Month: January 2009

  • This Makes Me So Happy

    The sun is shining and it is 39° outside.
    Warm enough to air all the bedding on the clothesline.
    Freshens the bedding, freshens my spirit.
    Thank you, Lord.

  • The Second World War in Color


    photo credit: Imperial War Museum
    my favorite photo:  a RAF pilot reading
    John Buchan's Greenmantle while getting a haircut
    (I see the book, my son sees the Spitfire!)

    Sniffing around our public library, I found The Second World War in Color a companion book to a documentary by the same name.  Initially, I thought I'd just flip through the book and return it to the library.  The pictures, however, were compelling.  Respect demanded more than a flip-through.  Then the diary entries hooked me; soon I started on the title page and read through the book. 

    As in this blog entry, the photographs and the diary entries in the book have no relation to one another.

    The diary entries and official announcements come from combatants and civilians from most of the nations involved in WWII.  A Russian surgeon writes:

    Even those who disliked and dread Stalin have learned to trust him.  Propaganda?  Yes and No.  He has succeeded in transforming the country, though often by savage methods.

    A British pilot, killed on his first flight:

    The most terrible aspects of Nazism is its system of education, of driving in instead of leading out, and putting the state about all things spiritual.  And so I have been fighting.

    The notes of Theodor Morell (condensed here), Adolf Hitler's personal physician on 20.7.44, the day of the explosion set by Lt. Col. von Stauffenberg which killed four officers, interested me so soon after watching the movie Valkyrie.  Hitler went on the radio later explaning that his survival was 'a confirmation of my assignment from Providence to carry on my life's goal as I have done hitherto'. 

    Blood pressure [evening after explosion] 165-170
    Blister, burns, contusions, open flesh wounds 

    Photo credit show me a man reading and I'm smitten

    Ivor Rowberry's letter to his mother, written in the event of his death, won the Best Letter Written by a Member of the Armed Forces during the Second World War contest.  Oh. My. Heart.  Yet the wry humor about grammatical tenses! It begins:

    Dear Mom,
       Usually when I write a letter it is very much overdue, and I make every effort to get it away quickly.  This letter, however, is different.  It is a letter that I hoped you would never recieve, as it is verification of that terse, black-edged card which you received some time ago, and which has caused you so much grief.  It is because of this grief that I wrote this letter, and by the time you have finished reading it I hope that it has done some good, and that I have not written it in vain.  It is very difficult to write now of future things in the past tense, so I am returning to the present.

    Photo credit British soldier and Italian women doing wash

    I particularly liked the glimpse of community (perhaps membership, à la Wendell Berry...in microcosm?) between British liberator and the liberated people of Belgium in this letter dated 9-29-1944

    All these people had only a few rationed, foul cigarettes and had not seen chocolate for more than 4 years.  How pleased they are when we give them a bar!  They give us all they can, we give them all we can, there is no mention of money at all, and it is all quite a Christian affair.  For four months now, money has just not meant a thing to me; I rather like it.

    Because of this book, I learned of the Imperial War Museum Collections, another place to visit if I ever make it to London.

  • Simple Pleasures in the Bleak Mid-Winter

    ~  The stark beauty of a monochromatic landscape
    Gray on white.
    It is austere, no doubt,
    but awesome in its austerity.

    ~ Camisoles: the cold girl's bosom buddy

    ~ Thick knit socks

    ~ Modulating up one half-step on the last verse of a hymn.

    ~  Sustaining words (from my husband's mouth/pen/keyboard)

    ~  Non-complicated tax return
    (this is one chore I truly enjoy.)

    ~  Accessible audio books. 
    Hope has a great resource list.

    ~  New Costco throw rugs on a cold tile floor.

    ~  Baby's breath (why can't it stay sweet like this forever?)

    ~ Wood stove crankin'

    ~ Ultrasonic humidifier

    ~ Chicken cashew stir-fry
    (onions, mushrooms, celery, bell pepper,
    bean sprouts, broccoli, shredded cabbage,
    bite-size chicken and generous amount of cashews.
    Fry in small dollop of oil.
    Add soy/tamari/Bragg's.
    Serve over rice.) 

    What simple pleasure do you enjoy?

  • Relentless Tedium

    Read on Wednesday, from All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: 

    Industrialized workers discovered "a new capacity for boredom." 
    Factories introduced an uncommon level of tedium to the lives of the workers.

    Read this morning from The Second World War in Color:

    As Soviet territory was consumed by German armour the death squads followed in their wake, beginning a regime of terror that would last for three years and bring brutality and death to countless millions.  [countless millions...a disturbing phrase]  Eventually, the machine-gunning by the execution squads became so routinely boring and exhausting for the perpetrators that they resorted to throwing their victims into their mass graves alive.  In fact, the relentless tedium of shootings was one of the reasons why death by gas became the preferred method of the Final Solution when it emerged during 1941.

    Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

    This is a heavy WWII study we are in.  The statistics are so gruesome that the mind gets numb to the numbers.  We have begun watching Band of Brothers.  Lt. Dick Winters is a bright light is such a dark story.

    This afternoon we're going to the theater (! - last theater movie was Prince Caspian) to watch Valkyrie, the story of a failed plot to kill Hitler.  The word Valkyrie fascinates me.  It means one of the handmaidens of Odin who choses heroes to be slain in battle and conducts them to Valhalla.  But when I look at the word I see: Valkyrie.  And Kyrie = Lord, have mercy.  That's a word study for the future.

    I need a counterbalance to this heaviness.  I just finished listening to The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope.  I'm thinking it might be time for P.G. Wodehouse.   

  • It's Diverting, It's New, It's Community

    Diversion

    Modern popular culture is not just the latest in a series of diversions.  It is rather a culture of diversion.

    I had an astonishing glimpse of a quieted (un-diverted) heart this week.  An older gentleman brought some tax information to my house.  He usually brings his wife with him, but this time he was alone.  It was going to take  30-45 minutes to complete the year-end work.  I offered him some magazines which he declined.  He sat at my table, content, doing nothing for that length of time.  He. just. sat. there.  He was happy.  It was amazing. 

    The realization of how I would chafe at not having a book with me was a revelation of my own restlessness.  

    ~   ~   ~
    Novelty

    The quest for novelty is not simply a search for new distractions; it involves the notion that a new thing will be better than the old one.

    The love of novelty is manifest at the singing of the National Anthem at ballgames.  Artists are forever trying to give the music a tweak, either in rhythm, note-bending, chord structure or style.  We see the same thing with Christmas carols. Sometimes a new approach is fresh and refreshing; many times it is wearisome and freakish.

    Curt and I will never forget a faculty music recital we attended.  The saxophone player, gifted with skill and brilliance, wooed us during the first half with ballads, smooth riffs, gorgeous tones, melting tunes.  The second half he introduced his experimental music which bordered on the obscene.  Unnatural hand positions, blowing through the instrument without making any sound alternated with playing the instrument without breathing into it--nihilistic nonsense.  It was novelty on steroids.                                                                                                                                        

    ~   ~   ~

    Community, or "the membership"

    As industrialized populations became more and more mobile, the ties to family and community became weaker and weaker.  The sense that every individual person had a place of belonging within a family or the society of a community was soon lost.

    Is the hunger for community hard-wired into our genetic makeup?  Immediately after this sentence, Myers says that many people voluntarily give up community and want to lose themselves in a crowd.  I have single friends who live in community in our rural part of the world; they are often advised to move to the city, where the possibility of meeting a potential life partner is greater.  Is that good or bad advice?

    Is it harder or easier to establish community in a urban or rural setting? Does that matter? 

  • Membership and Sudoku

    I have been loving the discussion and good fun, while dipping my oar in over at The Hannah Coulter Book Club.

    The current entry at the HC Book Club is about membership.  Some people are put off by that term and prefer community.  How does "membership" work in modern life?  Thoughts have been careening around in my head as I've worked this afternoon.   

    Now it is evening; I'm a bit lost since I finished my Christmas Sudoku book last night.  I love, love, love to puzzle out a difficult Sudoku before I sleep. 

    The key, I found, to finishing difficult puzzles is to put the numbers together in a "community."  When I first played Sudoku, I would try to find all the twos until I could go no further.  Looking for groups of numbers changed my approach.  For example, if you have a box (or row...or column) with four numbers in it, figure out the five numbers missing.  Say: 1,3,4,6,9.  Looking for that combination of numbers in every cell gets better results in a shorter time that looking for single ones, single threes, single fours, single sixes and single nines. 

    There's a lesson lurking underneath the surface.

    When we are alone it is harder to find each other, harder to see where we fit in. 

    Or perhaps it is just time to turn off the light and go to sleep!

  • Pneumonia

    Our baby Noah has pneumonia.  Noah is three weeks old today.

    We had an excellent visit with Carson and Taryn and Noah which culminated in worship Sunday morning and lunch at The Cedars, my favorite Seattle restaurant (Indian/Mediterranean food).  As the day progressed Noah's breathing became more labored.  After x-rays and blood tests, he was diagnosed with a mild case of pneumonia and admitted to the hospital for a few days. 

    We didn't know as we listened to a sermon on I Peter 1:3-9 that God was preparing us for a trial.  But what better words to have ringing in your ears in a moment of crisis than:

    In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

    Please pray for Noah's healing and for Carson's strength and leadership and especially, my dear friends, -- especially for Taryn.  It is so hard for new moms when their baby suffers.

    From the Lutheran Book of Prayer (I've prayed this prayer several times in the past years.  I especially appreciate the second section.):

    For a Member of the Family in Danger

    O God, our ever present Help in trouble,
    we beseech Thee to be with us in this hour of danger and distress.
    Keep us calm, confident, trustful.
    Thou art with us.
    See us through this trying hour.
    Let us not doubt that Thou canst help to the uttermost.
    O Lord, we put all our trust in Thee.

    Thy will be done, O God.
    Let it be a gracious will and grant us grace to believe that all is well for time and eternity.
    Today we look through a glass, darkly, but there is no darkness around Thy throne.
    Even in these anxious moments we praise Thee, because we put all our trust in Thee.

    O Lord, uphold us.
    Do not forsake us.
    Look upon us in mercy and forgive us our sins.

    Strengthen our faith.
    Give us courage.
    Keep us calm and composed.
    Bring peace to our souls.
    Protect our loved one and, above all, preserve us all in Thy grace
    now and forevermore, for the sake of our Redeemer,
    Christ Jesus, our Lord.

    Amen.

    **UPDATE** After an uneventful day, Noah and his parents are planning on one more night in the hospital.  Things look good and, Lord willing, they will come home tomorrow.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers.

  • Saturated

     

    Hiccups
    the "oh" face
    human heating pad
    hand gripping finger
    cries
    diappy changes

    It's all good.
    Soooo good.

  • Prudence, Space and Diversity

    Well, folks, I'm going to wuss out on you.  My schedule doesn't allow me much time to ponder and interact with this week's reading for Cindy's book club chapters 2-3 discussion. In lieu of deep thoughts, I give you snippets.

    Culture has very much to do with the human spirit.  What we find beautiful or entertaining or moving is rooted in our spiritual life. 
    (This quote is going in my journal.  The implications are profound.)

    Many of the decisions we make about our involvement in popular culture are not really questions about good and evil.  When I decide not to read a certain book, I am not necessarily saying that to read it would be a sin. It is much more likely that I believe it to be imprudent to take the time to read that book at this time in my life. 
    ("But is it wise?" is a question I need to plow deep into my thoughts.)

    In observing the Sabbath, man was culturally structuring time in accordance with a holy pattern.  This was part of his cultural commission, along with the task of being an architect in space by tending the Garden.   Space and time were thus consecrated by man's original culture. 
    (I'm used to thinking about how I spend my time as a wisdom issue; the wisdom involved in structuring my space is a new twist.  Hmmm.)

    It is interesting to note that Scripture records an amazing amount of cultural activity in the line of Cain.
    (Mentioned in Cain's line: urban life, nomadic life, music and foundry. My thoughts spread like tendrils contemplating the ramifications.)  

    The experience of human culture in all its diversity is the way we enjoy being human. It is being human, not being saved--it is the image of God in us, not regeneration--that establishes the capacity to recognize the distinctions between the beautiful and the ugly, between order and chaos, between the creative and the stultifying. 
    (Does this explain why Christian stuff can be so cheesy and outclassed by the creativity of non-Christians? And how does this quote mesh with the first quote?  I like to think that I love diversity; I like diversity from a distance, for sure, diversity in a controlled setting.)

  • Twiceborn

    An offering from my husband, Curt, the occasional poet.

    Twiceborn...

     

     

                                                    Conception’s seed                  

                                                                Adam’s son

                                                    Womb’s darkness                               

                                                                Sin’s tomb

                                                    Unconscious growth                          

                                                                Blind existence

                                                    Sleepful swimming                            

                                                                Dead-man walking

                                                    Nine-month gestation                        

                                                                Thirty-year enslavement

                                                    Stressed contractions                         

                                                                Offensive preaching

                                                    Pushed and squeezed                         

                                                                Drawn and dragged

                                                    Useless resistance                               

                                                                Excuses exhausted

                                                    Optionless choice                               

                                                                Broken will

                                                    Distant voices                                    

                                                                Divine call

                                                    Squinting brightness                          

                                                                Glorious light

                                                    Crying gasp                                        

                                                                Holy Breath

                                                    Severed cord                                      

                                                                Bondage broken

                                                    Washed and wrapped                        

                                                                Baptized and robed

                                                    Clean and safe                                               

                                                                Forgiven and kept

                                                    Daddy’s arm-cradle                           

                                                                Father’s mercy

                                                    Mommy’s milk                                   

                                                                Mother Church

                                                    Family likeness                                   

                                                                Kingdom membership

                                                    A child is born                                               

                                                                A son is reborn

     

    …of water and the Spirit