Waiting for the Weekend
11
Consume, Produce, Go Out, Stay Home
TV and other media have learned to suggest with increasing subtlety and callousness–especially, and most wickedly, to children–that it is better to consume than to produce, to buy than to grow or make, to “go out” than to stay home. If you have a TV, your children will be subjected almost from the cradle to an overwhelming insinuation that all worth experiencing is somewhere else and that all worth having must be bought.
The purpose is blatantly to supplant the joy and beauty of health with cosmetics, clothes, cars, and ready-made desserts. There is clearly too narrow a limit on how much money can be made from health, but the profitability of disease–especially disease of spirit or character–has so far, for profiteers, no visible limit.
~ Wendell Berry in the essay “Family Work” (1980), The Gift of Good Land
What do you think of this quote?
The Book That Changed My Life
George Grant first introduced me to the idea of reading what influenced your favorite author. What shaped his views, her style…what has contributed to his voice? So a book like The Book That Changed My Life
is right up my alley. Except I had not even *heard* of about half of the authors. Wow.
is right up my alley. Except I had not even *heard* of about half of the authors. Wow.
The interviews with David McCullough and Katherine Paterson are worth the price of the book. Of course, McCullough understands the topic: he read what John Adams read while preparing to write about him. And Diane Osen, editor and interviewer, has my admiration by one fact alone: she has read all of Trollope.
And all those writers with whom I am unfamiliar? Here’s some of their stuff:
The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of narrative is, by definition, holy…I’m very at home in the Biblical tradition that talks about the Word of God as the central manifestation of the way in which God is int he world. This is what I take to be the essence of biblical faith…In other words, my notion of narrative informs my faith, and my notion of faith informs my idea of what writing is for. ~ James Carroll
I think technology drains us of convictions. It is so powerful and so sophisticated that we tend to lose some of our self-confidence in an almost imperceptible way.” ~ Don DeLillo
Music can prepare one for writing prose that is very metrical and cadenced and musical; as a matter of fact, the terms that we use for prosody in English come from music. One creative area, I think, cross-fertilizes another. ~ Charles Johnson
David McCullough is a historian I greatly admire. His books stick with me years after I’ve read them.
I’m writing for people like me. If I can convey how interesting the past really was, how full of life those people really were, what they were up against and how it turned out for them, then, my feeling is others will want to read what I’ve written. And there’s no need every to trick things up, to sugar this or that, or use dramatic devices to make it interesting. ~ David McCullough
I was very interested in the books that shaped him. Here is a partial listing:
A Stillness at Appomattox, Bruce Catton
Reveille in Washington, Margaret Leech
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
My Antonia, Willa Cather
A Night to Remember, Walter Lord
Reveille in Washington, Margaret Leech
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
My Antonia, Willa Cather
A Night to Remember, Walter Lord
Katherine Paterson is a children’s author whose works move me. I have sobbed, visibly and vocally, through some chapters of her books. And I was *thrilled* to discover that some of my most favoritest books ever are also hers.
I remember one woman just going at me, and she said, What did your father think of such a book [Gilly Hopkins]? knowing that my father was a very conservative Presbyterian. And I said, Well, of all my books The Great Gilly Hopkins is his favorite, but then he’s read the story of the prodigal son. Which was a mean thing for me to say, but he did understand what the story was about. It’s very sad to me that many Christians don’t understand it. They think that a Christian book is nice. They don’t understand that Christians deal with life-and-death, hell-and-heaven issues. And sin is a very important part of what we have to say. ~ Katherine Paterson
I’m including all the books that have changed Katherine Paterson’s writing life. You can be assured that the Desai and Endo books are now on my Wish Lists.
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai
Silence, Shusaku Endo
Emma, Jane Austen
Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai
Silence, Shusaku Endo
Emma, Jane Austen
Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Just Be Cuz
We’re back from a trip to Omaha for time with extended family. We participated in two family reunions (Grandpa’s side and Grandma’s side) and visited with all of my husband’s living aunts and uncles, all but two of his cousins.
I’m curious about cousins. Some are functional strangers who happen to be related. Sharing an ancestor doesn’t appear to be enough commonality to carry on a conversation.
But other cousins, upon meeting for the first time in decades, seem familiar, because they truly are family. They are kin and kindred.
It’s fun to discover family traits that travel through parallel generations. One cousin said her husband calls her relatives “human doings” because of their high energy and focus on activity. She quizzed Curt on his personality and came up with many matches; for example, she likes to read but only if all the work is done.
We heard and told many stories. Ah, the art of storytelling: the opening, timing, animation, interaction, enthusiasm, and the ability to stick the landing. It’s fun to listen to couples tag-team their history, one jumping in with color commentary, one handing off the narrative, at times both talking in stereo. And stories flowing downstream accrue more stories. There were goofy and crazy yarns, funny and unexpected outcomes. But the ones that found a home in my heart were the stories where the person opened up his/her life, pain and all, and didn’t mask the hurt.
I have a friend who has no cousins. No aunts or uncles. Her dad and mom were both the only child. Her family history goes straight up the branch like a poplar tree.
We all grow up with the weight of history on us.
Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains
as they do in the spiral chains of knowledge
hidden in every cell of our bodies.
Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains
as they do in the spiral chains of knowledge
hidden in every cell of our bodies.
~ Shirley Abbott
The great gift of family life is
to be intimately acquainted with people
you might never even introduce yourself to,
had life not done it for you.
~ Kendall Hailey, The Day I Became an Autodidact
Call it a clan,
call it a network,
call it a tribe,
call it a family.
Whatever you call it,
whoever you are,
you need one.
~ Jane Howard
How many cousins do you have? Do you see them often? Ever? With what emotions do you anticipate family gatherings?
Six-Word Story
Have you heard of the six-word story?
Ernest Hemingway’s is the most famous:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
The distillation process intrigues me.
Because all that is not written captures the essence.
Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser collected
six word memoirs and published them in
Not Quite What I Was Planning
Here are a few.
Good, evil use the same font.
~ Arthur Harris
Detergent girl: Bold. Tide. Cheer. All.
~ Martha Clarkson
Oh sweet nectar of life, coffee.
~ Daniel Axenty
I am considering starting Six-Word Saturday.
Perhaps in September?
Six words are not so easy.
Perhaps in September?
Six words are not so easy.
If George Grant has eleven
and Abraham Piper has twenty-two,
why can’t we (you are included) do six?
It’s great practice.
The art of reduction.
~ ~ ~
Today is my son’s 27th birthday.
For Chris, I offer two sextuples.
Bookends of your life so far.
Beyond exhaustion, strength spent. Baby Boy!
Backlit strength, silhouetting grace. He stands.
This Is My Father’s World
A glorious August afternoon in Eastern Oregon
The Wallowa mountains
An ancient, but still working barn
Mary Kay meets Dukes of Hazzard
Huckleberry Find
The forecast is for a smokin’ hot afternoon.
Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do?
Go up in elevation and pick huckleberries, that’s what.
After a morning of worship and a picnic lunch,
our friends Matt and Carol (with their newbie son Isaac)
shared their secret spot with a few friends.
Generous folks.
Anyone who brings a huckleberry pie to a potluck
is generous beyond the beyonds.
Huckleberries are very small and don’t grow in clusters.
It took Curt and I all afternoon to pick one gallon.
Tip of the day: Huckleberries have so much flavor,
you can mix them with blueberries in recipes to stretch them.
Caught red-handed!
Training for Heaven
Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church of Christ. I believe the last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done. They suit all, both rich and poor. There is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing effect about a thoroughly good hymn, which nothing else can produce. It sticks in men’s memories when texts are forgotten.
It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations. Preaching and praying shall one day cease forever; but praise shall never die. The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion. The writers of good hymns, in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church.
~ J. C. Ryle (1816-1900)
Tattoos
An interesting discussion over at Nancy’s blog.
Thoughts?
Okay, I should put my oar in the water before I ask you what you think.
Personally, I think tattoos are a turn-off.
My struggle is not to be judgmental when I see one.
And I have more than one friend with a tattoo.
But an internal transaction always has to happen.
That is just my preference, not any doctrine.
If a friend told me she was contemplating a tattoo,
and we were good friends,
I would try to talk her out of it.
I’m still working through what arguments I would use.
A Living Pencil 