Boy Saints and Last Sundays

This morning I asked my first graders if anybody knew what a saint was.

"Someone good?" offered William.

"Not exactly," I said. "I'm looking for another answer."

"Oooo, I know!" Timmy exclaimed. "Girls?"

Now, I try to maintain a straight face when the kids answer questions because I don't want to embarrass them, but I couldn't help myself. The answer caught me so off guard that I burst out laughing.

I was glad to have the opportunity to tell them that the Bible defines saint as anyone who has placed their trust in God, who loves Him and wants to serve Him. God makes saints, and it isn't primarily based in your goodness or your gender. "Boys can definitely be saints," I said.

I have spent far too much of my life striving for female supremacy (actually personal supremacy). At times I have used the otherness of boys and men as an excuse to knock them down--trying to shred egos, trying to wound, and though I hope I have never succeeded to the point I was trying for, it certainly wasn't helping. I still remember the time I complimented a young man I had known for years and he said, "That's the first time you ever said you were proud of me." Ouch. It shouldn't have been.

What I want now, with all the boys I interact with, is to help grow men. To let them know that I love them; that they aren't perfect but neither is anyone else and that's why Jesus came; that I am proud of them when they answer questions, and when they fight against sin in their lives (a 7-year-old apologized to me tonight for his inattentiveness in many Sunday School classes...so, so proud of him and grateful to God for working in his young heart). I've been encouraged so much to see their hearts, and the way they're thinking, and I pray they will be a powerful force for the kingdom.

I want that for the men I interact with, too. To be more supportive than sarcastic (unless it's supportively sarcastic...I don't rule that out as an option), more respectful than resentful, more encouraging than ego-shredding, less and less self-protecting and self-aggrandizing. I'm not very good at it, but sanctification is real and I know that this is a desire of the heart that God will grant as I trust in Him.

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Today was the last Sunday for this first grade class. We have the month of August off, and then the next time I teach first grade it will be for a new group of kids. One of the girls told her mom this morning that she missed me already...and when her mom told me that, I almost cried, because I miss them, too.

I don't remember my Sunday School teachers from when I was growing up, so I don't expect that many of these kids will remember for long that I was their teacher. But I hope that some of the truths we discussed stick with them. I hope that I encouraged them to think deeper, and to apply what they learn to their lives. I don't care if they forget me, but I hope they caught at least a glimpse of Jesus and never forget that.

Fasting in a Major Key

The elders of my church congregation have called for a fast tomorrow, focusing on prayer for some people facing major health issues. I did a word search on BibleGateway.com for the words "fast" and "pray" in the same verse, and these were some reasons I found for prayer and fasting:

• The state of Jerusalem and the temple (the city of God and the house of God).
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• Confession of grievous sin and petition for the grace of God.
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• The work of God's church.
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• Petition for protection in times of dire need (as in the book of Esther when the Jews were faced with an imminent attack). 
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• Deliverance from accusers and enemies.
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• Guidance and wisdom.
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• Mourning.
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• Preparation for ministry.
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• Healing of the illnesses of others, in one case specifically for enemies, in another case for an illness brought about as a result of the petitioner's sin.

We have a shallow view of prayer and fasting. How often do we progress beyond the Sunday School prayer requests of children, the requests like "I have a lot of mosquito bites and I don't ever want any more again" that boil down to "I'm being annoyed right now and I want it to stop"?

Is it wrong to be annoyed by mosquito bites, or frustrated by bigger things like chronic illness, and wish they would go away? Probably depends on how you're handling the situation, but it isn't necessarily true that the existence of pain means that you have done or are doing something wrong. And there certainly isn't anything wrong with acknowledging the physical needs of the church. 

This is where I come up short: we're praying to the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who has promised to give us anything we ask for in faith, the God who has vanquished sin and death, and we're praying that we don't get any more mosquito bites.

I confess, I don't pray well. I don't often act like spending time with God is a top priority. Sometimes I can go whole days without even talking about him or what he has done, yet how many times have I been infatuated with people who have loved me far less and not been able to stop talking about even their most insignificant actions? (Harder maybe to talk about the real things.) How many days have I spent more time imagining what I would say to someone who isn't anywhere near me than I have spent speaking to someone who is always near me?

I'm not going to work myself into a lather of guilt over this, Satan, which I know is disappointing to you (good). My guilt has been taken care of on the cross. But here's what I'm trying to pass on, information you don't want sinking into anybody's head: prayer and fasting can thwart the devil himself. I'd trade a ton more mosquito bites for that.

Pray past the now.

Cold Day in July

I know a lot of people are sad on days like these, mid-July with very little sunshine, but I am not one of them. 

When it is chilly I can turn off my air conditioning, which not only saves me money but drops the ambient noise level in my apartment by about 50 decibels. I can wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants. Isn't it nice switching back and forth between seasonal wardrobes? ("Oh, turtleneck shirt! I haven't worn you in so long!") And isn't it nice cuddling up in blankets, no matter when it is? 

When it is dreary outside, everything slows down inside, too. It feels okay to be lazy, to leave things for tomorrow. Tiredness doesn't feel as oppressive on a dreary day as it does on a sunny day. The sun likes to guilt you out if you're sleeping in or watching TV instead of going on walks or bike rides, even though the sun knows perfectly well I am afraid of burning and I really really have to motivate myself to leave the apartment solo with no mission.

It feels like such a lovely, stretchy long day. 

Late night/Early morning ramblings

• Technically it is early morning, but in my vocabulary it isn't morning unless I've slept, so it is still late night for me.
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• I got a job as an office manager for a local charter school. For this job, which was really interesting. I start August 17. The next five weeks are vacation now, not unemployment. Nice.
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• What is it about driving my area of I-196 after dark that makes me forget I'm on an expressway? I have often glanced at the speedometer and seen I am waaaayyyy under posted speed limits. And I'm not the only one.
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• Sometimes people leave reviews on my fanfiction like this one--"Interesting. I wondered if Jacob was there. If so, wouldn't that be a twist?! I liked the story, though"--that make me wonder if they understand what the word "though" means. 
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• I think if you like a fanfiction enough to favorite it so you can check it out again later or recommend it to anyone who sees your profile, you like it enough that you can spend half a minute writing a review. Even just to say "This is going in my favorites." Writers like acknowledgment.
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• Went to a concert last night and one of the singers reminded me of Michael Emerson. High forehead, mostly. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I like high foreheads for physiognomic reasons--they're associated with intelligence. Which is very attractive.
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• Watching so much NCIS lately that tonight I caught myself making a gesture that belongs to one of the characters.
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• I noticed recently that I have a lot of songs on my iPod about men in love with difficult women.
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• I've been with my parents for 20 days out of the last four weeks. I have slept in my own bed 0 days out of that same time...the sofa bed in the room with the air conditioner is getting a lot of use. Speaking of which....
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• Good night.

Imagining and Knowing

Tonight my heart is light and I think it's because yesterday I talked about him and tonight I talked about him and both times I talked not about what I imagined he might be up to or how I see myself in this fraction of time, but about what I knew he had already done, and who he is, past and present and future.

In Sunday School yesterday, someone had a prayer request that mirrored a prayer request I have been keeping to myself, and I comforted her aloud with the truth I know, and in so doing received comfort. (God sends us people broken as we are so we can offer the comfort with which we have been comforted.) 

"Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee," another girl read from Matthew 28:10 during the lesson, and a boy asked in astonishment, "Jesus had brothers?" and it swept over me that yes, Jesus has brothers, and sisters, present and ever after tense, and I am one of them and it is awe-inspiring.

How can I be a sister of Christ? Because he didn't just die on the cross (others had done that), he rose from the grave. He didn't just rise from the grave (others had done that), he rose on his own power. And because only God could do that, then Jesus is who he said he was, and spoke the truth. And because his words can be trusted, we can know that his promises are true, and he promised to reconcile those who believed to God. More than that, he made us fellow children of God, co-heirs of all the blessings and riches of God (Romans 8:15-17). And that, as I told the kids, is why it is important that Jesus rose from the dead.

Tonight I spoke with a friend of deep matters, dark things of the heart, the thoughts and beliefs that entrench themselves. We talked of him then, too, about how he is not the one fighting to increase the hold these things have on me, but the one who fought once for all to release me from the chains I keep helping that other to wrap around my neck again, shadow chains with no power when I walk in the light.

"Do you know why I can't remember very well?" a boy asked me yesterday morning. "Because I forget really easily."

So do I, my young friend. Let's keep reminding each other about the important things.

Whatever He Commands

Maybe I'm the only one who has this problem, but the most draining issues in my life come up with obnoxious regularity. I'll get past something, move on a few years, encounter a similar scenario, try to relate better in it and think of myself less and of God and others more, and eventually crash and burn. Again. I'll see positive changes, but they often seem microscopic, to the point that when I recognize a scenario I practically hear the ticking time-bomb.

What do you want me to learn from this, God? What do I have to change to move past it and deal with something else? Why does it keep happening? Why do my best efforts keep ending in failure even when it seems like I'm trusting in you?

I'm reading Job now, which is pretty appropriate in some ways. On the one hand, I haven't had that level of suffering. On the other hand, I have definitely had the "Would somebody please tell me what on earth is going on" feeling. Yesterday I came across this passage: "Also with moisture he loads the thick cloud; he disperses the cloud of his lightning. It changes direction, turning around by his guidance, that it may do whatever he commands it on the face of the inhabited earth. Whether for correction, or for his world, or for lovingkindness, he causes it to happen" (Job 37:12-13).

You know what that passage doesn't say is one of God's goals for doing what he does? "To screw with your mind. To make you feel like a total failure and a waste of space in God's kingdom." (Come to think of it, I know who does have those goals.)

Job was tormented by Satan, and so was Paul. Paul begged three times for that torment to leave (and from my own experience I wonder if it was that whatever it was flared up three different times), and received this for an answer: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9a).

God, I am tired of this. I don't know what it is for, or what to do with it. This is what I know: Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and completed his work, and because of that I will not stand ashamed before you on the last day. Keep me from stumbling today. And tomorrow. And the next time.

Help me to remember that even though it seems that life drones on repetitively, drastic change only needs to happen once.

Casting Director

When I sit in group interviews I find myself more interested in evaluating everyone else than in coming up with my own presentation. I think I would like to be an interviewer, or casting director...I'm not great on the other side of the desk. 

Today after the opening "about me" statements, I kind of wished I had been sent home. One of the three of us had a great background in and love of the sort of work in question. My casting director side said, "They'd be stupid if they didn't pick her." Hearing her and the two women who were interviewing us almost made me cry--I so long to be doing something I feel that strongly about, but have trouble believing that is possible. Or if I should be using the energy to try to believe. And then I feel stupid for being so overwrought and melodramatic. (It's complicated up in my head. Sometimes it feels way too crowded up there.)

I'm heartsick.

"Why don't you just tell me...."

In one of my favorite Seinfeld bits, Kramer has been getting calls for Moviefone and has decided to answer his phone as though he were a recorded message. Unfortunately, as he is not really a Touchtone phone system, he can't tell which three letters the person on the other end of the phone is pressing as they try to select their movie. He offers a few wild guesses and finally blurts out, "Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you've selected?"

I kind of feel like that lately. You know, on an allegorical level. I don't know what buttons to press, I don't know what movie you want to see, but if you would just tell me what it is I would at least be able to move on from there. 

Extremes

"The Church condemns violence, but it condemns indifference more harshly. Violence can be the expression of love, indifference never. One is an imperfection of charity, the other the perfection of egoism." -- unnamed priest in Graham Greene's The Comedians

I would argue that imperfections of charity and perfections of egoism exist in both extremes, but in general I am far more likely to choose violence over indifference.  "I don't actually get upset," somebody told me once, and between the words I heard, "Deep down, I don't actually care about anything you could possibly say or do." Sometimes when I have made someone angry, there is a part of me that is happy about it because I'd rather they be angry at me than brush me off. And as I was writing that last sentence, I remembered that in a Harry Potter fanfic I once wrote I fed similar words into the mouth of Draco Malfoy. Nice.

Humans are pretty twisted up inside, aren't they?  Which extreme do you fall towards?

Oh, reality...I only ever wanted to visit you....

I just got back from a vacation with my parents and have been thrown back into real life. I am a bit tired of real life. Don't know what to do with it. On the one hand, I need a job to pay my bills. On the other hand, I have been enjoying all this time off--even on days when I've not turned my air conditioning on because I'm trying not to spend money, and I sit here feeling very frugal and rather sticky. And honestly, looking for a job at thirty was not what I thought would happen.

I wish somebody had told me as I was growing up that the odds of me being married straight after graduation or shortly into my time as a working woman were not as high as I thought they were (maybe especially confronting me on my extreme fear of failure and thus of commitment which I have often seen as a precursor to failure).  I wish somebody had urged me not to wait around for some prince to come rescue me from the tower of the corporate world (it wasn't always a conscious thought, but looking back, it was definitely in there). I wish somebody had challenged me to think about what to do with what I'd been given, to move out of my ruts, to fall on my face a few times and get back up.

This is my fear for the young girls in my church who hear a lot about being good wives and mothers and not a lot about what to do if that isn't in the plan: that they'll end up like me, unemployed and searching job boards and wondering why they spent seven years treading water and if they've doomed themselves to that for the rest of their lives.

But then, the first play I ever wrote outside of a class boiled up out of a period of intense discontentment. Maybe I'm scheduled to write a masterpiece.

A girl can still dream.

Love for me...

Friday morning the two youngest girls I was babysitting came downstairs groggy from just waking up and wanted me to read to them. "Pick some books," I told them, but by then they had climbed onto the couch next to me, or been pulled up onto my lap, and they were sleepy enough still that for the next ten or fifteen minutes I sat with two little girls cuddled up to me and dozing. And my heart was full, and the chorus of the Sara Groves song "One More Thing" was running through my mind: "Love for me is when you put down that one more thing and say 'I've got something better to do.' Love for me is when you walk out on that one more thing and say, 'Nothing will come between me and you--not even one thing.'" (I remembered this later that day as I was filling the dishwasher and heard another of the girls calling, "Are you coming yet?")

It's a chorus I remembered this thirtieth birthday month when my friends made time to be with me on my birthday, even though it was on a "work night" for most of them; or had a picnic for me ("Because she's my friend," Trudy told her grandchildren, who both insisted "She's my friend, too!"); or came along when I redeemed my free birthday meal certificates, even though in one case it might have been expensive and in another their infant son had been cranky that day; or expressed a desire to come even though they live in Austin, and Denver, and the Northwest Territories, and Newfoundland; or remembered it was Thirty Thursday even though I'm no longer a coworker. (My birthday is always a big deal to me, but this year it was an even bigger deal.)

It's a line that comes to mind when my parents ask me to come on vacation with them, or when my brother and sister-in-law ask if I'll make it out to see them soon, or when people find me in a crowded church building, or invite me over just so we can spend time together, or read what I have written on this blog and/or in my fanfiction postings.

Love is in words, yes, but Friday morning I realized that for me words follow time. Which was enlightening in a "you haven't picked up on that yet?" way, but also challenging, because I could immediately think of several definite examples of me being selfish with my time.

To all of you who have made time for me over the years, know that I've noticed and that it means a lot to me. I love you, too.

Bits & Pieces

From the opening line of an AP article on the analog/digital transition: "TV stations across the U.S. planned to cut their analog signals Friday, ending a six-decade era for the technology and likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service." "Stranding"? Really? I think if you've reached the point with your TV viewing that having it taken away can be described in similar terms as being stuck on a deserted island or without gas in the middle of the winter...well, that is a sad thing.

I've been babysitting for a family from church. I was there Wednesday early afternoon through Thursday late afternoon, and am going back for today (someone else is there with the kids now, no worries). I was a little nervous going in, as I have never been in charge of seven children for that long before, but it's been fun. Exhausting, but fun. Hoping for the energy to make it across state when I leave there tonight (I'm bringing Apollo with me so we can leave from there...a lot more than energy to get home without stopping at a rest stop, I'm hoping that the kids all pay strict attention to my injunction NOT TO GET THEIR FINGERS NEAR THE BIRD).

And then tomorrow at about this time I will be awake again, this time getting ready to drive out to the airport with my parents for a trip to Flagstaff. I hope they have karaoke night at this timeshare like they did last time I was out west with them. Even though I won't have my karaoke buddies Jeremiah and Michael. I love karaoke...yet another nerdiness I offer. If they don't have it, maybe I'll get my fix locally when I get back. (I found somewhere to do it a few weeks ago and have the goal of bringing a few friends along next time.)

My June has been very full.

Hello, I must be going.

Romance: Larghetto

"I bribed them. To sing us a song that would drive us insane and make our hearts swell and burst." -- Joe Versus the Volcano

Sometimes I feel this way about songs with no words. Chopin makes my heart swell...and though it doesn't burst, sometimes it gives serious thought to bursting. 

I am glad for the invention of the piano.

Thirty on Thursday!

How cool is it that I get to turn thirty on a Thursday? The answer: very. Bring on the alliteration and even approximate rhyme.

Many people in this age range say they will be staying twenty-nine for a long time, and they usually laugh like they made a really good joke. I often want to tell them what I often want to tell people who make temperature jokes when they hear that my last name is Winter: "You are not funny. And why are you not funny? Well, mostly because EVERYONE HAS ALREADY THOUGHT OF THAT. That is one of the most obvious things to say. You couldn't expend an ounce of effort towards originality?" 

And when Christians say this, well....

Here's the deal. God is sovereign. He has a plan for His people (Jeremiah 29:11), and you can't catch Him off-guard (Psalm 121:4), and He knew me before I was even born (Psalm 139:15-16). So if God knew I would be born thirty years ago, that means that if I am still alive today, this is exactly how old I am supposed to be. However old you are, that is exactly how old you are supposed to be. Trying to hide from it is trying to hide from a very basic, non-negotiable part of who God made you to be. (I am about 5'3". What if I went around telling everybody I was 5'11"? I would look ridiculous. Stop. Consider. Yes, that is in fact the comparison I am trying to make.)

And who knows? Maybe He scheduled my thirtieth birthday for a Thursday because He knew what a kick I'd get out of it. I wouldn't put it past Him.

Good Sunday

Sunday morning at about 3:00 I woke up with a head full of thoughts. I was thinking around a subject I've been on lately, that maybe the negative things in my life are consequences of poor decisions in the past, and yesterday morning the thought crystallized as "Maybe this is God's revenge for the times I've [fill in the blank]." And then, suddenly, the cross flashed into my mind, a vivid reminder that God saw a world full of people hating Him, or avoiding Him, or ignoring Him, and sent Jesus to make a way for reconciliation even though at the time nobody wanted to be reconciled. And that kind of God doesn't take revenge on the people He has reconciled to Himself. Might I experience hard times? Yes. Will they be because God is lashing out at me for past failures and sins of which I have repented? No. Consequences, maybe. Vindictive anger, no.

We talked about Ruth in the first grade class on Sunday morning. We were explaining what a famine was, how it meant your crops weren't growing and how that was a problem because you needed to eat, and one boy said, "But if you're a Christian, you will only starve, you won't die." I'm not sure exactly how he meant that, but it struck me as a good way of expressing that there are things worse than death, that the promise of life lived in the presence of God for all eternity outweighs even the most dire things earth has to offer. I may starve, but I won't die. I may lose friends, but I won't die. I may be confused, but I won't die. Someday, whatever it is I am going through will seem almost laughable by comparison to the glory of God revealed. "Remember when that was such a big deal to me? Remember how torn up I was over it, how much my heart ached? And yet I was never in any danger of dying."

Sunday evening I had nursery duty, so I decided to ride my bike to church. Technically, I could ride my bike more often, but 1) I wasn't sure how hot and sweaty I would be and 2) I am not really comfortable wearing pants in church on a regular basis. (Not that there aren't plenty of women in my church who do wear pants, I just almost always dress up more, so it feels weird for me.) Turns out it took me less than half an hour to ride over, so I arrived quite early. I spent an hour outside, walking around, sitting on the pavement, reading in 2 Chronicles, singing and talking and a little bit of dancing to God, listening, basking in the sun and the wind and the blue sky and green leaves and bird song. For me, there are few things as healing as wind--I've loved it for so long that it reminds me my problems are short-lived by comparison.

I was in nursery with pleasant people, including a woman I get along with very well but don't often connect with, and one little boy who mostly wanted to be acknowledged and snuggled for the evening, which was fine because I was in the mood for that, myself.

And then I went home and opened that book that's been sitting on my shelf for months.

Good day. Thank you, God.

Signs and Wondering

When Gideon is approached by the angel of the Lord, a term which refers to the Lord Himself, the Lord tells him He is with him, and sends him to deliver Israel from their Midianite oppressors. Gideon says, "Since You have appeared to me, I will do exactly as You say."

Um...no. Gideon, like Moses before him, asks how this is going to happen and tries to cloak doubt in humility instead of just doing what he is told. But then after the Lord reassures him "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man," Gideon agrees. 

Nope. Now Gideon asks for a sign. And that holds him for a little while, but soon he's asking for another sign. And another sign.

To sum up, it takes a personal appearance from God, two reassurances that God is for real going to be with him, and three miraculous signs before Gideon is totally confident to do what God asked him to do in the first place. All I want is one of those.

Yes, I'm a sign-chaser. I see signs just about everywhere (isn't life like a work of fiction? doesn't every small thing Mean Something?), to the point that I begin to discount all so-called signs, to the point that I start wondering if I'm discounting too many and maybe some of those are/were actual signs so let's check again, to.... Vicious cycle, anyone?

Last week in my giant set of interviews, two to four people asked a question like this: "I see from your resume you have a strong interest in writing, editing, and theatre. Why are you looking at administrative positions?" It Must Be A Sign.

Signs are a recurring motif in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. They first appear in a conversation the character Annie has with her mother, in which Annie says "Destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental." Minutes later, when the wedding dress she is trying on rips at a seam, Annie moans, "It's a sign!" The little boy who wants his dad to meet Annie claims a line from her letter is a sign. Annie's friend claims her unconscious repetition of a movie line is a sign. 

In one of the last scenes in the movie, it is the evening of Valentine's Day and Annie tells her fiance Walter about this man she knows from the radio, who might be at the top of the Empire State Building waiting for her at that moment. She and Walter break up, then look out the window and see the Empire State Building light up with a giant red heart. "It's a sign," gasps Annie. "Who needed a sign?" Walter replies, seemingly the only one who realizes that "it's a sign" can be code for "now I recognize what I want."

General principle: if you find yourself looking for signs, ask yourself why. To support an action? Just act. To put off taking action, like Gideon was? Just act. To get around to something you don't want to do? Maybe this is a time to confront why you don't want to do it, and whether your reasons are valid. (The Pharisees asked for a sign from Jesus and He came down on them hard for not believing the Word they claimed to be teaching, confronting them for hiding behind a request for a sign when what they meant was "I am fighting against this, against You.")

Sometimes looking for a sign is a way of delaying the part of life where you look truth in the face. Sometimes it's a way of setting somebody else up to take the blame if the consequences of your actions are not up to your expectations.

Do I want clarity? Yes. Should I expect to receive clarity in a particular area of my life when I'm dodging it in others? I don't think so.

I feel very adrift on the topic of employment, but there's a book on my shelf that is the first step in research for my first attempt at a full-length play. I have had this book for five months, have been thinking about reading it for maybe a year longer than that, and the basic kernel of the idea that led me to the book has only been growing in that time, pushing more insistently through various events in my life. Every time I pick up another book instead I feel the twinge of procrastination.

Who needs a sign?

No working with an engineering department for me

"Actual life is full of false clues and signposts that lead nowhere," to quote E.M. Forster, "unmanageable because it is a romance."

I had a giant round of interviews last week (8 people, individually, over 2.5 hours) and did not get hired. I did get a lot of interview experience, obviously, and I don't feel horrible about the situation. Not getting hired because of an egregious error on my part would have been one thing, not getting hired because I didn't fit their needs is another. During the course of the interviews, I had two or three people ask me why I was pursuing this sort of career, one that had nothing to do with writing or theatre.

Now, I'm the queen of false clues and signposts and finding hidden meanings where none exist, so I'm not sure, but...I wonder if I'll look back sometime twenty or thirty years from now and be able to see the direction in which God was nudging me in 2009.

I wonder if, in retrospect, it will look rather like a romantic comedy.

Kind of like Italy

When you go to bed all clean, with fresh sheets and pajamas, 

and you wake up with a cool breeze on your skin 

and green, green, green-just-a-hint-of-blue-sky-back-there outside your window, the leaves dancing in the breeze so that your nearsightedness makes it look like a Monet painting in motion, 

and you hear the birds, especially the ones that have made a nest over your air conditioner,

and you can hear cars and lawn mowers but nothing that sounds like hurry,

it's hard to believe that any of your problems are really problems next to this quiet joy

so you leave them 

you take another day off to putter around and play the piano and read and write and sit with friends

you dedicate the day to God not in its bustle of activity but in its restfulness.

Anyway, I do.

Someday I hope to live with somebody who makes me laugh even half as much as I laugh when I'm with Janessa and Jillian. And who has an equal capacity for insightful, encouraging conversation. Even if that person had been horribly disfigured by acid, it would be worth it.

A Room with a View

My book club met last night, so I feel free to blog about this E.M. Forster book now. (It was a little weird when I first arrived last night, because I had just read my version of a book club meeting on this book that I had fanfic'd a little over a year ago. Wanted to refresh my memory on what I had thought then on some of the main points. Lisa says I'm a nerd.)

I love this book. Love it. (I think I've mentioned that.) There was somebody there who pretty much hated it, which is always a little punch-to-the-gut for me because I identify so strongly with certain fictional characters and books and movies that somebody saying they like or dislike it is immediately equivalent in my mind to people saying they like or dislike me. To the point that when people say something like, "My favorite character in the Harry Potter series is Hermione," I have to remind myself that other people do not think like I do and so very likely this is not a compliment or oblique reference to what the person thinks of me. 

A Room with a View is strongly themed around personal honesty. Lucy is a young woman raised in a fairly conventional society, and she has been accustomed to accepting everyone else's view of her. On a holiday to Italy, she finds herself rebelling internally, urged on by a pair of travelers with whom she falls into easy comradeship. This disturbs her so much that she runs (personal honesty is a frightening thing when you're not used to it), but of course you can't run from truth your whole life, at least not often in books, and by the end everything has sorted out, or she has.

Lisa said that a room with a view is a place from which you can see things, thus the title for a book about broadening horizons and seeing things as they are. (She said it better last night, but I didn't write it down.)

Quotes, quotes, quotes, quotes....

"He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak the truth."

"By understanding George you may learn to understand yourself." 

"She had refused, not because she disliked him, but because she did not know what had happened, and she suspected that he did know. And this frightened her."

"I'm always right. I'm quite uneasy at being always right so often."

"Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we cannot tell whether our secret is important or not."

"For the only relationship which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl's soul yearned."

"But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by deep sobs.... Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must stifle it."

"She disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that king of terrors--Light."

"Yes, for we fight for more than Love or Pleasure, there is Truth. Truth counts."