An Afternoon in a Graveyard

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I’m eating my lunch in a graveyard.
Human seeds have been planted in neat little rows. Stone stakes label the crop.

~ N.D. Wilson in Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl

 

I like cemeteries.
The names, the epitaphs, the iconography, the quiet.
I like the sadness, the melancholy, the stab of pain, the bracing reality of death.

I hate death.
I hate the ripping and tearing, the long separation, the disruption, the destruction.
Death is my enemy.
I whisper John Donne’s words, “Death, thou shalt die.”

 

But.
I believe.
Weekly, we quote the Apostle’s Creed:
I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

 

Grief for Little Charlie. Grief for Little Charlie’s mom.

 

 

 

So personal: My Mother. Our Son.

A hollow emptiness.

Spring time is perhaps the best time to visit a cemetery.

 Spring’s blossoms sing an ancient melody ~
after death comes the resurrection.

 

Our favorite epitaph.

 Your life in five words?

To Say Nothing of the Dog

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Whenever I’ve mentioned Jerome K. Jerome’s 1889 classic, Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog), a small chorus of readers entreated urged me to read Connie Willis’ science fiction book To Say Nothing of the Dog.

This chorus included readers I trust, those with whom I share a kinship in books. But, really. Look at the cover. I ask you: would you feel compelled to read this book? And when was the last time I read science fiction? I just don’t have the stamina or brain power to keep all the galaxies and unfamiliar creatures straight.

But I have a personal reading philosophy: deep and wide. I choose to read a few books that require patience and effort. Similarly, I like to widen the scope of my reading so I’m not stuck in one genre, one century, or one culture.

So.

I read the book.

And, dear chorus of friends, dear ones…I LOVED IT.

How can an author born in 1945 write so timelessly? With such humor and grace?

And how does one describe this book? The story is set in Oxford in 2057. Historians use a time travel machine to research historical periods. They are not allowed to change history. Ned, a specialist in 20th century history, is transported to 19th century Victorian England. So the book is much more Victorian, more literary than sci-fi. As he mingles and converses with Victorian-era people, Ned runs his thoughts through a mental screen to see if they would make sense. Before he can reference a poem, a piece of music, or an historical fact, he must make sure it is truly historical to 1888.

My delight gurgled when Ned is boating down the Thames with Terence, an Oxford student he met, and he sees three men in a boat, and breaks the cardinal rule of time-travel behavior.

“It is them! I said. “Terence, do you know who that is? It’s Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog.”

“Dog?” Terence said contemptuously. “You call that a dog?” He looked fondly at Cyril, who was snoring in the bottom of the boat. “Cyril could swallow him in one bite.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “It’s the Three Men in a Boat. The tin of pineapple and George’s banjo and the maze.”

“The maze?” Terence said blankly.

“Yes, you know, Harris went in the Hampton Court Maze with this map and all these people followed him and the map didn’t work and they got hopelessly lost and they had to call out for the keeper to come and get them out.”

I leaned out for a better look. There they were, Jerome K. Jerome and the two friends he had immortalized (to say nothing of the dog) on that historic trip up the Thames. They had no idea they were going to be famous a hundred and fifty years from now, that their adventures with the cheese and the steam launch and the swans would be read by countless generations.

Each chapter has a dozen or so sub-headers listed at the beginning, the kind of delightful detail one seldom sees in modern books. Here’s an example from Chapter Seven:

Importance of Locks in the Victorian Era—”Loose lips sink
ships”—Tristan and Isolde—Pursuit—The French Revolution—An
Argument Against Tipping—A Traumatized Cat—Soot—The Bataan
Death March—Sleep—The Boat Is Found at Last—An Unexpected
Development—Importance of Meetings to History—Lennon and
McCartney—I Search for a Tin-Opener—What I Found

If you are an Anglophile, if you like Jeeves, Holmes, Jerome, Chesterton or Agatha, you would enjoy this book. If you like books with the interjections Pshaw! Balderdash! and Rubbish!, you’ll like this one. It isn’t necessary to have first read JKJ’s Three Men to enjoy To Say Nothing of the Dog, but I recommend you read it sometime. Here is a generous sampling of quotes from Three Men. 

Connie Willis has made me eager to read more science fiction. I want to re-read C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy and I definitely want to read more Connie Willis.

Fiction by Elisabeth Elliot

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The foreword by J.I. Packer is worth the price of the book. From his advice to writers,

…there are three essentials: first, something to say, something you have seen and want to share; second, enough technique to enable it to find its own best shape on paper; third, a strong bottom on which you can sit for hours together handcrafting sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.

to his justification of the novel,

Thus, if you want to feel the force of Tolstoy’s view of Christianity, you read, not What I Believe, but his novel, Resurrection.

to his discussion of Christian fiction,

Unhappily, these moral tales, though not novels, often claim this name, and so spread the idea that this is what “real” Christian novels are like. The result, both funny and sad, is that when folk feed on this diet read a genuine novel by a Christian novelist (Graham Greene, say, or Charles Williams, or George Target, or Flannery O’Conner, or Fyodor Dostoevski, or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) their appreciation, if any, is overshadowed by regret and puzzlement that the author did not so manipulate his characters as to produce a straightforward moral tale, clearly illustrating the gospel.

and, finally, his assessment of how Elisabeth Elliot’s book illustrates the task of a novelist, are spot on. Four pages of profundity. I repeat: worth the price of the book.

 

No Graven Image is not a feel-good, light read. It makes demands on the reader. But it is a book I highly recommend. Margaret Sparhawk is a young single woman, a solo missionary in a small mountain village in Ecuador. The story gives an honest portrait of the joys, frustrations, doubts, questions, hopes, and confusion of a Christian trying to spread the gospel. She sees and critically evaluates both the efforts, attitudes and culture of fellow missionaries and of the Quichuas.

At the time of its publication (1966) it had to be controversial. My brother-in-law saw me reading the book and remarked, “Oh. The book where the missionary swears.” Well, yes. The missionary swears. And is shocked that such a word is even part of her vocabulary. But one word should not define the tenor of the whole book.

Though the ending isn’t happy, neither is it hopeless. There are questions: some answered, some left unanswered. The clear and flowing narrative is a joy to read.  Here are some samples:

[fashion] “Sensible” shoes carried all the stigma of the missionary spinster image which I loathed, but I could unhappily foresee my own progressive conformity to this image. Even that, however, could be endured for Christ’s sake. 85

[children’s vaccinations] If only missionary work were so simple, I reflected. If people could be corralled and injected, like so many cattle branded, without explanation or persuasion or personal sense of need. I had heard missionaries say “I gave him the Gospel!” as though it had been an injection, and now, as the comparison presented itself, I began to ponder just how important it might be that an individual be prepared for the Gospel. 151

[overwhelming need] I suppose anyone who tries to help people in any way soon becomes overwhelmed with the endlessness of the task. So he has two choices. He can give up at the start, or he can accept his limitations and go on doing what he can. 152

[Quichua culture] It was all very well to accept life and its conditions without complaining—I had been pleased to find that the crises need not be turned over to the professionals as I had been taught to think. Birth, marriage, accidents, old age, death—all these things were dealt with by the people themselves, in the sanctuary of the home as a part of the course of life, not to be interfered with by outsiders, and whatever might be said for the other side, the Indian way seemed laudably humane and in harmony with nature. 200

[simple life] Rosa sat back with one heel curled under her, one neat small foot stretched out beside the fire, and laid the baby across her lap. He burrowed furiously under her blouse, found what he wanted, and let his feet flop in contentment. His small snortings and smackings mingled with the scraping of the spoon and the rattle of the corn. Firelight, shelter, food to eat, love. You don’t know what you’ve got, Rosa. 218

[after a bad outcome] God, if He was merely my accomplice, had betrayed me. If, on the other hand, He was God, He had freed me. 243

 

Guys Singing

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I thought about naming this post Guys Belting, but figured that might be misconstrued.

There is something about men singing that thrills me, that sends currents of electricity crackling through my limbs, a frisson of delight. From my earliest moments I was raised with the sound of guys singing. Though my dad’s income was scant, there was an abundance of books and music in our home. In the chapel of my childhood, we split hymns, e.g. everyone on verses 1 and 2, men only verse 3, women verse 4, all on the last verse.  The men’s verse was always my favorite. There was a potent oomph, a deep well, a pleasing sound when they sang.

Two (among a thousand) things I love about my church: 1) there are no silent men when we sing. Male participation is universal. 2) The guys sing like they have testosterone in them. It is glorious. 

Random guy-singing memories:

• Hearing my seven year old sing as he washed the dishes

• My four brothers singing in a spontaneous quartet at the 1996 Harper reunion.

• Loving the way Garrison Keillor sings. His voice isn’t excellent, but he puts himself into the singing.

• The sound of singing in the shower

• My brother (who sings in the opera) practicing with the volume UP in the garage when he visits us.

• Watching teen-aged boys playing frisbee on the lawn after church, singing as they play

• Hearing my son(s) sing to his baby

• Listening to my grandson sing Come Thou Fount

• Another grandson singing You Are My Sunshine

• My husband singing his seventh grade fight song at a dinner party a few years ago

• Puddling up whenever my brother (pictured above) sings Children of the Heavenly Father

Yesterday, a friend said that her husband likes to belt out How Can I Keep from Singing? My estimation of him jumped up five notches. I like guys that belt it out.

I long to live in a culture, like South Africa or Wales or Estonia, where singing is so deeply woven into daily life, that folks find it impossible not to sing. Can you imagine waiting in line (subway, Costco, at school) with strangers, and everyone joining in a song? Our headphones/ear buds keep us isolated. [Aside: this is why I loathe personal DVDs in the car.] Singing connects us in a powerful way. Aren’t the best times at a party when everyone sings along to the music?

The first man in my life, my dad, was a man who sang. It is he who taught me, by example, how magnificent it is to hear a man sing. If I were evaluating a potential husband, he would be, among other things, a guy who holds babies, a guy who appreciates poetry, a guy who reads, and a guy who sings.

Thank you, Dad.

JWH, October 3, 1922 – February 14, 1987


I need your help. I’m collecting a list of (clean) movies that have a group of guys singing. I thought of The Hunt for Red October, O Brother, Where Art Thou and How Green Was My Valley. The singing in the trailer for The Hobbit gave me goosebumps. Can you recommend others?  Do you have memories of guys singing?

 

 

Barbara Tuchman’s Practicing History

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I started out loving Barbara Tuchman’s book of essays. The first eight essays, on the craft of writing history, sent me over the moon. My ardor went down just a degree or two in the next section, which might be described as history in small chunks. Although the final section, in which she comments about (1960-1970) current affairs, yields nuggets, I found myself in disagreement with Tuchman and disengaged with her writing. It seems to me the further away the period about which she writes, e.g. Medieval times, the Great War, the more I like her.  That said, I would have no qualms recommending this book to an aspiring writer or an avid student of history.

Tuchman returns often to the theme of selection, the art of leaving things out.

The historian is continually being beguiled down fascinating byways and sidetracks. But the art of writing—the test of the artist—is to resist the beguilement and cleave to the subject. 18

Happily, Tuchman utilizes some great stories that were cut from her books to illustrate this point. Striking discoveries, fascinating though they be, must fit into the structure and scope of the book to be useful.  These behind-the-scene revelations reminded me of watching a DVD with the director’s commentary. Consequently, this book is more valuable to one who has read many of Tuchman’s books.

Tucked in this collection is a love song to libraries.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. 76

The breadth of Barbara Tuchman’s experience—even expertise—leaves me breathless: China, Japan, Spain, Israel, Turkey, Europe, Medieval times, late 19th century, WWI, Vietnam. Those interested in Israel will appreciate two essays on the young/ancient nation written in 1967.

One of my favorite essays was her portrait of her grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., an advocate of assimilation, a Jew opposed to Zionism. (His Zion was America; he wanted to be a Jew in America.) After donating time and money to Woodrow Wilson’s election, he was awarded, not a Cabinet position, but a minor ambassodorship to Turkey, a post set aside for Jews. With the advent of the Great War, Morgenthau, in his position in Constantinople, was able to give life-giving aid to Jews in Palestine, Armenian refugees, and later to Greeks.

Here is a sampling of Barbara Tuchman:

…the reader is the essential other half of the writer. 81

…concerning all cafeterias in American government basements the only polite comment is silence. 79

With the appearance of the tape-recorder, a monster with the appetite of a tapeworm, we now have a new problem of what I call artificial survival. 72

There are gems of quotations, as when Dean Acheson, asked why a meeting of senior advisers lasted so long, replied, “We are all old and we are all eloquent.” 220

Books and Food

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If you know me, you know that I love books. If you’ve ever met me, you don’t need Aristotelian logic to deduce I love food.

I’ve been modifying my diets, both books and food.  And thinking how the two correlate.  With food and with books, we ingest, digest, and eliminate waste. In some magical way, the stuff we take in becomes part of who we are. Those good bits feed our cells and nourish us. Become part of our DNA. It’s a mystery that last night it was salad, and today it is Carol. And Hey, Boo!, some of the most magnificent words in To Kill a Mockingbird, is also part of who I am.

Hands down, my current favorite food is grapefruit. When I figured out the the best way to eat a grapefruit is to peel it like an orange and eat it section by section, breakfast has become a sensual delight. I like taking my time, peeling back the membrane, removing the seeds, examining the intricate design of one section, soaking in the deep pinkish red, smelling the sweet-sharp citrus, pulling apart a segment, plopping it in my mouth, letting it sit on my tongue, and savoring the flavor before I chew and swallow. There’s the teensiest amount of effort that I willingly expend for the joy of eating the grapefruit. I’m reading less like a fast food meal scarfed in the car and more like a grapefruit, section by beautiful section. Most nourishing reading takes some work, but it rewards the reader with delightful morsels to taste, enjoy, digest.

Since I’ve been ruminating on this topic, one question I ask myself when I pick up a books is, “If this book were a food, which would it be?” This week I finished Barbara Tuchman’s book of essays, Practicing History.  A lot of fiber in that book, a lot to chew. Definitely meat, perhaps a pot roast.  Now I’m smack in the middle of Anthony Trollope’s novel He Knew He Was Right.  Something with vinegar, that’s easy to swallow. A kosher dill pickle!  The book about hormones was easy: multivitamin. This morning I sobbed for a half hour while I listened to the final chapter of Eric Metaxus’ Bonhoeffer.  This book is worthy of a yearly re-read. The sweetness of Bonhoeffer’s sacrificial love played with the bitter taste of the Third Reich. It would be impossible to assign one food to this book. It was Babette’s Feast.

I’m reading more slowly, chewing more carefully, gulping less air. La vita è bella. 

Angling for a Catch

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Only they who have closely watched the natural uneasiness of human hens can understand how great was Lady Milborough’s anxiety on this occasion. Marriage to her was a thing always delightful to contemplate. Though she had never been sordidly a matchmaker, the course of the world around her had taught her to regard men as fish to be caught, and girls as the anglers who ought to catch them. Or, rather, could her mind have been accurately analysed, it would have been found that girl was regarded as half-angler and half-bait. Any girl that angled visibly with her own hook, with a manifestly expressed desire to catch a fish, was odious to her. And she was very gentle-hearted in regard to the fishes, thinking that every fish in the river should have the hook and bait presented to him in the mildest, pleasantest form. But still, when the trout was well in the basket, her joy was great; and then came across her unlaborious mind some half-formed idea that a great ordinance of nature was being accomplished in the teeth of difficulties. For — as she well knew — there is a difficulty in the catching of fish.

~ Anthony Trollope in He Knew He Was Right. 

 

Trollope can be depended on to make one chuckle and snort. And nod in appreciation. He describes a bachelor: There is nothing on earth against him, except that he does not set the Thames on fire.  He writes tasty phrases that make you repeat them aloud: …so flattered her and so fluttered her…  However, this book appears to chronicle the failure of a marriage. Not the happiest of topics.

On My Nightstand

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my disheveled, dis-shelved nightstand

 

Today is January 24th and I have not finished reading one book in 2012. Life has a way of interfering with reading schedules, don’t you know. [wry grin] In December when my head was clear but my body was convulsing I read through a book a day.  After reviewing my 2011 list of books read, I decided to start each month with one weightier title, working towards my goal of deep reading. I’m in the middle of…

 

Practicing History, essays from Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Tuchman, yields as much about the craft of writing as it does about history. I’m taking my time with this book, sniffing the words, swirling them around in my mouth, enjoying the flavors and textures.

Distillation is selection, and selection, as I am hardly the first to affirm,
is the essence of writing history. It is the cardinal process of composition,
the most difficult, the most delicate, the most fraught with error as well as art.
Ability to distinguish what is significant from what is insignificant is sine qua non.
Failure to do so means that the point of the story, not to mention the reader’s
interest, becomes lost in a morass of undifferentiated matter. What it
requires is simply the courage and self-confidence to make choices and,
above all, to leave things out. 62

 

 

Many named Eric Metaxas’ biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, the best book of 2011. I was delighted to discover that our library had the audio version of this available. I’ve been listening primarily while I cook and clean the kitchen. Most sections I listen to twice before advancing to the next chapter. I expect I will get the print version of this book and re-read it with pencil at hand.

 

 

 

Alan Jacobs came into clear focus this past year. I watched symposiums, read reviews by and about him, and decided he’s a current writer I need to explore. I haven’t started reading The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction in a systematic way, but I’ve been dipping into it. Funny thing: one of Jacob’s strong messages is to read at whim. At the moment, I’m taking a whimsical approach to the book. In, out, over, back, here, there.

 

I collect books on how to write. Shelves of them. My favorites are the ones who urge me to read and read and read some more, with an occasional bit about writing. In Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life, Douglas Wilson piles on, with not only advice to read, but lists of recommended titles at the end of each chapter. One might not expect a manual on writing to keep you grinning like an idiot, but the humor in this book makes it impossible to read with a serious face. Short enough to read in one sitting, I’ve strung it out, savoring the flavors on each page. 

Wilson is the father to three remarkably accomplished children. Son, N.D. Wilson, is a best-selling author. Youngest daughter, Rachel Jancovic’s book, Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches is always in my basket of goodies for new moms. I yelped in delight to discover, tucked on page 48, that Wilson’s firstborn, Rebekah Merkle has a forthcoming book, England Swings. Here’s a hilarious sample of Bekah’s writing.

In the evenings, Nancy and I hang out with the kids and grandkids,
who come over frequently. I play the guitar, read, and so on.
It is a full and busy life, but we work hard at preventing it from
becoming frenetic. I hate frenetic, which returns us to the
previous point on the fruitfulness of plodding. Living this way,
we have found that it all adds up. 41

 

There are times when I just want to read a story, when I put my mind on cruise control—which, I feel compelled to point out, is not the same as turning it off—and pick up a novel. I am fully in the center of Trollope lovers; he’s one author whose complete works I would like to read.  To be honest, I’m still languishing in the introduction. Once I get to Chapter 1, this book will likely triumph on top of the pile of books.

 

Cindy at Ordo Amoris turned me on to Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It .  Even if you don’t agree with the premise of the book, it is a fascinating view at independent thinking. I’m smack in the middle and willing to give this way of eating a try.

If your goal in reading this book is simply to be told the answer to the question
“What do I do to remain lean or lose the excess fat I have?”
then this is it: stay away from carbohydrate-rich foods, and the
sweeter the food or the easier it is to consume and digest…the
more likely it is to make you fat and the more you should avoid it. 11

 

 

In addition to WWGF, I’m re-reading Alicia Stanton’s book, Hormone Harmony: How to Balance Insulin, Cortisol, Thyroid, Estrogen, Progesterone and Testosterone To Live Your Best Life. Whew! The title alone is daunting. I work part-time for a compounding pharmacy; we have 15 copies of this book that we lend to customers. I find it interesting that the message of this book dovetails quite nicely with Taubes’ book.

Insulin resistance promotes weight gain because it prompts fuel to be
preferentially delivered to fat cells, and it leads to elevated levels of
glucose in the blood. Both excess body fat and elevated blood
glucose contribute to hormone imbalance. 17

 

I’m linking, for the first time, to the 5 Minutes for Books site. On the fourth Tuesday, you can share a What’s on Your Nightstand post. Join us!

A Great One

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What makes a man great?

A great man leaves an imprint on others’ lives so they are changed because of his input.

Three great people have made a huge impact on my life: my mom, my husband and my pastor. Impacted not only me, but many, many others. I’ve written about my mom; some day I’ll write about the man who is not only my pastor, but a pastor to pastors; but today is my husband’s birthday. It is he whom I honor with my words.

My brother calls Curt a funnel. I can see Dan’s hands angled inward—air funneling, if you will—as he describes Curt’s ability to take a lot of information (or a complex situation) and distill out of it the essence of a thing. 

Curt is a strong leader: a man men want to follow. He is kind, but candid. As a younger man, he tended towards candid, but kind. He is intense, faithful, hard-working, funny, generous, perceptive, honest, and handsome.

Happy Birthday, Curt!

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.
~ Samuel Johnson

Petty Crime

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I admired my husband yesterday. We were driving, and I noticed how effortlessly he converts potentially tense moments into laughter. How, when there is a short second to respond to another driver’s actions, he is relaxed and generous and calm. When a driver tailgates, then moves out to pass—crossing yellow lines on a curvy, two-lane mountain highway—Curt typically says, “You go, dude!” So not offended.

I actually thought about this for a few minutes, contrasting his lack of ridiculous emotion with my tendency towards pettiness. I had a wee little conversation with myself: Self, you need to take a tip from this man. Then I looked at the clouds and thought about Downton Abbey.

At lunch today, I got a pop-quiz in pettiness. I drove to the post office. There were two spaces to park in front of it. As I was about to turn left and take one of the spots, the driver opposite me turned right and parked. I pulled up behind her and waited for her to pull forward into the front spot. I assumed she’s been to gas stations and has experience pulling forward to the front pump. And right before my eyes, she got out, closed the car door, and walked into the post office.

For Pete’s Sake! I put the car into reverse, pulled around the Offender’s car, parallel parked into the middle space. And put my Sheriff’s Badge on. Squinting and spluttering with indignation, I hadn’t got a clear view of the woman. I knew she wore a black leather coat. When I got into the post office there were two women in black leather coats. I had a mind to tap one on the shoulder and remind her of the particulars of parking courtesy. But I refrained, not wanting to tap the wrong shoulder.

Not to sound dualistic or anything, but while I was fuming and debating with myself, another me was standing to the side watching myself, aghast. When did you become such a crotchety old lady? Good grief, she probably never saw you pull up behind her! Get a grip!

Getting to the counter was like receiving a phone call at home in the middle of the argument: that instant transformation from snippy to sweet! I like the kind employees of the U.S. Postal Service and they like me. We were friendly, happy, relaxed, calm, affable. And then I went out the door, as the Offender was getting into her car. I’ll show her! I started the engine, glared in my rear view mirror, and clenched my teeth. I should just sit here and make her have to pull around me. The other me was astonished at this vindictive streak. I pulled into the street. A horn blasted, a car swerved, and now I was on the receiving end of a glare. 

So caught up I was in petty “crime” that I didn’t check for traffic. I was the jerk who pulled out in front of a car. I braked, the car threaded around me, and I saw how stupid I was. I’d just been given a pop-quiz on pettiness and flunked. But the mercies of the Lord are new every hour, and I was spared injury. It was a moment to take stock. It was a moment to remember. It was a moment to give thanks.

Photo credit: Sidewalk outside La Grande post office, D. Harper