Month: September 2007

  • The Courage to Purge

    My zone in the garage, the "after" picture.

    Lately, I've been a brave little buckaroo.

    I'm learning to purge.

    Don't worry, I'm not upchucking.  Bulimia will never tempt me.  It doesn't take all my fingers to count the times I've experienced what Hank the Cowdog calls reverse perestroika since I was twelve years old.

    I'm Throwing. Things. Away.

    It's hard.

    Somehow, growing up, I developed a hatred of waste.  As poor as we were, there was always the sense that "someone else might be able to use this."   The facility with which some folks fling something like a dirty towel into the trash, makes me wince.  I feel righteous indignation at the disposable society that we've become. 

    So we recycle.  We use stuff until it is no longer usable.  We take stuff other people are pitching if we can use it.

    Our culture has become so affluent that we cannot even give stuff away.  The local Salvation Army went under, in a bankrupt sort of way, because their trash bill was greater than their receipts.  Think about it.

    My personal little MySpace, the zone in the garage (I prefer the British pronunciation: GAIR-azh) under my dominion, was, well, beyond the beyonds.   The lovely counter was invisible.  It was the landing zone for all kinds of stuff.  Leftover garage sale remnants, old curricula that no one wants, papers to file - in short, the detritus of decades of my life.

    Every three years or so, God blesses me with the perfect mindset for this kind of job.  I stiffen my sinews, twist my head looking aside, and start filling garbage bags.   Those  large, round earrings that no one would take?  Gone.  Clipboards galore?  Out of here.  My favorite mug, chipped right were you sip?  Trashed. Boxes saved and tumbling over everything?  Recycle.

    Then there was the file cabinet.  Stuffed so full that your knuckles began to hurt as you approached it.  Good stuff mixed with useless rubbish.   In one moment, I broke an eccentric little habit that even my husband didn't know I had.  I saved years of utility bills.  When the file got too large, I made a ledger of notebook paper and wrote the information down from each month's bill before I tossed it.  Our kilowatt usage, price per kilowatt, and amount paid.  Water, gas, electricity, phone.  Years of information.  That's why I didn't answer your letters timely, Mel!

    In an epiphany of blinding clarity, I asked myself, Why?  So in 1983 we paid $17 a month for water.  How does knowing that help me?  Out they went, pages of useless information.  It was a Neil Postman moment.

    But I admit to being a little lost.  How do you do it?  Do you save three months at a time?  A year?  Nothing?

    A. HA!!  I need to switch to online bill paying and voila!  my paths will be made straight. 

    But I am curious.  How do normal people file their bills?


    Oh beautiful counter, it's so good to see you again.

  • Sonnet

    All we need is fourteen lines, well thirteen now,
    and after this one just a dozen
    to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
    then only ten more left like rows of beans.
    How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
    and insist the iambic bongos must be played
    and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
    one for every station of the cross.
    But hang on here while we make the turn
    into the final six where all will be resolved,
    where longing an heartache will find an end,
    where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
    take off those crazy medieval tights,
    blowout the lights, and come at last to bed.

    ~  Billy Collins

    Read in daily email from The Writer's Almanac

  • Friend of Children

    A new member of our church was born this week...


    Photo KGB

    We know that this child is a gift from Thee.  Grant us grace and wisdom to bring it up in the knowledge and understanding of Thy Word, which makes us all wise unto salvation. 

    Bless our child with a healthy body, a clear mind, and a clean heart, and preserve it to us if it be Thy will. Grant that our child will grow up in favor with Thee and bring sunshine and joy into our hearts and our home.

    Keep us all in Thy grace, forgiving us daily our sins and filling our souls with peace.  Thou art our Hiding place.  And now to Thee be praise, glory, thanksgiving for this precious gift this day and forever; through Jesus Christ, who is the Friend of children and the Savior of all.  Amen.    from the Lutheran Book of Prayer


    A brother!  Photo KGB

  • Cowboys and Indians

    When I was a girl living in the suburbs of Chicago, a special outing meant a trip to the Art Institute, or a concert at Orchestra Hall or a exhausting but thrilling circuit through the Museum of Science and Industry or the Field Museum of Natural History. 

    We never went to the rodeo.

    Yesterday my DIL Jessie, my cowboy grandson Gavin and I donned we all
    our denim apparel and went to the Pendleton Round Up.   It was my first
    professional rodeo.  Jess was the perfect companion and patiently
    explained the rules, strategies, penalties, and points of each event. 
    Gavin held his cowboy hat up and said, "Yee-HAW!"

    There must be a rule: men can wear only Wrangler jeans.  Honest!  There were no Levis, Lees, Tommy Hilfiger, or Faded Glories.  It was Wrangler to a man. 

    Behind the stands was a unique campground.  There were 100-150 teepees set up, teepees of all sizes.  It truly is a cowboy and Indian event.  Tribes congregate in their traditional dress (sometimes a little too traditional for my eyes - some of the men had precious little covering their hineys).  [All photos are from pendletonroundup.com]

    This event is officially called Steer Wrestling, but Jess called it Bulldoggin'.  The cowboy goes full speed on his horse towards this steer, jumps off the horse onto the back of the steer, grabs it by the horns and wrestles it onto its back.

    If you go here and look at the video box, Rodeo Up, on the left, eventually you will see footage of this.  It's unbelievable.

    I'd never seen Barrel Racing, the one event for women.  I've heard of it though, and always pictured horses jumping over barrels instead of running around them.

    Bull Riding seems to the be sine qua non of rodeo.  It is a remarkable feat of strength and balance.  Our seats, a gift from a co-worker, were just a few rows above the spectators in the picture above.  In other words, excellent. We saw an 87 point ride, which will probably win that cowboy some money.  He sent his hat spinning in the air after his dismount, exhilirated by his success. 

    I felt like a foreign exchange student, a stranger in a different culture getting my bearings.  It must be a neighborhood in Lake Wobegone, because all the men are strong.  One might question the sanity of a person who wants to risk his life for the privilege of staying on a bucking bull, but his courage is unquestionable. 

  • Cheerfulness as a Weapon

    Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation in its power of endurance.        Carlyle (quoted by PoiemaPortfolio)

    She could do that.  She could infect a whole house with gaiety and she used her gift as a weapon against the despondency that lurked always around outside the house waiting to get in at Tom.              John Steinbeck in Cannery Row

    That is how she seems to take life: no suspecting of motives: looking for, therefore perhaps finding, kindness on every side.            O. Douglas in Penny Plain

     In spite of her losses, Nancy Beechum Feltner was not a frightened woman, as her son would learn. He would learn also that she was a woman of practical good sense and strong cheerfulness.  She knew the world was risky and that she must risk her surviving child to it as she had risked the others, and when the time came she straightforwardly did so.          Wendell Berry in That Distant Land


     

  • Anticipation


    Photo credit

    Anticipation, where have you gone? 

    When I was young I received a hardbound Little House in the Big Woods for my birthday.  That year at Christmas I was given Little House on the Prairie. The following birthday brought Farmer Boy.  You get the point.  The anticipation was delicious.  I treasured each book because it came with a waiting period.

    I'm convinced that a major component in the excitement over the final Harry Potter book is the fact that, finally!, people had to wait for something they wanted.  Tension increased as the publication date approached.  And there was a thrill in that taut expectation that replaced the typical torpor, boredom and apathy. 

    This applies across the board to all our appetites:  food, drink, sex, entertainment, travel. 

    It all tastes better when you are hungry.  

  • What is Left?

    I’ve been thinking about life, death, meaning and
    memories. 

    The writer Madeleine L’Engle and the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti
    both died last Thursday.  They left
    behind them a body of artistic work, a legacy which will impact the lives of
    our great-grandchildren. 

    When one dies, what is left? 

    How does one take the measure of the dash between the dates on the
    tombstone? 

    The stuff holds
    little significance to me.  The sum total
    of my inheritance from my parents was a Bible, a few photos, a few books and
    some mimeographed correspondence between my father and mother. What I inherited, what they both gave me, is an abiding faith
    in God, a passion for words, a home saturated with good music, the tactile pleasure of
    holding a baby, a nasty habit of procrastination, an irresistible impulse to
    buy books, genuine pleasure in hospitality, an easy ability to gain weight, an avoidance of conflict, a tendency
    to approach work in fits and starts and a hundred other traits which can be both
    annoying and endearing.

    When my mother died, her artistic work was her children and the people who came into her everyday life.  She wasn't famous, but she did leave a significant monument of love in the hearts of those who knew her. 

    The passing of a public person is a moment when death demands center stage and gets your attention; you can avoid it, evade it -- but there it stands, waiting to be faced.

    My husband and I did just
    that     while driving yesterday.  We
    talked about the future day when the doctor says, “This is
    it.  The big one.  Put your affairs in order.”  We wondered if we would be compelled to spend
    $30K to prolong life three months.  We
    talked about the lives of our sons, about the present state of our family.  We affirmed our appreciation for the years we’ve
    had together; recounted the many ways we’ve seen the goodness and kindness of
    God displayed in our lives.  We mentioned
    the regrets, not for our circumstances but for the sin of which we have been
    slow to repent.  

    In short, we spoke our
    farewells     to one another, banking them into a memory deposit box.  If one of us were to be taken in an instant,
    we would have this day to look back on, these words to hear in our memory. I hope we take many more opportunities to say the words, and I look on this day as a practice round.

    Again, what remains?  When the body is gone, what footprints will linger? 

    Our pastor tells his children, “When God saved me He was pursuing you, even before you were born.” 
    That’s it. All I have, I have been given.  Just like a great-aunt's great diamond ring, I want to pass on the gifts that I’ve
    received to those who come along after me. 
      

    Children are their parent's heirs;
    the mercies of God are not the least part
    of the parents' treasure,
    nor the least of children's inheritance,
    being helps for their faith,
    matter for their praise,
    and spurs to their obedience.

    Indeed, as children are their parents' heirs,
    so they become in justice liable to pay their parents' debts.
    The great debt of the saint at death
    is that which he owes God for His mercies.

    Therefore it is but reason that parent should
    tie children to the payment thereof.

    ~ William Gurnall

  • Friends for the Journey

    Friends always have a lingering, lasting effect on us.  Their kindnesses remain with us long after they have departed.  Their example inspires us.  Their words continue to impact our thinking. They intrude upon our daily concourse with a gentle but certain regularity. Remembrance has thus always been an essential element of the friendships of great men and women, a kind of eternal trophy of a gracious endearment.  
    ~ George and Karen Grant in Best Friends

    We have lost a friend this week in the passing of Madeleine L'Engle.  She was eloquent.  Provocative. Challenging.  Perceptive.  We will remember her.  Her words will continue to impact our thinking.  I'm often uncomfortable with her theology, but I press on because she got the essence of life right and she could express it with magnificent grace.  When something reminds me of Madeleine, I call it L'English.  It's one of the most delightful words in my personal lexicon.  

    One of my favorite L'Engle books is her collaboration with Luci Shaw on Friends for the Journey.  In this book they explore together the topography of friendship. 

    "Our contact was never superficial;
    it started out, as it has continued,
    with God talk and book talk,
    the elements of the kind of friendship
    we both find most satisfying." 

    You may or may not be familiar with Luci Shaw.  I've had a fondness for Luci Shaw since my childhood, because she was one of my dad's favorite poets.  He stopped me one day to listen to one of her poems from her first collection, Listen to the Green.

    The book is a quilt of many colors, shapes and textures of mystic, sweet communion.  Some chapters are written by Madeleine, some by Luci.  Interspersed throughout the book are poems of both writers.  A few chapters are transcripts of conversations between Madeleine and Luci.  It is such a gift to get a glimpse of the inner workings of their friendship.  I've read several books of this sort, but this is by far the richest, fullest expression of friendship that I've read.   Friends for the Journey is a book to take down on a regular basis, a book to share with the friends in your life, a book that will nourish your soul.

    "One of the most important things about friendship
    is that we allow the friends of our heart to see us,
    not as we would like to be
    (none of us is what we'd like to be),
    but as we really are,
    with our weaknesses, flaws, and faults."
    ~ Madeleine L'Engle

    "In the funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer these words are said: "Remember thy servant, O Lord, according to the favor which thou bearest upon thy people, and grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of thee, he may go from strength to strength, in the life of perfect service."


    I believe that.  Our identity, our self, our soul, goes on growing to a deeper fullness in love of God, leading us toward the kind of maturity God planned for us in the first place. For now, that is all I need to know."
             
               ~ Madeleine L'Engle  11-29-1918 - 9-6-2007

  • Thankful

    ~ Curt and Collin had a small window of time to hunt close to the house before they left on a week-long archery hunting trip.  Curt got a  six point (here in the West we count one side of the rack) early this morning.  I so prefer elk meat to deer meat and it is truly a blessing to have a freezer full of meat.  Thank you, Lord, for providing.

    ~  Collin drove home to get the trailer and camera.  It was his first time hooking up the trailer alone.  I called up my DIL Jessie who has hauled horses around since she was sixteen.  Speaker phone on, she walked him through all the checkpoints, talking as if she could see exactly what Collin was doing.   Thank you, Lord, that my boys have married capable women.  And thank you, Lord, for the growing maturity of my youngest son.

    ~  Wednesday was the final day of my girlfriend weekend.  On Saturday we stayed in our jammies all day while we talked and talked and talked.  On the drive home from the airport in the car without AC, the rays of sun were hypnotizing me.  My body was shrink-wrapped in fatigue.  My tried and true stay-awake strategies had lost their efficacy.  I stopped at Staples and saved my life with a $6.99 purchase.  Bubble wrap.  I love, l-o-v-e, to pop bubble wrap.  Popping those pockets of air kept me awake until I got home. Thank you, Lord, for protection and for the most wonderful invention of man: bubble wrap.

    Tell me, my friend, what are you thankful for this day?


    Addendum: here is Curt and his Dad.
     

  • Funny Mispronunciations

    One of the occupational hazards of being a reader is using a word in speech that one has read silently and stumbling in the pronunciation of said word.  There's nothing like saying a word with confidence but incompetence, watching the listener screw up their face either in confusion or laughter, hearing the illuminating correction and having a hearty laugh at yourself. 

    One of the joys of listening to books read on Librivox is catching an 'oops' from the mouth of their lovely volunteer readers.  I laugh out loud when 'the patience of Job' is pronounced like a wage earner.  One of the joys of listening to professionally produced books on tape is catching one of my own mistakes.  "Oh, is that how you say it?"

    My last name is commonly mispronounced.  Before "No Call", I was tipped off to telemarketers by the botched pronunciation.  The grocery store clerks who look at the receipt and say "Thank you, Miz ________" make me laugh too.

    And for those who care:  Magistra Mater is  Mah-GEE(hard G)-struh  MAH-tair  Think "TEA with MaGEEstra."

    Proper Nouns

    Wodehouse  - it's supposed to rhyme with wood
    Cowper - sounds like Cooper
    Goethe - my SIL's mother quoted Goethe and pronounced it GO-eth. 

    "Mother, that name is  GERT-a" she said with the proper form-your-mouth-like-an-o-and-say-e-technique, to which her mother replied, "You can call it GERT-a if you'd like; I'll say  GO-eth."

    Isak Dinesen - for years, in my mind I said DINE-sen,

    until I heard it correctly spoken DIN-es-sen

    Camus - it is not CAY-mus, it's caMOO
    Dumas - another French name to trip you up: dooMAH
    Keats and Yeats - wah, wah they don't rhyme! KEETS and YATES

    Edinburgh - it looks like it should end with a burg, right?  Not!  ED-in-BURR-a

    My Oopses

    primer - long i when it's paint. But if it's a book of elementary information

    you say PRIMmer

    Orion - there was confusion when I said ORion instead of ohRYAN
    vegan - hard and soft g's trip me up all the time. 

    I thought this was VEJen instead of VEEgan

    bade - the past tense of bid is pronounced BAD - forget the silent e
    victual - doesn't it look like VICK-shoe-ol?  Nah, it's pronounced VITtle
    jihad - not that long ago I said JIE-had.  Ouch! 

    Everyone else knows it is jih-HAHD

    Oopses from Others

    xylophone - my son thought this was pronounced ex-CELL-a-PHONE
    roughage - one former boss gave this a French twist, saying ROO-ahzj
    chihuahua - a friend's husband said chih-WHO-ah-WHO-ah
    synecdoche - William Safire wrote about Jerry Brown (remember him?)

    saying SIN-ec-DOACH in an interview. Safire pondered the etiquette of correcting a governor; the correct pronunciation is sih-NEK-duh-KEY

    I've run out of time to ponder and remember my favorites. 

    Help me out, would you?  Correct my corrections, if need be.

    What words have you or yours mispronounced?