The Joy of Listening

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I just finished listening to Ruby Dee’s gripping reading of Zora Neale Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God.  This was the first experience I’ve had with Hurston and with Ruby Dee. 

I am shaken.

I am riveted. 

I am bruised.

I need to turn the pages, think about the phrases, but I can’t imagine the reading of this book ever being close to as good as listening to this book.  Dee’s cadences were slow and sonorous. Just hearing her voice gave me pictures of the characters. During the narrative of the flood Dee was shouting and I wanted to stand up and shout, “De lake is coming!”  This book seems designed to be received through the ears instead of through the eyes.  Phonics get in the way of reading it.

I need to collect my thoughts before I respond to the book.

But I am compelled to tell you, dear reader, that some books are better in the audio version than in print.  Off my cuff, allow me to recommend:

Michel Chevalier’s reading captures the tones of a native of France.
Listening to this memoir is the audio equivalent to Crème brûlée.

At the time I posted this, six used CD sets of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
are available at Amazon (click on link) for under $1.62 (+ 3.99 shipping).
For less than it costs to see a movie you could have 8+ hours of
Lisette Lecat’s luscious African accents.

If an Irish brogue is your cuppa, you can’t go wrong with
Frank Delaney’s reading of Simple Courage.
I’m puzzled that so few know about this rip-roaring, harrowing adventure story.

Sissy Spacek’s languorous reading of To Kill a Mockingbird
remains my very favorite audio book.
Sissy is Scout Finch.
Her voice remains in my mind years after I first heard this performance.

There are drawbacks to audio books.
It’s hard to bookmark a sentence you want to remember.
It’s awkward to transcribe portions in your journal.

But if the book come from a part of the world
where words are pronounced differently,
where dialects lift words out of their common clothing,
where idioms are employed,
where hearing the voice of the narrator enriches the words,
go to audio.

Simple Pleasures in September

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~ My front flower garden is a simple pleasure because it makes me
smile *before* I weed it!

~ These cheerful mums replace very dreary mostly-dead May flowers.
~ There are fewer dinners al fresco, but this one was gorgeous:
sage grouse my son cooked (in the foreground)
and roasted garden veggies.
I could live on roasted beets.

~ Fresh basil for the clipping. 
It makes an amazing addition to a fresh tomato sandwich.
I like to strip the flowering stalks onto my bread.


This is so simple, I can’t understand why I didn’t think of it before.
The hydrangeas are left over from Katie’s wedding.
My husband is allergic to most flowers.
But!
Not when they are outside. (a lightbulb moment)
They have held up well and make me cheerful!

So…..
what about you?
What simple pleasures are propping you up?

Be Always Coming Home

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Audrey and Carol in the middle, circa 1965

Several years ago, while reading a biography of Laura Bush, I discovered she takes an annual vacation with her childhood friends from elementary school.  I remember the very spot I was sitting when I read that. I loved the loyalty, endurance and comfort of those friendships.  It made me wistful.  Ah…wouldn’t that be grand?

Grand is too tame a word.  Wouldn’t it be…magnificent?

There were six girls that grew up together.  We didn’t all go to the same school, but we were together up to three times a week at church.  Our parents were the pillars. We are all the same age. We all have older siblings.  It seems strange by today’s nomadic standards, but our entire childhood was at the same church. 

1967 Lombard Awana Olympics Team

By the time we graduated from high school three families had moved to different parts of the country; we all went our ways.  And we just lost contact.  You know, the Christmas letter connection that fades away as life’s busyness intervenes.  Too many moves.

This summer, thanks to Facebook and siblings, we found each other.  And emails began flying back and forth at a furious speed.  Audrey is overseas, but planned to be in the states in September.  Would we, could we get together?  It seemed impossible, too grand.  But it is true! We booked a cabin so the six of us could reconnect.  We’re coming together from Albania, Arizona, Georgia, Oregon, Texas and Illinois.

I often tell my adult sons: Be always coming home.  

I see this reunion as a home-coming.  We shared the roots of our lives.  We are familiar with the incipient underground growth before we started greening up and blossoming.  How many friends know the entire structure/dynamics of your family of origin?  We’re eager to hear all those chapters that happened after the 1970s.  We want to know and be known. Between us, almost every heartbreak common to mankind has happened (lost a young parent, lost a young child, lost a marriage, family members with disabilities).  We all have a story.  And, amazing grace!, we all still love God. 

We simply want to be under the same ceiling, with time to talk. I am certain that I will learn things about myself just being with these friends.  We’ll have about 66 hours together.  We want to talk, laugh, cry, sing, pray, eat, giggle and sleep only if we must.  I anticipate healing will take place. 

I consider this coming weekend one of God’s great gifts in my life.  It is profound love. It is extravagant grace. It is a magnificent mercy.  Color me thankful.

Marriage is a Wood Stove

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  :: for Katie ::
 
 
Metaphors for marriage abound. 
 
Marriage is a harbor. 
 
Marriage is a garden. 
 
Marriage is a meal. 
 
Your choice of metaphor reveals your perception: if you say marriage is a lottery, or an anchor, or a wastebasket…

Because marriage is so textured and complex, and because God gave us a a creation chock full of pictures, we can amuse ourselves for a lifetime thinking about marriage metaphors. 
 
Marriage is a ballet (lift and stretch and twirl).
 
Marriage is a fugue (blending counterpoints brings harmony). 
 
Marriage is Crêpes Suzette (a little zest, a flame and a lot of nibbles). 
 
Marriage is a tile roof (beauty built to last).
 
Marriage is a barn raising (effort from the community around makes a difference).

Here in the Shire, many people heat with wood.  They understand when I say marriage is a wood stove.

What, essentially, is a wood stove?  It is a box that holds fire.  It is a container.  The fire doesn’t run hither and yon, wherever it wills; it is a controlled burn.  This brings safety, security and peace of mind.

A wood stove provides heat for living; in the past, it provided heat for cooking.  It is a means of warmth and sustenance.  But it is more than utility: a ginnin’ wood stove is pure comfort on a cold day.

The stove won’t heat without work.  Wood needs to be cut, split and stacked; a fire must be kindled; it needs to be fed.  Constantly.  If you leave the stove alone for a day, the fire goes out.  Ashes need to be removed; air needs to be present for a good draft, the door needs to be shut to conserve the fuel.  If smoky irritants start billowing out, it is time to attend to the fire.

When a fire burns in a stove, a chemical reaction takes place.  The composition of the wood is unalterably changed.  Marriage does that.  It changes you.  Even when the marriage ends by death or divorce, you do not revert back to the person you were before marriage. 

Fire is powerful.  A relatively small stove can heat a large space.  Being faithful in the small daily acts has huge ramifications. 

A warm wood stove becomes a community magnet.  If a group of people walk in from the cold, they congregate around the warm stove, basking in the warmth and comfort.  A warm marriage does the same thing: it attracts people.  When you respect and admire your husband, and when he respects and cherishes you, you are warming your community.  Your marriage is the gospel on display.  The inverse is also true.  When you give your husband the cold shoulder more than one person feels the chill.  Folks won’t huddle around a cold stove. 

Fire is dangerous and wild.  A wood stove presents a very clear and present danger to young ones.  When we had toddlers my husband built a fence to protect them from getting burned.  The marriage covenant is that fence.  A healthy respect of the danger and a healthy thrill of the wild are both appropriate.

Fire is a thing of vibrant beauty: blue, red, and yellow flames, brown and green wood, black smudgy coals, white ash.  As it burns it changes outfits and takes on new shapes.

Finally, a fire is a profound mystery.  How does does fuel + air + combustion make a flame that flickers and dances and curls around the coals? Fire mesmerizes, makes you stare and wonder and marvel.  When the fire burns in a marriage, we stare at the sparks and gasp at the glory.

I wish you a warm wood stove, one that radiates grace.  May the Lord God Almighty who ignited the flame between husband and wife, keep your fire bright.

Wedding Journal, Katie and Jeff

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Photo by Abbey B.

It all started with Scott McDonald.  We were lingering after a meal in the home of our dear friends, Jack and Lisa.  This was before Facebook, but you could say we were giving extended status updates.  “So when you pray for a wife for me,” he paused, wrinkling his eyebrow, “and I hope you are praying….?”   Umm.  Well.  To be honest, no? — were my thoughts. 

“We’ll get right on it!” I replied.  Other than my own kids (I grew up in a tradition where you prayed for your kid’s spouses from the get go), I wasn’t in the habit of petitioning God regarding spouses for friends.  Scott got me started on a journey of prayer that has some incredible vistas. 

And there was no magic involved.  We prayed and we waited.  After some time Scott introduced this beauty to me and I blurted out, “You are the answer to my prayers!”  And I wept through his wedding, overwhelmed at God’s kindness to our friend.

Scott and his wife had a daughter.  By this time Katie had entered into our (Scott’s family’s and our family’s) lives.  And daughter #1 started praying every night, “and please, God, bring Katie a husband.”  Daughter # 2 joined the family and joined the petition.  Daughter # 3 climbed into the circle and chimed in.  Daughter # 4 made a chorus. Katie’s deal with daughter #1 (you pray me a husband, I make you a flower girl) was grandfathered in to all four daughters.  (They were joined by two nieces by blood, two nieces by love for what we called a Flower Girl Bouquet.)

Photo by Abbey B.

We prayed and we waited.  And we found ourselves, at last!, celebrating The Wedding.  All the waiting distilled our joy into a fragrant essence. 

The wedding day began with worship.  Our congregation doubled with visiting family and friends.  From the opening hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, to the final Doxology the music soared. Our singing is normally solid and robust, but on Sunday it was a freight train! Singing the final verse of For All the Saints with folks from far lands was an amazing experience.

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The main focus for Katie and Jeff is community.  The membership, as Wendell Berry puts it.  The day was chosen so as many people could make it to a hard-to-get-there location.  This was challenging, as their people span the globe.  Four generations of family were there to witness the vows.  The joy of a wedding is that, like a tablecloth gathered after a picnic, it brings together all the disparate but not disjoined parts of two lives and bundles them together.  All the guests felt the blessing it was to be bundled together in such a lovely group.

 
Photo by Dan H.

Music marinated every surface of the celebration.  There was the formal music of the ceremony: organ/piano duets; Children of the Heavenly Father; a small choir singing Non Nobis Domine with piano and organ.  Katie came down the aisle to Beethoven’s Pathethique sonata arranged with a Doxology.  First-class musicians saturated the reception with great performances.  No DJ necessary, thank you very much!


Photo by Brian B.

Because words are so important to both Jeff and Katie, it is no shock that a tide of good words–benedictions –flowed back and forth.   Blessings and thanksgivings, tears of joy and appreciation, great abounding love.

Laughter shellacked the festivities. The congregation laughed aloud when the kiss ended…and began again!  We laughed as the couple left to the strains of young Meredith singing, “Hit the road, Jeff…” 

Happy sigh.  It was a richly celebrated wedding.  To quote Eric Bibb, “Joy is my wine, love is my food, sweet gratitude the air I breathe.”

The Lost Heart of Asia

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[Publishers] realised that travel writing could also be literature.
~ Colin Thubron

What made you interested in reading The Lost Heart of Asia?
I read Colin Thubron’s Where Nights Are Longest this spring; I needed to read more.  His travel memoirs carry no touristy weight; his concern is to understand how the region’s culture is translated into lifestyle, art, architecture, literature and religion. 

Why do you like Colin Thubron? 
Thubron is particularly gifted at meeting people and making them comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings.  A humble polyglot–I say humble because this fact is invisible in his writing–, Thubron can communicate with many different people groups in a native or near-to-native tongue.  He travels alone and strikes up conversations. People tell him compelling parts of their lives. 

So what, exactly, is the Lost Heart of Asia?
The five Central Asian republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kirghizstan.  These countries sit between Russia, China, India and Iran.  The book was written after their independence from the Soviet Union.  In short, the book explores the tensions between the two dominant ideologies, Communism and Islam, played out in this region. 


I’ve never even heard of some of those countries!   
In that sense it was a challenging book to read.  Nothing was familiar.  Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, reminded me of Tashbaan in C.S. Lewis’ book The Horse and His Boy.  That was the extent of my familiarity!  The book has two good maps which I used often.  The other challenge was the vocabulary: Thubron used more than a dozen words I’ve never before seen.  (That is not a criticism; it makes me want to read more.)

There must have been something else that pulled you into this book…
If someone writes well, the unknown becomes interesting.  Listen to this:

frothy muslin ribbons
his curtained politeness
a sunny robustness
a callow charm
his Brezhnev eyebrows
a reticent evangelism
an alto sanctimoniousness
a measured unraveling of pride
veil of splintered sunlight
a rumpus of old women
a strenuous happiness

And sentences like these:

The woman was violently silent.
He seemed perpetually stooped, not physically but emotionally stooped.
Somehow, for years, she had seen her nation bifocally.
Their decor dithered between cultures.

Learning for him was a process of accumulation.
I was entering the fringes of a formidable solitude.
Their Islam was like the Kazakhs’, drawn lightly over nomadic shamanism.

Favorite story from the book?
The story of the beginning of a Korean Baptist church in the capital of Kirghizstan was unusual.  A Korean Christian came from Los Angeles and asked the Korean community what they were.  They thought they might be Buddhist but weren’t sure.  He replied, No you are Christians.  And they became Christians.  He preached; they came out of pity for him, and then started believing.  

A favorite quote?
A girl in the capital of Kazakhstan, Dilia, who dreamed of becoming a conductor said, “If I didn’t become a musician, I’d starve inside.”

Do you want to read more Thubron?

Definitely.  Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China is on my shelf, in my queue.  In Siberia, Shadow of the Silk Road ,  Mirror to Damascus, and Journey into Cyprus all interest me.  I’ve only read one of Thubron’s novels, Falling, and didn’t care for it.  I think my next read should be Shadow of the Silk Road,  another trip through Central Asia, while some residual geography of the region remains with me.
  

Play List for a Young Man’s Memorial

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Ahokan Farewell

I’m Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger

Come Ye Disconsolate (half time)

Grace

I Want Jesus Walk with Me

Doxology (left hand octaves in G, like bells tolling, rhythmic differences)

Down to the River to Pray

Children of the Heavenly Father

Awesome God
Amazing Grace in minor key
Amazing Grace in major key
Awesome God

Homeward Bound

What Wondrous Love is This

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

I Will Arise

Precious Jewel (funky beat)

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms (half time)

Band of Brothers

A blog is a good place to keep lists.  Here is the list of songs I played at a memorial service yesterday.  I chose songs that I could play out of my heart (translation: without music), not knowing how the visibility would be. 

It was a gift to be able to give myself musically to my dear friends.  When a friend experiences a loss, we all want somehow to do something to express our love and compassion.  We need to give.  A hug.  A card.  A batch of rolls.  Mow the lawn.  I was able to play the piano.  It was a sweet thing–a gift I gratefully receive–to be able to share that for my friend(s).
   

How Teaching Piano Made Me a Better Reader

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When I taught piano lessons, I assigned different levels of music to each student.  One piece was below their reading level; in short, easy to play.  The student didn’t have to strain over which notes to play; instead she could concentrate on phrasing, dynamics, expression.  So even though the music was easy, it needed to be quality, worthy of expressive playing. 

The bulk of the music was bread and butter.  Working from white bread to 10-grain, it got chewier in increments.  Not effortless, but with regular practice the music could be mastered by the next lesson.  Like bread, this was the daily sustenance of the art of playing piano. One bite at a time.

The long-term focus was the challenge piece.  This was music which, at first glance, seemed overwhelming.   Beyond the beyonds.  Too much black print.  Flat out unplayable.  But we broke it up into manageable chunks, slowly worked through the notes, the rhythm, the key signature.  Row by row, I watched my students get the job done.  Some lessons were work sessions, pounding the notes.  Eventually, it coalesced into a polished piece. 

Reading is like this.

Easy books are a good thing if they are good books.  That’s why, when I want a light read, I go to my stack of quality children’s literature.  Wind in the Willows is ever so much more satisfying than Whence Comes the Hunk.

Most reading is of the bread and butter variety.  Whether you have eclectic tastes or you gravitate toward a particular genre, there are books a plenty to read.  Memoirs, mystery, devotional, relational, informative, helpful books.  We all love stories.

Here’s an easy definition of a challenge book:  a book you have to push yourself to read.  A worthy challenge book will reward you and keep you at it.  Slow the pace down, take small bites, and row by row, you’ll bring in the crop. 

Sometimes it became apparent that the piece I assigned my student wasn’t a good fit.  So I unassigned it.   The same goes with books.  A hard-to-read book is not necessarily a good book.  It may just be poorly written.

These three levels of effort can apply to most occupations:  jogging, friendships (when you hear the word challenge friendship does a face come to mind? she asks smiling), mechanics, cooking, thinking….life.