Here and Everywhere Adored

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Thanksgiving Doxology

O Lord we thank Thee for this food,
For every blessing, every good;
For earthly sustenance and love,
Bestowed on us from heaven above.

Be present at our table, Lord.
Be here and everywhere adored.
Thy children bless and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

All that happens becomes bread to nourish,
soap to cleanse,
fire to purify,
a chisel to carve heavenly creatures.

~ Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Gratitude bestows reverence,
allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies –
those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever
how we experience life and the world.

~ John Milton

I would maintain
that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude
is happiness doubled by wonder.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Happy Thanksgiving!

originally published 11/25/2008

For the Bach Lover on your list

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I wrote this book because I have always loved Bach’s
music and always wanted to know the man who made
it. But I was also drawn to investigate the opposition
of reason and faith. ~ James R. Gaines

“I have just finished a book that I am going to count among my favorites of all time. It is that good. You have GOT to read it.”  After Gene Veith’s emphatic review, I had to read James Gaines’ Evening in the Palace of Reason.  It is the best non-fiction book I’ve read in 2010.

Evening in the Palace follows two trends: first to tether an entire book around a single piece of art, as in Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring or Vreeland’s Luncheon of the Boating Party; the second to interweave two biographies, á la Plutarch’s Lives or Julie and Julia.  Gaines writes an overview of the lives of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great but focuses on a confrontation between the two men and the music that resulted from it.

What Gaines does exceedingly well is to illustrate the difference in Medieval / Reformation assumptions and those of the Enlightenment. 

[A]mong the Enlightenment’s least explicit legacies to us is a common understanding that there is a gulf, a space that defines a substantial difference, between spiritual and secular life. For Bach there was no such place, no realm of neutrality or middle ground that was not a commitment to one side or the other in the great battle between God and Satan.

What most divided him [Bach] from them [the next generation] was their motive for making music at all, of whatever sort.  The new “enlightened” composer wrote for one reason and one only: to please the audience.

[Carol sets up her soapbox and mounts it. The shrill voice emerges.]

People!

There is one and only one way to read this book: that is while listening to  The Art of Fugue Musical Offering (or here or here) while you read. When Gaines brilliantly exposits the complexity of this particular fugue, you must have the notes in your head. Listen while you commute, listen while you cook, listen while you clean. 

I highly recommend this book.  I highly recommend Bach.  Even if you have no musical background, no previous exposure to his music, Bach’s music will seep into your soul and water the parched places. If you love someone who already loves Bach, get him or her the book and the CD.   

We can talk about his brilliantly melodic part writing,
the richness of his counterpoint, the way
his music follows text the way roses follow a trellis,
in perfect fidelity and submission but at
not the slightest sacrifice of beauty.
Finally, though, one comes up against the fact that
the greatest of great music is in its ability
to express the unutterable.

Perishable

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I don’t understand Korea.  Why it is divided, why we fought a war, what distinguishes it from other Asian countries.  Helpful books are waiting on my shelf; If I Perish, by Esther Ahn Kim (Ahn E. Sook) was the first one I picked up. The setting of the book is Japanese-occupied Korea during World War II.   

Kim tells the compelling story of her six years of imprisonment for refusing to bow to a shrine. Like holocaust memoirs, it is incredible to fathom what a body and spirit can endure.  Her courage is huge, but so is her honesty: she was resolved to die a martyr’s death, but she was horrified at the thought of being cold.  She was, in short, perishable. 

The readiness is all. (Hamlet)  After her first escape from prison, Kim found refuge in an abandoned country home.  Expecting future imprisonment, she began a systematic preparation for persecution.  Did you read that last sentence?  She prepared for persecution. 

She memorized more than one hundred chapters of the Bible and many hymns.  She fasted to train her body to live without food and drink: first three days, then seven, then ten.  She barely survived the ten day fast.  The role of food in her life fascinated me.

Thoughts of food never left my mind. 146

The thought that I might die of hunger
and not be able to join the martyrs
made me gloomy.  Didn’t I even have
a little of a nature, or did I only have a
beggar’s stomach? 147

The only way I could show her my love, I decided,
was to give her my meals. However, determined as I
was, all the food went into my mouth when it was served.
What a despicable, ugly person I was.
I was upset and sickened at myself.
I rebuked and insulted myself more than I
had ever done before, but when the mealtime
came, I was again finding excuses. The battle
continued for several days, but each day I lost.
Then when I was praying, a ray of light touched my spirit.
“I will offer my meal to Jesus!”
I carried my food quickly to Wha Choon.
“This is Jesus’ meal. I have offered it to Him.
And He wants you to have it, so thank Him and eat it.”
192 (abridged)

Ahn’s mother is a great study.  She kept the view of eternity on the dashboard of her life.

“Whatever might happen to you,” she cautioned me,
“you should never forget the moment when you shall
reach the gate of heaven. Be faithful,” she said. 176

Mother couldn’t sing a tune, made some funny linguistic mistakes, but she could work. This next quote is going into my file on working to the glory of God:

Because her heart was pure, she always worked diligently
to make her surroundings clean, too, by washing, sweeping
and polishing the house. She was truly a living testimony of
God’s grace, strong spiritually, and very dependable. 128

Who wouldn’t desire to be described this way?

Wherever Mother was, it was like a
chapel of heaven around her. 129

Esther Ahn Kim’s faith was vibrant, vocal, bold.  Amazingly, she lived when many others died.  My favorite quote from this book illustrates the active nature of that faith.

I looked out the window and saw a bird trembling on a bare bough
that had long ago withered. I was just like that bird. Suddenly I shook
my head to the right and left vigorously. That courageous bird was
playing in a swirling snowstorm, ignoring her enemies. I had to be
such a bird. If she only perched on that withered bough with her
head stuck beneath her wing and feared the wind, snow, heaven,
earth, and everything else that might challenge her, she would only
freeze and die when night came. 135

The Abolition of Britain

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But I think it is important that Anglophiles, especially those
in North America, begin to understand that the imagined,
ideal Britain which they have treasured for so long has
been swept away and is being replaced by an entirely
different country-a place of shrinking liberties, of
increasingly arbitrary authority, of bad manners and
violence, of illiteracy and ignorance, of cringing conformism.
As the culture disintegrates, the physical, political,
diplomatic and military entity formerly known as
Britain is also breaking up, and is likely to be
incorporated into a new European superstate.

Any Anglophile will say his or her love began with British literature: Austen, Tolkien, Trollope, Pym; Thackeray, Herriot, Chesterton, Milne; Lewis, Eliot, Stevenson, Read; Bronte, Wodehouse, MacDonald, Grahame.  Page by page we are drawn to the customs and manners and mores of Britain.  We take trips to find the Britain of our literature. We search for pockets of preservation, places that match the geography of our imagination. 

If you want to hold on to that Britain, if a look at modern reality will dispel your dreams, stay away from this book.    

A nation is the sum of its memories,
and when those memories are allowed to die,
it is less of a nation.

What Morris Berman does in The Twilight of American Culture–describes what he calls a cultural massacre in America–Peter Hitchens does in The Abolition of Britain.  Hitchens outlines the changes that have taken place within one generation, between the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 to the death of Princess Diana in 1997.  Morris’ view is from the left; Hitchens’ is from the right.

The face of Britain has undergone radical plastic surgery
so that it can no longer recognize itself in the mirror.

Hitchens recapitulates themes from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death; the decline in literacy, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to think for oneself. He examines the effects of television and computers, the decline in education, the rise in divorce and single parenting, the ignorance of history, the rejection of great literature, the loss in one generation of religious sensibilities.  

Anyone trained from his earliest years in the television
habit is likely to become extremely passive,
because his ability to imagine, to hold conversations,
to think without prompting, has already been
weakened and withered.  He does not need them.

We welcome into our homes the machines that
vacuum the thoughts out of our heads
and pump in someone else’s.

Blunt as his brother Christopher, but conservative and unrepentant of his politically-incorrectness, Hitchens exposes the inconsistencies and unintended consequences of present policies.  One weakness I see in this book is that Hitchens ignores the failures of the British Empire; there is a reason that it came down. While he decries the direction England is going, he doesn’t delineate a solution.  As a journalist, Peter Hitchens’ thoughts are accessible at his blog.  A few random quotes from the book:

The universal conscription of women
 into paid work has emptied the suburbs…

Home death is becoming as rare as home birth.

…fewer and fewer children have two parents,
and where more and more women are
married to the State.

The most significant change for the majority
is that life is no longer so safe, so polite or
so gentle as it once was.

Autumn Song

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Autumn clouds are flying, flying,
O’er the waste of blue.
Summer flowers are dying, dying,
Late so lovely new.
Laboring trains are slowly rolling
Home with winter grain;
Holy bells are slowly toiling
Over buried men.

Goldener lights set noon asleeping
Like an afternoon;
Colder airs come stealing, creeping
After sun and moon;
And the leaves all tired of blowing,
Cloud-like o’er the sun,
Change to sunset colors, knowing
That their day is done.

Autumn’s sun is sinking, sinking
Into winter’s night;
And our hearts are thinking, thinking
Of the cold and blight.
Our life’s sun is slowly going.
Down the hill of night;
Will our clouds shine golden-glowing
On the slope of night.

But the vanished corn is lying
In rich golden glooms.
In the churchyard all the sighing
Is above the tombs.
Spring will come, slow-lingering
Opening buds of faith.
Man goes forth to meet his spring
Through the door of death.

  

So we love with no less loving,
Hair that turns to gray ;
Or a step less lightly moving,
In life’s autumn day.
And if thought, still-brooding, lingers
O’er each bygone thing,
‘Tis because old autumn’s fingers
Paint in hues of spring.

~  Autumn Song by George MacDonald

: : from the archives, first published October 24, 2009

Letters to an American Lady

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I’m sorry to say that my initial response to Letters to an American Lady was one of annoyance.  The book contains thirteen years of letters from C.S. Lewis (Jack) to a woman who kept writing him back.  Only Jack’s letters to Mrs. ——– (Mary) are published, but from his we get an idea of hers. She had many distressing circumstances, medical and financial.  

Lewis was from the old school of manners: for every letter he received, he wrote a reply. Jack doesn’t disguise his opinion: responding to mail was tedious and difficult and, at times, dreadful.  The daily letter-writing I have to do is very laborious for me. (May 6, 1959)  He asks Mary –nearly every year–not to write at holiday times. Will you, please, always avoid “holiday” periods in writing to me? (April 17, 1954)  And always remember that there is no time in the whole year when I am less willing to write than near Christmas, for it is then that my burden is heaviest. (January 29, 1955)

A majority of the letters have some explanation/apology from Lewis about the length it took him to respond.  (You have, you know, recently stepped up the pace of the correspondence! I can’t play at that tempo, you know.) (October 5, 1955)  I get on my righteous indignation and want to reproach Dear Mary to please quit bugging one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. 

Don’t get me wrong: there are some gems in these letters between the in great hastes and all good wishes.  All the best quotes from this book will be found in The Quotable Lewis if you’d like to skim the cream off the top.
 

As for wrinkles–pshaw! Why shouldn’t we have wrinkles?
Honorable insignia of long service in this warfare. (October 30, 1958) 

The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit,
hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present,
the exact present, that is unbearable. (June 14, 1956) 

A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. (March 31, 1958)

: :         : :        : :

The second time through this short book (124 small pages) I had a better sense of its value. In short, it is a primer on helping people who are in pain. 

He prays for her.  From the first letter, I will have you in my prayers (October 26, 1950) to a letter written on behalf of Lewis by Walter Hooper, He is much concerned for you and prays that you may have courage for whatever may be yours both in the present and future. (August 10, 1963) there are assurances of prayer.

His words of sympathy are simple: May God comfort you. (October 20, 1956)  May the peace of God continue to infold you. (June 7, 1959)  I am most sorry to hear about…

Lewis writes about the daily stuff of life:  I love the empty, silent, dewy, cobwebby hours (September 30, 1958)  A big tree and a still bigger branch off another came crashing down in the wood yesterday, in windless calm–purely for lack of internal moisture. (August 21, 1959)  In these short snippets he offers a piece of his personal life, which, I’m certain, was received as a valued gift and a pleasant distraction.

If you love Lewis and want to read everything he wrote, this is a book for you.  For the rest of you, get The Quotable Lewis.

What is your favorite C.S. Lewis title? 
Which book would you recommend to a reader unfamiliar with C.S. Lewis?

Wherein I Read a Twilight Book

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I’ve never been an enthusiastic participant in pop culture.  So when the Twilight rage hit, I was unmoved.  A friend tried to persuade me to borrow her book.  “Carol,” she promised, “after you’ve read Twilight I guarantee that you will want you very own vampire.”  I perfected my noncommittal hmmmm.  No. That’s wrong.  I laughed “I’m having difficulty even imagining that!” So why did I read a Twilight book?

Because it was Morris Berman’s The Twilight of American Culture. Published in 2000, this book describes what he calls a cultural massacre.  Berman’s antidote is a way of cultural preservation he calls “the monastic option”.  Stick with me. The idea isn’t to become a monk, but to act like the monks by holding tight to the treasures and exposing the emptiness of the corporate/commercial, prefabricated way of life.

What Roman culture had discarded,
these monks treated as valuable;
what the culture found worthwhile,
they perceived as stupid or destructive. p.8   

Berman outlines four factors that are present when a civilization collapses.

1. Accelerating social and economic inequality
2. Declining success of organizational solutions to socioeconomic problems.
3. Rapidly dropping levels of literacy, critical understanding and general intellectual awareness.
4. Spiritual death–the emptying out of cultural content and the freezing (or repackaging) of it in formulas–kitsch, in short.
The exploration of kitsch, its definition, and its pervasiveness in our culture was the theme I most enjoyed reading.  Berman defines kitsch :”something phony, clumsy, witless, untalented, vacant, or boring that many Americans can be persuaded is genuine, graceful, bright, or fascinating.” (p.33)  In contrast, quoting Todd Gitlin,

Amid the weightless fluff of a culture of obsolescence,
here is Jane Austen on psychological complication,
Balzac on the pecuniary squeeze.
Here is Dostoevsky wrestling with God,
Melville with nothingness,
Douglass with slavery.
Here is Rembrandt’s religious inwardness,
Mozart’s exuberance,
Beethoven’s longing.
In a culture of chaff, here is wheat.

I was put off by Berman’s focal point of the Enlightenment as the locus for cultural renewal. While he admires the preservation of culture found in medieval monasteries, he completely misses the fact that their work was a form of worship.

If you find yourself a bit of an oddball, one who resists the passive acceptance of consumerism around you, if you care about craftsmanship and critical thinking, I recommend this book.  Favorite quotes:

Our entire consciousness, our intellectual-mental life
is being Starbuckized, condensed into a
prefabricated designer look.

I’m not talking about putting
Great Books on the web,
because the Great Books program
is really a way of life,
not a database.

America has become a gigantic
dolt-manufacturing machine.

Get Used to Neglect

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Goodbye, my most neglected garden.
I gave you precious little attention,
but you faithfully rewarded
our small times together.

Even as you age and decline
you graciously dish out goodwill.
The Swiss chard, Italian parsley,
lettuce, sunflowers remain.

I live in a state of perpetual hope…
the promise that next year I’ll do better.

Next summer there’ll be no weddings,
no babies, no trips, no books?
May it never be!

Get used to it, dear garden.
You are a minor delight of my life.
I need you, I do.
But I’m an undependable friend.

Next year we’ll get it together, won’t we?
I will magically morph into a Gardener
and you will mysteriously develop rich, loamy soil.

Sweet dreams!
Soon you will warm yourself with a quilt of leaves
and a comforter of snow.

Sleep well, my quiet companion.
Remember: next year!
Next year.

Aroma of the Soul

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I’m grateful for a slice of time,
that slippery, elusive commodity,
to be with our kids and their kids.

For Carson,
whose little bum I wiped,
offering me pointers on the art of diapering.

  We take pleasure in watching this man
giving baby-baths and piggy-backs.

For Levi, who at three weeks’ age
has the visage of an octogenarian.
His furrowed forehead seems to say,
“I reserve the right to withhold my opinion
until more data is in.”

For family extended,
our daughter-in-law’s parents,
whose lives are braided with ours
through our mutual grandsons.

Last night they taught us Hand & Foot,
soundly defeating our novice hands
and awakening that competitive urge for a rematch.

The joy of cooking is magnified
in a large kitchen with a common goal:
chopping vegetables,
gathering rosemary,
mixing biscuits,
slipping skin off peaches,
blending pastry,
stirring soup,
watching the pie.

Noah!
We wait for you to wake up,
to hear your happy vocals.
You repeat the sounding joy,
a face tilted back in laughter,
trying out every word you hear;
every word but one,
that ponderous word no.

I bless the day that Taryn entered Carson’s life.
She enriches those around her,
bringing beauty, depth, laughter and grace.
Feet pitter patter,
toys toggle between shelf and floor,
hungry stomachs growl.

Sleep deprivation can’t stifle
the aroma of this home,
 wafting up from contented souls.
The fragrance of good memories remains.

Reunited, Reconnected, Real

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Nancy, Barbara, Audrey, Eileen, Carol, Ruth


We hadn’t all been together since 1971. And, honestly, back then we weren’t all that together. Our friendships as young teen-aged girls were fluid.  Some appeared to have evaporated.  But a residue of goodwill and lingering love remained strong after almost 40 years. 


  


We hold a joint tenancy in our childhood.  A childhood of bobby socks, black patent leather shoes, of fancy hats, pretty dresses and bubbling enthusiasm.





And we love the Lord Jesus Christ.

We were raised by (some of) the pillars of Lombard Gospel Chapel.  Our dads and moms were quality men and women who invested themselves in serving people.  In a sense they mortgaged themselves to the Lord. Look at the photos and you see ordinary people. But they were beyond extraordinary.  Brilliant, creative, hospitable, warm, beautiful, sacrificial, they left a swath behind them of people whose lives were touched hugged forever changed. However, they could also be cranky, remote, hurting, conflicted, angry.  We know.  We are their daughters. 


 


In July, in the space of 24 hours, we found each other.  Emails flew back and forth. It became imperative that we be together under one roof.  We were flung across the country; Audrey lived in England but was moving to Albania.  It probably won’t work out to get together, but let’s try.  Ruth organized details, we bought tickets, Eileen whipped up spreadsheets, Nancy learned to click Reply All (♥ you, Nancy!), and finally we were in the Atlanta airport Atrium adding a link with each arrival. One cabin, six friends, 66 hours.


 


Eileen’s husband transported us from the airport to their home.  Frank made a killer Italian meal (lasagna, chicken escalopes with Marsala, sausages, a Caprese salad, bread, olives and pickles) served on the Desert Rose china Eileen inherited from her mom.  A traditional Italian meal is never the food on the table, but the people around it. It was the perfect prelude to our cabin time.  We talked and laughed through the meal, mingling memories, laughter and great food. 





We had 66 hours. We wanted to structure our time wisely.  Enter focus time.  Each girlfriend told her story, taking as long as needed.  With background sounds of rain falling and birds cawing, one quiet voice was heard. We cried, we laughed, we listened, we took notes. We asked questions, spoke encouraging words. Then the five of us prayed: blessings, thanksgivings and intercessions.  We sang old songs in that tight a capella harmony we grew up with.  She showed us her pictures.  It took at least three hours per person. 





We arrived at the reunion ready to be real. Like an onion, we peeled through all the protective layers until the core was visible. One thread that weaved its way through our childhood stories was the importance of appearances. If there were problems in the home, we put on happy faces and pretended there weren’t. At the cabin, there was no pretense. At the end of our weekend we knew each other.  Isn’t that one of our deepest longings, to be fully known and completely loved?

 



After one friend finished her story, the heavy silence of grief blanketed us.  We discovered that normal for us included pain.  In every case.  Cheerful and thankful hearts we have, but hearts that are acquainted with sorrow.  We called our time friend therapy.





We ate incredible meals. Each member of the Sisterhood of “In Jesus’ Name Amen, Let’s Dance!” provided  a scrumptious meal. Frittata, Chai, Enchiladas, Baked Blueberry French Toast, Cashew Chicken, fantastic salad. We are, after all, our mothers’ daughters and our mothers produced a lifetime of amazing meals.
 



Here was a gathering of six strong women.  Six smart women.  Whatever mistakes our parents made, they did something right.  A whole lot of somethings right. 


 


It was one of the best weekends of my life.  Our expectations were high, but our experience soared.  We don’t know why we were given such a gift, such a mercy.  It was a catharsis, a cleansing, a completion.  It sounds weird for 53-year-old women to say, but as of this weekend our childhood is officially closed.  What doesn’t make sense doesn’t make a difference.  We are changed.  And we belong to each other. It was an epic weekend, a monumentally joyful time, a threshold to heaven.
 

Truly great friends are hard to find,

difficult to leave

and impossible to forget.