His flesh to be pierced and His blood poured to make us holy. To have that God come so close to us that His spirit permeates our beings until we are not as we were, is as uncomfortable as it is comforting. To have our God go to such lengths for our holiness pushes upon us an obligation really to be holy. And the call to holiness is a monstrous thing, because it is uncompromising.
It seems that the big problem is defining Christian love. What does love mean, in the sense that Jesus wants us to live? Is it a cushy, feel-good triteness where nothing is demanded except tolerance and pacifism? (Another Chesterton quote comes to mind: Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.) When the world complains about the Church, it complains that we do not live the kind of love that the world expects – a love that The Peacemaker espouses. When the Church complains about itself, it is often the opposite – we regret and bemoan the softness and compromise that has crept into many fellowships. I cannot help but think that holiness is the polar opposite of tolerance. But, does that make it the opposite of love? Or is tolerance the real opposite of love – e.g. a tolerance of a man’s inability to swim while watching him drown?
So, I do not know quite what to make of this passage. Does anyone else have any input?
Friday, April 11, 2008
And This Be Our Motto: "In God Is Our Trust."
I was weeping over a songbook. Shoulders shaking, tears dripping, snot flowing -- a big, indulgent cry-fest, all over a songbook. And, I still cannot decide whether the tears were more of joy or heartache; more of hope or despair. I had been reading the lyrics to patriotic songs, and I did not know whether to be more uplifted by these beautiful songs about my beloved country, or more depressed that some of these inspiring lyrics will so rarely be taught to the future generations. So, I wept.
It all started with "The Star-Spangled Banner." How many know the final verse?
Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'try and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Can you imagine the uproar if this verse were sung in public? How about at the next baseball game? No child in any public school will ever be taught this verse. Heck, I doubt that even the first verse is taught anymore.
When I was a girl, I remember some people saying that our national anthem should be replaced by "America the Beautiful," which is a song more in the vocal range of your average American singer. Of course, it never could be our national anthem nowadays, because the entire song is a prayer.
We all know the first verse:
Oh beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain.
America, America,
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.
But, how many know verses two, three, and four?
Oh beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress,
A thoroughfare for freedom beat,
Across the wilderness.
America, America
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life.
America, America
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.
Oh beautiful for patriot dream,
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears.
America, America
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
The kicker for me, though, was when I turned to "My Country 'Tis of Thee," which has always been my favorite patriotic song. This last verse reduces me to tears, even thinking about it. The songwriter, Samuel Francis Smith, having expressed the glories of this great land in three verses, turns his praise to the One from whom all these great blessings flowed:
Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
Reading these stirring words, and then reflecting on how few Americans would still proclaim these values is an exercise in conflicting emotions. I'm so proud and glad and filled with awe by what my country has been, what it was founded to be, and what it struggled -- with both ideas and blood -- to become. I am terrified by where it is going.
How much longer will our land be bright with freedom's holy light? How much longer will God sustain this rebellious nation?
It all started with "The Star-Spangled Banner." How many know the final verse?
Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'try and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Can you imagine the uproar if this verse were sung in public? How about at the next baseball game? No child in any public school will ever be taught this verse. Heck, I doubt that even the first verse is taught anymore.
When I was a girl, I remember some people saying that our national anthem should be replaced by "America the Beautiful," which is a song more in the vocal range of your average American singer. Of course, it never could be our national anthem nowadays, because the entire song is a prayer.
We all know the first verse:
Oh beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain.
America, America,
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.
But, how many know verses two, three, and four?
Oh beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress,
A thoroughfare for freedom beat,
Across the wilderness.
America, America
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life.
America, America
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.
Oh beautiful for patriot dream,
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears.
America, America
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
The kicker for me, though, was when I turned to "My Country 'Tis of Thee," which has always been my favorite patriotic song. This last verse reduces me to tears, even thinking about it. The songwriter, Samuel Francis Smith, having expressed the glories of this great land in three verses, turns his praise to the One from whom all these great blessings flowed:
Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
Reading these stirring words, and then reflecting on how few Americans would still proclaim these values is an exercise in conflicting emotions. I'm so proud and glad and filled with awe by what my country has been, what it was founded to be, and what it struggled -- with both ideas and blood -- to become. I am terrified by where it is going.
How much longer will our land be bright with freedom's holy light? How much longer will God sustain this rebellious nation?
Monday, January 07, 2008
"Um, Michelle Tumes . . ."
Well, 2007 would have been a worthwhile year for the concert experiences alone. I got to see Michelle Tumes in concert twice, which is remarkable, considering how little she tours. The first time was in, I think, August. She played at a church up north from here. Sadie and I did the girls' night thing, and it was a special time. Sadie, surprisingly, really likes Michelle Tumes's music -- I say surprisingly only because it is so complex, and the lyrics are a bit abstract. After that concert, while I was waiting in line to get some CDs signed, Sadie had discovered a little playmate and was busy imagining with her, so she missed meeting Michelle. When I met Ms. Tumes, I said something goofy (like I always seem to when meeting an artist I greatly admire)."I wish my daughter would come over here to meet you," I clumsily spluttered, "You're her favorite Australian, after Dorothy the Dinosaur."
"Oh, the cartoon," Michelle laughed.
I mentioned how much I loved her music. Michelle then sprang on me this question:
"May I ask what you love about it?" She was in earnest.
"I guess," I mentally flailed about, "That it is because of the beautiful poetry of your lyrics."
"But do they really speak to you meaningfully? I don't want them to be merely pretty words."
"Oh goodness, yes! They really move me. They really mean so much to me." I was grasping at banal phrases and desperately trying to collect my thoughts enough to be coherent. I wished I'd been prepped for this examination. Mercifully, Michelle let me off the hook at this point with a sincere, "Thank you!"
I collected my daughter, and we began the drive home. I told Sadie about my conversation with Michelle and how she said that Dorothy the Dinosaur was a cartoon. That infuriated Sadie.
"Dorothy is not a cartoon! She is a real dinosaur who lives in Australia!"I replied, "OK. You make sure to let Michelle Tumes know that next time you see her."
I did not expect that we'd be seeing her again any time soon.
Lo and behold, though, a church in Salem, OR booked Michelle Tumes for a Christmas concert on December 15. I couldn't let the chance to see one of my favorite musical artists pass by, so we packed the whole family into the CR-V and headed south.
I want to say a little here about Michelle Tumes's Christmas EP, Christmas is Here, she released last month. There are only five songs, though a full-length album is in the works for 2008. These five songs are magnificent. I have not been so gratified by Christmas music since Carolyn Arends graced the world and made the season merrier by releasing Christmas: An Irrational Season in 2004. These songs are uniformly exquisite, though I think that my favorite (were I forced to choose) would be the imaginative combination of "Ode to Joy/Angels We Have Heard on High." Though, as I type that, I'm thinking how much I also love "Christmas is Here/Carol of the Bells." And who would have thought that an Australian could have penned such a wintry homage to the northern hemisphere's Christmas traditions as "Merry Christmas"? In any event, should we judge by these temptations, the full-length album will be a treasure, indeed.
If I thought that Sadie would have forgotten the slight to Dorothy in the intervening months, I was sorely mistaken. After a glorious concert, Michelle was again out in the foyer, signing CDs and chatting with her fans. (How musical artists can do this after expending so much of themselves on stage is a measure of grace beyond my comprehension. I guess that is why so many of them, once they reach a certain level of fame, no longer make appearances before the hoi polloi.) Again, I had CDs to get signed, so I waited in line. Sadie had no playmate this time, so she waited with me. When my turn came, I thanked Michelle Tumes and asked her to sign my CDs, and Sadie saw her opportunity to school Michelle about the identity of certain dancing green dinosaurs with yellow spots.
A little pipping voice suddenly said, "Um, Michelle Tumes! Michelle Tumes!"
Michelle looked down into my daughter's stern little face. "Yes?"
"I want you to know that Dorothy the Dinosaur is not a cartoon. She is a real person, just like you!"
The hall was noisy and crowded. Michelle looked at me perplexedly. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear her."
I did not want to go into the whole story, partially out of respect for those waiting behind me in line, and partially not to burden Ms. Tumes, so I condensed Sadie's sentiments into, "Oh, she's just sharing how much she likes Dorothy the Dinosaur from The Wiggles."
Michelle laughed. "Oh, the cartoon!"
A strangled moan of frustration came from Sadie's throat. I bent down and whispered savagely in her ear, "Just let it go, Sadie."
Surprisingly, she did. She gave Michelle Tumes a big hug. Carolyn Arends is used to getting pounced on by Sadie (and maybe by other children of her fans), but Michelle Tumes was caught off guard. "Your daughter's very friendly," she observed bemusedly.
"Yes," I sighed in acknowledgement.
"Did you raise her to be that way? Or has she always been like that?"
"Oh, she's always been this way . . ." My voice trailed off. It's been a struggle to teach Sadie propriety and personal space issues, and I'm a little embarrassed by her easy way with strangers.
"I think it's wonderful," Michelle said.
And, maybe it is. For a fundamentally shy person like myself, it certainly is a wonder how I could have produced such an open-hearted child. But, I once heard a quote that the opposite of love is self-consciousness. So, Sadie is really living a special kind of love, because she is the least self-conscious person I know.
Anyway, the two concerts were incredibly special times. I hope that Michelle Tumes finds more and more opportunities to tour, because her music is a rare blessing. If she ever comes within a few hours of where you live, dear reader, please seek her out. You will not be disappointed. Just don't bring up Dorothy the Dinosaur. Trust me on that.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Rooting for the American Peso
I just got a new laptop computer (Sony Vaio) that runs Microsoft Vista. (I looked at Mac, but Mac is just too flipping weird.) Anyway, the features of Vista that I'm really digging most are the desktop gadgets you can put up. Currently, I have a clock (the flower clock, because it is way girly-girl), weather reports for Renton, WA, St. Louis, MO, Sioux Falls, SD, and Dublin, IRE, and the currency converter, which continually updates me on the worth of the U.S. dollar to the Canadian dollar.
I hear tell that our friends to the North have begun referring to our currency as the American peso. Oooh, that hurts! I remember back in 2002, when Jason and I went up to Victoria, BC for a weekend getaway, one U.S. dollar bought around 1.30 Canadian dollars. We lived like king and queen that weekend, ordering room service in our swanky hotel. Those days are sadly -- hopefully temporarily -- gone, as, currently, the American dollar is valued below the Canadian same.
As we are expecting some superb Canadian musical artists at our church next weekend, I am really keeping an eye on this currency converter. Two nights ago, 1 U.S. dollar bought .987 Canadian dollars. Yesterday, it was up to .998. This morning it is .999. One more thousandth, and we are at least back on par with our neighbours. Come on, dollar, you can do it! Get revalued! Up that worth! I'd like to see it back up above the Canadian dollar in time for the concert next weekend, because these particular Canadians are not at all shy about teasing us(with gentle love) as much as they can. We've already tipped a canoe up north, thus showing our American ineptitude with slender watercraft; and we were shown up as not knowing "Oh Canada!" when all the Canadians sang a lovely a cappella version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" last summer, so the last thing we need to be gibed about is our currency.
Let's all band together and root for the American peso!
***UPDATE***
As of 3:28 PM (PST), the currency converter is showing that $1 U.S. will buy you $1.001 CAN!! Whoo-hoo! Now, we just need to keep this up until after December 9 to stave off any "American peso" comments I might personally receive as part of good-natured cross-cultural ribbing from my Canadian brothers and sisters.
I hear tell that our friends to the North have begun referring to our currency as the American peso. Oooh, that hurts! I remember back in 2002, when Jason and I went up to Victoria, BC for a weekend getaway, one U.S. dollar bought around 1.30 Canadian dollars. We lived like king and queen that weekend, ordering room service in our swanky hotel. Those days are sadly -- hopefully temporarily -- gone, as, currently, the American dollar is valued below the Canadian same.
As we are expecting some superb Canadian musical artists at our church next weekend, I am really keeping an eye on this currency converter. Two nights ago, 1 U.S. dollar bought .987 Canadian dollars. Yesterday, it was up to .998. This morning it is .999. One more thousandth, and we are at least back on par with our neighbours. Come on, dollar, you can do it! Get revalued! Up that worth! I'd like to see it back up above the Canadian dollar in time for the concert next weekend, because these particular Canadians are not at all shy about teasing us(with gentle love) as much as they can. We've already tipped a canoe up north, thus showing our American ineptitude with slender watercraft; and we were shown up as not knowing "Oh Canada!" when all the Canadians sang a lovely a cappella version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" last summer, so the last thing we need to be gibed about is our currency.
Let's all band together and root for the American peso!
***UPDATE***
As of 3:28 PM (PST), the currency converter is showing that $1 U.S. will buy you $1.001 CAN!! Whoo-hoo! Now, we just need to keep this up until after December 9 to stave off any "American peso" comments I might personally receive as part of good-natured cross-cultural ribbing from my Canadian brothers and sisters.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Too Good For The Likes of Me
Do you have any friends who are too good for you? Unfortunately, I think all my friends are. I have been dubiously blessed with the most thoughtful, inspiring, gifted, talented, delightful, and generous group of friends ever to have been assembled on this earthly plane. Oh, and they all seem to be endowed with that decorating and craft-making gene I sorely lack. And they do it all with such subtlty and quietness and finesse, that my sad attempts to return their abundance always feel so lumbering and clumsy. I feel like such a schmoo.
Take my friend, Kadie, for instance. I just finished writing a thank-you card to her for a lovely and thoughtful gift that she gave me for my birthday. Behold! This gift was exquisitely wrapped and carefully selected so as to maximize fully my pleasure in receiving it. And she wrote a card, too, that was as expressive in art as it was generous in nature.
Or, take Sabina. Here's another one who makes the very wrapping of a present into a work of artistic merit. She flipping made me a necklace for my birthday. She made me a necklace! It is gorgeous. How in the world do you equal that? How can you, if you are such a boob that even an Oriental Trading Company craft kit exasperates your meager abilities, ever hope to give something as meaningful and unique? You cannot. You simply fall back and gnash your teeth and murmur against the God who put such wonderful people in your life; and then accept it with gratitude.
Of course, nothing is coincidental. God put these lovely women into my life for many reasons, surely. But one of those must have been to hammer home into this stubborn skull of mine the meaning of grace. Now, every day, I have constant reminders about me of gifts that I do not deserve and can never hope to repay. And what greater gift do I have, ultimately, than the one given to me on the Cross by my Redeemer? Who is the original Creator of beautiful gifts I can never attempt to equal; Who gives with a heart free of "keeping score" and seeking reciprocation? And what else can I do but accept it with gratitude and tears of joy?
Thank you to my gifted and giving cadre of friends who are living, breathing examples of the grace of God in my life. You have blessed me beyond belief, and He has blessed me with belief, and my heart overflows with the wonder of it all.
Take my friend, Kadie, for instance. I just finished writing a thank-you card to her for a lovely and thoughtful gift that she gave me for my birthday. Behold! This gift was exquisitely wrapped and carefully selected so as to maximize fully my pleasure in receiving it. And she wrote a card, too, that was as expressive in art as it was generous in nature.
Or, take Sabina. Here's another one who makes the very wrapping of a present into a work of artistic merit. She flipping made me a necklace for my birthday. She made me a necklace! It is gorgeous. How in the world do you equal that? How can you, if you are such a boob that even an Oriental Trading Company craft kit exasperates your meager abilities, ever hope to give something as meaningful and unique? You cannot. You simply fall back and gnash your teeth and murmur against the God who put such wonderful people in your life; and then accept it with gratitude.
Of course, nothing is coincidental. God put these lovely women into my life for many reasons, surely. But one of those must have been to hammer home into this stubborn skull of mine the meaning of grace. Now, every day, I have constant reminders about me of gifts that I do not deserve and can never hope to repay. And what greater gift do I have, ultimately, than the one given to me on the Cross by my Redeemer? Who is the original Creator of beautiful gifts I can never attempt to equal; Who gives with a heart free of "keeping score" and seeking reciprocation? And what else can I do but accept it with gratitude and tears of joy?
Thank you to my gifted and giving cadre of friends who are living, breathing examples of the grace of God in my life. You have blessed me beyond belief, and He has blessed me with belief, and my heart overflows with the wonder of it all.
Feed The Lake
Some of the most thoughtful artists and best music gathered, for your convenience, at one site on the world wide web: Feed the Lake
(Soon to include, as well, inspiring books by exceptional authors.)
Friday, November 09, 2007
Themes Revisited
So far, we have read Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, Henry IV, Part One, Macbeth and Othello.
I was thinking just this morning -- about five minutes ago, really -- about the themes of these plays. Shakespeare had a wonderful way of revisiting themes with entirely different results.
For instance, take Much Ado and Othello. These two plays are written about trust and all of her cohorts -- vulnerability, suspicion, betrayal, redemption. Without a central theme of trust, these auxiliary themes would be meaningless. So, Shakespeare uses the theme in one play to create the lightest and most delightful of comedies (Much Ado) and then turns around and plays with the idea of trust in one of the most heartbreaking tragedies (Othello). Poor Desdemona could have used a Beatrice and Benedick pairing to come to her aid -- and, of course, the excellent sleuthing of Dogberry's men to discover the treacheries of Iago.
And then, as I've written of and posted before, Richard III and Macbeth were both portraits of ambition run amok -- the results of which in Richard were quite funny, while in Macbeth were absolutely horrifying. Richard's demons were all in his head, but they were a cheerfully depraved lot. Macbeth's demons were quite material -- whether witch or wife -- and their destructive force was most complete for they ravaged the man that was.
Now, Henry IV, Part I is in and of itself a thorough examination of the theme of honor. In the characters of Hotspur and Falstaff, Shakespeare has painted two opposite views of the importance and glory of honor. Prince Hal stands on the cusp of responsible adulthood and looks at the two -- his father's former favorite, the valiant, serious, and hot-tempered Hotspur and the jolly, drunken, thieving, but oh-so fun Falstaff. In the climactic battle scene, Hal wins his father's approval at last by coming to fight and then saving the King's life, and, eventually, he also kills the rebellious Hotspur; but has choice between honor and roguery really been made? For, when Falstaff counterfeits death to escape completing a duel and then later claims that he was the one to kill Hotspur, Prince Hal agrees to further his deception and falls back in with his disreputable buddy.
Ambition, honor, trust . . . I look forward to seeing what other themes Shakespeare will address as I finish the plays required for this class and continue to read the rest of his work on my own.
I was thinking just this morning -- about five minutes ago, really -- about the themes of these plays. Shakespeare had a wonderful way of revisiting themes with entirely different results.
For instance, take Much Ado and Othello. These two plays are written about trust and all of her cohorts -- vulnerability, suspicion, betrayal, redemption. Without a central theme of trust, these auxiliary themes would be meaningless. So, Shakespeare uses the theme in one play to create the lightest and most delightful of comedies (Much Ado) and then turns around and plays with the idea of trust in one of the most heartbreaking tragedies (Othello). Poor Desdemona could have used a Beatrice and Benedick pairing to come to her aid -- and, of course, the excellent sleuthing of Dogberry's men to discover the treacheries of Iago.
And then, as I've written of and posted before, Richard III and Macbeth were both portraits of ambition run amok -- the results of which in Richard were quite funny, while in Macbeth were absolutely horrifying. Richard's demons were all in his head, but they were a cheerfully depraved lot. Macbeth's demons were quite material -- whether witch or wife -- and their destructive force was most complete for they ravaged the man that was.
Now, Henry IV, Part I is in and of itself a thorough examination of the theme of honor. In the characters of Hotspur and Falstaff, Shakespeare has painted two opposite views of the importance and glory of honor. Prince Hal stands on the cusp of responsible adulthood and looks at the two -- his father's former favorite, the valiant, serious, and hot-tempered Hotspur and the jolly, drunken, thieving, but oh-so fun Falstaff. In the climactic battle scene, Hal wins his father's approval at last by coming to fight and then saving the King's life, and, eventually, he also kills the rebellious Hotspur; but has choice between honor and roguery really been made? For, when Falstaff counterfeits death to escape completing a duel and then later claims that he was the one to kill Hotspur, Prince Hal agrees to further his deception and falls back in with his disreputable buddy.
Ambition, honor, trust . . . I look forward to seeing what other themes Shakespeare will address as I finish the plays required for this class and continue to read the rest of his work on my own.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Up to My Armpits in the Bard
I've been taking an on-line Shakespeare class, and the pace is extremely fast. We read a play a week, and write a paper bi-weekly (i.e., one half of the class writes on one play one week, the other half on the next play the next week). So far, we have read Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, Henry IV, Part One, and Macbeth. Every one, with the exception of the Scottish play, has been an absolute pleasure, and I think my favorite to date is Richard III. I found it unremittingly hilarious.
Of course, since I am nothing if not obsessive when on the trail of a new, enriching study, I have been steeping myself in other Bard-ish delights when not reading his plays. I have read Bill Bryson's excellent and compact contribution to the Eminent Lives Series by Atlas Books, Shakespeare: The World as Stage. First of all, Mr. Bryson is a writer in whose work I almost always delight. Should you wish to treat yourself at some time and haven't yet done this, I want to encourage you to read any or all of A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, or The Mother Tongue. Then, proceed on to his other books, and stop when you've enjoyed them all. But, do try to spread them out -- my father OD'd a year or two ago, and now he is uninterested in reading Bryson's Shakespeare bio. That is a shame, because it captures so succinctly the mystery and magic of the Man from Stratford (and, no, Bryson does not buy into any of the anti-Stratfordian garbage -- his final chapter of this book is dedicated to putting those loonies (one of whom was named "Looney") in their proper place: the fringes). Bill Bryson was a good fit for writing this biography, because his authorial voice is just about perfect: humorous, inquisitive, reflective, and not at all worshipful, mystical or academic. What a readable book! If you are interested in getting an overview of Shakespeare that you can read in about a day, you will, almost without one doubt, value this book.
Another Shakespeare book that I've just started and that promises to be a great ride is Becoming Shakespeare by Jack Lynch. This is a story of his afterlife -- that is, it tells the fascinating tale of how (from the introduction) "Shakespeare, the provincial playwright and theatre manager [turned into] Shakespeare, the universal bard at the heart of English culture." I'll be burning the itty-bitty booklight to finish this one.
A Shakespeare book that I picked up at the same time as the two previously mentioned but will return to B&N as soon as I can is Filthy Shakespeare by Pauline Kiernan. I had purchased it without looking it over thoroughly because a) rarely have I found a book with no redeeming qualities, b) I like a bawdy romp through Elizabethan and Jacobean sensibilities and protocols as much as the next girl, and c) how bad could it be? Well, it's pretty bad. Jason laughed at my disappointment and said, "What in the world did you expect from a book called Filthy Shakespeare?" A fair question, and the answer, I guess, is that I was expecting something more, well, subtle and witty and British than what simply reads as crude and artless attempt to shock. Ms. Kiernan is a Shakespeare scholar, and I certainly am not, but I just wasn't buying every sexual pun she cited. She couldn't convince me that other interchanges in the plays were quite so graphic as she claimed. Wm. Shakespeare was certainly sly and multi-layered, and not above heating things up on stage with naughty bits for the delight and appeasement of the groundlings, but, it's hard to imagine that he could have gotten anywhere with the plots had he spent so much time churning out the sex jokes. So, back to B&N it goes -- the first time in my life I have ever returned a book because I did not like it.
I'm off to read Othello!
Of course, since I am nothing if not obsessive when on the trail of a new, enriching study, I have been steeping myself in other Bard-ish delights when not reading his plays. I have read Bill Bryson's excellent and compact contribution to the Eminent Lives Series by Atlas Books, Shakespeare: The World as Stage. First of all, Mr. Bryson is a writer in whose work I almost always delight. Should you wish to treat yourself at some time and haven't yet done this, I want to encourage you to read any or all of A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, or The Mother Tongue. Then, proceed on to his other books, and stop when you've enjoyed them all. But, do try to spread them out -- my father OD'd a year or two ago, and now he is uninterested in reading Bryson's Shakespeare bio. That is a shame, because it captures so succinctly the mystery and magic of the Man from Stratford (and, no, Bryson does not buy into any of the anti-Stratfordian garbage -- his final chapter of this book is dedicated to putting those loonies (one of whom was named "Looney") in their proper place: the fringes). Bill Bryson was a good fit for writing this biography, because his authorial voice is just about perfect: humorous, inquisitive, reflective, and not at all worshipful, mystical or academic. What a readable book! If you are interested in getting an overview of Shakespeare that you can read in about a day, you will, almost without one doubt, value this book.
Another Shakespeare book that I've just started and that promises to be a great ride is Becoming Shakespeare by Jack Lynch. This is a story of his afterlife -- that is, it tells the fascinating tale of how (from the introduction) "Shakespeare, the provincial playwright and theatre manager [turned into] Shakespeare, the universal bard at the heart of English culture." I'll be burning the itty-bitty booklight to finish this one.
A Shakespeare book that I picked up at the same time as the two previously mentioned but will return to B&N as soon as I can is Filthy Shakespeare by Pauline Kiernan. I had purchased it without looking it over thoroughly because a) rarely have I found a book with no redeeming qualities, b) I like a bawdy romp through Elizabethan and Jacobean sensibilities and protocols as much as the next girl, and c) how bad could it be? Well, it's pretty bad. Jason laughed at my disappointment and said, "What in the world did you expect from a book called Filthy Shakespeare?" A fair question, and the answer, I guess, is that I was expecting something more, well, subtle and witty and British than what simply reads as crude and artless attempt to shock. Ms. Kiernan is a Shakespeare scholar, and I certainly am not, but I just wasn't buying every sexual pun she cited. She couldn't convince me that other interchanges in the plays were quite so graphic as she claimed. Wm. Shakespeare was certainly sly and multi-layered, and not above heating things up on stage with naughty bits for the delight and appeasement of the groundlings, but, it's hard to imagine that he could have gotten anywhere with the plots had he spent so much time churning out the sex jokes. So, back to B&N it goes -- the first time in my life I have ever returned a book because I did not like it.
I'm off to read Othello!
I Respectfully Submit
Words mean things. Using language correctly is important, because how you use (or abuse) words can make or break your credibility in an argument. When lives are at stake, the cost of misuse is devastating.
I can only hope that Rep. Chris Smith's (R-NJ) words, delivered October 31, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, were transcribed incorrectly by the NRLC. He is too eloquent and valiant a persuader for the cause of human life to be saddled with this linguistic aberration:
I respectfully submit that the term "unsafe abortion" is the ultimate oxymoron.
All induced abortion, whether legal or illegal, is unsafe for the baby. It is also unsafe for the mother, who is at risk not only of physical injury, but also of long-term psychological damage including severe depression.
I think he must have said, "The term 'safe abortion' is the ultimate oxymoron." "Unsafe abortion" is a good example of redundancy or reiteration, but it is certainly not an oxymoron (unless you're one of the Weïrd Sisters of NARAL).
I can only hope that Rep. Chris Smith's (R-NJ) words, delivered October 31, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, were transcribed incorrectly by the NRLC. He is too eloquent and valiant a persuader for the cause of human life to be saddled with this linguistic aberration:
I respectfully submit that the term "unsafe abortion" is the ultimate oxymoron.
All induced abortion, whether legal or illegal, is unsafe for the baby. It is also unsafe for the mother, who is at risk not only of physical injury, but also of long-term psychological damage including severe depression.
I think he must have said, "The term 'safe abortion' is the ultimate oxymoron." "Unsafe abortion" is a good example of redundancy or reiteration, but it is certainly not an oxymoron (unless you're one of the Weïrd Sisters of NARAL).
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Quote Archive
I'm going to use this post as a place to store for posterity all of my "Quote of the Weeks." Look for it later under "Musings from the Vault" on the sidebar. It will be updated weekly with every new quote. Thanks for stopping by!
March 14, 2005:
You can argue with your Maker, but you know that you just can't win - alrightokuhuhamen.
You can argue with your Maker, or know the joy of saying "yes" to Him - alrightokuhuhamen.
--Rich Mullins, "alrightokuhuhamen" from the album Songs.
March 21, 2005:
There are 10,000 books in my library, and it will keep growing until I die. This has exasperated my daughters, amused my friends, and baffled my accountant. If I had not picked up this habit in the library long ago, I would have more money in the bank today; I would not be richer.
--Pete Hamill, "D'Artagnan on Ninth Street: A Brooklyn Boy at the Library"
March 28, 2005:
Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?
And worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. This is especially true if we're careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry about. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
--P.J. O'Rourke, "Fashionable Worries" from All the Trouble in the World
April 4, 2005:
In the beginning the word was with God; all explanations, physical and moral, rested on the divine. And now for storytellers, even though those patterns of explanation are strictly human, the word has not lost a superhuman power to connect young and old, writer and reader; to connect us with each other and with the causes and consequences of what we do.
--Jill Patton Walsh
April 11, 2005:
If you love the language, the greatest thing you can do to ensure its survival is not to complain about bad usage but to pass your enthusiasm to a child. Find a child and read to him often the things you admire, not being afraid to read the classics.
--Robert Macneil, Wordstruck: A Memoir
April 18, 2005:
God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of humans are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And, now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.
--Frederic Bastiat, the thrilling denouement of The Law
April 25, 2005:
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and, yet, they pass by themselves without wondering.
--St. Augustine
May 2, 2005:
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state...The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic profession for any suggestion that they should be dislodged from their dictatorial position; it will be expressed mainly in epithets, such as "reactionary," at the mildest. Nevertheless, the question to put to any teacher moved to such indignation is: Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you to pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?
--The Inimitable Isabel Paterson, "Our Japanized Educational System" from The God of the Machine (1943)
May 9, 2005:
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.
--G.K. Chesterton, as quoted in When Bad Christians Happen to Good People by Dave Burchett
(I have also seen this quoted thus: The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.)
May 16, 2005:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
--C.S. Lewis, as quoted on Rebecca's blog, doxology.
May 23, 2005:
A sign above the main exit door of Hope Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, SD:
You are entering the mission field. Go in peace. Serve the Lord.
To which I add: Amen.
May 30, 2005:
We are His daughters and sons. We are the colorful ones. We are the kids of the King. Rejoice in everything!
--Keith and Melody Green, "Stained Glass"
June 6, 2005:
"Miss Bingley," said [Darcy], "has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke."
"Certainly," replied Elizabeth --"there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."
--From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter XI
June 13, 2005:
The greatest gift a man can give his children is to love (and honor and respect and marry*) their mother.
--Anonymous (*words in parentheses my [Justine's] enhancement, because looooooving the person with whom you create a new life just ain't enough!)
June 20, 2005:
Keely Smith (singing): "Never treats me sweet and gentle the way that he should - I've got it bad and that ain't good . . ."
Louis Prima (cutting in): "I've got it good and that ain't bad!"
--From the recording of "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" (Ellington/Webster) on the new CD Live from Las Vegas: Louis Prima and Keely Smith
June 27, 2005:
A lot of American principle is contained in the two words: "Just don't." Much of the rest is encompassed by the suggestion of minding one's own business. The whole is summed up in the word "liberty."
--Isabel Paterson
July 4, 2005:
Away on vacation - the I.M.P. quote from above is excellent enough to suffice for two weeks, especially in the week that Americans celebrate our nation's birthday.
July 11, 2005:
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD.
--William Lloyd Garrison, from the editorial of the inaugural issue of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, published January 1, 1831. A wonderful rallying cry that applies today to the pro-life movement. May we be as stalwart in proclaiming the truth about abortion.
July 18, 2005:
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
--Thomas Paine, 1776
July 25, 2005:
We are battered and torn from the day we are born, in a world that has blinded and bound us.
Is it any surprise we don't open our eyes to the truth that's disguised all around us?
Like the secrets we keep, and don't know we're keeping, from before there was time, before there were lies.
Can we find You again, this far from the garden? Do we dare even try?
Do we dare pay attention - dare even mention - the mystery we find ourselves caught in?
And do we dare to remember all that we have forgotten?
--Carolyn Arends, "Do We Dare," Feel Free (1997)
August 1, 2005:
Democrats are . . . the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.
--P.J. O'Rourke, from Parliament of Whores (1991)
August 8, 2005 - September 6, 2005:
Dead computer. No new quotes.
September 7, 2005:
She's my wife, so she stays home and takes care of me. Maybe that's the way you tell the ladies from the broads in this town.
--Humphrey Bogart of wife Lauren Bacall
September 13, 2005:
There's enough good in the worst of us and enough bad in the best of us, that it never behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.
--Mary Chapman, mother of singer/songwriter Gary Chapman
October 3, 2005:
Right now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don't know what else to be except a feeble nonentity.
--Isabel Paterson
October 11, 2005:
God does not have grandchildren.
--Gloria Grant
October 18, 2005:
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger.
--Keith Green
November 2, 2005:
Man hurts man -- time and time and time again. And we drown in the wake of our power -- Somebody tell me: Why?
--Amy Grant, from the song "Lead Me On"
November 10, 2005:
[The Politician] has developed a sixth sense
About living at the public's expense,
Because in private competition
He would encounter malnutrition.
. . .
Some politicians are Republican, some are Democratic,
And their feud is dramatic,
But except for the name
They are identically the same.
--Ogden Nash, the greatest poet of the 20th Century, from "The Politician"
November 18, 2005:
Chris: You know, there's a word for people who think that everyone is conspiring against them.
C.W.: I know: perceptive.
--From the movie, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
December 1, 2005:
Do not be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy. It is for all the people. Today, in the Town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.
--Luke 2:10-11
December 30, 2005:
This will be my resolution: Every day is New Year's Day!
This could start a revolution: Every day is --
One more chance to start all over.
One more chance to change and grow, oh!
One more chance to grab a hold of grace and never let it go.
--Carolyn Arends, "New Year's Day" from the album Feel Free (1997)
January 6, 2006:
Some people seem to think that the answer to all of life's imperfections is to create a government agency to correct them. If that is your approach, then go straight to totalitarianism. Do not pass "Go." Do not collect $200.
--Thomas Sowell
January 20, 2006:
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.
--Thomas Jefferson
January 31, 2006:
The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can't fight, 'cause it's asleep in the light. How can you be so dead when you've been so well fed? Jesus rose from the grave -- and you? You can't even get out of bed!
--Keith Green
February 20, 2006:
God is in control. We believe that His children will not be forsaken.
God is in control. We will choose to remember and never be shaken.
There is no power above or beside Him we know -- oh, God is in control.
--Twila Paris, "God is in Control"
March 6, 2006:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
--William Cowper
March 16, 2006:
Almost all intellectuals profess to love humanity and to be working for its improvement and happiness. But it is the idea of humanity they love, rather than the actual individuals who compose it. They love humanity in general rather than men and women in particular. Loving humanity as an idea, they can then produce solutions as ideas. Therein lies the danger, for when people conflict with the solution as idea, they are first ignored or dismissed as unrepresentative; and then, when they continue to obstruct the idea, they are treated with growing hostility and categorized as enemies of humanity in general.
--Paul Johnson, "The Heartless Lovers of Humanity" (1989)
March 30, 2006:
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
--Blaise Pascal
April 16, 2006:
Fundamentals of Christian tolerance and fellowship: In essentials, Unity. In non-essentials, Liberty. In all things, Charity.
--Anonymous, as quoted by Pastor Kevin Day, Calvary Chapel South
April 28, 2006:
All I ever have to be is what You've made me. Any more or less would be a step out of Your plan. As You daily recreate me help me always keep in mind: that I only have to do what I can find. And all I have to be -- all I ever have to be -- is what You've made me.
--Gary Chapman, "All I Have to Be"
May 15, 2006:
There's nothing so rude as a gift you don't use or a life that you choose not to live. 'Cause you're blessed to bless and the best of possessions is having something to give.
--Carolyn Arends, "Something to Give," from Pollyanna's Attic, 2006
June 12, 2006:
Be Like the BirdBe like the bird who,
Resting in his flight
On a twig too slight,
Feels it bend beneath him
Yet sings,
Knowing he has wings.
--Victor Hugo
June 29, 2006:
Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray.
--William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, "Miss Crawley at Home"
July 17, 2006:
The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.
--Thomas Sowell
August 3, 2006:
You need to learn humility so that you can be awesome like me.
--My Humble Husband, Jason
September 5, 2006:
You can tell how good a kid's summer has been by counting up all their bruises and scrapes and cuts at the end of it.
--Mark Arends
September 15, 2006:
[I]n the long run the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster.
--John Cowperthwaite, British colonial officer, former governor of Hong Kong
October 12, 2006:
The therapeutic ethos of recent years has encouraged each of us to get every thought off our chest, lest we suffer from the ordeal of civility.
--Wall Street Journal Editorial, "Survivor Strategy," September 1, 2006
November 1, 2006:
[A]sk yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of cruel ages because they excelled in courgage or chastity. . . . From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get an inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.
--C.S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain
December 27, 2006:
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.
--G.K. Chesterton, from Orthodoxy
January 8, 2007:
From "A Brief for the Defense"If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,we lessen the importance of their deprivation.We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must havethe stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthlessfurnace of this world. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
--Jack Gilbert, The New Yorker, November 15, 2004
February 12, 2007:
"Taking joy in life is a woman's best cosmetic."
--Rosalind Russell
March 30, 2007:"We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being."
--G.K. Chesterton
June 4, 2007:"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized."
--Daniel H. Burnham, Chief Architect of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
August 2007:"All the world is my Jordan, someday I'm gonna cross. Ain't nobody gonna look and say my soul is lost. So I'll do my best; try to tell all the rest. And when the lion roars I'm gonna hide behind the cross. 'Cause it's the peace that passes all understanding in a world crazed with fear. They say that I am much too demanding to want a better place than here. "
--Jennifer Knapp, "Visions," from Kansas (1997)
November 19, 2007:"No matter if you're young or old, no matter if your story's told or if nobody knows your name, to Him it's all the same. He sold Himself to buy your life, and He wants to make it right. He sold Himself to buy your life, and He wants to make it right."
--"Say Once More," by Brian Carr and Gwen Moore, from Amy Grant's Never Alone (1980)
"Give thanks to the LORD; for He is good; His love endures forever."
--1 Chronicles 16:34
January 1, 2008:"For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence) -- to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology . . . Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and as open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart. But out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone."
--G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, "The Romance of Orthodoxy"
March 27, 2008:"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5
May 19, 2008:"Let mercy lead; let love be the strength in your legs. And in every footprint that you leave there'll be a drop of grace. If we can reach beyond the wisdom of this age into the foolishness of God, that foolishness will save those who believe. Although their foolish hearts may break they will find peace. And I'll meet you in that place where mercy leads."
--Rich Mullins and Beaker, "Let Mercy Lead," Brother's Keeper (1995)
June 5, 2008:"You are not long for this world; So do not long for this world. Have a good look around, Take joy where it's found, But you are not long for this world."
--Chris Jonat (The Clumsy Lovers), "Not Long for This World," Smart Kid (2005)
September 16, 2008:"Of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is the man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head."
--G.K. Chesterton, "The Travelers in State," Tremendous Trifles
December 12, 2008:"If the shepherds were not wrong/If there was an angel song/If God planned this all along/Then everything changes at Christmas.
'Cause if that was the Savior's birth/That means God thought we were worth/Whatever it took to bring love down to earth/And everything changes at Christmas."
--Carolyn Arends, "Everything Changes at Christmas"
February 15, 2009:There are some refusals which, though they may be done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children.
--G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, "The Dragon's Grandmother"
January 2010:If . . . you are ever tempted to think that we modern Western Europeans cannot really be so very bad because we are, comparatively speaking, humane--if, in other words, you think God might be content with us on that ground--ask yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of past ages because they excelled in courage or chastity. You will see at once that this is an impossibility. From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.
--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Chapter 4, "Human Wickedness"
April 2010:
She was not in the least afraid of loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils. I think they were afraid of her.
--G.K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross, Chapter XI, "A Scandal in the Village"
March 14, 2005:
You can argue with your Maker, but you know that you just can't win - alrightokuhuhamen.
You can argue with your Maker, or know the joy of saying "yes" to Him - alrightokuhuhamen.
--Rich Mullins, "alrightokuhuhamen" from the album Songs.
March 21, 2005:
There are 10,000 books in my library, and it will keep growing until I die. This has exasperated my daughters, amused my friends, and baffled my accountant. If I had not picked up this habit in the library long ago, I would have more money in the bank today; I would not be richer.
--Pete Hamill, "D'Artagnan on Ninth Street: A Brooklyn Boy at the Library"
March 28, 2005:
Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?
And worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. This is especially true if we're careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry about. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
--P.J. O'Rourke, "Fashionable Worries" from All the Trouble in the World
April 4, 2005:
In the beginning the word was with God; all explanations, physical and moral, rested on the divine. And now for storytellers, even though those patterns of explanation are strictly human, the word has not lost a superhuman power to connect young and old, writer and reader; to connect us with each other and with the causes and consequences of what we do.
--Jill Patton Walsh
April 11, 2005:
If you love the language, the greatest thing you can do to ensure its survival is not to complain about bad usage but to pass your enthusiasm to a child. Find a child and read to him often the things you admire, not being afraid to read the classics.
--Robert Macneil, Wordstruck: A Memoir
April 18, 2005:
God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of humans are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And, now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.
--Frederic Bastiat, the thrilling denouement of The Law
April 25, 2005:
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and, yet, they pass by themselves without wondering.
--St. Augustine
May 2, 2005:
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state...The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic profession for any suggestion that they should be dislodged from their dictatorial position; it will be expressed mainly in epithets, such as "reactionary," at the mildest. Nevertheless, the question to put to any teacher moved to such indignation is: Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you to pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?
--The Inimitable Isabel Paterson, "Our Japanized Educational System" from The God of the Machine (1943)
May 9, 2005:
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.
--G.K. Chesterton, as quoted in When Bad Christians Happen to Good People by Dave Burchett
(I have also seen this quoted thus: The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.)
May 16, 2005:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
--C.S. Lewis, as quoted on Rebecca's blog, doxology.
May 23, 2005:
A sign above the main exit door of Hope Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, SD:
You are entering the mission field. Go in peace. Serve the Lord.
To which I add: Amen.
May 30, 2005:
We are His daughters and sons. We are the colorful ones. We are the kids of the King. Rejoice in everything!
--Keith and Melody Green, "Stained Glass"
June 6, 2005:
"Miss Bingley," said [Darcy], "has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke."
"Certainly," replied Elizabeth --"there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."
--From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter XI
June 13, 2005:
The greatest gift a man can give his children is to love (and honor and respect and marry*) their mother.
--Anonymous (*words in parentheses my [Justine's] enhancement, because looooooving the person with whom you create a new life just ain't enough!)
June 20, 2005:
Keely Smith (singing): "Never treats me sweet and gentle the way that he should - I've got it bad and that ain't good . . ."
Louis Prima (cutting in): "I've got it good and that ain't bad!"
--From the recording of "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" (Ellington/Webster) on the new CD Live from Las Vegas: Louis Prima and Keely Smith
June 27, 2005:
A lot of American principle is contained in the two words: "Just don't." Much of the rest is encompassed by the suggestion of minding one's own business. The whole is summed up in the word "liberty."
--Isabel Paterson
July 4, 2005:
Away on vacation - the I.M.P. quote from above is excellent enough to suffice for two weeks, especially in the week that Americans celebrate our nation's birthday.
July 11, 2005:
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen--but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD.
--William Lloyd Garrison, from the editorial of the inaugural issue of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, published January 1, 1831. A wonderful rallying cry that applies today to the pro-life movement. May we be as stalwart in proclaiming the truth about abortion.
July 18, 2005:
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
--Thomas Paine, 1776
July 25, 2005:
We are battered and torn from the day we are born, in a world that has blinded and bound us.
Is it any surprise we don't open our eyes to the truth that's disguised all around us?
Like the secrets we keep, and don't know we're keeping, from before there was time, before there were lies.
Can we find You again, this far from the garden? Do we dare even try?
Do we dare pay attention - dare even mention - the mystery we find ourselves caught in?
And do we dare to remember all that we have forgotten?
--Carolyn Arends, "Do We Dare," Feel Free (1997)
August 1, 2005:
Democrats are . . . the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.
--P.J. O'Rourke, from Parliament of Whores (1991)
August 8, 2005 - September 6, 2005:
Dead computer. No new quotes.
September 7, 2005:
She's my wife, so she stays home and takes care of me. Maybe that's the way you tell the ladies from the broads in this town.
--Humphrey Bogart of wife Lauren Bacall
September 13, 2005:
There's enough good in the worst of us and enough bad in the best of us, that it never behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.
--Mary Chapman, mother of singer/songwriter Gary Chapman
October 3, 2005:
Right now it is a terrible thing to be a rugged individualist; but we don't know what else to be except a feeble nonentity.
--Isabel Paterson
October 11, 2005:
God does not have grandchildren.
--Gloria Grant
October 18, 2005:
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger.
--Keith Green
November 2, 2005:
Man hurts man -- time and time and time again. And we drown in the wake of our power -- Somebody tell me: Why?
--Amy Grant, from the song "Lead Me On"
November 10, 2005:
[The Politician] has developed a sixth sense
About living at the public's expense,
Because in private competition
He would encounter malnutrition.
. . .
Some politicians are Republican, some are Democratic,
And their feud is dramatic,
But except for the name
They are identically the same.
--Ogden Nash, the greatest poet of the 20th Century, from "The Politician"
November 18, 2005:
Chris: You know, there's a word for people who think that everyone is conspiring against them.
C.W.: I know: perceptive.
--From the movie, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
December 1, 2005:
Do not be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy. It is for all the people. Today, in the Town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.
--Luke 2:10-11
December 30, 2005:
This will be my resolution: Every day is New Year's Day!
This could start a revolution: Every day is --
One more chance to start all over.
One more chance to change and grow, oh!
One more chance to grab a hold of grace and never let it go.
--Carolyn Arends, "New Year's Day" from the album Feel Free (1997)
January 6, 2006:
Some people seem to think that the answer to all of life's imperfections is to create a government agency to correct them. If that is your approach, then go straight to totalitarianism. Do not pass "Go." Do not collect $200.
--Thomas Sowell
January 20, 2006:
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.
--Thomas Jefferson
January 31, 2006:
The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can't fight, 'cause it's asleep in the light. How can you be so dead when you've been so well fed? Jesus rose from the grave -- and you? You can't even get out of bed!
--Keith Green
February 20, 2006:
God is in control. We believe that His children will not be forsaken.
God is in control. We will choose to remember and never be shaken.
There is no power above or beside Him we know -- oh, God is in control.
--Twila Paris, "God is in Control"
March 6, 2006:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
--William Cowper
March 16, 2006:
Almost all intellectuals profess to love humanity and to be working for its improvement and happiness. But it is the idea of humanity they love, rather than the actual individuals who compose it. They love humanity in general rather than men and women in particular. Loving humanity as an idea, they can then produce solutions as ideas. Therein lies the danger, for when people conflict with the solution as idea, they are first ignored or dismissed as unrepresentative; and then, when they continue to obstruct the idea, they are treated with growing hostility and categorized as enemies of humanity in general.
--Paul Johnson, "The Heartless Lovers of Humanity" (1989)
March 30, 2006:
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
--Blaise Pascal
April 16, 2006:
Fundamentals of Christian tolerance and fellowship: In essentials, Unity. In non-essentials, Liberty. In all things, Charity.
--Anonymous, as quoted by Pastor Kevin Day, Calvary Chapel South
April 28, 2006:
All I ever have to be is what You've made me. Any more or less would be a step out of Your plan. As You daily recreate me help me always keep in mind: that I only have to do what I can find. And all I have to be -- all I ever have to be -- is what You've made me.
--Gary Chapman, "All I Have to Be"
May 15, 2006:
There's nothing so rude as a gift you don't use or a life that you choose not to live. 'Cause you're blessed to bless and the best of possessions is having something to give.
--Carolyn Arends, "Something to Give," from Pollyanna's Attic, 2006
June 12, 2006:
Be Like the BirdBe like the bird who,
Resting in his flight
On a twig too slight,
Feels it bend beneath him
Yet sings,
Knowing he has wings.
--Victor Hugo
June 29, 2006:
Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray.
--William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, "Miss Crawley at Home"
July 17, 2006:
The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.
--Thomas Sowell
August 3, 2006:
You need to learn humility so that you can be awesome like me.
--My Humble Husband, Jason
September 5, 2006:
You can tell how good a kid's summer has been by counting up all their bruises and scrapes and cuts at the end of it.
--Mark Arends
September 15, 2006:
[I]n the long run the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster.
--John Cowperthwaite, British colonial officer, former governor of Hong Kong
October 12, 2006:
The therapeutic ethos of recent years has encouraged each of us to get every thought off our chest, lest we suffer from the ordeal of civility.
--Wall Street Journal Editorial, "Survivor Strategy," September 1, 2006
November 1, 2006:
[A]sk yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of cruel ages because they excelled in courgage or chastity. . . . From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get an inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.
--C.S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain
December 27, 2006:
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.
--G.K. Chesterton, from Orthodoxy
January 8, 2007:
From "A Brief for the Defense"If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,we lessen the importance of their deprivation.We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must havethe stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthlessfurnace of this world. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
--Jack Gilbert, The New Yorker, November 15, 2004
February 12, 2007:
"Taking joy in life is a woman's best cosmetic."
--Rosalind Russell
March 30, 2007:"We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being."
--G.K. Chesterton
June 4, 2007:"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized."
--Daniel H. Burnham, Chief Architect of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
August 2007:"All the world is my Jordan, someday I'm gonna cross. Ain't nobody gonna look and say my soul is lost. So I'll do my best; try to tell all the rest. And when the lion roars I'm gonna hide behind the cross. 'Cause it's the peace that passes all understanding in a world crazed with fear. They say that I am much too demanding to want a better place than here. "
--Jennifer Knapp, "Visions," from Kansas (1997)
November 19, 2007:"No matter if you're young or old, no matter if your story's told or if nobody knows your name, to Him it's all the same. He sold Himself to buy your life, and He wants to make it right. He sold Himself to buy your life, and He wants to make it right."
--"Say Once More," by Brian Carr and Gwen Moore, from Amy Grant's Never Alone (1980)
"Give thanks to the LORD; for He is good; His love endures forever."
--1 Chronicles 16:34
January 1, 2008:"For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence) -- to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology . . . Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and as open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart. But out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone."
--G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, "The Romance of Orthodoxy"
March 27, 2008:"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5
May 19, 2008:"Let mercy lead; let love be the strength in your legs. And in every footprint that you leave there'll be a drop of grace. If we can reach beyond the wisdom of this age into the foolishness of God, that foolishness will save those who believe. Although their foolish hearts may break they will find peace. And I'll meet you in that place where mercy leads."
--Rich Mullins and Beaker, "Let Mercy Lead," Brother's Keeper (1995)
June 5, 2008:"You are not long for this world; So do not long for this world. Have a good look around, Take joy where it's found, But you are not long for this world."
--Chris Jonat (The Clumsy Lovers), "Not Long for This World," Smart Kid (2005)
September 16, 2008:"Of a sane man there is only one safe definition. He is the man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head."
--G.K. Chesterton, "The Travelers in State," Tremendous Trifles
December 12, 2008:"If the shepherds were not wrong/If there was an angel song/If God planned this all along/Then everything changes at Christmas.
'Cause if that was the Savior's birth/That means God thought we were worth/Whatever it took to bring love down to earth/And everything changes at Christmas."
--Carolyn Arends, "Everything Changes at Christmas"
February 15, 2009:There are some refusals which, though they may be done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children.
--G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, "The Dragon's Grandmother"
January 2010:If . . . you are ever tempted to think that we modern Western Europeans cannot really be so very bad because we are, comparatively speaking, humane--if, in other words, you think God might be content with us on that ground--ask yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of past ages because they excelled in courage or chastity. You will see at once that this is an impossibility. From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.
--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Chapter 4, "Human Wickedness"
April 2010:
She was not in the least afraid of loneliness, because she was not afraid of devils. I think they were afraid of her.
--G.K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross, Chapter XI, "A Scandal in the Village"
Thoughts on Richard III and Macbeth
Here are two discussion papers I've written for my on-line Shakespeare class. I'd be interested in hearing what any of you think about these two plays.
Sympathy for the Devil – Shakespeare’s Seductive Villain, Richard III
It would only take a very few changes in dialogue to change Shakespeare’s Richard III from a tragedy to a comedy. Never before – and so rarely since – have treachery, betrayal, hypocrisy and plain, old villainy been so fun. When Richard, Duke of Gloucester, first steps, as one imagines, far down to the front of the stage, dead in the center, and looks unflinchingly into the audience, there is an electric authority in his words. He begins with a sardonically mocking tribute to his elder brother, who has – offstage – just been crowned Edward IV of England. He then mocks his own bitterness at his physical inferiority. Then, without warning, he declares that he will “prove the villain and hate the idle pleasure [of these ‘summer’] days [of York’s ascension]” (I.i.30-31). All of a sudden, the audience itself is in too deep – an unwitting group of conspirators who are the only ones privy to his dastardly plans. As Phyllis Rackin wrote in her essay, “A Modern Perspective,” that was included with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s edition of Richard III, “Confiding in the audience, flaunting his witty wickedness, and gloating at the weakness and ignorance of the other characters, [Richard] draws the playgoers into complicity with his wicked schemes” (p.343). Why does Shakespeare take a historical figure thought utterly reprehensible in Tudor England, and give him such a commanding presence on the stage – making him charismatic, seductive and, even, lovable?
First of all, it makes for good theater. For a title character to carry a play, he must be captivating. Otherwise, the groundlings will start chucking their oranges at him. Shakespeare had so many areas of genius, but one of his greatest surely must have been in establishing character. Right from the first soliloquy, the audience is clued in that Richard is no good, rather vain about his conniving capabilities, and will take them on a wild ride to the throne of England, whether they are willing or no. With a wink and a nod, he betrays his brother (I.iii.365-376), makes an inexplicable play for Anne Neville (I.ii.72-244), condemns Rivers, Grey and Vaughn (II.i.184-188), frames Hastings (III.iv.75-80), and commits many more foul deeds with a self-possessed air. Playgoers in Tudor England would not have been surprised that Richard was such a vile character (after all, the Tudors had had their historians hard at work to paint him that way), but they may have been surprised by how much they liked him despite his myriad depravities.
Secondly, Shakespeare may have been “over plumming the pudding” for a merrily subversive take on the end of the War of the Roses. He certainly does not “over egg” his concoction, for the outcome is never ruinous, but he throws plum after juicy plum into it, until the onlooker is left in euphoric disbelief. “Oh no,” the viewer or reader might say in his mind, “He is not really going to go there, is he? Oh goodness, yes, yes! He went there!” Whether it is the highly comedic accusation against Hastings’s mistress of witchcraft (III.iv.77), or the unconscionable callousness with which he kills off his beleaguered wife Anne (IV.ii.53-62), or the mock religious humility with which he rebuffs the offer of the crown (III.vii.96-249), Richard always gives his complicit audience a reason to intake their breath sharply. With every soliloquy given after each heinous rung in his climb to power, Richard gives more and more evidence that he is the most calculating of fiends. Actions this evil are usually, in the real world, clouded by blinders of idealism – the perpetrator truly believes that his deeds serve some greater good. Such self-delusion is never practiced by Shakespeare’s Richard, who never mentions the good of England or the wrongs of his enemies with anything other than hypocrisy.
In a time without any ability to record history objectively, and where a theater could be shut down by censorship, Shakespeare found a way to make received ideas about the Tudors’ claims to the monarchy a sly joke. Truly a tyrant like King Richard III, as portrayed on the Globe’s stage, deserved to be dethroned. But, can such devilry really have existed? By making a character so over-the-top, Shakespeare seems to question the accepted doctrine of the last Plantagenet’s fall. From his constant cries of “Off with his head” (III.ii.196, III.iv.77, V.iv.366), to his seduction of both Anne Neville and Queen Elizabeth (to woo her daughter on his behalf) in spite of their entirely justified reasons for hating him, to his staged reluctance to accept the crown, Richard oozes with cartoonish rage, smarminess and affectation. Is this possibly how a historic king might have behaved? Shakespeare leaves that question open for the audience to decide. Though he is vanquished in the end, the wicked Richard outshines the valiant Henry (Earl of Richmond) to the last, and Richmond’s speech at the end is a dull conclusion to an exciting romp in an amoral universe. In creating the prototype of the lovable, despicable rogue, Shakespeare, perhaps, poked a little fun at how history can be twisted by the victors and how implausible many historical perceptions can seem when taken to their logical extremes in a dramatic presentation. It is easy to become quite fond of that homicidal megalomaniac. Maybe the greatest tragedy of Richard III is that its anti-hero meets his death in the end and lives on in no future plays.
“Vaulting Ambition:” The Reluctant Rise and Dark Descent of Macbeth
Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth share some striking features. Both are highly prejudicial dramatizations of historical figures and events. Both are almost bewilderingly bloody, as the body count rises with each scene played out. Both culminate in the eponymous characters’ defeats in battles against rebel forces. Both are called tragedies in their complete titles. And both are about over-arching ambition.
There the similarities stop. The characterizations of Richard and Macbeth could not be more different. In Richard III, the Duke of Gloucester swaggers (despite a proclaimed deformity) onto the stage and takes command of all the action proceeding thence. He charms and beguiles his friends and enemies alike; and, perhaps most importantly, he completely seduces the audience and makes them complicit in his evil schemes. His ambition is, to his captivated conspirators, a flagrant and flamboyant triumph of cunning over dullness and sheer guts over banal morality. Prophecies and curses abound, and Richard heeds them not. He carries off his power grab with panache; and he loses neither heart nor spirit, even unto the last battle scene.
Macbeth, on the other hand, opens not with a charismatic soliloquy from the title character drawing the audience into his plans and gaining their sympathies, but with the dark, mysterious powers of prophecy, witchcraft, and fate in the form of three unnerving hags. They converse briefly and end the scene with the telling phrase, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and the filthy air” (I.i.12-13). The fog and the filth never seem to lift throughout the play, putting 11th Century Scotland in a perpetual mist of turmoil, blood, and betrayal, and the character of Macbeth himself in a downward spiral of ambition satisfied, but at the cost of his soul and, eventually, his life.
In her essay, “Macbeth: A Modern Perspective,” Susan Snyder writes helpfully of the history upon which this play was based. It appears that Shakespeare used as a reference Holinshed’s Chronicles of Scotland[i]. In preparing the dramatization, though, Shakespeare trimmed away some of the moral ambiguities to leave a clearer cut sense of black and white. This editing led to a greater illustration of ambition’s corrupting influence. With Duncan’s goodness and Macbeth’s complete acknowledgement of that goodness, Macbeth can think of no other reason to commit regicide than his own “vaulting ambition” (I.vii.27). But, unlike the amoral Richard, Macbeth seems to possess an ambition not wholly his own.
Not only do the three witches accost him and burden him with predictions of future sovereignty, when Macbeth mentions their eerie proclamations in a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth immediately seizes the prophecy and begins to concoct a means of bringing it to fruition (I.v.1-33). She, too, calls upon dark powers to steel her resolve and “unsex” (I.v.48) her so that she may compel her husband to his fated position. Moments later, when Macbeth enters the room, his wife begins at once to coax him to regicide. In Macbeth’s demure, there is little of ambition and much discomfort. This man, despite the choices he will soon make, is no sociopath. He has a moral compass.
Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of Macbeth in Act I, Scene 7, when the thane has decided against murdering Duncan (at least for that night), is terrifying to witness. She questions his manhood, his constancy, and his valor, and she speaks such a brutal metaphor of how her resolve would never waver in such a situation (I.vii.62-67), that it is astonishing to turn back and read their previous interchange (I.v.63-86), and discover anew that Macbeth promised no more to his wife than that they should discuss further this noxious plan. He is carried along on her traitorous stream, a passive vessel receding into moral ambiguity.
Duncan’s murder nearly destroys Macbeth (II.ii.47-81). Banquo’s subsequent assassination further plunges his sanity (III.iv.59-141). His troubled soul seeks reassurance that he is, indeed, in line with his fate, so he returns to the Weird Sisters (IV.i.48-151). The apparitions that the witches summon, with their seemingly impossible predictions and exhortations (other than that Macbeth should “Beware Macduff”) build up a false sense of security for the precarious king, but also serve to remove the last vestiges of fear (hence, morality) from him. He returns from that sojourn emboldened, bloodthirsty, and dehumanized.
In the end, neither Richard nor Macbeth can escape his fate. Richard, who was told by a “bard of Ireland” that “[he] would not live long after [he] saw Richmond” (Richard III: IV.ii.109-110), who was plagued the night before battle with visitations of his vengeful victims (Richard III: V.iii.124-183), and who lastly notes that the sun, despite the calendar, refuses to shine on his battle to retain the throne, blithely notes that “the selfsame heaven that frowns on me looks sadly upon [Richmond]” (Richard III:V.iii.303-304), and cheerfully charges off toward his death. Macbeth, who was told to “beware Macduff” ((IV.i.82), was assured that “none of a woman born shall harm [him]” (IV.i.91-92), and had been promised that he would not be vanquished until the Great Birnam Wood would march up Dunsinane Hill – a fanciful, improbable, and, therefore, highly reassuring pronouncement (IV.i.105-110), still stands to meet Macduff and the rebel forces when they come up Dunsinane Hill under the guise of Birnam Wood’s branches. Even, when Macduff declares that, instead of being born, he was “from [his] mother’s womb untimely ripped,” (V.viii.19-20) Macbeth overcomes his initial reluctance to run from the fight, and submits to fate and his destruction. Ambition so over-reaching that it blinds and deafens the conscience seems always to end, at least in Shakespeare’s plays, in devastation.
These two plays present a fascinating study in human nature of what all-consuming ambition can do to two very different men. Whether flowing from the wellspring of an amoral perspective, as was Richard’s, or bursting through the dam of morality by chiseled cracks of persuasion, manipulation, and fatalistic machinations, as was the unfortunate Macbeth’s, the outcome is drowning. And, while Richard’s ambition is presented in such a way as to make it almost a parody of the corrupting nature of power and a comedy of sorts, Macbeth’s is real enough to keep it firmly ensconced in the genre of tragedy. Not even the Porter of Act 2, Scene 3 can alleviate the gravity surrounding the Thane of Glamis’s decision, and even Nature herself turns black with despair (II.iv.8-12) as the winds howl their pity (I.vii.21-22) and the invisible steeds of heaven blow the horrid deed in every eye (I.vii.24).
[i] “Macbeth: A Modern Perspective,” Susan Snyder, in Folger Shakespeare Library: The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992), p. 198.
Sympathy for the Devil – Shakespeare’s Seductive Villain, Richard III
It would only take a very few changes in dialogue to change Shakespeare’s Richard III from a tragedy to a comedy. Never before – and so rarely since – have treachery, betrayal, hypocrisy and plain, old villainy been so fun. When Richard, Duke of Gloucester, first steps, as one imagines, far down to the front of the stage, dead in the center, and looks unflinchingly into the audience, there is an electric authority in his words. He begins with a sardonically mocking tribute to his elder brother, who has – offstage – just been crowned Edward IV of England. He then mocks his own bitterness at his physical inferiority. Then, without warning, he declares that he will “prove the villain and hate the idle pleasure [of these ‘summer’] days [of York’s ascension]” (I.i.30-31). All of a sudden, the audience itself is in too deep – an unwitting group of conspirators who are the only ones privy to his dastardly plans. As Phyllis Rackin wrote in her essay, “A Modern Perspective,” that was included with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s edition of Richard III, “Confiding in the audience, flaunting his witty wickedness, and gloating at the weakness and ignorance of the other characters, [Richard] draws the playgoers into complicity with his wicked schemes” (p.343). Why does Shakespeare take a historical figure thought utterly reprehensible in Tudor England, and give him such a commanding presence on the stage – making him charismatic, seductive and, even, lovable?
First of all, it makes for good theater. For a title character to carry a play, he must be captivating. Otherwise, the groundlings will start chucking their oranges at him. Shakespeare had so many areas of genius, but one of his greatest surely must have been in establishing character. Right from the first soliloquy, the audience is clued in that Richard is no good, rather vain about his conniving capabilities, and will take them on a wild ride to the throne of England, whether they are willing or no. With a wink and a nod, he betrays his brother (I.iii.365-376), makes an inexplicable play for Anne Neville (I.ii.72-244), condemns Rivers, Grey and Vaughn (II.i.184-188), frames Hastings (III.iv.75-80), and commits many more foul deeds with a self-possessed air. Playgoers in Tudor England would not have been surprised that Richard was such a vile character (after all, the Tudors had had their historians hard at work to paint him that way), but they may have been surprised by how much they liked him despite his myriad depravities.
Secondly, Shakespeare may have been “over plumming the pudding” for a merrily subversive take on the end of the War of the Roses. He certainly does not “over egg” his concoction, for the outcome is never ruinous, but he throws plum after juicy plum into it, until the onlooker is left in euphoric disbelief. “Oh no,” the viewer or reader might say in his mind, “He is not really going to go there, is he? Oh goodness, yes, yes! He went there!” Whether it is the highly comedic accusation against Hastings’s mistress of witchcraft (III.iv.77), or the unconscionable callousness with which he kills off his beleaguered wife Anne (IV.ii.53-62), or the mock religious humility with which he rebuffs the offer of the crown (III.vii.96-249), Richard always gives his complicit audience a reason to intake their breath sharply. With every soliloquy given after each heinous rung in his climb to power, Richard gives more and more evidence that he is the most calculating of fiends. Actions this evil are usually, in the real world, clouded by blinders of idealism – the perpetrator truly believes that his deeds serve some greater good. Such self-delusion is never practiced by Shakespeare’s Richard, who never mentions the good of England or the wrongs of his enemies with anything other than hypocrisy.
In a time without any ability to record history objectively, and where a theater could be shut down by censorship, Shakespeare found a way to make received ideas about the Tudors’ claims to the monarchy a sly joke. Truly a tyrant like King Richard III, as portrayed on the Globe’s stage, deserved to be dethroned. But, can such devilry really have existed? By making a character so over-the-top, Shakespeare seems to question the accepted doctrine of the last Plantagenet’s fall. From his constant cries of “Off with his head” (III.ii.196, III.iv.77, V.iv.366), to his seduction of both Anne Neville and Queen Elizabeth (to woo her daughter on his behalf) in spite of their entirely justified reasons for hating him, to his staged reluctance to accept the crown, Richard oozes with cartoonish rage, smarminess and affectation. Is this possibly how a historic king might have behaved? Shakespeare leaves that question open for the audience to decide. Though he is vanquished in the end, the wicked Richard outshines the valiant Henry (Earl of Richmond) to the last, and Richmond’s speech at the end is a dull conclusion to an exciting romp in an amoral universe. In creating the prototype of the lovable, despicable rogue, Shakespeare, perhaps, poked a little fun at how history can be twisted by the victors and how implausible many historical perceptions can seem when taken to their logical extremes in a dramatic presentation. It is easy to become quite fond of that homicidal megalomaniac. Maybe the greatest tragedy of Richard III is that its anti-hero meets his death in the end and lives on in no future plays.
“Vaulting Ambition:” The Reluctant Rise and Dark Descent of Macbeth
Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth share some striking features. Both are highly prejudicial dramatizations of historical figures and events. Both are almost bewilderingly bloody, as the body count rises with each scene played out. Both culminate in the eponymous characters’ defeats in battles against rebel forces. Both are called tragedies in their complete titles. And both are about over-arching ambition.
There the similarities stop. The characterizations of Richard and Macbeth could not be more different. In Richard III, the Duke of Gloucester swaggers (despite a proclaimed deformity) onto the stage and takes command of all the action proceeding thence. He charms and beguiles his friends and enemies alike; and, perhaps most importantly, he completely seduces the audience and makes them complicit in his evil schemes. His ambition is, to his captivated conspirators, a flagrant and flamboyant triumph of cunning over dullness and sheer guts over banal morality. Prophecies and curses abound, and Richard heeds them not. He carries off his power grab with panache; and he loses neither heart nor spirit, even unto the last battle scene.
Macbeth, on the other hand, opens not with a charismatic soliloquy from the title character drawing the audience into his plans and gaining their sympathies, but with the dark, mysterious powers of prophecy, witchcraft, and fate in the form of three unnerving hags. They converse briefly and end the scene with the telling phrase, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and the filthy air” (I.i.12-13). The fog and the filth never seem to lift throughout the play, putting 11th Century Scotland in a perpetual mist of turmoil, blood, and betrayal, and the character of Macbeth himself in a downward spiral of ambition satisfied, but at the cost of his soul and, eventually, his life.
In her essay, “Macbeth: A Modern Perspective,” Susan Snyder writes helpfully of the history upon which this play was based. It appears that Shakespeare used as a reference Holinshed’s Chronicles of Scotland[i]. In preparing the dramatization, though, Shakespeare trimmed away some of the moral ambiguities to leave a clearer cut sense of black and white. This editing led to a greater illustration of ambition’s corrupting influence. With Duncan’s goodness and Macbeth’s complete acknowledgement of that goodness, Macbeth can think of no other reason to commit regicide than his own “vaulting ambition” (I.vii.27). But, unlike the amoral Richard, Macbeth seems to possess an ambition not wholly his own.
Not only do the three witches accost him and burden him with predictions of future sovereignty, when Macbeth mentions their eerie proclamations in a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth immediately seizes the prophecy and begins to concoct a means of bringing it to fruition (I.v.1-33). She, too, calls upon dark powers to steel her resolve and “unsex” (I.v.48) her so that she may compel her husband to his fated position. Moments later, when Macbeth enters the room, his wife begins at once to coax him to regicide. In Macbeth’s demure, there is little of ambition and much discomfort. This man, despite the choices he will soon make, is no sociopath. He has a moral compass.
Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of Macbeth in Act I, Scene 7, when the thane has decided against murdering Duncan (at least for that night), is terrifying to witness. She questions his manhood, his constancy, and his valor, and she speaks such a brutal metaphor of how her resolve would never waver in such a situation (I.vii.62-67), that it is astonishing to turn back and read their previous interchange (I.v.63-86), and discover anew that Macbeth promised no more to his wife than that they should discuss further this noxious plan. He is carried along on her traitorous stream, a passive vessel receding into moral ambiguity.
Duncan’s murder nearly destroys Macbeth (II.ii.47-81). Banquo’s subsequent assassination further plunges his sanity (III.iv.59-141). His troubled soul seeks reassurance that he is, indeed, in line with his fate, so he returns to the Weird Sisters (IV.i.48-151). The apparitions that the witches summon, with their seemingly impossible predictions and exhortations (other than that Macbeth should “Beware Macduff”) build up a false sense of security for the precarious king, but also serve to remove the last vestiges of fear (hence, morality) from him. He returns from that sojourn emboldened, bloodthirsty, and dehumanized.
In the end, neither Richard nor Macbeth can escape his fate. Richard, who was told by a “bard of Ireland” that “[he] would not live long after [he] saw Richmond” (Richard III: IV.ii.109-110), who was plagued the night before battle with visitations of his vengeful victims (Richard III: V.iii.124-183), and who lastly notes that the sun, despite the calendar, refuses to shine on his battle to retain the throne, blithely notes that “the selfsame heaven that frowns on me looks sadly upon [Richmond]” (Richard III:V.iii.303-304), and cheerfully charges off toward his death. Macbeth, who was told to “beware Macduff” ((IV.i.82), was assured that “none of a woman born shall harm [him]” (IV.i.91-92), and had been promised that he would not be vanquished until the Great Birnam Wood would march up Dunsinane Hill – a fanciful, improbable, and, therefore, highly reassuring pronouncement (IV.i.105-110), still stands to meet Macduff and the rebel forces when they come up Dunsinane Hill under the guise of Birnam Wood’s branches. Even, when Macduff declares that, instead of being born, he was “from [his] mother’s womb untimely ripped,” (V.viii.19-20) Macbeth overcomes his initial reluctance to run from the fight, and submits to fate and his destruction. Ambition so over-reaching that it blinds and deafens the conscience seems always to end, at least in Shakespeare’s plays, in devastation.
These two plays present a fascinating study in human nature of what all-consuming ambition can do to two very different men. Whether flowing from the wellspring of an amoral perspective, as was Richard’s, or bursting through the dam of morality by chiseled cracks of persuasion, manipulation, and fatalistic machinations, as was the unfortunate Macbeth’s, the outcome is drowning. And, while Richard’s ambition is presented in such a way as to make it almost a parody of the corrupting nature of power and a comedy of sorts, Macbeth’s is real enough to keep it firmly ensconced in the genre of tragedy. Not even the Porter of Act 2, Scene 3 can alleviate the gravity surrounding the Thane of Glamis’s decision, and even Nature herself turns black with despair (II.iv.8-12) as the winds howl their pity (I.vii.21-22) and the invisible steeds of heaven blow the horrid deed in every eye (I.vii.24).
[i] “Macbeth: A Modern Perspective,” Susan Snyder, in Folger Shakespeare Library: The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992), p. 198.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
"If You Want to Make God Laugh, Tell Him Your Plans."
I barely caught that little throw-away line from the end of the trailer for Bella. Please visit their website.
We all need to go and see this movie when it hits our markets. From what I've read and heard, it could be one of the most important movies ever to have been made.
I have long thought that what we need to wipe out abortion in America is a work of art so culturally relevant and unexpectedly persuasive that it changes hearts and then minds that had had no intention of being changed. We need an Uncle Tom's Cabin for the pro-life movement. Uncle Tom's Cabin isn't even that great of a book, but it gave a voice to the abolition movement that was cloaked in entertainment and storytelling. Tell a good story, and people will listen. There was a book released in 2005 called Emily's Hope by Ellen Gable that was about, among other things, abortion, but it lacked something in wide-spread appeal -- it was, in my opinion, too Catholic to meet with a broad readership -- and too artless in its approach to the subject. I really appreciated the author's effort, but knew that it would not reach much further than Catholic readers and those who, like me, read reviews in Gilbert Magazine.
Bella, though, may be the turning of the tide. I pray that it will be. Again, I have not seen it, and it has not even opened in the Seattle market yet, but it looks like in all aspects it will reflect its name: Beautiful. It reads on paper as a simple story that is deceptively deep and touches those most veiled places in the conscience that know -- as I believe everyone knows in their hearts -- that life at all stages is something to respect and celebrate. This is film making with a purpose, and, yet, without any sacrifice of vision or integrity. And who would not want to read an interview like this with the star of every motion picture released?
Art can reach people who are unmoved by rhetoric, theology, or science. Art goes someplace within people that is the mysterious center that remembers the Creator. The more we learn to love the Creator, the larger the space within us that can be filled by art; but, no matter how small or how denied, that place is there. I do not care how much of an atheist you think you are, when you have been touched by a work of art, your soul has just acknowledged its Creator.
I was at a Chesterton Society meeting this past spring at Seattle Pacific University, and Jeffrey Overstreet from Christianity Today's movie site was the guest speaker. He has written an excellent book about finding spiritual relevance and reflections of holiness in even the most purportedly secular or even atheistic movies called Through a Screen Darkly. He spoke most entertainingly about the latest push by studios to capture the newly-discovered "Christian market," and then lamented that most of the offerings from these studios so far have been steeped in banality and oozing with saccharine sensibilities. He said that he "longed for the day when a movie with Christian themes would be made in which everything didn't turn out peachy keen for believers in the end,"* and yet would still be redemptive. I wonder what he will think of Bella. Above all, this movie simply looks real -- gritty, messy, tense, glowing, raw, beautiful, unexpected, brilliantly alive.
I can hardly wait to see this film -- a labor of love and a work of art.
*This is not an exact quote, but I think you get the gist.
We all need to go and see this movie when it hits our markets. From what I've read and heard, it could be one of the most important movies ever to have been made.
I have long thought that what we need to wipe out abortion in America is a work of art so culturally relevant and unexpectedly persuasive that it changes hearts and then minds that had had no intention of being changed. We need an Uncle Tom's Cabin for the pro-life movement. Uncle Tom's Cabin isn't even that great of a book, but it gave a voice to the abolition movement that was cloaked in entertainment and storytelling. Tell a good story, and people will listen. There was a book released in 2005 called Emily's Hope by Ellen Gable that was about, among other things, abortion, but it lacked something in wide-spread appeal -- it was, in my opinion, too Catholic to meet with a broad readership -- and too artless in its approach to the subject. I really appreciated the author's effort, but knew that it would not reach much further than Catholic readers and those who, like me, read reviews in Gilbert Magazine.
Bella, though, may be the turning of the tide. I pray that it will be. Again, I have not seen it, and it has not even opened in the Seattle market yet, but it looks like in all aspects it will reflect its name: Beautiful. It reads on paper as a simple story that is deceptively deep and touches those most veiled places in the conscience that know -- as I believe everyone knows in their hearts -- that life at all stages is something to respect and celebrate. This is film making with a purpose, and, yet, without any sacrifice of vision or integrity. And who would not want to read an interview like this with the star of every motion picture released?
Art can reach people who are unmoved by rhetoric, theology, or science. Art goes someplace within people that is the mysterious center that remembers the Creator. The more we learn to love the Creator, the larger the space within us that can be filled by art; but, no matter how small or how denied, that place is there. I do not care how much of an atheist you think you are, when you have been touched by a work of art, your soul has just acknowledged its Creator.
I was at a Chesterton Society meeting this past spring at Seattle Pacific University, and Jeffrey Overstreet from Christianity Today's movie site was the guest speaker. He has written an excellent book about finding spiritual relevance and reflections of holiness in even the most purportedly secular or even atheistic movies called Through a Screen Darkly. He spoke most entertainingly about the latest push by studios to capture the newly-discovered "Christian market," and then lamented that most of the offerings from these studios so far have been steeped in banality and oozing with saccharine sensibilities. He said that he "longed for the day when a movie with Christian themes would be made in which everything didn't turn out peachy keen for believers in the end,"* and yet would still be redemptive. I wonder what he will think of Bella. Above all, this movie simply looks real -- gritty, messy, tense, glowing, raw, beautiful, unexpected, brilliantly alive.
I can hardly wait to see this film -- a labor of love and a work of art.
*This is not an exact quote, but I think you get the gist.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Are You Being Summoned?
You've seen those grim pictures from the Great Depression of people waiting in bread lines. The air of tight-lipped suffering, the shuffle of resignation caught even in photographic stillness, the downcast visages ashamed to show the eyes of human dignity to a world of indifference . . . you know them well, right? In every text book read in middle and high school you have seen them -- overwhelmingly men -- in their shabby coats and dipped-down fedoras, steeling themselves for an activity they despised in a setting they had disparaged.
I have seen the modern day bread line, and it is jury duty.
In our stylish, but not too stylish*, Pacific Northwest autumn garb we stood, men and women in disgruntled solidarity, to serve a function for which we did not care and claim a privilege we would rather have forsaken. Our bleary eyes distant, our faces blank, we shuffled forward through security into both the King County Superior Courthouse and the Great Unknown. How long would our tenure last? How many dull hours of waste would we contribute to the grinding wheels? Would we ever breathe the sweet, sharp air of an October afternoon again this year?
At least, that is what I hoped I was projecting, and that was certainly what I read on the impassive faces surrounding me. It was Monday morning at 8:00 AM, and I was in Seattle. Normally, Seattle is a beautiful and exciting city -- one of my favorite places on earth -- but not at 8:00 AM . . . oh no, not then. Smarter jurors than I (or at least ones that did not need an hour to commute that morning) were coddling lattes in their chilly hands, and I looked hopefully, but in vain, up and down the street for a Starbucks. The KC Superior Courthouse must be on the only city block in Seattle not to have one.
As I looked from face to face, my eye noted another observer of the human scene. She stood, tall and alert, her eyes darting around, a small smile of inward amusement on her face. She, too, had several books clasped in her hands to help her while away the day. Our gazes locked for a brief second, and her small grin widened and my caffeine-deprived frown disappeared into smile of spiritual recognition. Just seeing her there helped me immediately understand that this was, in fact, a very hilarious situation, and one that I ought to be drinking in and enjoying fully. I lost sight of this young lady in the sea of the Juror Assembly Room -- and, I'll confess that, hunkered down in my book, I did not look too hard for her -- but she gave me strength to turn this civil burden and unpleasant inconvenience of jury duty on its head. At least, she did for a little while.
When I was not a mom and a nanny with the needs and nurturing of two little girls foremost in my mind, and I had a job that paid me full salary while I served on a jury, I longed to be summoned for jury duty. My innate sense of curiosity was itching to see the inner workings of our fine judicial system. For years and years (and I did not have Sadie until I was 28 -- ten years after becoming eligible to serve on a jury), I waited without fulfillment for that calling to come. Then, last year, it came. I have no idea now why I did not serve last year. I was not nannying Little Pumpkin then, and Jason was working his same old job, and life was pretty even-keeled. For some reason I cannot remember, I requested the "one time only" delay, and postponed my service for a year. Then, I blithely forgot all about it.
Lo and behold! This year the summons came again, this time without any offer of a one-year reprieve. Now, to serve, I had not only to interrupt our family's life, I had to interrupt Little Pumpkin's family's life as well. To top it off, Jason had recently gotten a new job at work and was mired down with multiple hassles. This turned out to be the least easily accommodated point of my life to serve on a jury. And I had to drive all the way into Seattle during the morning rush to the courthouse. Like the teenager I once was, I whined to myself and Jason (lucky man) about how "unfair" this was. Like, so totally unfair (to the max). But, I went. What else could I do?
And I sat. And I sat. And I finished Henry IV, Part I. And I finished Heritage of Ireland: A History of Ireland and Its People. And I finished The Claddagh Ring: Ireland's Cherished Symbol of Friendship, Loyalty and Love. And I went to the vending machine and got some Nutter Butter Bites. And I shyly chuckled at the exasperated witticisms of my fellow jurors. And then, I got called for a jury.
I'll admit: As inconvenient as it was for me to be there; as much as Jason was at home with Sadie, gnashing his teeth at the thought of the work going undone at the office; as much as Little Pumps was disobliged by hanging out with her little-seen Aunt Diane for the day; the process of being taken by a bailiff into an actual courtroom and seeing, for the first time in my life, a real judge, was an awesome thing. I was number thirty-four out of thirty-five jurors called, so the judge waved off my protests of hardship in light of the fact that it was unlikely jury selection would even get down to where my position was. So, I rather relaxed and began to enjoy the show. And, nobody puts on a show like a weaselly trial lawyer.
It was a civil case. There was a car accident in 2002, and the plaintiff was charging that the defendant was negligent in his driving; therefore, she was looking to have him found liable for damages. Of course, this lady was very lucky that I wasn't chosen to be on the trial, because I had immediately and unreservedly decided in favor of the defendant. He was a nice-looking, old hippie guy, with long hair and a beard. The plaintiff could obviously stand up and sit down without assistance, her face and body looked fine (i.e., as good as nature intended), and she had wits about her to hire an attorney (in my jaundiced view, this was probably just before the statute of limitations was most likely set to run out), so I had little sympathy for her. Plus, I was rear-ended in a car accident back in 2000, and I chose not even to collect insurance money for damage done to my car, because I felt so sorry for the young kid who hit me. In car accidents -- unless the person is criminally liable (i.e., drunk or under the influence of drugs) -- I tend to think that forgive and forget is the best policy; and showing gratitude for yet being alive is also best done by not bringing lawsuits.
That said, I do believe that both tort laws and tort law reform are necessary. We cannot have a free society without some means of redress for wronged parties. But, we also cannot have a truly free society when everyone is running scared because of lawsuits. There must be balance.
Anyway, the questioning process of the two attorneys was fascinating. Watching them reject and approve jurors was too. I was glad that I had the chance to observe American justice in action; and I was just as glad when the jury was picked, and I was dismissed to go back the the Juror Assembly Room. I waited there a couple more hours, and then -- ah bliss -- I was dismissed again to go home. My jury duty was fulfilled for at least two more years.
I could easily see myself serving on multiple juries when Sadie is old enough to drive me into Seattle and trip around the city by herself all day while I perform my civic duty. I could see its becoming a unit in our homeschool curriculum: The American Judicial Process or What Mom Did While I Lurked for Eight Hours in Elliot Bay Bookstore. Until then, though, I'll look to avoid it whenever I can. The Bread Line/Jury Duty Shuffle is a dance best done rarely -- and, when possible, with a Pumpkin Spice Latte in one's hands.
*I include this notation because of something very funny I recently heard: My friend, Holly, who is considering moving up here from Los Angeles was talking to another L.A. transplant about life in the PNW -- somebody a little less rah-rah about Seattle than I -- somebody who had actually found some redeeming qualities in Southern California, and yet had chosen to move north. This friend of my friend was sharing her views on the cultural vibe of the city (excellent), the surrounding environment (stunning), the character of the citizenry (exemplary), the weather (well, you know), and the fashion sense of the general public (mediocre, at best). That amused me to no end. I would never have thought to look at fashion as a factor in making a move . . . but, I guess, that's why my modest, sensible, and classic clothing sensibilities fit in so well in my beloved northern home. Viva Eddie Bauer!
I have seen the modern day bread line, and it is jury duty.
In our stylish, but not too stylish*, Pacific Northwest autumn garb we stood, men and women in disgruntled solidarity, to serve a function for which we did not care and claim a privilege we would rather have forsaken. Our bleary eyes distant, our faces blank, we shuffled forward through security into both the King County Superior Courthouse and the Great Unknown. How long would our tenure last? How many dull hours of waste would we contribute to the grinding wheels? Would we ever breathe the sweet, sharp air of an October afternoon again this year?
At least, that is what I hoped I was projecting, and that was certainly what I read on the impassive faces surrounding me. It was Monday morning at 8:00 AM, and I was in Seattle. Normally, Seattle is a beautiful and exciting city -- one of my favorite places on earth -- but not at 8:00 AM . . . oh no, not then. Smarter jurors than I (or at least ones that did not need an hour to commute that morning) were coddling lattes in their chilly hands, and I looked hopefully, but in vain, up and down the street for a Starbucks. The KC Superior Courthouse must be on the only city block in Seattle not to have one.
As I looked from face to face, my eye noted another observer of the human scene. She stood, tall and alert, her eyes darting around, a small smile of inward amusement on her face. She, too, had several books clasped in her hands to help her while away the day. Our gazes locked for a brief second, and her small grin widened and my caffeine-deprived frown disappeared into smile of spiritual recognition. Just seeing her there helped me immediately understand that this was, in fact, a very hilarious situation, and one that I ought to be drinking in and enjoying fully. I lost sight of this young lady in the sea of the Juror Assembly Room -- and, I'll confess that, hunkered down in my book, I did not look too hard for her -- but she gave me strength to turn this civil burden and unpleasant inconvenience of jury duty on its head. At least, she did for a little while.
When I was not a mom and a nanny with the needs and nurturing of two little girls foremost in my mind, and I had a job that paid me full salary while I served on a jury, I longed to be summoned for jury duty. My innate sense of curiosity was itching to see the inner workings of our fine judicial system. For years and years (and I did not have Sadie until I was 28 -- ten years after becoming eligible to serve on a jury), I waited without fulfillment for that calling to come. Then, last year, it came. I have no idea now why I did not serve last year. I was not nannying Little Pumpkin then, and Jason was working his same old job, and life was pretty even-keeled. For some reason I cannot remember, I requested the "one time only" delay, and postponed my service for a year. Then, I blithely forgot all about it.
Lo and behold! This year the summons came again, this time without any offer of a one-year reprieve. Now, to serve, I had not only to interrupt our family's life, I had to interrupt Little Pumpkin's family's life as well. To top it off, Jason had recently gotten a new job at work and was mired down with multiple hassles. This turned out to be the least easily accommodated point of my life to serve on a jury. And I had to drive all the way into Seattle during the morning rush to the courthouse. Like the teenager I once was, I whined to myself and Jason (lucky man) about how "unfair" this was. Like, so totally unfair (to the max). But, I went. What else could I do?
And I sat. And I sat. And I finished Henry IV, Part I. And I finished Heritage of Ireland: A History of Ireland and Its People. And I finished The Claddagh Ring: Ireland's Cherished Symbol of Friendship, Loyalty and Love. And I went to the vending machine and got some Nutter Butter Bites. And I shyly chuckled at the exasperated witticisms of my fellow jurors. And then, I got called for a jury.
I'll admit: As inconvenient as it was for me to be there; as much as Jason was at home with Sadie, gnashing his teeth at the thought of the work going undone at the office; as much as Little Pumps was disobliged by hanging out with her little-seen Aunt Diane for the day; the process of being taken by a bailiff into an actual courtroom and seeing, for the first time in my life, a real judge, was an awesome thing. I was number thirty-four out of thirty-five jurors called, so the judge waved off my protests of hardship in light of the fact that it was unlikely jury selection would even get down to where my position was. So, I rather relaxed and began to enjoy the show. And, nobody puts on a show like a weaselly trial lawyer.
It was a civil case. There was a car accident in 2002, and the plaintiff was charging that the defendant was negligent in his driving; therefore, she was looking to have him found liable for damages. Of course, this lady was very lucky that I wasn't chosen to be on the trial, because I had immediately and unreservedly decided in favor of the defendant. He was a nice-looking, old hippie guy, with long hair and a beard. The plaintiff could obviously stand up and sit down without assistance, her face and body looked fine (i.e., as good as nature intended), and she had wits about her to hire an attorney (in my jaundiced view, this was probably just before the statute of limitations was most likely set to run out), so I had little sympathy for her. Plus, I was rear-ended in a car accident back in 2000, and I chose not even to collect insurance money for damage done to my car, because I felt so sorry for the young kid who hit me. In car accidents -- unless the person is criminally liable (i.e., drunk or under the influence of drugs) -- I tend to think that forgive and forget is the best policy; and showing gratitude for yet being alive is also best done by not bringing lawsuits.
That said, I do believe that both tort laws and tort law reform are necessary. We cannot have a free society without some means of redress for wronged parties. But, we also cannot have a truly free society when everyone is running scared because of lawsuits. There must be balance.
Anyway, the questioning process of the two attorneys was fascinating. Watching them reject and approve jurors was too. I was glad that I had the chance to observe American justice in action; and I was just as glad when the jury was picked, and I was dismissed to go back the the Juror Assembly Room. I waited there a couple more hours, and then -- ah bliss -- I was dismissed again to go home. My jury duty was fulfilled for at least two more years.
I could easily see myself serving on multiple juries when Sadie is old enough to drive me into Seattle and trip around the city by herself all day while I perform my civic duty. I could see its becoming a unit in our homeschool curriculum: The American Judicial Process or What Mom Did While I Lurked for Eight Hours in Elliot Bay Bookstore. Until then, though, I'll look to avoid it whenever I can. The Bread Line/Jury Duty Shuffle is a dance best done rarely -- and, when possible, with a Pumpkin Spice Latte in one's hands.
*I include this notation because of something very funny I recently heard: My friend, Holly, who is considering moving up here from Los Angeles was talking to another L.A. transplant about life in the PNW -- somebody a little less rah-rah about Seattle than I -- somebody who had actually found some redeeming qualities in Southern California, and yet had chosen to move north. This friend of my friend was sharing her views on the cultural vibe of the city (excellent), the surrounding environment (stunning), the character of the citizenry (exemplary), the weather (well, you know), and the fashion sense of the general public (mediocre, at best). That amused me to no end. I would never have thought to look at fashion as a factor in making a move . . . but, I guess, that's why my modest, sensible, and classic clothing sensibilities fit in so well in my beloved northern home. Viva Eddie Bauer!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Mortify Me! Scandalize Me!
Have you ever indulged in something that you know is simply going to tick you off, merely to enjoy a sense of outrage? I have that personality quirk in abundance, and I have just seen it rear its lovely little head again today. For, you see, I have just requested Constructing the Little House: Gender, Culture and Laura Ingalls Wilder by Ann Romines from our inter-library loan system.
I came across this title innocently enough. I was trying to find that beloved and oft mentioned volume in the Ingalls Family's petite library, Millbank. What was it about this novel that provoked the emptying of a slender purse for its purchase, I had often wondered. And why not Pride and Prejudice instead? So, in dabbling a bit over at Amazon.com, a search turned up the aforementioned scholarly treatment of the LIW books by one Ms. Romines. Fascinating! Then I read the reviews. And that's when the real fun began!
An excerpt from a review by Jennifer Smith in California: The major problem with the book, and the deal breaker as far as I was concerned, is that Ms. Romines leans heavily on the current academic "women's studies" line of woman as victim of patriarchy and outdated Freudian concepts of feminine and masculine. When Ms. Romines discusses such topics as the Oedipal undercurrents of Farmer Boy, or the "intensely romantic", "potentially incestuous" relationship even the very young Laura shares with her Pa, one wonders what sort of imagination Romines has. Ma is presented as little more than a woman beaten into submission by male dominance and her repressed feelings of resentment. Pa is presented as a pervert, haystacks become phallic symbols... it goes on and on like this.
[I knew a girl at Vivian Webb in Claremont, CA named Jennifer Smith who was particularly brilliant -- could this be she? Of course, there were a million Jennifers born in the 1970's and "Smith" is the stereotypical common last name: "A Mrs. Smith. A widow Mrs. Smith -- and who was her husband? One of the five thousand Mr, Smiths whose names are to be met with every where." Thus spoke Sir Walter Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion. Still, this seems to me an especially insightful and skillful review -- one that could have easily been penned by the Jennifer Smith of my memory.]
Another review, this one from Denise Shearer in Maryland, points out: For example, in LHITBW, on the trip to town, Ms Romines would have her readers believe that Pa's motives in urging Ma to buy some cloth for a new apron, and teasing her that he will pick out the pattern if she doesn't, is somehow his way of exercising his 'male' control over his wife, rather than what clearly comes through to the reader of LHITBW as his desire to make Ma happy by buying her something she doesn't expect - a surprise gift! There is nothing in Wilder's narrative to imply that his motives are anything less.
[Charles and Caroline Ingalls always seemed, to me, to have an ideally balanced and sweet and loving marriage. What woman would not want to be married to a "Pa"? And what man would not want a help-meet like "Ma"? Whether this relationship is the product of Laura's sentimentality in her old age or is accurately represented in the "Little House" books seems to me irrelevant. You cannot infer from the books themselves anything in their marriage that was dysfunctional or aberrant -- and if that was Ms. Romines sole source for this claim, then I cannot see how she has a leg upon which to stand.]
The other reviews were scalding and indignant and scintillating, too. And I started to think to myself, "I have to read this book!" But, of course, I did not want to buy it. So, since our library system does not carry it -- surprising, considering the subject matter -- I requested an inter-library loan.
Will this book disgust and enrage me? Probably. But, there is something very fun in raising one's own hackles in response to the rampant slaughter of cows held most sacred. It is an intellectual challenge to re-evaluate my own positions and reactions to a piece of art or literature or theology or music in light of desecration, and I have always found my original appreciation of beloved masterpieces strengthened after witnessing the assaults upon them. For instance, after viewing the cinematic atrocity of Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park (1999), I was better able to articulate why the original novel matters so much to me. Being able to know exactly why I rejected Rozema's portrayal of what is arguably Jane Austen's greatest novel has made me a more worthy reader of it. It is almost as if I now deserve its splendor more, having had the gut-wrenching, yet ultimately cathartic, experience of seeing its themes and heroine ripped to shreds on the big screen.
There are some things that are so inarguably good and wholesome and wise that it seems inconceivable that anyone should see anything twisted and dark while prodding the deeper layers. I see the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as one of those things. No matter how many times I read those wonderful books of my childhood, I can only marvel more at their strong spirit of determination, family love, indomitability, rugged individualism, optimism, and dogged humor in the face of privation. Of course, these themes are the ones most likely to be frowned upon in this miserable age of defeatism, fractured families, submersion in stress, weak-kneed blame-shifting, pessimism, and cruel humor in the suffocating embrace of material wealth. So, it is really no wonder that someone out there just couldn't resist applying today's skewed lens to a vision of the past. It is sort-of a shame, but also sort-of very funny, and I look forward to reading the copy my intrepid librarian will round up for me (perhaps from Frederick MD, where Ms. Shearer vowed to donate her copy to the public library).
I came across this title innocently enough. I was trying to find that beloved and oft mentioned volume in the Ingalls Family's petite library, Millbank. What was it about this novel that provoked the emptying of a slender purse for its purchase, I had often wondered. And why not Pride and Prejudice instead? So, in dabbling a bit over at Amazon.com, a search turned up the aforementioned scholarly treatment of the LIW books by one Ms. Romines. Fascinating! Then I read the reviews. And that's when the real fun began!
An excerpt from a review by Jennifer Smith in California: The major problem with the book, and the deal breaker as far as I was concerned, is that Ms. Romines leans heavily on the current academic "women's studies" line of woman as victim of patriarchy and outdated Freudian concepts of feminine and masculine. When Ms. Romines discusses such topics as the Oedipal undercurrents of Farmer Boy, or the "intensely romantic", "potentially incestuous" relationship even the very young Laura shares with her Pa, one wonders what sort of imagination Romines has. Ma is presented as little more than a woman beaten into submission by male dominance and her repressed feelings of resentment. Pa is presented as a pervert, haystacks become phallic symbols... it goes on and on like this.
[I knew a girl at Vivian Webb in Claremont, CA named Jennifer Smith who was particularly brilliant -- could this be she? Of course, there were a million Jennifers born in the 1970's and "Smith" is the stereotypical common last name: "A Mrs. Smith. A widow Mrs. Smith -- and who was her husband? One of the five thousand Mr, Smiths whose names are to be met with every where." Thus spoke Sir Walter Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion. Still, this seems to me an especially insightful and skillful review -- one that could have easily been penned by the Jennifer Smith of my memory.]
Another review, this one from Denise Shearer in Maryland, points out: For example, in LHITBW, on the trip to town, Ms Romines would have her readers believe that Pa's motives in urging Ma to buy some cloth for a new apron, and teasing her that he will pick out the pattern if she doesn't, is somehow his way of exercising his 'male' control over his wife, rather than what clearly comes through to the reader of LHITBW as his desire to make Ma happy by buying her something she doesn't expect - a surprise gift! There is nothing in Wilder's narrative to imply that his motives are anything less.
[Charles and Caroline Ingalls always seemed, to me, to have an ideally balanced and sweet and loving marriage. What woman would not want to be married to a "Pa"? And what man would not want a help-meet like "Ma"? Whether this relationship is the product of Laura's sentimentality in her old age or is accurately represented in the "Little House" books seems to me irrelevant. You cannot infer from the books themselves anything in their marriage that was dysfunctional or aberrant -- and if that was Ms. Romines sole source for this claim, then I cannot see how she has a leg upon which to stand.]
The other reviews were scalding and indignant and scintillating, too. And I started to think to myself, "I have to read this book!" But, of course, I did not want to buy it. So, since our library system does not carry it -- surprising, considering the subject matter -- I requested an inter-library loan.
Will this book disgust and enrage me? Probably. But, there is something very fun in raising one's own hackles in response to the rampant slaughter of cows held most sacred. It is an intellectual challenge to re-evaluate my own positions and reactions to a piece of art or literature or theology or music in light of desecration, and I have always found my original appreciation of beloved masterpieces strengthened after witnessing the assaults upon them. For instance, after viewing the cinematic atrocity of Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park (1999), I was better able to articulate why the original novel matters so much to me. Being able to know exactly why I rejected Rozema's portrayal of what is arguably Jane Austen's greatest novel has made me a more worthy reader of it. It is almost as if I now deserve its splendor more, having had the gut-wrenching, yet ultimately cathartic, experience of seeing its themes and heroine ripped to shreds on the big screen.
There are some things that are so inarguably good and wholesome and wise that it seems inconceivable that anyone should see anything twisted and dark while prodding the deeper layers. I see the "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as one of those things. No matter how many times I read those wonderful books of my childhood, I can only marvel more at their strong spirit of determination, family love, indomitability, rugged individualism, optimism, and dogged humor in the face of privation. Of course, these themes are the ones most likely to be frowned upon in this miserable age of defeatism, fractured families, submersion in stress, weak-kneed blame-shifting, pessimism, and cruel humor in the suffocating embrace of material wealth. So, it is really no wonder that someone out there just couldn't resist applying today's skewed lens to a vision of the past. It is sort-of a shame, but also sort-of very funny, and I look forward to reading the copy my intrepid librarian will round up for me (perhaps from Frederick MD, where Ms. Shearer vowed to donate her copy to the public library).
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