Well, I've done it. I've switched to a minivan.
My 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale died on me last Wednesday (with five boys and myself inside, on a busy boulevard). We (all of us) made our way through streams of traffic to an IHOP across the street and made an S.O.S. phone call.
On Saturday, Scott and I drove away from the Toyota dealership with a 3 year lease on a 2005 Toyota Sienna.
I hate having a car payment. Actually, I've never had one. And actually, we can't afford one. Afford is a relative word. But getting this car is part of a shift in thinking I've been going through for a long time.
I used to think anyone driving a new car was irresponsible and greedy, not to mention wasteful, what with all those perfectly good used cars out there. I've never paid more for a car than my first one, which I bought in 1992 for around $1,800.
What I've realised is that I've had a rather upside-down (not to mention hypocritical) view of money-management. I forego all the big-ticket purchases and squander my money on cigarettes or late-fees or drinks and an evening on the town.
Last year when we decided to put our boys in a private school, we fretted over tuition expenses, knowing we didn't have any extra $ to squeeze out (nor any place to squeeze it out from). But we faithfully (if not punctually) wrote out our check to the school each month and, strangely, our standard of living never really changed.
That's when it hit me: We were typical, American consumers, spending everything we took in. Unlike typical American families, we don't have any of the toys or even the necesary ingredients in the "American Dream". No new car, big house, boat, fitness club membership, not even a home stereo system. But, since our seminary days, during which we really were poor (I got dairy and juice and peanut-butter vouchers through a government program, for Marshall, and for myself, because I was pregnant with Micah) I've never felt significantly less "strapped", financially. We just sort of increased our spending on pacifying ourselves, without increasing our living standard.
So here I am with a spanking new vehicle, fretting a bit about the payments. I've had a little bit of post-buyer's panic. But I'm not really questioning the rightness of the decision. This monthly payment affords me the ability to drive my kids and their friends places, help drive for school, and mostly, it affords us (Scott was very particular and insistent on this) the reassurance that, if we must expose our children to dangers of the road every day, we're at least protecting them as well as we can. (Ten years ago cars didn't even have air bags, and in the more recent past, minivans have been rather collapsible). To be honest, I couldn't care less what I drive or how old it is or what it looks like. Which is probably why I've driven a paint-peeling, rusting, crashed-up, falling apart 1988 Oldsmobile for so long. But it occured to me at some point along the way that, every day, I was putting my entire life (my kids) into an unreliable, unsafe box of metal and driving at inhuman speeds, alongside other speeding boxes of metal.
Now that I've got all the obligatory (for me) reflections out of the way, let me be happy about it... It sure is nice to drive! I've got all the comfort and convenience I could ever want (in a car or in life!), even without all the bells and whistles (we went low-end options/high- end safety). It's silver in color and looks less like a minivan than the typical one (sort of a station-wagon/van/SUV hybrid). I feel a little bit out-of-place, like Cinderella at the ball.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
The Relevance of Elephants: rambling thoughts on eternity and storytelling
The first job of the writer is to captivate the reader.
It helps to have something to say. It’s even better if you have something important or exciting or inherently fascinating to say. In this respect, some writers clearly have an advantage over others: no matter how exceptional your imagination or keen your insight, there is no getting around the fact that we write what we know. And some of us have more, well, interesting lives than others.
That said, even the most intriguing subject can be made irrelevant, like too many elephants. Similarly, there is always (and I mean always) an angle which, if the writer takes it up, will make the dullest slice of life, enchanting. A good writer can make pork and beans relevant.
I think this is why we need writers and storytellers. Like magic, they toss a handful of eternity into the temporal salad. And, as aggravating as it is, most of us sense that we are eternal souls in temporary encasements.
Our temporal self only half recognizes eternity when the two bump shoulders, because we are too busy being part of our own story. It’s hard, for example, to know when you are being heroic (and when you think you are, you probably aren’t). It’s difficult to grasp that loss can morph itself into redemption or that a “series of unfortunate events” is actually funny. But writers, and stories, give us truth and beauty in whole form and coax us to hunt for traces of it in the flesh. By this means, other people’s stories (actual or imagined) – many of which have long since seen the curtain call – serve us in the fashioning of our own story.
Several years ago I read Annie Dillard’s memoir, An American Childhood. One night I tossed the book into my leather satchel, along with a pen or two, several notebooks, and enough cigarettes to chain smoke (with coffee breaks) for 4 or 5 hours. I drove to Discussions, a downtown coffee-house, where you can sit for hours chain-smoking (with coffee breaks) and no one will look at you crossways.
My intent to spend the evening reading dwindled, as I read. Heaviness settled on me, like oil settling on coffee. It wasn’t a problem with the book; not exactly. My life was the problem, inasmuch as I compared it to Annie Dillard’s own, presented in the book.
“How,” I thought, “can I presume to be a writer, when I have nothing of interest to say?”
I shut the book dramatically, took a resentful last drag on my cigarette, rubbed it out and rummaged around in my bag for a pen and paper. And then I started writing.
It began as a diatribe of my less than glamorous, less than cultured, less than eventful life. But just at that point, something curious happened. In order to portray my lackluster childhood, I had to choose appropriate descriptors. I had to scan my memory for examples. I had to add some biting sarcasm and self-effacing humor. I imagined my pencil going up in flames (difficult, since it was a pen). I paused to read over my last paragraph, chuckled under my breath and lit up another cigarette.
By night’s end I had six or seven pages of something funny, poignant, descriptive, sad, reflective, and - very accurately - my life. What’s more it was interesting. I couldn’t wait to turn the page.
I’ve thought for a long time now that, as a writer, I can’t do fiction. By that I really mean that I can’t write stories. I can write essays or papers or letters or emails. But story requires something more- imagination and a deep well of experience from which to draw. As for that, I figure I’ve got pretty darn near the same amount of experience as your average thirty-year-old. I’m starting to think it just needs an angle. And an angle is something I might be able to find.
There’s a relatively new genre of writing called Creative Non-fiction. I’d like to have a go at it. If I can’t spin tales of Middle Earth, I can at least tell you what it’s like here in Middle America, in the middle of my head. And who knows but that my efforts to infuse my temporal existence with eternity will act as a weird, self-referential means of grace, helping me to fashion my story.
It helps to have something to say. It’s even better if you have something important or exciting or inherently fascinating to say. In this respect, some writers clearly have an advantage over others: no matter how exceptional your imagination or keen your insight, there is no getting around the fact that we write what we know. And some of us have more, well, interesting lives than others.
That said, even the most intriguing subject can be made irrelevant, like too many elephants. Similarly, there is always (and I mean always) an angle which, if the writer takes it up, will make the dullest slice of life, enchanting. A good writer can make pork and beans relevant.
I think this is why we need writers and storytellers. Like magic, they toss a handful of eternity into the temporal salad. And, as aggravating as it is, most of us sense that we are eternal souls in temporary encasements.
Our temporal self only half recognizes eternity when the two bump shoulders, because we are too busy being part of our own story. It’s hard, for example, to know when you are being heroic (and when you think you are, you probably aren’t). It’s difficult to grasp that loss can morph itself into redemption or that a “series of unfortunate events” is actually funny. But writers, and stories, give us truth and beauty in whole form and coax us to hunt for traces of it in the flesh. By this means, other people’s stories (actual or imagined) – many of which have long since seen the curtain call – serve us in the fashioning of our own story.
Several years ago I read Annie Dillard’s memoir, An American Childhood. One night I tossed the book into my leather satchel, along with a pen or two, several notebooks, and enough cigarettes to chain smoke (with coffee breaks) for 4 or 5 hours. I drove to Discussions, a downtown coffee-house, where you can sit for hours chain-smoking (with coffee breaks) and no one will look at you crossways.
My intent to spend the evening reading dwindled, as I read. Heaviness settled on me, like oil settling on coffee. It wasn’t a problem with the book; not exactly. My life was the problem, inasmuch as I compared it to Annie Dillard’s own, presented in the book.
“How,” I thought, “can I presume to be a writer, when I have nothing of interest to say?”
I shut the book dramatically, took a resentful last drag on my cigarette, rubbed it out and rummaged around in my bag for a pen and paper. And then I started writing.
It began as a diatribe of my less than glamorous, less than cultured, less than eventful life. But just at that point, something curious happened. In order to portray my lackluster childhood, I had to choose appropriate descriptors. I had to scan my memory for examples. I had to add some biting sarcasm and self-effacing humor. I imagined my pencil going up in flames (difficult, since it was a pen). I paused to read over my last paragraph, chuckled under my breath and lit up another cigarette.
By night’s end I had six or seven pages of something funny, poignant, descriptive, sad, reflective, and - very accurately - my life. What’s more it was interesting. I couldn’t wait to turn the page.
I’ve thought for a long time now that, as a writer, I can’t do fiction. By that I really mean that I can’t write stories. I can write essays or papers or letters or emails. But story requires something more- imagination and a deep well of experience from which to draw. As for that, I figure I’ve got pretty darn near the same amount of experience as your average thirty-year-old. I’m starting to think it just needs an angle. And an angle is something I might be able to find.
There’s a relatively new genre of writing called Creative Non-fiction. I’d like to have a go at it. If I can’t spin tales of Middle Earth, I can at least tell you what it’s like here in Middle America, in the middle of my head. And who knows but that my efforts to infuse my temporal existence with eternity will act as a weird, self-referential means of grace, helping me to fashion my story.
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Story of My Life
I've been reading a book of essays by C.S.Lewis and came on a remarkable bit of insight in one called, "On Stories". As with most remarkable bits of insight, once voiced, it seems ridiculously obvious. Probably my brain is a bit slower than most. I can almost feel the thick sludge ideas have to wade through, across synapses, to the relevant quadrant and particular neurons. What I take in usually makes it to the right place, it's just a long time in getting there.
In any case, what was a minor epiphany for me, or a key to unlocking a major, problematic theme in my life, was this: that life is linear and time-bound and we, therefore, can never experience the fullness of it in any one moment, but only isolated scenes within the larger plot of it.
This is important for me because, for as long as I can remember, I've had grand aspirations for my life, coinciding with relative dissatisfaction in my current position. I've imagined that if I could just learn to keep my house clean or be "Mother of the Year" or get an education or ascend to the level of spiritual guru, THEN I would be content, rich, full: like the ideal in my mind. But the problem with a dream of the future is that the picturing of it isn't the picturing of real life at all, but of a state of being. Here is how Lewis puts it:
This isn't to say that I can't create a measurably better or worse life for myself by tangible acts. But note this: that even if I am someday living a very good life, by all standards, I can only experience it in little snippets, moment by moment. The sadness that I feel in reaction to loss will not be fundamentally different than it is when I feel it now. And conversely, my moments of great joy will be moments very like ones I experience now.
When I think of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov, I think of the whole book, the themes and characters which, together, say something true and profound. No one character or one scene, though there are brilliant ones and ones which stand quite well on their own, embodies the novel as a whole. So with life, each scene develops key aspects of my character, the significance of which will only come to light when the plot is seen as a whole. So maybe now, thanks to Lewis, I will relax a bit, sit back and enjoy the read.
In any case, what was a minor epiphany for me, or a key to unlocking a major, problematic theme in my life, was this: that life is linear and time-bound and we, therefore, can never experience the fullness of it in any one moment, but only isolated scenes within the larger plot of it.
This is important for me because, for as long as I can remember, I've had grand aspirations for my life, coinciding with relative dissatisfaction in my current position. I've imagined that if I could just learn to keep my house clean or be "Mother of the Year" or get an education or ascend to the level of spiritual guru, THEN I would be content, rich, full: like the ideal in my mind. But the problem with a dream of the future is that the picturing of it isn't the picturing of real life at all, but of a state of being. Here is how Lewis puts it:
In real life, as in a story, something must happen. That is just the trouble. We grasp at a state and find only a succession of events in which the state is never quite embodied. The grand idea of finding Atlantis which stirs us in the first chapter of the adventure story is apt to be frittered away in mere excitement when the jouney has once begun. But so, in real life, the idea of adventure fades when the day-to-day details begin to happen. Nor is this merely because actual hardship and danger shoulder it aside. ...Suppose there is no disappointment; even so- well, you are here. But now, something must happen, and after that, something else. All that happens may be delightful: but can any such series quite embody the sheer state of being which was what we wanted? ...In real life and art both, as it seems to me, we are always trying to catch in our net of successive moments something that is not successive.
This isn't to say that I can't create a measurably better or worse life for myself by tangible acts. But note this: that even if I am someday living a very good life, by all standards, I can only experience it in little snippets, moment by moment. The sadness that I feel in reaction to loss will not be fundamentally different than it is when I feel it now. And conversely, my moments of great joy will be moments very like ones I experience now.
When I think of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov, I think of the whole book, the themes and characters which, together, say something true and profound. No one character or one scene, though there are brilliant ones and ones which stand quite well on their own, embodies the novel as a whole. So with life, each scene develops key aspects of my character, the significance of which will only come to light when the plot is seen as a whole. So maybe now, thanks to Lewis, I will relax a bit, sit back and enjoy the read.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Making Maps
I know it gets tedious for everybody if I keep talking about my kids. And I won't. But I just have to get down what Eliot said the other day, because this kid is seriously strange.
He's 5, he's never bored, he never stops talking, he's very obscure, and he's lately into cartography (map-making).
So he made a map the other day (two pieces of printing paper taped together, with the map extending over both) and proceeded to tell Scott and me all about it. Apparently every place on the map had a corresponding story. And apparently Eliot has been to places and seen things of which I have no idea. But that's not really surprising.
What was a little bit surprising (or funny, anyway) was part of one of his stories. He pointed to a place on the map and told us it was a "Book-tionary", which is a place like a library, but also a kitchen with dining tables. He said,
"I didn't know what a book-tionary was, but then I went in and 'book-tionary' was written on the blackboard and there was a table and I said, "Oh, now I know what it is! Because a 'nary' is a place that you eat, so a book-tionary is a place you eat where there are books."
hmmm. But it gets weirder. He entered a room at one of his buildings (I think it was a school) and, well, here is how Eliot told it:
"I went in and there was someone named Lean there. And I said, 'No way! Your name can't be Lean! I was just trying to invent someone named Lean before I came here!'"
When I asked him what he meant, "trying to invent", he said,
"Well, I wanted to make up someone named Lean, but I just couldn't. Then I went in the room and there was someone named Lean! So I told him he had to change his name to Stick."
Should I be worried???
He's 5, he's never bored, he never stops talking, he's very obscure, and he's lately into cartography (map-making).
So he made a map the other day (two pieces of printing paper taped together, with the map extending over both) and proceeded to tell Scott and me all about it. Apparently every place on the map had a corresponding story. And apparently Eliot has been to places and seen things of which I have no idea. But that's not really surprising.
What was a little bit surprising (or funny, anyway) was part of one of his stories. He pointed to a place on the map and told us it was a "Book-tionary", which is a place like a library, but also a kitchen with dining tables. He said,
"I didn't know what a book-tionary was, but then I went in and 'book-tionary' was written on the blackboard and there was a table and I said, "Oh, now I know what it is! Because a 'nary' is a place that you eat, so a book-tionary is a place you eat where there are books."
hmmm. But it gets weirder. He entered a room at one of his buildings (I think it was a school) and, well, here is how Eliot told it:
"I went in and there was someone named Lean there. And I said, 'No way! Your name can't be Lean! I was just trying to invent someone named Lean before I came here!'"
When I asked him what he meant, "trying to invent", he said,
"Well, I wanted to make up someone named Lean, but I just couldn't. Then I went in the room and there was someone named Lean! So I told him he had to change his name to Stick."
Should I be worried???
Friday, June 03, 2005
Fair Play
I was folding laundry the other day when something my 10 year old son said caught my ear. He sat on the floor, playing with LEGO "Knight's Kingdom" figures and, while I don't know exactly what dark plot was ensuing, I was glad to find that he knew just how to handle it. I heard,
I wish I'd had that kind of trumping power available to me as a child. About the best I could do is clench my fists, screw up my face and whine, "No fair!"
"...whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government...."
-The Declaration of Independence
I wish I'd had that kind of trumping power available to me as a child. About the best I could do is clench my fists, screw up my face and whine, "No fair!"
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Skeletons in the Closet
We all have them: those things that, if anyone else knew, we would die for the shame of it. Even those people we genuinely trust, we wouldn't want to see how we act sometimes when we're alone, or what we think. It's a helluva lot easier to adjust to something nasty in ourselves if we never have to tell anyone.
Over the past 6 years or so of my life, due to depression in some part, I have increasingly let my private life become a mess that I wouldn't want even my neighbor (whom I've never met) to know. At home during the day, I rely on the fact that I have no friends and nobody is therefore likely to stop by. This means (uncannily), that I can do whatever I want during the day and don't have to shower or wash breakfast dishes if I don't want to.
Yesterday the unthinkable happened. Yes, someone stopped by. I was feeling very sleepy and was coming down with a cold so I didn't want to do anything (yeah, that's why). I had just flipped on the television to catch an old "Matlock" episode, when my friend, Kari, stopped by to pick up my milk bottles (we take turns going to the farm for milk on Thursdays). I opened the door in sweatpants and a food-stained t-shirt; fuzzy, matted hair, unshowered. The living room was littered with toys and papers and Eliot, who is five, was still in his pajamas at 10:00 in the morning. The t.v. was on in the other room and I know she saw it. She acted kind of embarrased for stopping by unannounced.
Today, even though Kari got the milk this morning and had to pick up her daughter at school, 3 minutes from my house, she didn't stop by. (And it's too bad, too, because I spent all morning cleaning for her.)
This morning around 5 a.m. I woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep. I was thinking about how symbolic that experience is of the way I live my life (and always have, as far as I can remember). I do just enough to get by. I take a shower 20 minutes before I have to appear anywhere in public, I clean my house when visitors come from out of town. But I don't do these things for myself. It's almost as if I do what's right insofar as everyone is likely to see, but give myself allowance to indulge in every sort of wrong on my own time.
What I couldn't stop thinking about this morning is how deceptive and hypocritical I've been. And it goes so much deeper than a messy house or laziness; these things are only symptoms of the disease. These verses from John 3 kept running through my mind:
Over the past 6 years or so of my life, due to depression in some part, I have increasingly let my private life become a mess that I wouldn't want even my neighbor (whom I've never met) to know. At home during the day, I rely on the fact that I have no friends and nobody is therefore likely to stop by. This means (uncannily), that I can do whatever I want during the day and don't have to shower or wash breakfast dishes if I don't want to.
Yesterday the unthinkable happened. Yes, someone stopped by. I was feeling very sleepy and was coming down with a cold so I didn't want to do anything (yeah, that's why). I had just flipped on the television to catch an old "Matlock" episode, when my friend, Kari, stopped by to pick up my milk bottles (we take turns going to the farm for milk on Thursdays). I opened the door in sweatpants and a food-stained t-shirt; fuzzy, matted hair, unshowered. The living room was littered with toys and papers and Eliot, who is five, was still in his pajamas at 10:00 in the morning. The t.v. was on in the other room and I know she saw it. She acted kind of embarrased for stopping by unannounced.
Today, even though Kari got the milk this morning and had to pick up her daughter at school, 3 minutes from my house, she didn't stop by. (And it's too bad, too, because I spent all morning cleaning for her.)
This morning around 5 a.m. I woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep. I was thinking about how symbolic that experience is of the way I live my life (and always have, as far as I can remember). I do just enough to get by. I take a shower 20 minutes before I have to appear anywhere in public, I clean my house when visitors come from out of town. But I don't do these things for myself. It's almost as if I do what's right insofar as everyone is likely to see, but give myself allowance to indulge in every sort of wrong on my own time.
What I couldn't stop thinking about this morning is how deceptive and hypocritical I've been. And it goes so much deeper than a messy house or laziness; these things are only symptoms of the disease. These verses from John 3 kept running through my mind:
It sounds very freeing. I'm going to try to get there.19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
San Francisco!
I just want to congratulate my brother, Michael, on his successful move from Nashville to San Francisco. It's gutsy to uproot and leave everything you've known for most of your adult life. Many blessings to you there.
I also welcome your additions to my blog, now that you have the time to read it; until, of course, you land a job and work 80 hours a week to pay for that outlandish San Fran cost of living.
I also welcome your additions to my blog, now that you have the time to read it; until, of course, you land a job and work 80 hours a week to pay for that outlandish San Fran cost of living.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Rain, Rain
It's raining today. The steady, relentless kind of rain that falls in solid lines instead of drops. I hope it lasts for days.
I hadn't taken note until I woke to a chill, stealing through my open window and a bit later, the first sprinklings of rain, that this has been an unusually dry Spring. The "April showers" never came. In fact, here in mid-May we're getting our first steady rain.
The whole outdoors smells fresh and wormy, raw, new. I can have hope today, as the water works its salve on the wounded earth. All the lovely things beneath rock-hard soil are burgeoning, lying in wait to burst through dirt, through stems, through tightly shut buds on tree branch.
Yesterday I was withering with the grass, scattering to the winds like the chalky earth. Today I will be silent and wait. I am being fed.
I hadn't taken note until I woke to a chill, stealing through my open window and a bit later, the first sprinklings of rain, that this has been an unusually dry Spring. The "April showers" never came. In fact, here in mid-May we're getting our first steady rain.
The whole outdoors smells fresh and wormy, raw, new. I can have hope today, as the water works its salve on the wounded earth. All the lovely things beneath rock-hard soil are burgeoning, lying in wait to burst through dirt, through stems, through tightly shut buds on tree branch.
Yesterday I was withering with the grass, scattering to the winds like the chalky earth. Today I will be silent and wait. I am being fed.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Putting My Finger in the Dam
So far I'm holding depression at bay, thanks to several people in several different ways. I've also found that anger is a good way to fight depression, because there's no room for apathy. But I don't recommend it (anger nor apathy). But then again, a little apathy is good now and then; sometimes the problem in depression is taking (the dark things in) life too seriously. But then again, anger is the opposite of apathy, and sometimes that can give meaning to what seems otherwise vacuous.
lol. I sound half-baked, don't I?
lol. I sound half-baked, don't I?
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
It Lurks
It's been 4 months or so since I quit taking my antidepressant medication. Lately I'm frankly quite scared. I can feel depression, as if it has physical substance, and it is pushing against the door to my room. I try to evade it by closing out thoughts about it, but it is starting to seep through, even without my conscious consent. I'm having fits of anger and bitter thoughts and Eeyore thoughts. It is getting much harder to shut down the engine of gloom once it starts up. I've been in a general malaise for a few weeks; I have to expend so much effort to do the simplest things.
I don't understand what causes this or why it seems to be a separate parasitic entity, sucking life from me. Isn't all of it just Me?
While I was on the medication I read a book or two about depression. A main emphasis in all the (good) books was on building healthy patterns into one's life while under the "protective" influence of medication, so that when the medication safety net is removed and depression lurks (and it will), there will be "checks and balances" in place to combat it with.
Yeah, so I didn't really do that.
I haven't wanted to write. I've been avoiding other people, public places, and personal hygiene.
An ironic aspect of depression is that it shuts me down and cuts me off from everyone but what I need is people and exercise and action. The thing is I don't want to do anything or see anyone or talk.
At this point, having known for a 3/4 of a year what it is to think like a "normal", relatively healthy person, I'm terrified of going back. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, but I need to make a plan. And part of that is writing about it (after all, a said purpose of this blog is personal journaling). Also (and this is new for me) it means that a few other people know my secret. That's uncomfortable. But maybe voicing some things outside my own head will propel me into action. Just don't anybody call me. ;)
I don't understand what causes this or why it seems to be a separate parasitic entity, sucking life from me. Isn't all of it just Me?
While I was on the medication I read a book or two about depression. A main emphasis in all the (good) books was on building healthy patterns into one's life while under the "protective" influence of medication, so that when the medication safety net is removed and depression lurks (and it will), there will be "checks and balances" in place to combat it with.
Yeah, so I didn't really do that.
I haven't wanted to write. I've been avoiding other people, public places, and personal hygiene.
An ironic aspect of depression is that it shuts me down and cuts me off from everyone but what I need is people and exercise and action. The thing is I don't want to do anything or see anyone or talk.
At this point, having known for a 3/4 of a year what it is to think like a "normal", relatively healthy person, I'm terrified of going back. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, but I need to make a plan. And part of that is writing about it (after all, a said purpose of this blog is personal journaling). Also (and this is new for me) it means that a few other people know my secret. That's uncomfortable. But maybe voicing some things outside my own head will propel me into action. Just don't anybody call me. ;)
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
My Son the Comedian
The other day on our way to school, I told my ten-year-old son, Marshall, that he is a good writer.
"Really?" he asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you write well. You use good words and know how to put them together."
"Oh." He paused long enough to let a smile twist his lips. "Mommy, you mean I have a 'rich vocabulary'?"
"Really?" he asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you write well. You use good words and know how to put them together."
"Oh." He paused long enough to let a smile twist his lips. "Mommy, you mean I have a 'rich vocabulary'?"
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Orual and Psyche
A friend of mine brought into a discussion on my last post, the story of Orual and Psyche, as told by C. S. Lewis in Till We Have Faces. I am reading a book in which the author retells the story of Orual reading her complaint angainst the gods. It's been a few years since I've read the story and it affected me again much the way it did the first time- like a slap in the face.
I am Queen Orual; angry, stripped of what what I love, jealous, jilted and for most of my adult life I've been keeping my book of charges against God. Yet when I stand before Him intending to read my book, I am uncovered, like Orual:
Later, awaiting the true god, who is coming to judge her actions, Orual feels "terror, joy, overpowering sweetness." She describes what happens to her in his presence:
I think this is what my friend, Andrew, meant when he said, "Maybe that's how God responds [to our anger] sometimes - He returns it and says 'Look at the plank in your own eye'.
What is uncanny to me is that this ruthless stripping of our pretense is, at the same time, the most shaming, painful thing we have ever experienced and the most joyful and liberating.
I am Queen Orual; angry, stripped of what what I love, jealous, jilted and for most of my adult life I've been keeping my book of charges against God. Yet when I stand before Him intending to read my book, I am uncovered, like Orual:
"Orual's nakedness and physical diminishment and her resemblance to Ungit [a false and malicious goddess] symbolize the ugly self-pity and self-justification that she has cherished at the core of her soul all her life. Now these are all she has left. She begins to read her book aloud but it comes out all different from how she thought she wrote it. Her accusation against the gods becomes a childish rant in which she simultaneously discovers and admits that her love for Psyche was not love at all but a fierce, possesive jealousy..."
Later, awaiting the true god, who is coming to judge her actions, Orual feels "terror, joy, overpowering sweetness." She describes what happens to her in his presence:
"I was being unmade. I was no one, " she says, and yet she feels genuine love for Psyche and sees a vision of herself as whole and beautiful for the first time."
(both excerpts from Debra Rienstra's recent book, So Much More: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality)
I think this is what my friend, Andrew, meant when he said, "Maybe that's how God responds [to our anger] sometimes - He returns it and says 'Look at the plank in your own eye'.
What is uncanny to me is that this ruthless stripping of our pretense is, at the same time, the most shaming, painful thing we have ever experienced and the most joyful and liberating.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Of Gods and Children
Sometimes I curse the gods for pestering my tiny brain with so many thoughts, both useless and important. It's funny how the cursing of mythological characters cracks open the pot and lets some steam out, a second before the whole thing blows. I'm thinking of fashioning my own personal god and affixing him (of course he will be male) to the top of my brain, as a sort of steam-release valve.
I've spent years yelling at the real God and have decided it's no good; as recondite as He often is, He always pulls out the "Absolute Perfection" card and trumps my ( less impressive) run of moral failures.
In all seriousness and before I dive head-first into the shallow pool of Sacrilege (have I jumped already?) I'll get to my point: Life is maddening.
I wonder if human life has always been so difficult. My guess is that it's never been a cake-walk. Perhaps it's a bit more like Musical Chairs; we're all running around with a nervousness in our gut, looking out for a small slice of space to squeeze into, while keeping half an eye on the person with the boom box. When the music stops, we've somehow managed to miss the signs and stand enfeebled, shocked senseless; that mangled piece in our middles drops clear through to the floor.
Children's games are altered since I was a girl. Musical Chairs now boasts a merciful 1:1 ratio of chairs to children. Red Rover isn't a Keeping Out; it's a Welcoming In. Kids can't even be on a winning team, anymore; the Law of Opposite's would rear it's head and call the other team losers. This is all part of the big conspiracy we adults concoct to hide from our children the genuine, cut-throat nature of life. I don't know why today's parents try to hide it while yesterday's parents practically created it; maybe, in the face of near-miraculous technology, we're more optimistic about the future of the human race. Maybe, as we move into a global society, we're sure that education and tolerance is the sanity that delivers us from evil. Or maybe each of us is still the red-faced girl who knows the game is over and she doesn't have a chair to sit on.
Kids seem to know our little secret; with the adults gone back inside, they pick up a game of Dodge-Ball. The stronger children pelt the smaller, slower, weaker ones, until somebody bursts apart the illusion of a gentle world with hot tears. They all think this is great fun and will play again tomorrow.
I think there is a sort of counter-intuitive wisdom in this, as there is in most things children do and adults frown upon. While I'm stuck inventing gods to yell at and chasing my tail around inside my head, weaving an impossible knot, the neighborhood ruffians are learning that they've got to run with all their might to evade a hit; that everyone trips over his own feet now and then; that sometimes the little ones deserve a head-start and that a ball can only be thrown so hard before someone gets hurt.
I've spent years yelling at the real God and have decided it's no good; as recondite as He often is, He always pulls out the "Absolute Perfection" card and trumps my ( less impressive) run of moral failures.
In all seriousness and before I dive head-first into the shallow pool of Sacrilege (have I jumped already?) I'll get to my point: Life is maddening.
I wonder if human life has always been so difficult. My guess is that it's never been a cake-walk. Perhaps it's a bit more like Musical Chairs; we're all running around with a nervousness in our gut, looking out for a small slice of space to squeeze into, while keeping half an eye on the person with the boom box. When the music stops, we've somehow managed to miss the signs and stand enfeebled, shocked senseless; that mangled piece in our middles drops clear through to the floor.
Children's games are altered since I was a girl. Musical Chairs now boasts a merciful 1:1 ratio of chairs to children. Red Rover isn't a Keeping Out; it's a Welcoming In. Kids can't even be on a winning team, anymore; the Law of Opposite's would rear it's head and call the other team losers. This is all part of the big conspiracy we adults concoct to hide from our children the genuine, cut-throat nature of life. I don't know why today's parents try to hide it while yesterday's parents practically created it; maybe, in the face of near-miraculous technology, we're more optimistic about the future of the human race. Maybe, as we move into a global society, we're sure that education and tolerance is the sanity that delivers us from evil. Or maybe each of us is still the red-faced girl who knows the game is over and she doesn't have a chair to sit on.
Kids seem to know our little secret; with the adults gone back inside, they pick up a game of Dodge-Ball. The stronger children pelt the smaller, slower, weaker ones, until somebody bursts apart the illusion of a gentle world with hot tears. They all think this is great fun and will play again tomorrow.
I think there is a sort of counter-intuitive wisdom in this, as there is in most things children do and adults frown upon. While I'm stuck inventing gods to yell at and chasing my tail around inside my head, weaving an impossible knot, the neighborhood ruffians are learning that they've got to run with all their might to evade a hit; that everyone trips over his own feet now and then; that sometimes the little ones deserve a head-start and that a ball can only be thrown so hard before someone gets hurt.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Poem
SEA
I love the sea:
the sea's great passion and mine
are of the same kind -
tempestuous
large
without mercy
A beautiful enchantress is she;
dazzling deep -
When I am standing
(as I am now)
under her great, towering hand
I understand
what the fear of God is
The
and fall -
Sweep back into the great
Dark
Deep
I, limp, breathing liquid sand
my glassy eyes wide
and my skin cold
I love the sea -
and I fear her;
with that sort of fear
which prompts me to revere -
submit
acquiese
breathing steadily
until the air turns too thick
to exhale
Monday, April 04, 2005
Synopsis of a Writing Life
I've always wanted to write a book. The only two really major hang-ups in the whole process are:
a) I rarely write
b) I have no idea what to write about
As you can see, the two things play on and off each other, creating one massive cycle of non-writing, which I call, My Life.
I suppose you could say I always knew I was meant to be a writer. I've been a bit crotchety, reclusive, depressed and a hypochondriac since the day I was born (just ask my mom). I wrote my first story when I was six and my first poem at ten. While my older brother devoured book after book, upside down on the couch, his head on the floor and a popsicle in his mouth, I sat in my favorite tree and wrote awful rhymes and stories that never went anywhere but had alot of fun getting there (adjectives, adjectives). An ironic twist to all of this is that my brother is now a freelance writer, with a book contract. Apparently reading books helps one to write them. Who knew? But I have better teeth.
Around the age of ten, when I began writing regularly, I decided it was better kept to my self. If other people saw an awkward, uninteresting, disheveled little girl with run-away hair and throw-away clothes, all the better. It kept me undercover. This is why careers such as Actor and Spy and Superhero appeal to so many of us; who doesn't want to be the unassuming genius? Admit it, you'd rather be Clark Kent, nerdy glasses to boot, than that really successful, good-looking, charming, popular, talented and obscenely rich guy that you work with. It makes being you not just okay but superior; a study in martyrdom, as you carry the cross of average-ness for the sake of the world. So I wrote in secret and tried to imagine the way in which I would one day be "discovered" and how all of humanity would be blessed because of me.
Pretty early on in my writing career I realized that happy things weren't worth writing about; they lacked a dramatic edge. Who wants to read about butterflies and lazy, green fields when there are Rodents Of Unusual Size just beyond in the Fire Swamp? Unfortunately I wasn't able to invent anything quite so interesting as an R.O.U.S. Instead I wrote into my stories something called "Character development" which really just means that they were devoid of plot and action and heavy with sentences like, "She felt sad and alone as she looked at the dark, stormy sky and she wondered gloomily if anyone would ever love her." Later I wrote poems and prose at moments of Great Despair, which always included the words dark, lost, pain, and death.
It was around this time that I discovered books. I read "A separate Peace" and "The Odyssey" and some Aurthur Conan-Doyle for a high-school class. Then we were assigned, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyoder Dostoyevsky and I stopped writing. I spent the next 10 years reading.
Currently I find myself wanting to write. I've outgrown (mostly) my delusions of grandeur and my fascination with the darkness. I still use way too many flowery, descriptive, crowding, inappropriate, superfluous adjectives. But in spite of all that, here I am looking at the dark, stormy computer screen, wondering gloomily what to write.
a) I rarely write
b) I have no idea what to write about
As you can see, the two things play on and off each other, creating one massive cycle of non-writing, which I call, My Life.
I suppose you could say I always knew I was meant to be a writer. I've been a bit crotchety, reclusive, depressed and a hypochondriac since the day I was born (just ask my mom). I wrote my first story when I was six and my first poem at ten. While my older brother devoured book after book, upside down on the couch, his head on the floor and a popsicle in his mouth, I sat in my favorite tree and wrote awful rhymes and stories that never went anywhere but had alot of fun getting there (adjectives, adjectives). An ironic twist to all of this is that my brother is now a freelance writer, with a book contract. Apparently reading books helps one to write them. Who knew? But I have better teeth.
Around the age of ten, when I began writing regularly, I decided it was better kept to my self. If other people saw an awkward, uninteresting, disheveled little girl with run-away hair and throw-away clothes, all the better. It kept me undercover. This is why careers such as Actor and Spy and Superhero appeal to so many of us; who doesn't want to be the unassuming genius? Admit it, you'd rather be Clark Kent, nerdy glasses to boot, than that really successful, good-looking, charming, popular, talented and obscenely rich guy that you work with. It makes being you not just okay but superior; a study in martyrdom, as you carry the cross of average-ness for the sake of the world. So I wrote in secret and tried to imagine the way in which I would one day be "discovered" and how all of humanity would be blessed because of me.
Pretty early on in my writing career I realized that happy things weren't worth writing about; they lacked a dramatic edge. Who wants to read about butterflies and lazy, green fields when there are Rodents Of Unusual Size just beyond in the Fire Swamp? Unfortunately I wasn't able to invent anything quite so interesting as an R.O.U.S. Instead I wrote into my stories something called "Character development" which really just means that they were devoid of plot and action and heavy with sentences like, "She felt sad and alone as she looked at the dark, stormy sky and she wondered gloomily if anyone would ever love her." Later I wrote poems and prose at moments of Great Despair, which always included the words dark, lost, pain, and death.
It was around this time that I discovered books. I read "A separate Peace" and "The Odyssey" and some Aurthur Conan-Doyle for a high-school class. Then we were assigned, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyoder Dostoyevsky and I stopped writing. I spent the next 10 years reading.
Currently I find myself wanting to write. I've outgrown (mostly) my delusions of grandeur and my fascination with the darkness. I still use way too many flowery, descriptive, crowding, inappropriate, superfluous adjectives. But in spite of all that, here I am looking at the dark, stormy computer screen, wondering gloomily what to write.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
My Two (hundred) Cents
I started commenting on a friend's post regarding the Terri Shiavo case and realized I wanted to say more than was appropriate for a comment (I've made that mistake before). So I figure, what the hey, everybody's sticking his or her opinion everywhere it will(or won't) stick (we Americans do this well), so I might as well throw mine out, too.
I'm not sure I can say what I want to say without seeming to come down in judgment on Terri's husband, which isn't my intent. He has undoubtedly suffered much and endured much and, to be honest, I have folded like a house of cards under much less. Be that as it may, I believe real judgment is possible in this case. Most of us probably think of the word judgment in a pejorative sense, being that the highest virtue of our day is Tolerance, which has somehow been neatly propped up across from Judgment and declared it's opposite. But the main definition of the word only implies an ability to discern or form an opinion based on available information. I suppose we feel that nobody ever has enough or complete information about another person and therefore is in no position to judge. I agree with that statement where it concerns the motive or intent of a person. But I also think it would be a big mistake to assume that we also cannot judge ideas, simply because they happen to be attached to a person.
What are the ideas in this case and can we separate them from the Shiavos? I think we can. So, without casting aspersions on Mr. Shiavo's motive or character, I'd like to explore the separate, ethological issues.
The first, most obvious issue is one of life: the quality and purpose of it and how these two things relate one to the other. There are two grids (other than the eternal one, presupposing God) through which to look at this issue; one is the importance of Terri's life to her and the other is the importance of her life to others.
Michael Shiavo claims that Terri's life is not worth living to her and that she would want him to let her die. This is no more than an assumption and is absolutely impossible to determine. I have seen individuals with Downs Syndrome or other mental/physical incapacities who have enjoyed life very much in their limited way. The funny thing about limitations is that we who do not have them assume that nobody could happily live with them (because God knows, we couldn't). I read an article the other day in which Mr. Miller, a deaf man, said (with regard to cochlear implants) , "I do not want one for myself. I am very happy being deaf. To me, this is like asking a black or Asian person if he/she would take a pill to turn into a white person." I, as a hearing person, could not understand what he meant. Doesn't he know what he is missing? Well, no, he doesn't. But it doesn't matter , because he doesn't know and therefore is not, to his mind, missing anything. My eight-year-old son cannot imagine or desire the experience of falling in love but this does not mean that being an eight-year-old boy is a less fulfilling life than being a grown man; in fact, it may be happier. Certainly Terri's case is different from that of a hearing-impaired man or my eight-year old son. But it is similar in this sense; that even if her husband had proof that Terri, when well, asked him never to let her live in a mentally and physically impaired state, it would only be like stating that a hearing person thought he couldn't bear not hearing or a boy swore that he would never kiss a girl. We don't actually know what life is like for Terri or if she wants (in whatever way she is able) to keep it.
The other part to this question of her life's value pertains to the people who love her. In this case, her parents love her and don't want her to die and are willing to sacrifice much of their own comfort in order to care for her. If her husband loves her, too, but is unable to care for her, he could hand her over to the care of her parents. Perhaps he truly believes that Terri would want to die and he is fighting for her good. However, she doesn't appear to be in pain, she smiles, and as we established above, there is no sure way to know that she does not want her life, given that she cannot communicate her desire.
The second ethical issue I see in this story regards the nature of human commitment or love. This is the area that I can hardly avoid seeming to condemn Michael Shiavo. So I will try to divorce it from him altogether and take the general question my friend posed, "how can anyone live with their life-partner being mentally and physically incapacitated for so long?". I understand this question and ask it myself. Still, when I try to determine the defining assumptions behind a term like "life-partner" or "marriage" or even one as general as "love" I don't find that our perceived ability (or lack thereof) to withstand hardship really has a whole lot to do with it. Many wedding vows still include the lines, "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health". The love which first prompts two people to make this promise to eachother may be filled with emotion, good feelings, an appreciation of what the beloved gives or makes the lover feel, but it is not meant to stop there. It is meant to blossom into a deep and abiding love which always protects and always cares for it's beloved, even when the other is unable to reciprocate. That is why lovers marry and pledge to care for one another. Otherwise, why not just love until the fuzzy feelings fade (which they will) or until the other person gets fat or ornery or sick or difficult to care for? I even heard recently that couples are changing their wedding vows to say "as long as our love shall last", rather than the traditional "until death do us part". How can there be any real trust between people who are saying, in effect, "At some point in time, I will probably not love you. But for now, give me your soul and we'll make the best of it". Take a look at what Dr. Robertson McQuilkin had to say when he resigned his position as president of Columbia Bible College to care for his wife, Muriel, who had Alzheimer's Disease:
I suppose this leads into a third consideration, which goes hand in hand with the first question of an individual life's value. We, the lovers, the care-givers, can actually become better persons through selfless and tenacious love of a helpless person. A 22 year-old severely autistic boy who attended my church died recently. I don't know what his mental capacity was but I know he couldn't communicate and couldn't be left alone. I watched his family (mom, dad, brother, sister) relate to him with unbelievable love. His sister held his hand and led him around, his dad rubbed his back to calm him when he began shaking and murmuring loudly. I don't know if their love made a difference to him (though I would venture to guess that it did, pretty significantly) but I know that it made a difference to them. The whole family radiated love; they were kind, patient, understanding, giving people.
The last question that came to my mind as I thought about the Schiavo Case is one of death and suffering. Terri is not being artificially caused to breathe and is not in a coma and cannot, therefore, be relieved of the life support and die unconsciously. Instead, she is being starved, which does not seem very humane to me even if we are talking about an animal and not a human being. I read today that Terri's parents are not allowed even to give her a sip of water to wet her dry mouth. This does not seem consistent with respect for human dignity and life, even if one takes the "right to die" position.
Yeah, so there are my thoughts on the matter. Much too long and most likely not very popular.
Ah, well.
I'm not sure I can say what I want to say without seeming to come down in judgment on Terri's husband, which isn't my intent. He has undoubtedly suffered much and endured much and, to be honest, I have folded like a house of cards under much less. Be that as it may, I believe real judgment is possible in this case. Most of us probably think of the word judgment in a pejorative sense, being that the highest virtue of our day is Tolerance, which has somehow been neatly propped up across from Judgment and declared it's opposite. But the main definition of the word only implies an ability to discern or form an opinion based on available information. I suppose we feel that nobody ever has enough or complete information about another person and therefore is in no position to judge. I agree with that statement where it concerns the motive or intent of a person. But I also think it would be a big mistake to assume that we also cannot judge ideas, simply because they happen to be attached to a person.
What are the ideas in this case and can we separate them from the Shiavos? I think we can. So, without casting aspersions on Mr. Shiavo's motive or character, I'd like to explore the separate, ethological issues.
The first, most obvious issue is one of life: the quality and purpose of it and how these two things relate one to the other. There are two grids (other than the eternal one, presupposing God) through which to look at this issue; one is the importance of Terri's life to her and the other is the importance of her life to others.
Michael Shiavo claims that Terri's life is not worth living to her and that she would want him to let her die. This is no more than an assumption and is absolutely impossible to determine. I have seen individuals with Downs Syndrome or other mental/physical incapacities who have enjoyed life very much in their limited way. The funny thing about limitations is that we who do not have them assume that nobody could happily live with them (because God knows, we couldn't). I read an article the other day in which Mr. Miller, a deaf man, said (with regard to cochlear implants) , "I do not want one for myself. I am very happy being deaf. To me, this is like asking a black or Asian person if he/she would take a pill to turn into a white person." I, as a hearing person, could not understand what he meant. Doesn't he know what he is missing? Well, no, he doesn't. But it doesn't matter , because he doesn't know and therefore is not, to his mind, missing anything. My eight-year-old son cannot imagine or desire the experience of falling in love but this does not mean that being an eight-year-old boy is a less fulfilling life than being a grown man; in fact, it may be happier. Certainly Terri's case is different from that of a hearing-impaired man or my eight-year old son. But it is similar in this sense; that even if her husband had proof that Terri, when well, asked him never to let her live in a mentally and physically impaired state, it would only be like stating that a hearing person thought he couldn't bear not hearing or a boy swore that he would never kiss a girl. We don't actually know what life is like for Terri or if she wants (in whatever way she is able) to keep it.
The other part to this question of her life's value pertains to the people who love her. In this case, her parents love her and don't want her to die and are willing to sacrifice much of their own comfort in order to care for her. If her husband loves her, too, but is unable to care for her, he could hand her over to the care of her parents. Perhaps he truly believes that Terri would want to die and he is fighting for her good. However, she doesn't appear to be in pain, she smiles, and as we established above, there is no sure way to know that she does not want her life, given that she cannot communicate her desire.
The second ethical issue I see in this story regards the nature of human commitment or love. This is the area that I can hardly avoid seeming to condemn Michael Shiavo. So I will try to divorce it from him altogether and take the general question my friend posed, "how can anyone live with their life-partner being mentally and physically incapacitated for so long?". I understand this question and ask it myself. Still, when I try to determine the defining assumptions behind a term like "life-partner" or "marriage" or even one as general as "love" I don't find that our perceived ability (or lack thereof) to withstand hardship really has a whole lot to do with it. Many wedding vows still include the lines, "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health". The love which first prompts two people to make this promise to eachother may be filled with emotion, good feelings, an appreciation of what the beloved gives or makes the lover feel, but it is not meant to stop there. It is meant to blossom into a deep and abiding love which always protects and always cares for it's beloved, even when the other is unable to reciprocate. That is why lovers marry and pledge to care for one another. Otherwise, why not just love until the fuzzy feelings fade (which they will) or until the other person gets fat or ornery or sick or difficult to care for? I even heard recently that couples are changing their wedding vows to say "as long as our love shall last", rather than the traditional "until death do us part". How can there be any real trust between people who are saying, in effect, "At some point in time, I will probably not love you. But for now, give me your soul and we'll make the best of it". Take a look at what Dr. Robertson McQuilkin had to say when he resigned his position as president of Columbia Bible College to care for his wife, Muriel, who had Alzheimer's Disease:
"My dear wife, Muriel, has been in failing mental health for about eight years. So far I have been able to carry both her ever-growing needs and my leadership responsibilities at Columbia Bible College. But recently it has become apparent that Muriel is contented most of the time she is with me and almost none of the time I am away from her. It is not just "discontent." She is filled with fear–even terror–that she has lost me and always goes in search of me when I leave home. It is clear to me that she needs me now full-time. The decision was made, in a way, 42 years ago, when I promised to care for Muriel "in sickness and in health, till death do us part." So as a man of my word, integrity has something to do with it. But so does fairness. She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years; if I cared for her for the next 40 years I would not be out of debt. Duty, however, can be grim and stoic. But there is more; I love Muriel. She is a delight to me, her warm love, occasional flashes of that wit I used to relish so, her happy spirit and tough resilience in the face of her continual distressing frustration. I do not have to care for her. I get to! It is a high honor to care for so wonderful a person."
I suppose this leads into a third consideration, which goes hand in hand with the first question of an individual life's value. We, the lovers, the care-givers, can actually become better persons through selfless and tenacious love of a helpless person. A 22 year-old severely autistic boy who attended my church died recently. I don't know what his mental capacity was but I know he couldn't communicate and couldn't be left alone. I watched his family (mom, dad, brother, sister) relate to him with unbelievable love. His sister held his hand and led him around, his dad rubbed his back to calm him when he began shaking and murmuring loudly. I don't know if their love made a difference to him (though I would venture to guess that it did, pretty significantly) but I know that it made a difference to them. The whole family radiated love; they were kind, patient, understanding, giving people.
The last question that came to my mind as I thought about the Schiavo Case is one of death and suffering. Terri is not being artificially caused to breathe and is not in a coma and cannot, therefore, be relieved of the life support and die unconsciously. Instead, she is being starved, which does not seem very humane to me even if we are talking about an animal and not a human being. I read today that Terri's parents are not allowed even to give her a sip of water to wet her dry mouth. This does not seem consistent with respect for human dignity and life, even if one takes the "right to die" position.
Yeah, so there are my thoughts on the matter. Much too long and most likely not very popular.
Ah, well.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Holy Spam
I received an email forward the other day. To be honest (my apologies to those of you who spam) I usually delete these without reading them. Being that this particular mail came from someone unknown to me and was sent to all the parents at my boys' school, I skimmed it over. Here it is, mostly in entirety:
I don't know what Anne Graham meant by her comment, but here's what I think:
Tragedy on the scale of the September 11 attacks or the recent Tsunami disaster is disconcerting for many reasons. All is not well with God's world and we naturally want someone or something to blame. Could these tragedies be Divine punishment for a people who
refuse to love Him? Do they signify the lifting of a protective hand (assuming it was there in the first place) from the United States of America? I'm sure I don't know. But, in the absence of proof, why would I want to believe or even suggest such an idea?
Could tragedy be the outcome of a broken world filled with nature gone awry, evil ideas and hateful passions? Certainly, it is. That is all we know. Speculating about the mind of God is not only fruitless, it gives the speculator a ticket to ride the "Smugness Express", standing around pointing fingers instead of digging them into to dirt.
This email purports to take the blame for the state of the world upon "ourselves" (ie. "we said ok"), but the tone is the angry, frightened one of judgementalism; not the wise, saddened one of compassion.
Internet spam almost always comes with an agenda tag, hurling insults and half-truths (or outright lies) at the perceived enemy, whatever group or individual that may be. In this case it's hard to tell who's the enemy (secularists? Christians? God?) but we know it isn't Anne Graham, and it doesn't appear to be the terrorists, and I'm guessing it isn't the author.
The first enemy identified is Madeleine Murray O'Hare, who was apparently murdered for taking prayer out of public schools (does the author realize who this implicates?).
Then "someone" took the Bible out of schools, which apparently led directly to moral decay, because nowhere outside the Bible are we taught that murder or theft are wrong or that loving others is important (the Israelites must have been running around stabbing eachother for stylish sandals until God wrote in stone "Do not kill" and "Do not steal").
Next we get to blame Dr. Spock, who dared to suggest that fathers stop dragging their sons out to the woodshed and that we should hug our children. I smelled something fishy here and found this dispelling the myth of Dr. Spock's son's suicide. In addition to this juicy tidbit being false, the attitude behind the telling of it is an insensitive, almost cruel gloating over a sobering and horrible thing, and strikes me as antithetical to Christian charity. Not to mention the fact that it uses faulty logic; a good man's son may despair of life for reasons which have nothing to do with the man or his parenting philosophy.
We get the invitation to blame ourselves somewhere in there, but by this time we are so angry at the Atheists and Liberals that we're ready to take them out to the woodshed. And to top it all off like a cherry on an ice cream sundae, the author slaps on some guilt, for good measure. "If you don't pass this on then you're as bad as they are."
I'm not sure an Atheist could compose email spam more contrary to the spirit of Christianity. As a Christian myself, I object to this representation of me. I object to this representation of Christ. I'm still angry. And I think I should be.
Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11) . She said:This enraged me. The more I thought about the ludicrous nature of the email the more angry I became. So instead of hitting "reply to all" and embarrassing the sender with angry ranting, I'm using my blog to vent some steam (what else, after all, is it for?).
"I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"
In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.
Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school... the Bible says
thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as
yourself. And we said OK.
Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave
because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their
self-esteem (Dr.. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should
know what he's talking about. And we said OK.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world
is going to hell. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire
but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.
Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
I'm not laughing, are you?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
I don't know what Anne Graham meant by her comment, but here's what I think:
Tragedy on the scale of the September 11 attacks or the recent Tsunami disaster is disconcerting for many reasons. All is not well with God's world and we naturally want someone or something to blame. Could these tragedies be Divine punishment for a people who
refuse to love Him? Do they signify the lifting of a protective hand (assuming it was there in the first place) from the United States of America? I'm sure I don't know. But, in the absence of proof, why would I want to believe or even suggest such an idea?
Could tragedy be the outcome of a broken world filled with nature gone awry, evil ideas and hateful passions? Certainly, it is. That is all we know. Speculating about the mind of God is not only fruitless, it gives the speculator a ticket to ride the "Smugness Express", standing around pointing fingers instead of digging them into to dirt.
This email purports to take the blame for the state of the world upon "ourselves" (ie. "we said ok"), but the tone is the angry, frightened one of judgementalism; not the wise, saddened one of compassion.
Internet spam almost always comes with an agenda tag, hurling insults and half-truths (or outright lies) at the perceived enemy, whatever group or individual that may be. In this case it's hard to tell who's the enemy (secularists? Christians? God?) but we know it isn't Anne Graham, and it doesn't appear to be the terrorists, and I'm guessing it isn't the author.
The first enemy identified is Madeleine Murray O'Hare, who was apparently murdered for taking prayer out of public schools (does the author realize who this implicates?).
Then "someone" took the Bible out of schools, which apparently led directly to moral decay, because nowhere outside the Bible are we taught that murder or theft are wrong or that loving others is important (the Israelites must have been running around stabbing eachother for stylish sandals until God wrote in stone "Do not kill" and "Do not steal").
Next we get to blame Dr. Spock, who dared to suggest that fathers stop dragging their sons out to the woodshed and that we should hug our children. I smelled something fishy here and found this dispelling the myth of Dr. Spock's son's suicide. In addition to this juicy tidbit being false, the attitude behind the telling of it is an insensitive, almost cruel gloating over a sobering and horrible thing, and strikes me as antithetical to Christian charity. Not to mention the fact that it uses faulty logic; a good man's son may despair of life for reasons which have nothing to do with the man or his parenting philosophy.
We get the invitation to blame ourselves somewhere in there, but by this time we are so angry at the Atheists and Liberals that we're ready to take them out to the woodshed. And to top it all off like a cherry on an ice cream sundae, the author slaps on some guilt, for good measure. "If you don't pass this on then you're as bad as they are."
I'm not sure an Atheist could compose email spam more contrary to the spirit of Christianity. As a Christian myself, I object to this representation of me. I object to this representation of Christ. I'm still angry. And I think I should be.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Creature of Habit - Part II
Some situations we respond to by instinct and others we respond to by habit, like Pavlov's dog. We have free will. However, our will gets all but nailed to the floor by habit. An essential part, then, of exercising free will is to choose which habits we will form and which we will uproot.
I first encountered this idea while reading Charlotte Mason on childhood education. Well, no, it's inception for me was in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, book IV, chapter 7, "Let's Pretend".
"When you are not feeling particularly friendly
but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do,
very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave
as if you were a nicer person than you actually are.
And in a few minutes,as we have all noticed,
you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.
Very often the only way to get a quality in reality
is to start behaving as if you had it already.
That is why children's games are so important. They
are always pretending to be grown-ups -playing soldiers,
playing shop. But all the time, they are hardening
their muscles and sharpening their wits so that the pretence
of being grown-up helps them to grow up in earnest."
I read this and began thinking about behaviour and character. Which comes first? Does a man do good because he is a good man or is he a good man because he does good?
I'm sure I could credit many authors with contributing to the pot of this idea, as it stewed in my mind. But back to Charlotte Mason. She was a late 19th/early 20th century educator who is rightfully being saved from obscurity, mainly by home-schooling parents. In her book, Home Education, she writes,
"One of the great functions of the educator is to secure that actions will be so regularly, purposefully and methodically sown that the child will reap the habits of the good life, in thinking and doing, with a minimum of conscious effort."
Ms. Mason goes on to identify the most important of these habits, including the "habit of attention", the "habit of manners", the "habit of truthfulness", the "habit of gratitude", among many others. Children will leave home and develop their own philosophy of life, of course. But if a boy has been trained to the "habit of manners", chances are that he will be polite. If he has practiced the "habit of truthfulness" for many years, most likely he will be an honest man. Again, from Home Education,
"Educate the child in right habits and the man's life will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of moral effort of decision."
This is very important. As I wrote in my previous post, I have few good habits, that I can think of , which means that I am at a severe disadvantage as regards doing good. Good acts that I can choose come with tremendous, often dissuading, "wear and tear of moral effort". It is incomparably harder to develop habits in an adult than in a child but I owe it to myself at least to try. Here's a saying attributed to Thomas a Kempis:
I'm sure I could credit many authors with contributing to the pot of this idea, as it stewed in my mind. But back to Charlotte Mason. She was a late 19th/early 20th century educator who is rightfully being saved from obscurity, mainly by home-schooling parents. In her book, Home Education, she writes,
"One of the great functions of the educator is to secure that actions will be so regularly, purposefully and methodically sown that the child will reap the habits of the good life, in thinking and doing, with a minimum of conscious effort."
Ms. Mason goes on to identify the most important of these habits, including the "habit of attention", the "habit of manners", the "habit of truthfulness", the "habit of gratitude", among many others. Children will leave home and develop their own philosophy of life, of course. But if a boy has been trained to the "habit of manners", chances are that he will be polite. If he has practiced the "habit of truthfulness" for many years, most likely he will be an honest man. Again, from Home Education,
"Educate the child in right habits and the man's life will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of moral effort of decision."
This is very important. As I wrote in my previous post, I have few good habits, that I can think of , which means that I am at a severe disadvantage as regards doing good. Good acts that I can choose come with tremendous, often dissuading, "wear and tear of moral effort". It is incomparably harder to develop habits in an adult than in a child but I owe it to myself at least to try. Here's a saying attributed to Thomas a Kempis:
"Sow an act, reap a habit,
Sow a habit, reap a character,
sow a character, reap a destiny."
Sow a habit, reap a character,
sow a character, reap a destiny."
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Creature of Habit
I quit smoking 5 weeks ago. It wasn't hard then, because I was too sick to move. It hasn't been hard since, because my sore throat only left this week.
A few nights ago I was feeling very bitter and a little bit sad. I grabbed a jug of merlot and tried to drink away my sorrows (never a good idea, since alcohol tends to send me on cynical, angry rants and the next morning finds me sad). Since I was smack in the middle of a rant when Scott went out for a smoke, well, of course I had to have one.
The next night we painted and everyone knows that smoke breaks are the best part of painting. And I was bitter and sad.
Last night, while bitter and sad, I watched a stupid movie and the best part of a stupid movie is irrefutably the smoke breaks.
I woke an hour early this morning thinking about habits. Habits of Doing become Habits of Being. I don't have good habits. I simply don't. I intend good. I sometimes choose good. I may happen upon good. I think about being good, and I hope that in the end everything comes out, well, good.
That just isn't the way we work. We can't do one thing and have it's polar opposite result. At least not as a matter of course.
Duh. It's time for some new habits.
A few nights ago I was feeling very bitter and a little bit sad. I grabbed a jug of merlot and tried to drink away my sorrows (never a good idea, since alcohol tends to send me on cynical, angry rants and the next morning finds me sad). Since I was smack in the middle of a rant when Scott went out for a smoke, well, of course I had to have one.
The next night we painted and everyone knows that smoke breaks are the best part of painting. And I was bitter and sad.
Last night, while bitter and sad, I watched a stupid movie and the best part of a stupid movie is irrefutably the smoke breaks.
I woke an hour early this morning thinking about habits. Habits of Doing become Habits of Being. I don't have good habits. I simply don't. I intend good. I sometimes choose good. I may happen upon good. I think about being good, and I hope that in the end everything comes out, well, good.
That just isn't the way we work. We can't do one thing and have it's polar opposite result. At least not as a matter of course.
Duh. It's time for some new habits.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Paint Stains
Last night Scott and I dug our $1.00/can garage sale paint out of the closet and painted the laundry room /tv room/bedroom (Yes, it is only one room - we're packed in here like sardines).
As I stirred up the now three-years-stagnant paint, my eyes recognized the canvas tarp beneath it. "Oh look, " I thought, "There's the color of our kitchen on Botanical - that was a great color". Creamy Cocoa, I think they called it. I bought yellow first. Stephanie and Aiden came over to put it on the walls. "That's a bit of the yellow right there," I thought, "Way too bright." Flourescent, really. Yellow paints are risky... I re-did it in Creamy Cocoa.
I scanned the drop cloth for other colors and didn't stop until I'd identified every one; the gold (which I will never do again) from our bedroom, the moss green we used to cover the (very amateur, if creative) mural on the bathroom walls, blue and grey from the Milligan House basement and a black, spray-painted, rectagular outline, laid down in the making of the "Fallout Shelter" coffee house sign.
Moments, words, faces, laughter, music, conversation, brewing coffee, smiles, tensions, late nights, stale coffee, cigarettes... all these things rushed at me and I wasn't quick enough to chase them away.
Physicality is curious. Existence in space and time is curiouser. Every day I see my bookshelves and tables and photographs, and I can remember them in past settings. But they stand alone here, now, and I never think of them as connected somehow to a place or a time. This canvas drop-cloth is different. Each colored stain adhered to it's surface at a moment in time, during a period of time, in a particular house and a particular room. Particular people stood on it and painted. I stood on it and painted. I and this tarp were there, together; somewhere we can't get to now.
The tarp carries it's marks of the past. I carry marks, too; intangible ones. I don't like intangibility. I want to wear my stains, as the canvas does. Like Doubting Thomas, I'll put my finger in the scars so I can know that I am real and not a ghost.
I finished mixing the paint, stood up, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and set about laying new stains on the drop cloth.
As I stirred up the now three-years-stagnant paint, my eyes recognized the canvas tarp beneath it. "Oh look, " I thought, "There's the color of our kitchen on Botanical - that was a great color". Creamy Cocoa, I think they called it. I bought yellow first. Stephanie and Aiden came over to put it on the walls. "That's a bit of the yellow right there," I thought, "Way too bright." Flourescent, really. Yellow paints are risky... I re-did it in Creamy Cocoa.
I scanned the drop cloth for other colors and didn't stop until I'd identified every one; the gold (which I will never do again) from our bedroom, the moss green we used to cover the (very amateur, if creative) mural on the bathroom walls, blue and grey from the Milligan House basement and a black, spray-painted, rectagular outline, laid down in the making of the "Fallout Shelter" coffee house sign.
Moments, words, faces, laughter, music, conversation, brewing coffee, smiles, tensions, late nights, stale coffee, cigarettes... all these things rushed at me and I wasn't quick enough to chase them away.
Physicality is curious. Existence in space and time is curiouser. Every day I see my bookshelves and tables and photographs, and I can remember them in past settings. But they stand alone here, now, and I never think of them as connected somehow to a place or a time. This canvas drop-cloth is different. Each colored stain adhered to it's surface at a moment in time, during a period of time, in a particular house and a particular room. Particular people stood on it and painted. I stood on it and painted. I and this tarp were there, together; somewhere we can't get to now.
The tarp carries it's marks of the past. I carry marks, too; intangible ones. I don't like intangibility. I want to wear my stains, as the canvas does. Like Doubting Thomas, I'll put my finger in the scars so I can know that I am real and not a ghost.
I finished mixing the paint, stood up, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and set about laying new stains on the drop cloth.
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