Month: January 2007

  • House

    We watched an unusual episode of House last night.  Instead of a medical mystery to diagnose, the plot was driven by two relationships between doctor and patient:  House and a rape victim, and  Cameron and a terminal  homeless man.  As the young girl was processing through the ugliness she made a connection with House and refused to speak to any medical personnel except him.  Their conversations ranged from the meaning of life, the existence of God, eternity, to justice, the problem of evil, and abortion.

    In juxtaposition to House’s patient is the homeless man who wants to spend a night in the hospital.  He refuses pain medication in the last hours/days of his life for a very odd reason. He has no family and no friends and wants to be remembered.  If he took the medicine, it would be an everyday, forgettable cancer death.  In his search for significance he chooses to go through the pain.  There is also an element of atoning for his past in the decision. 

    After we turned the TV off, we sat and talked for half an hour about the consistencies and inconsistencies of the philosophical positions presented.  We put our reluctant 15 year old on the spot – how do you answer these valid questions? 

    At 4:30 a.m. my husband woke me up to talk about it more.  “I figured it out,” he quietly exclaimed.  “I want to meet this writer.  We were focusing on the wrong storyline.  The man is a Christ figure.  What did he keep saying? ‘Remember me.’ He was doing what his father said.  He wouldn’t take the vinegar.  She washed his wounds after he died. His death was significant.  And how did the show begin? With STDs in young, middle and old people.  What is our disease and how is it transmitted? So House persuaded the girl that life is not significant in contrast to the old man who had no expectations but to die with significance.”

    Did anyone see this?  What did you think?    

    [Added later: Donna at Quiet Life also blogged about this episode here.  MFS at MentalMultivitamin blogged about it here.]

  • Pride

    Pride is a denial of God,
    an invention of the devil,
    contempt for men.

    It is the mother of condemnation,
    the offspring of praise,
    a sign of barrenness.

    It is a flight from God’s help,
    the harbinger of madness,
    the author of downfall.

    It is the cause of diabolical possession,
    the source of anger,
    the gateway of hypocrisy.

    It is the fortress of demons,
    the custodian of sins,
    the source of hardheartedness.

    It is the denial of compassion,
    a bitter pharisee,
    a cruel judge.

    It is the foe of God.

    It is the root of blasphemy.

    John Climacus as quoted in The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    This devastating quote stopped me, stunned me. Each time I read it a different phrase sticks like Velcro to my soul. 
        Gateway of hypocrisy     
    Custodian of sins

    I am reading The Cloister Walk slowly and intermittently.   Norris’s journal of extended visits to a Benedictine monastery dovetail  beautifully with our study of medieval  life and literature; her meditations bring that far distant time of monks and tonsures closer to the now. The book is structured around the liturgical year, an idea which is so foreign to my low church upbringing. 

    Norris is very L’English to me: at times I appreciate her style, the poetry in her soul which illumines the prose, more than the substance of her words.  For example, I think it very strange that a married woman would spend months apart from her husband in a monastery.  Maybe there were extenuating circumstances which she chose not to include in her book.  Undoubtedly our theology would zig zag were we to line it up side by side.  Nevertheless gems of insight, piercing perception, pop off the page as I continue reading.     


    Which one of these phrases grabs you today?

    [Added: More about John Climacus and excerpts on the memory of insults, hypocrisy and lies, and love as light, fire and flame.]

  • Do I Wave or Do I Waive?

    We live at the edge of the wave.  Waving at neighbors, known or unknown, is not a universally accepted practice in my small town.  But drive 15 minutes, turn onto a two-lane road and you will be waved at by ranchers and farmers you’ve never before seen. 

    In the city, where one learns to avert glances and study the sidewalk cracks, if a stranger were to wave, one is immediately suspicious: “Why is she waving at me? What’s up with that?”  We draw into ourselves, put up our deflector shields and turn up our iPods. 

    In the rural west, a land of long, lonely highways stretching across vast expanses, an approaching vehicle is treated as a neighbor and appropriate acknowledgement is given.  Sometimes it is accompanied by a small nod of the head.  Smiling is not necessary, certainly not normal.  Each person develops a personal style. 

    Left hand up like a signal to stop and back down in one clean stroke. 

    A side swipe through the air, fingers pressed together as the hand arcs. 

    The right thumb grips the wheel of the car and four fingers stand to attention for a brief moment.

    If that requires too much effort, or demonstrates too much garrulousness, lift only the index finger off the wheel.

    That last motion, the smallest output of energy, still communicates a powerful message:  you are a fellow traveler on this journey through life and I notice you.  It’s a friendly gesture left over from friendlier generations. 

    We are selective wavers.  In town we wave and nod to acquaintances and friends.  Except when we are mistaken.   [Isn't that the queerest feeling: enthusiastically waving to a friend and then discovering in a split second it's not the one you expected?  Oops!]  But when we get out of town and off the interstate we waive our rights to isolation and blend in with the local hand-lifters.  Yet, I still catch myself swiveling my head and quizzing my friendly husband, “Did you know that person?”

    Do people wave where you live?
          

  • Fine Art Friday – Leister

    Judith Leyster  Young Flute Player  (1630-35)

  • Aidan


    As I read through Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People I fell in love with a man named Aidan (died A.D. 651). What is it with these A guys?  Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Aidan…  There are only two pages on his life (p.150-151 in Penguin Classics); but that is enough to win you to the winsome man who left the island of Iona to live in  Lindisfarne.  His life is marked by self-discipline and discretion.

    Aiden was the most popular boy’s name in 2006.  I’ve decided that everytime I know a family who names their son Aiden I will include a photocopy of these two pages with a card of congratulations.  It is a lovely legacy.

    Oh! OH! Wouldn’t Seamus [usually pronounced SHAY mus] and Aidan be lovely names for twin boys? 

    ~ ~ ~

    Whether in town or country, he always travelled on foot unles compelled by necessity to ride;
    and whatever people he met on his walks, whether high or low, he stopped and spoke to them. (p.150)

    ~ ~ ~

    It is said that when King Oswald originally asked the Irish to send a bishop to teach the Faith of Christ to himself and his people, they sent him another man of a more austere disposition.  After some time, meeting with no success in his preaching to the English, who refused to listen to him, he returned home and reported to his superiors that he had been unable to achieve anything by teaching to the nation to whom they had sent him, because they were an ungovernable people of an obstinate and barbarous temperament.

    The Irish fathers therefore held a great conference to decide on the wisest course of action; for while they regretted that the preacher whom they had sent had not been acceptable to the English, they still wished to meet their desire for salvation. 

    Then Aidan, who was present at the conference, said to the priest whose efforts had been unsuccessful: ‘Brother, it seems to me that you were too severe on your ignorant hearers. You should have followed the practice of the Apostles, and begun by giving them the milk of simpler teaching, and gradually nourished them with the word of God until they were capable of greater perfection and able to follow the loftier precepts of Christ.’

    At this the faces and eyes of all who were at the conference were turned towards him; and they paid close attention to all he said, and realized that here was a fit person to be made bishop and sent to instruct the ignorant and unbelieving, since he was particularly endowed with the grace of discretion, the mother of virtues.  They therefore consecrated him bishop, and sent him to preach.  Time was to show that Aidan was remarkable not only for discretion, but for the other virtues as well.  (p.151)

     

  • Thoughts on Aging

    These quotes are taken from The Oxford Book of Ages chosen by Anthony and Sally Sampson.

    Hold fast to time! Use it!
    Be conscious of each day, each hour!
    They slip away unnoticed too easily and too swifty.

    ~ Thomas Mann, September 1938, written when he was 63


    I am getting to an age when I can only enjoy the last sport left.
    It is called hunting for your spectacles.

    ~ Lord Grey of Falloden in The Observer, 1927, written when he was 73


    Every day in my old age is more important than I can say.
    It will never return.
    When one takes one’s leave of life
    one notices how much
    one has left
    undone.

    ~ Sibelius, 1957, written when he was 91, shortly before his death

    The one thing I regret
    is that I will never have time
    to read all the books
    I want to read.

    ~ Françoise Sagan, Responses, 1979, written at age 43

  • Intentional Television

    The first 29 years of my life were lived without a television in the house.  As a teen-ager I didn’t miss TV, but I hated being weird; I was allergic to otherness.  One day in high school the teacher decided to do an on-the-spot survey of TV viewing habits.  One by one, she queried the class and students gave the hours watched the day before.  The usual replies were between two and four hours. I cringed as she came closer to calling on me.  Joe Fritz, the guy in front of me, had been sick the day before and figured he watched 8 1/2 hours. 

    “Carol?” she droned.  “How much did you watch?”

    I looked a little off to her left and said, “None.”

    This threw her off her stride, but evidently interested her.  “Wait a minute. Were you not home yesterday?”

    I bit the inside of my cheek.  “No. I was home.”

    “Is your TV broke?”

    “Um…no.”  [Please, please don't make me admit I don't have a TV]  With each question I slid a quarter of an inch lower in my seat.  I focused my attention on a spot on the floor.

    “Well, how much did you watch the day before?”

    Better face the music.  Big sigh. I looked up and admitted,  “None….we don’t have a TV.”

    “You DON”T HAVE A TV?”  She searched for a diplomatic way to ask about our financial status.

    “Carol, is there a reason your family doesn’t have a TV?”

    “Yes there is.  My dad doesn’t want one.”

    A similar conversation a few years ago made me laugh instead of cringe.  I was at my desk at the pharmacy where I work entering numbers on Excel.  There were two twenty-something co-workers in the office.  One is what my husband calls a Chatty Cathy.

    “[celebrity's name] had a baby girl yesterday.”

    I kept working and replied, “Oh. Good.  [pause]  Is she one of our customers?”

    Pepsi came spewing out of her mouth as she choked and said, “Carol. You don’t know who [...] is?”

    I paused and looked at her.  “Should I know who she is?”

    The twenty-something intern jumped in.  “Don’t you watch Friends?”

    “Well, I’ve seen a few minutes here and there, but I’ve never watched an entire episode.  I’m sorry, but I’m unfamiliar with [...]“

    The shock of it all disoriented them.  They shook their heads trying to process the wonder of it.  Giggles kept erupting from them over the next half hour. I chuckled, shrugged, smiled, and sat up straighter as I continued with my number crunching.

    ~          ~          ~         ~          ~           ~

    This is not a screed against watching television. 

    This is a rant against mindless viewing habits.

     Roseteacup’s comment “TV is a thief to be reckoned with” has been reverberating through my week.  After we got a TV, the pendulum swung and for a period our viewing diet was omnivorous.  We considered getting rid of the TV, but favored controlling it over chucking it.  We established (and re-established – you know how slippage happens) some household rules:

    1.   The kids do not have open access to the TV.  They need permission to even turn it on.

    2.   Watching TV during a meal is a rare exception.  There is something precious about eating around a table and talking to one another.  When the World Series is on, we’ll eat while watching the game in the living room.  It’s fun, but it’s not normal.

    3.  The TV is never on for background noise.  The world is full of beautiful music to listen to.  Silence allows you to mull over ideas.  Serenity is nigh impossible with a TV on.

    4.  People always trump programs.  When someone knocks on the door the TV goes off.  No. matter. what. We honor our visitor by listening and looking at them with our full attention.   When we talk on the phone we leave the room if the TV is on. 

    5.  Decide the level of intake in advance.  When we’re tired, weary, bored, etc. the default response is not to turn the television on.  It grips, it sucks, it scoops you in – but it rarely satisfies.

    We have found this to be a part of life which requires regular, systematic evaluation.  There are some great shows to watch.  But they don’t always remain great shows to watch.  Television is a medium which delivers some that is profitable and much that is wretched. Too many times I have watched a program that was substandard, but was too passive, too engaged (or is it disengaged?), to click Off.  When I go to a nursing home I notice the comatose habits of the residents in front of the box; I **so** don’t want that to be the way I live life at age 75. 

    Thoughts?  Any yeahbuts? 

  • Flexible Rigidity

    But the splendour of furrowed fields is this: that like all brave things they are made straight, and therefore they bend.  In everything that bows gracefully there must be an effort at stiffness.  Bows are beautiful when they bend only because they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades can curl like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring straight again.  But the same is true of every tough curve of the tree trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough; there is hardly any such thing in Nature as a mere droop of weakness.  Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed by mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth. The cosmos is a diagram just bent beautifully out of shape.  Everything tries to be straight; and everything unfortunately fails.

    The foil may curve in the lunge; but there is nothing beautiful about begnning the battle with a crooked foil.  So the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts; but that is no reason for beginning with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. … Do not try to bend, any more than trees try to bend.  Try to grow straight, and life will bend you.            ~ G.K. Chesterton from Alarms and Discursions

    Agree or disagree? 
      

  • Donne for the Day



    A Hymn to God the Father

    Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
    And do run still, though still I do deplore?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
    For I have more.

    Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin and made my sin their door?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year, or two, but wallowed in a score?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
    For I have more.

    I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
    Swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
    Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
    And having done that, Thou hast done,
    I fear no more.

    John Donne
                                                                                                            


  • Howard Pyle & N.C. Wyeth

    Illustration from  Robin Hood and Little John
           by N.C. Wyeth, pupil of Howard Pyle

    “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty–except, of course, books of information.  The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.”    ~  C.S. Lewis

    In the preface to Robin Hood, Howard Pyle gives us an upside-down Lemony Snicket warning:

    “You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give
    yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the
    land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent
    laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the
    leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly that if you
    go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, sober folks of real
    history so frisk and caper in gay colors and motley that you would not
    know them but for the names tagged to them.”

    Was Robin Hood homeschooled?  Are not these good goals for our sons?
     

    “She taught him to read and write,
    to doff his cap without awkwardness,
    and to answer directly and truthfully both lord and peasant.”

    Perhaps Pyle is better known for his illustrating than his writing.  He left an immense legacy in the students he taught, referred to as  the “Brandywine School”: including N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Jessie Wilcox Smith.  Reading Robin Hood has been a delight with a turn of phrase jumping off the page at regular intervals: 

    They feasted royally, and clinked each other’s cups,
    until the sun had ceased to print the pattern of the leaves
    upon the forest carpet.

    It was a day so brimful of quiet joy that the two friends lay flat on their backs,
    gazing up at the scurrying clouds,
    and neither caring to break the silence.

    [He] boot-licked his way to favour.

    …but she was delightfully disappointed.

    …and the merry chatter of the people went abroad
    like the hum of bees in a hive.

    The winter dragged its weary length through the Sherwood Forest…

    So away went the Sheriff …and cudgelled his brain
    on the way home for some plan of action.

    “Mine is a simple nature and I care not
    for the fripperies and follies of court life.
    Give me a good meal and cup of right brew,
    health, and enough for the day, and I ask no more.”
    ~ Richard sighed. “You ask the greatest thing
    in the world, brother–contentment.
    It is not mine to give or to deny.
    But ask your God for it, and if belike He grant it,
    then ask it also in behalf of your King.”