Life in reverse...

I was playing Legos with my son this afternoon, and after about fifteen minutes of trying to create interesting animal and vegetable shapes, he very kindly turned to me and said, "It is ok that you do not know how to build Legos very well, Mom. Don't worry you will get better at it. I did not used to be very good at it either, so don't worry Mom. It is ok. " ( As he patted me on the back!)

Sometimes, life is in reverse!

" You come too..."

The Pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
( And wait to watch the water clear, I may) :
I sha'n't be gone long.-You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.-You come too.

by Robert Frost

" You come too." That must be one of the most inviting phrases in our language. Not, "go away", or, "I am busy", but a warm, beckoning, "You come too". It says, "I care about you, and want to share this experience with you."

As a mother, I am tempted to say, "Not right now," but a simple, welcoming, "You come too"..."that has made all of the difference." :)

Destroying the poetry of a child's soul...

" There are only two views with which it (poetry) has nothing in common. One is the view of life which they hold whose motto is "Nil admirari." With this it can have no fellowship, for it cuts off the springs of emotion at their very sources. The other antipode is the philosophy which denies us any access to truth, except through the senses ; which refuses to believe anything which scalpel, or crucible, or microscope cannot verify ; which reduces human nature to a heap of finely granulated, iridescent dust, and empties man of a soul and the universe of a God. Such a philosophy would leave to poetry only one function,-to deck with tinsel the coffin of universal humanity. This is a function which she declines to perform.

But we need have no fears that it will come to this. Poetry will not succumb before materialism, or agnosticism, or any other cobweb of the sophisticated brain. It is an older, stronger birth than these, and will survive them. It will throw itself out into fresh forms ; it will dig for itself new channels ; under some form suited to each age, it will continue through all time, for it is an undying effluence of the soul of man. "

- from Aspects of Poetry being Lectures delivered at Oxford by John Campbell Shairp, LL. D. (1891)

The current trial in Dover, Pennsylvania of Intelligent Design is not merely an attack on a body of scientific thought. It is an attack on "universal humanity". Men who are afraid to even consider that man might have a soul, and that the universe might have a God, are desperate to ensure that no children ever ponder such thoughts. They are not only attacking scientific thought, they are destroying the poetry of our children's souls.

Anyone interested in blow by blow updates of the trial should check Jonathan and Amanda Witt's blog http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/. Jonathan works for the Discovery Institute and is the midst of the whole Intelligent Design debate.

a snippet....

" Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:1-5

Just a snippet from my reading this morning...

Crumbling images

There is nothing like children to strip away facades and fronts. There is no pretending to be something, no false impression to maintain. With five children five and under, I am what I am am. For good or ill, take me or leave me, it is real.

Children compel authenticity. Adults can hide, can maintain a group "image"...can fool the world, but not children. Houses get messy, people sin, the unexpected occurs. If I am walking before the face of man, these things will weigh me down. I can never please all men at all times, for I begin ( like Sam) "to feel thin like butter spread over too much toast". But, when my whole aim is God's pleasure, when I walk before His face fearing Him and none else, suddenly the weight of man's pleasure is lifted. I am set free to fight the good fight, to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, to see if my own heart condemns me. If I know beyond question that I am delighting God, then I am at liberty to be real, authentic, and unique. But, when my heart condemns me, I find my natural man running to hide it beneath a facade.

So, in His sovereign mercy God sends children. Children who rip away facades and images and send me running to the feet of Christ begging for his grace...claiming that He who began a good work in me has promised to faithfully complete it. In the mean time, humility and authenticity are the words of the day.

Superhuman? or just plain human?

Just a follow up on Adler's article on education. I found this quote on Rick Saenz's blog:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

- Robert Heinlein

God created humans in his image. We are multifaceted and diverse, and designed to grow and add to the body of human culture. When I narrow and confine my interests, I stunt my humanness. I pervert God's design for my growth.

God delights in diversity and growth, and when I enrich my whole person, I am delighting with God is the multifaceted beauty of his creation. If I allow my interests, capabilities, and thoughts to narrow and specialize to the exclusion of other all other interests, capabilities and thoughts, then I have stunted my humanity. When I confine my growth to one specialized channel, I become a cog in a machine, a tool for an end, not a person full of life, shaping and adding to the culture around me.

If all I am is a cog in a machine, an expert in a specialized sphere, I become incapable of thinking (much less changing) anything outside that narrow field.
In contrast, a broad, diverse education makes me competent and comfortable in any sphere. I become comfortable...even happy...in any pursuit God calls me to. My specializations are important, but I understand that they do not define me. Broadening my mind keeps me from the dangers which often accompany specialization.

Whether I am digging manure or negotiating a nuclear treaty, I am in my sphere. My sphere is humanity, and all which it encompasses, from the highest to the humblest. I am defined by my spirit, mind, and will, by my relation to God and humanity. Not by my distinctions.

Artistically rendered despair

Just in case anybody was wondering what life utterly devoid of Christ is like...rent the movie The Empire Grill with Paul Newman. There is nothing quite like it to depict the hopeless, desperate emptiness of life without God. Nothing.

The eternal and the insignificant

"I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see."

- Emily Dickinson

The first line of this poem has been lodged in my brain for two days now. Poems do that sometimes you know.
It compels me to remember that things of eternal import frequently occur simultaneously with those that appear insignificant or mundane. Dickinson, in juxtaposing these subjects, compels us to realize that so often we are distracted by the insignificant, while staring the eternal in the face.

What is the aim of education?

Below is a link to an article entitled Labor, Leisure, and Liberal Education by Mortimer J. Adler. I am still trying to decide if Adler is making a really insightful point, or if he a real snob isolated in the world of privileged academia.
Whether you agree or disagree, it is thought provoking reading. What is the aim of education?

http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/adler2.html

Universal appeal ?

I finished reading Robinson Crusoe. Coleridge termed Crusoe the,"universal man", and I suppose that is why I laboured through the archaic language. I wanted to know what made a book appeal for over four hundred years.
I think I understand now what the "universal" appeal is. It is the lurking doubt in human hearts of, "What am I really, when everything extraneous is stripped away?Is there enough to this entity "Me" that I could survive physically, much less emotionally and spiritually? How much self reliance do I really have?"
Everyone can relate to these questions. Thus, Crusoe's " universal" appeal.

Of history and rolling pins

Sunday, my husband's grandmother gave me a rolling pin. A solid piece of wood, turned by my husband's grandfather on a lathe. It is nicked and smooth with wear, and feels right somehow to the touch. A tangible piece of our family's history. Forget the characterless pin I formerly used. It had no meaning, conjured up no emotion, evoked no past. This pin however, recalls childhood memories... the scent of sawdust, and the dim light of the workshop in which I know he lathed it. It provokes thoughts of how many crusts it's nicked surface has smoothed, and of how many many more it will roll yet.

Slow Food

I love authenticity. The appreciation of things which are real, individual, and diverse, things permeated with history and growth. The Italian born, "Slow Food" movement is dedicated to cultivating this appreciation in the sphere of food and the culinary arts. Below is their manifesto.

Slow Food International Manifesto Endorsed and approved in 1989 by delegates from twenty countries:

"Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model. We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods. To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction. A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life. May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency. Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food. Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food. In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer. That is what real culture is all about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. And what better way to set about this than an international exchange of experiences, knowledge, projects? Slow Food guarantees a better future. Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with the little snail as its symbol."

haiku at the park...

A fleeting image left me wondering and sad as I drove through our local park today...


An autumn wood
A flowing river
An old man sat with his head in his hands

Chapter One

In which the confessions begin.