Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter's Field!

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people!

For unto us a child is born.

He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
Made Himself nothing,
Taking the form of a servant,
Being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form,
He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
Even death on a cross.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

He became flesh, and dwelt among us,
And we have seen His glory,
Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him,
Yet the world did not know Him.
He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

He was despised and rejected by men;
A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
As one from whom men hide their faces,
He was despised,
And we esteemed Him not.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

Surely He has borne our griefs,
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was crushed for our iniquities.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him
The iniquity of us all.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied;
By His knowledge shall the Righteous One,
My Servant,
Make many to be accounted righteous,
And He shall bear our iniquities:
Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
And with His stripes we are healed.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

He has not dealt with us as we deserved,
And whoever comes to Him He will not cast out.

His blood be on us, and on our children.

And we shall sing a new song, saying,

'You are worthy,
For you were slain, and by
Your blood
You ransomed people for God
From every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And you have made them a kingdom
And priests to our God,
And they shall reign on the earth.'

His blood be on us, and on our children.

Catching at...

Let us see how me can abuse the English today. Or degenerate into "blogtalk" or "Flying Dragon's-office-speak" (no--I'll always have too many words for that, even if they be the wrong ones).

Cousinses (including aunt and uncle)--good. Fun.

Wedding--wonderful. Hannah happy and beautiful and happily and beautifully married.

Brother--good. Nice to have home.

Yes, we went to see relations in a state which shall remain nameless, who were very gracious and hospitable and had a Barnes and Noble dangerously close by.

From there I took my solitary flight to NC, where I and my luggage eventually arrived, and got to participate in all the fun of stuffing rice bags and folding napkins and ironing very large pieces of skirt and folding programs while groomsmen played AOE (just kidding--well, kind of) and trying not to scream too loudly when hair and makeup aren't working and you realize that she's getting MARRIED...and decorating the car and putting her name on the wrong side (oops). I didn't even cry. The ringbearer was most attentive, and has joined my list of I-was-born-too-early-for. I like being a bridesmaid.

But I have decided I shouldn't get married anytime soon--walking down the aisle was scary enough as it was. Trying to maintain tempo and not trip on my skirt and not trip on the white cloth thing and holding my bouquet and smiling was almost too much for me to manage.

The wedding, I thought, was beautiful--focusing on the Lord, and them serving Him together in their marriage. They love each other, and make each other very happy, and the service was very personal. All I could see was the back of the bride's head, but I hear she was glowing. It was cool, too--the pastor spoke the vows in English, and they repeated them to each other in French. They had copies of their vows written out for all the guests to sign as witnesses.

It was far too warm, and we were all tired and hungry. and one bridesmaid almost fainted--which would have been exciting if we hadn't been worried about her ;). The pastor wore an African [whatever it's properly called], and they had a drummer for announcements. Several of the guests wore bright African clothes--there were even some with desert turbans and swords. It made me think a little of heaven, where we will all join in together singing praise to the One Who has redeeemed us to God out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. The reception hall was decorated with things from Niger, and we ate couscous and dates and olives and other things that I don't know the name for. There was bissap to drink--iced tea brewed with hibiscus, lots of sugar, and a bit of ginger--very good.

I liked our dresses too--light blue knee-length, long-sleeved tops and wrap skirts (panyas, I think), with silver and blue embroidery. The skirt measures from the floor up to about my chin and requires talent to fold (the line must come along the left, or African women will know you don't know what you're doing). Someone asked if my shoes came from Niger, too, to which I replied, "Ross!" The groomsmen all wore silver knee-length tops and silver pants, and sandals with little red pom-pom tassels. Hannah and Abdoulaye wore white, with silver and gold embroidery, and Hannah wore her mother's veil edged with pearls. The flowers were blue--white gladiolas, and delphiniums blue.

And I got to meet so many new friends who understand about missions, and see some of my long-missed school friends and most of the Dragons and Nathan! There were too many people to talk to and not enough time--a lot of that is going to have to wait for heaven.

N and I had a very fun ride home, even though Tennessee was very long and Arkansas quite literally stank. And now he is home, if only for a little while.

Someday I shall be in a place where I can stop saying goodbye. But for now, I have some crying to catch up on.

I grow old, I grow old...

I shall wear my curlers rolled.

Happy (Late) Birthday, Kiddo!

It's been (and is) so good to see you grow (and growing) into the man you are (and are becoming) now. I'm glad we decided to be friends! (miss you.)

Jehovah is My Stay

Love and prayers for Brianne K. and family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Icy shards of grief
Pricking, piercing unprotected love
When Memory opens accidentally on Now.
I long to cry, but cannot find the tears;
I want to laugh, but can't remember how.

I do not understand.

A wall springs up within a crowd:
Those who know, from those who know no pain;
Averted eyes, a stifled glance, a Red Sea dance
Around me in the hall. The silence of the shroud, preceding me,
Surrounding me, buried
To the world.

I cannot understand.

Living seems the hardest thing of all--
Eating, sleeping, breathing
With Sorrow settled mocking on my shoulder.
If I could only wilt, or fade away, and
Die--
But I am left alive,
To see the world in shades of gray, and wonder--

Why? I will not understand.


But You are still my Counselor, the One
Who takes my hands and leads me when I stumble,
Blinded, up a mountain paved with stones that bruise my heels.

And You are still the Mighty God, the One
Who died, and makes the dead alive,
The end and the Beginning.

My Everlasting Father,
Teaching me to walk again,
Hidden underneath Your wings.

The Prince of Peace,
Who cares for me, and gives me rest,
and guards my heart.

You are Jesus. I stand within
The cleft of Your hand, and see
A nail-shaped scar--
I weep, and laugh, but do not understand.

When I am weak and sad, I cling to this: that
You, Oh God, are strong. And You, Oh God, are loving.

19 degrees

Thanksgiving was lovely, thank you; 18 of us gathered around 3 tables (although this is rather a small group for this area, where everyone I talk to seems to have had more company). A game of 42 was constantly going on, and sometimes more than one--I even joined in one for amateurs. We made short work of all 11 pies, even though there were other leftovers to consider, too. The Dallas Cowboys won, and Texas lost, and the Sooners beat the Cowboys (I know most of y'all don't really care; just interpret: we were happy.) I went for walks in the beautiful fresh 74-degree country air, and sang very loudly in an attempt to prevent any chances of being shot as a deer. I think there were some hunters who were about ready to shoot me to make me be quiet, but they restrained themselves.

Today, however, if it is lovely, is only for the sake of cancelling work and staying inside with Jane Austen and hot chocolate. Every once in a while, I glance out the window to make myself more thankful for not being there. There is white; but most of it is whirling like a snow globe in the hands of an excited two-year old. More than an inch (if that) of our projected 5-8 may be outside, but it won't settle long enough for us to find out. It is enough, though, to cancel school across the state, for companies to tell their employees not to come to work, for us to be thankful we don't have any Canadians around to see the local news coverage that is almost enough to convince one we're in the middle of a blizzard from "The Long Winter." Enough for the Boys to say that they should get out of school (and beg to go outside to play football in the snow--and actually to ask me, drinking hot coffee in my pajamas and slippers under a pile of afghans to go, too--"It's great! You don't have any traction, and you're slipping all over the place..."). Cold enough for me to suggest sending hot chocolate and cookies to the mailman, and too cold for my nice thoughts to be turned into actions. Cold enough that the dog must romp in the snow, and shake himself off when he comes in, curling up on the heater vent or a stack of afghans or the nearest convenient human. Enough, in short, to make me quite certain that summer is my absolutely favorite season. But enough, too, to be quietly happy in the hominess of home in winter.

************************************************************************************

(for the many who I am sure miss my bad jokes--or at least miss me (?). I had another one the other day, but alas! It is lost to the world forever, by reason of my having forgotten it. I'm sure it was hilarious...)

Q: What do you call a snowman whose middle section has been over-rolled?

A: An Abdominable Snowman

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Winter: My Secret

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,
And you're too curious: fie! You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
Today's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to everyone who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave the truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

~Christina Rossetti

Oklahoma at Oklahoma State, 1:30 p.m. CT

Two aggies were walking down the street, whooping and celebrating. A Sooner fan noticed them, and asked what the big deal was.

"We just put together a puzzle in 3 months!" they answered.

"What's the big deal about that?" the man asked.

"It said 2-4 years on the side!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q: How do you get an O-State grad off your porch?

A: Pay him for the pizza.

*********************************************************************************

A man walked into a bar and noticed the OSU game was on. The owner's dog was sitting on the counter, watching the game. After a little while, OSU kicked a field goal, and the dog did a backflip. The next quarter, they kicked another field goal, and the dog did another backflip. The man was intrigued.

"What does he do if they score a touchdown?" he asked the owner.

"I don't know," the man replied. "I've only had 'im five years."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Q: What's an OSU diploma good for?

A: Parking in the handicapped spot.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
3 aggies left the football game, and headed back to their car, only to discover that they had locked the keys in it. They tried breaking into the trunk, and picking the lock, but they couldn't get in. So they were standing around, trying to figure out what to do next, and one of them asked the owner of the car, "what are we gonna do now?"

"I don't know," he replied, "but we need to think of something fast, 'cause it's startin' to rain, and I left the top down."

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

A man named Bob went to OSU, but when it came time to graduate, he hadn't completed the required math class. He stuck around to finish, but year after year he failed his math class and couldn't graduate.

Bob became something of a legend on the OSU campus. One year, the president of the school approached him and said, "Bob, we have decided to give you your own special one-question oral math test, and if you pass this, you can graduate." Word got around campus about the test, and it turned into something of an event. Lots of people wanted to come see this, so they made plans to hold the special test in the football stadium.

The day of the test arrived, and the stadium was packed out. The president arrived, and he and Bob walked out to the special platform in the middle of the field and sat down, and everyone got quiet.

"Okay, Bob," the president said, "Here's your question: what is two plus two?"

Bob sat and thought about this, and he thought some more, and finally, slowly, hesitating, he said, "two plus two is...four."

The stadium errupted. People were shouting, and carrying on, and the noise was terrific. A chant broke out, and soon became loud enough that it was clear over the uproar. Pretty soon all the people in the stadium had joined in, chanting "give him another chance! Give him another chance!"

42

Richard Dawkins, Oxford professor, from Time magazine, Nov. 13: “People who believe in God conclude there must have been a divine knob-twiddler who twiddled the knobs of these half-dozen constants to get them exactly right. The problem is that this says, because something is vastly improbable, we need a God to explain it. But that God himself would be even more improbable. Physicists have come up with other explanations…”

[Francis Collins, debating against him, brings up Occam’s Razor, which makes me happy]

later:

Time: “Could the answer be God?”

Dawkins: “There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.”

Collins: “That’s God.”

Dawkins: “Yes. But…”

First, may I say that Dr. Dawkins has more intelligence than I can even imagine. But, given that, does he not seem to be narrowing himself unreasonably? Besides never explaining why God would be more improbable than these "vastly improbable" constants that are necessary for our survival and are in place, Dawkins also accuses his opponent (the man who headed the project that mapped the human genome, if I am not mistaken) of forfeiting his scientific credibility by allowing himself to believe in a supernatural he cannot prove by the scientific method. He assumes, without explanation or argument, science’s right to predominate over all of life.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I think that faith and science, with a small s, work together admirably. I think that what we can see of the world around us, using our wonderful tool, the scientific method, fits marvelously with what we are told of what we cannot see. But even if faith and science were opposed, why ought it to be (arbitrarily?) assumed that science is higher?

I am reminded of this, from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy: “As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity…we have at once the sense of it covering everything and of it leaving everything out… [A materialist, like Mr. McCabe] understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cogwheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in…”

“The materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves…. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism….The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex….But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane…. Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind, as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut.” [emphasis added]

Or this, from J. Budziszewski’s The Revenge of Conscience, explaining why he (formerly) chose to believe in nihilism when he knew his nihilism was self-referentially incoherent: “A sixth reason was that I had come to confuse science with a certain world view, one which many science writers hold but that really has nothing to do with science. I mean the view that nothing is real but matter. If nothing is real but matter, then there couldn’t be such things as minds [Hannah’s note: unless you are an epiphenominalist =], moral law, or God, could there? After all, none of those are matter. Of course, not even the properties of matter are matter, so after awhile it became hard to believe in matter itself. But by that time I was so disordered that I couldn’t tell how disordered I was. I recognized that I had committed yet another incoherence, but I concluded that reality itself was incoherent, and that I was pretty clever to have figured this our—even more so, because in an incoherent world, figuring didn’t make sense either.”

Or maybe just this: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.” ~Romans 1:21, 22

Happy Thanks-giving.

Happy 99th Birthday!

Oklahoma!
Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain,
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain;

Oklahoma!
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky;

We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say
Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin'
You're doin' fine,
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! O.K.!

I have missed you awfully...

The fans =), the heliotrope dresses and hideous yellow; IM conversations about cheese that no one else would understand, and scandalous quote doors; the pre-performance jitters and Tommy Trafford's song; the dreadful statue of Achilles and the Star of the Garter and the diamond snake brooch and the palm tree and the buttonholes. Tape and pins and fire and ice. Late-night rehearsals and set-painting, and celebrations. Being someone else.

Miss you, ET! Have a wonderful time Cyrano-ing; and I wish I were there!

Happy Birthday Levi!

...a special young man who also happens to be my brother, and has been for the last 14 years. I love you! =)

Dio e buono.

(God is good).

October Living

Gold leaves falling on the ground,
Joining in sweet autumn-sound,
Warm winds swirling sea-deep sky
Rain from lifeless treetops high
Gold leaves falling.

Red leaves shower freely round
Caring not where they are bound,
Seeking life before they die;
Red leaves falling.

Leaves that recent frost has browned
By a better beauty crowned,
Winging down they swiftly fly,
Sing without a halting sigh:
Loving life they finally found;
Brown leaves falling.

"WE'RE ALL...GOING...TO DIE!"

[Happy St. Cripsin's Day]

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

-- Wm. Shakespeare, King Henry V

I so deserved that...

I called someone I didn't know today, and a man's voice answered: "Pizza Hut." I laughed. "Is this --'s residence?" And sure enough, it was.

After all, he left out the best part:"will that be dine in, or carry out?"

College for Football Players

COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAM - FOOTBALL PLAYER VERSION [not mine--credited to Unknown--but an old favorite]
Time Limit: 3 WKS
_________________________________________________________________
1. What language is spoken in France? ____________________________________________________________

2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions -OR- give the first name of Pierre Trudeau. ____________________________________________________________

3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to ___ (a) build a bridge ___ (b) sail the ocean ___ (c) lead an army or ___ (d) WRITE A PLAY

4. What religion is the Pope? ___ (a) Jewish ___ (b) Catholic ___ (c) Hindu ___ (d) Polish ___ (e) Agnostic (check only one)

5. Metric conversion. How many feet is 0.0 meters? ____________________________________________________________

6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 5? ____________________________________________________________

7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately) ____________________________________________________________

8. What are people in America's far north called? ___ (a) Westerners ___ (b) Southerners ___ (c) Northerners

9. Spell -- Bush, Carter and Clinton
Bush: ____________________________________________________________
Carter: ____________________________________________________________
Clinton:____________________________________________________________

10. Six kings of England have been called George, the last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five. ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

11. Where does rain come from? ___ (a) Macy's ___ (b) a 7-11 ___ (c) Canada ___ (d) the sky

12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity? ___ (a) yes ___ (b) no

13. What are coat hangers used for? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country? ____________________________________________________________

15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium -OR- spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS. ____________________________________________________________

16. Where is the basement in a three story building located? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

17. Which part of America produces the most oranges? ___ (a) New York ___ (b) Florida ___ (c) Canada ___ (d) Wisconsin

18. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you have? ____________________________________________________________

19. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) stand for? ____________________________________________________________

20. The Cornell University tradition for efficiency began when (approximately)?
___ (a) B.C. ___ (b) A.D.

_________________________________________________________________ Name: ____________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________
*You must answer three or more questions correctly to qualify _________________________________________________________________

Gray Day

Gray beauty startled me today. The fairies have run away, my childlike innocent capering world is gone; the world that remains is old and wise. I am wandering alone.

And I, who grow dizzy with giddiness in sunshine, and weep with color in sunsets, am learning to love gray.

("I who so love scarlet
Wear a gown of black,
Quaintly fitted tunic
Buttoned up the back.")

Color has not disappeared, only given up its gaudy frolic. It has grown more deliberate, more careful. The trees have wrapped themselves more closely. Fields' green, red velvet of roads, belongs to them and not to me; even the scarlet splashes of sumac are separate, apart. I neither wish, nor wish not to be, but simply am--alone. There is no lightning or thunder; those would require energy. Only gray and mist.

The sky reminds me of the ocean, our last day together at the beach--do you remember? We strode silently through the sand, our toes and legs numb with the wet cold, without feeling it. Solitude immense as the sea, intense as the waves went with us, walking together. The quiet was so deep I was afraid to breathe, could not look at you.

Now I turn, my Baggins side uppermost, saying I "should have been home yesterday." There are days one wants nothing more than a fireplace and a checkered tablecloth, waiting for someone who will be glad to be home. But that is not what I have now.

I shall have tea and Mendelssohn, and wait in quietness.

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my wearied soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

~George Matheson

No es futbol...

This is football. (or, What it was was...football).

I am happy.

Today, along with 84,150 other people (this is more than 2.5 percent of the state population), my father and I watched the Oklahoma Sooners beat the Iowa State Cyclones (whose mascot is a cardinal...) in Norman. It was...well. I was so happy my voice was gone by the end of the first quarter.

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to watch the game at first, because it made me dizzy to look down at the field. I wanted my opera glasses. I'm thinking this was probably the highest I've ever been on a man-made structure. Our section was over the 6th level of parking, and we were about 20 feet up in it (and yes, I know I'm a hick: think of the song from "Oklahoma" where the cowboys are singing, "everythin's up to date in Kansas City/ they've gone about as fur as they could go;/ they went and built a sky scraper seven stories high..."). I felt like I couldn't lean forward, or I might fall and keep falling. But I forgot about that when the team came onto the field. I hope the people sitting around me weren't too annoyed with the noise I made, but really, when 40,000 people are yelling, "Boomer," at you, the least you can do is give a rousing "Sooner!" (sigh. And I suppose most of you still don't understand this.) Being in a crowd like that makes one think a little of the Romans...and what could a mob like that do if they were angry?

Funniest part of the game: when the ref didn't realize his microphone was still on, and looked at a close-to-first down play, and we all heard, "we're gonna have to take a look at that..."

saddest part of the game: (which we didn't know until afterward) A.D.'s injury. Adrian "All Day" Peterson, a.k.a, "The True Freshman," performing in the first game his father was able to come to (for reasons of incarceration) since he was 12, had 183 yards (that's good!). But he also broke his collarbone diving into the endzone (that's bad--it puts him out for the rest of the season).

We got out of the stadium faster than the Romans got out of the Colliseum. The only bad part is that walking with my dad is a little like walking with Helen and MB--I had to jump every two steps--and I was wearing my ridiculous not-made-for-walking (but pretty!) new shoes...and now my feet are rather beat up. And I am tired and happy and hoarse.

Mia Familia

Es loco. I really understand myself better in their context. Witness this conversation from this morning:

Me to L: [stop smirking about something]

L: I'm not smirking!

Me: You most certainly are! That's a textbook example of a smirk!

L: You should know. You're the queen of smirking.

Me: does that make me the smirqueen? I can't very well be a king...

C: well, if you ever meet a man who's king of the smurs, you'll know he's for you.

Me: nobody loves me.

L: your coffee loves you!

Me: no, because I drink it.

L: It likes to be drinken, drunk, drank...

Me: it shouldn't be drunk, because then it gets tipsy and spills all over me [my dad's still making fun of me for spilling a whole cup all over myself one Sunday morning...it's not for nothing my name means grace]

or last night, when we were comparing the infamous Curby eyebrows (I hope Josiah has recovered by now. pobre tomate.) My dad certainly has the wiggliest, and he is also the only one who is ambi-eyebrowed. And he is the only person I know who can wiggle his eyebrows and laugh while whistling the theme from the Andy Griffith show, thereby making any opponent lose his concentration entirely. and (almost) the only person who can make me blush on command.

and evidently the furry with the syringe on the top has joined the ranks of the Arab Texan by the name of Hep Usef and the large urban shopping centers...

sometime I'll have to explain Harry and Hair Back on the Air (or maybe have them on as guests...), but right now I'm too confused. How did I end up related to these people?

Because it's Monday...

And I feel like I've been writing support letters for a loooong time:

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

Chocolate Lava Muffins (tested and approved by the Curby family during that week of fall before the return of summer. They're a little more like brownies than muffins--very rich.)Thanks to Alton Brown of "Good Eats" and the Food Network for the recipe--this and the rest of the "chocolate" show airs tomorrow night at 7ET, for any Food Network junkies--or are we the only ones?

Recipe difficulty: easy
prep time: 20 minutes
(also leave time for chilling batter)
cook time: 11 minutes
yield: 1 dzn.

8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips [ed. note: we substituted dark chocolate =]
1 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
[more ed. commentary: we also added 1 tablespoon baking cocoa]
4 eggs
more cocoa powder
ice cream

preheat the oven to 375^. In a double boiler (or small metal bowl over saucepan/tea kettle with simmering water), melt chocolate and butter. Stir in vanilla.

In large mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, salt (and 1 T. cocoa). Sift into chocolate and mix well with electric hand mixer. Add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating each egg before adding the next. Beat on high until batter is creamy and lightens in color, appx. 4 min. Chill.

Coat top and each cup of muffin tin with butter. Dust with remaining cocoa powder, shaking off excess. Spoon mixture into pan using a 4-ounce scoop or ladle. Bake 10-11 min. Outsides should be cake-like, centers should be gooey.

Serve with ice cream (if preferred, melt vanilla ice cream in small saucepan, and stir in 1 teaspoon espresso powder. Serve over warm ice cream.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In, other news, SoonerSports.com reads, "welcome to OU-Texas week..."

A few words

"One understands a word much better if one has met it alive, in its native habitat."

C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words

5 things that made me laugh...

or 4 (can't think of a 5th right now). Anyway, minor amusements in the life of Hannah:

1. The cow who kept sticking her head out of the back of the trailer in front of me to stare at me rather vulgarly; or to look at surrounding countryside every once in awhile (maybe you had to be there for that one...)

2. A sign: "try our new shrimp items go Jackets win!" (the 'Jackets being the local high school football team--and yes, it would have been funnier without the "try our," but I'm honest)

3. When I was sitting in the waiting area of a psychiatrist's office last week (waiting for a rider to finish), and the psyche dr. came in and said (in a tone and accompanied with a hand motion used toward children and dogs by people who don't understand them) to me, "come on back, Maggie!" I'm afraid my eyebrows were a little rude (she interrupted Fitzgerald, and I was wearing red, too), but the rest of me tried to be polite. (There's nothing they can do anyway...)

4. Another sign: "flea/farmer's market" (no comment)

On the Road

The red rivers intersect and merge on the white page beneath my finger, calling to the red within my veins. I follow them a little absently, tracing my finger across miles no bigger than an elm bug. In my mind they are transformed; no longer red lines (whether curved or straight), but blinding ribbons of white furling ahead of me, smoking along behind; consuming me in the rhythm of the road. Each has its own siren song number; it is a delight to recognize old friends traveling in new places.

I am a faithful wanderer. A fugitive from my comfortable home. I seek safety from the mundane through something larger than myself. And I have joined the eternal Quest, unsure of what I am questing for. Not the end of the road, for real roads have no end I can find. Knowledge? Only of my frailty and ignorance, since there is always more road to know. I recognize my own limits through my love.

I am a jealous wanderer, having a passionate impatience for those who travel in front of me. Not for being in my way, but because they are having my experience before me. I meet people with curiosity, wanting to know what they have seen; knowing what they are about to see.

The center stripe reflects the joy of sunflowers, and I am free.

How do I know God loves me?

Because of sunflowers.

A Better Resurrection

Psalm 121; 119:145-147; 39:4-7; 51:10; Job 23:10; 2 Corinthians 4:4-18; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; 1 Peter 1:3-9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

~Christina Rossetti

Question

For my entertainment (borrowed from others):

What does my name (first and last) sound like I should be? (if I weren't what I am, of course)

Anyone want to offer an opinion?

Study in Strangers I

"There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken."
~Crime and Punishment

Our eyes locked in a crowd.

I turned mine down--
Unwilling he should see a secret
Burned in fire and trembling--
But not before
A smile had slipped between us:
Knowledge of our mutual ignorance, an instant's
Curiosity, or interest, it may be; recognition
Granted innocence and possibility. Unanimity
In living strangers, sharing
The hunger and humor of humanity
In silence.

Whose face, whose smile, what name from long-ago?
I'll never know;
I'll never need to know.

Nostalgia

Okay, so I’m suffering it: post-college withdrawal. I miss…lots of things. Not quite the tests, but I miss Latin parties, and I miss metaphysical parties with Someone sitting with a jar of sugar cubes on her head, and I miss taking personality tests at three in the morning when we have a test at eight, and I miss "studying" at coffee shops, which always turned into something more important. I miss intelligent conversation and people who get my jokes (which, as the Lyonesse heretic noted, are two things not related—but I would like to point out that she was the one who started the conversation, "if you were a french fry…" I love you, Ashley! ;). I miss "sprawling" in the hall for backrubs and talk (or just plain giggling); I miss trying to fit too many people on a bed to watch a movie, and ice cream at the slightest excuse; I miss dancing around the mirror in the morning with all of us trying to get ready; I miss being a french shrub or an ewok. I miss hiccups through the wall, and I miss told being not to drink coffee, and I miss throwing snowballs at our RA’s window, and I miss the nod and saying, "we know." Lyonesse, and the Dragons, and the World, and the Radical Freudeggerian Feminists Against Interpretation and the Older Sisters of Brothers on Campus and the Brothers in Burqas Society and the Society for the Defense of Hannah and the League of the Sleep Deprived. I miss you people something awful.

But I don’t just miss the people: I miss the place, and what was possible there. I miss stalking security guards (or occasionally assaulting them, although not usually when they were on duty—there was that time when one tried to break into the bookstore…) and Viking burials for goldfish and funeral ceremonies for de-Caput-ated knights and warm-fuzzy wars and Hobbit parties and duels and haunting the main building and play rehearsals and dancing and engagements (and all things attendant upon those occasions). I miss a place where I could wear red hats to finals and where red wigs were out of dress code (it looked pretty awful on me anyway). I miss a place where boys could propose just to give someone the pleasure of rejecting them, or where we could expect email proposals every time it snowed. I even miss ASEs and Councils of War. I miss knowing more about everyone else’s lives than I ever should have. I miss the Chestnut race and the GSE and the ever-present game of Ultimate. I miss the professors. I miss the way they ate with us and played with us; and I miss being scared to talk with them for fear I would say something stupid; my distant adoration. I miss the way their eyes lit up when someone understood.

I miss chapels, and I miss praying together, at planned and unplanned times; the spiritual challenge and encouragement by people who were sold out for God; the way we were bound together in Him.

I don’t want to be one of those people who’s constantly remembering college as the best years of my life and believe life goes downhill from here: I think it does get better, because I have that as part of me now, and I can go on to new and exciting things God has for me. But there are moments when I just miss Us Being There.

Read it and Laugh

On today’s edition of On My (Library) Bookshelf, we have these special guests:

Marianne Moore, Complete Poems:

"O to Be a Dragon"

If I, like Solomon,…
could have my wish—
my wish…O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven—of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon!

Andy Adams, Why the Chisolm Trail Forks, and Other Tales of the Cattle Country

Ogden Nash (selected poems), I Wouldn’t Have Missed It (from which, Oh, how to choose a sample?):

From "The Slipshod Scholar Gets Around to Greece"

I sing of the ancient Greeks.
They had magnificent physiques.
[…]
If the Greeks had never existed who would have been the most annoyed?
Freud.

Wendell Berry, A World Lost
Wendell Berry, Farming: a Hand Book (I decided if Dr. M. was going to write about’m, I wanted to read’m):

From "A Letter"

Now back in Kentucky, far from you again,
I often think of those days and nights, and long
for their music and their mirth. And then
I remind myself: the past is gone. Remember it.

Wodehouse
And my (favorite) find of this time:
Odgen Nash (trans. James Gleeson and Brian Meyer), Ave Ogden! Nash in Latin (original in comments. The meter is not the same as Nash, or Vergil, for that matter, but it’s still fun):

"Hipppotamus"
Ecce hippopotamus, sis!
Ridemus quomodo videatur nobis,
Tempore tamen miserabili
Miror quomodo videamur ei.
Pacem, pacem, hippopotame!
Videmur grati nobis vere,
Es dulcis sine dubio
Aliorum hipporum oculo.

Rebuilding

I went unto the place where I had been a safe child, and had grown to be a vulnerable child, and its walls were broken down. The offices of my fathers were changed, with new people at their desks and new books in their classes; the school suffered great trouble and shame. And I wept for the places that were vacant, for the people in exile, for those who survived; for my nourishing mother, for I love it. And I prayed to the God of heaven that He would rebuild the walls His people destroyed in their sin.

I do not know the rest of the story. But I pray that it will be one of His servants rising up to sort through the rubble and fill in the gaps in the wall, to rebuild while fending off the arrows of the Enemy and his servants. A story showing that the God of heaven is a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who has not dealt with us as we deserve, but has dealt faithfully even when we acted wickedly. I pray that His Holy Spirit will work with His supernatural power in the hearts of men, that where there has been pain and anger and bitterness and injustice, there may be love. That the world may see us, and know there is a God by the way we love one another. That we may have the attitude in us which was also in Christ Jesus; that our love may abound more and more.

Have mercy upon us, Oh God, because of your unfailing love.

Over the Rainbow

I love airports: they are one of the magicalest places I know. Where else are there so many possibilities? Walking down the hallway, there are doors a person could step through and magically end up in Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa, L.A. or D.C. Not to mention Paris and Oklahoma City.

I love watching people in airports. They are usually hurried and bored, but I can imagine interesting things about them all. In BWI I stood up to walk around and get a drink, and when I came back, my seat was gone. The elderly lady sitting next to her overalled husband looked up from her baby blue crochet, smiled at me and patted the seat next to her. We talked.

I love airplanes, too. They are one of my favorite property-things; even though they are not substantial, they almost seem to have an essence of their own. I sat in row 5, counting the individual rocks on the pavement outside. The engines came to life beneath me, and I caught their excitement, drawn into their passion, impatient to fly. It occurred to me that airplanes are rather like people, with the coach area being the belly, the passions. But it was alright, because we the passions were controlled by reason in the pilot. I was happily trying to finish up my comparison and remember the third part, when the pilot’s voice came over the system. "Welcome to our flight to…" he cut off for a minute, and I was about to decide it was a glitch in the sound, when his voice returned… "Memphis." I laughed at my metaphor.

Just west of Memphis there are strange squiggly lines on the ground that reminded me of Dr. V.; I wondered if they had anything to do with communications from outer space.

I saw a thunderstorm from the air: a flashing silver thread of electrical energy, a rainbow underneath me. "Oh, let me dance on rainbows..."

And I read Chesterton, on the magic of repetition in nature; the marvel of the beauty and humor of the cosmos; the smallness and greatness of man. I looked out the window and saw he was right.

To my Friends in VA, and Otherwise

To any friend(s) I may happen to possess in the VA (no, not Veteran's Administration) area:

WHEREFORE, The First Dragon Wedding (DWI) is taking place upon the 4th day of this month of August (an excellent day for marriage, if I may be allowed to recommend it as the daughter of my parents who were married on that excellent day), and

WHEREFORE, I wish to attend said wedding, and furthermore

WHEREFORE, I am on the support-raising trail,

LET IT BE KNOWN THAT

I, H. Rebekah C., will be visible in the VA area from the seventh (7th) to the thirteenth (13th) of this month, and desirous of seeing you. If the feeling is mutual, let me know and we'll get together.

Otherwise:

we are all here (albeit briefly). This is not a statement about the mental state of my multiple personalities (all schizophrenic), or royal Self with a hamster in the pocket. Nor is it a statement about the mental state of my family. But he is making jokes, and I am laughing at them (and stealing an old one).

And the happiest of birthdays to the youngest of the tribe, who entered the perilous year between 11-12 today. May God have mercy.

"Let Right Be Done"

“Very easy to do justice. Very hard to do right,” says Sir Robert Morton in “The Winslow Boy.” But is that right?

Justice, from jus, juris: law. Portia, in Merchant of Venice, reminds us of the shortcomings of justice in praising mercy:

“It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”

Justice is not enough. In the case of the Winslow Boy (an excellent movie based on a play, which is presumably also excellent), justice would have been following the technicalities of law, which would have resulted in doing wrong. This was partly because human justice is imperfect. But even pure “justice” which knows all the facts does not go far enough. It leaves us all condemned; unless we go beyond the justice of the law to the justice of grace. “Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Justice is, in a sense, very easy. It is written where we may all see, declaring all of us guilty.

Except that Someone took upon Himself the harder course of “right,” and made it just. Or rather, made us just, even though we were guilty. That is the righteousness apart from the law, in which we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, “that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus…therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law (emphasis added).”

It’s also easier to accept justice than right (or grace). If we were justified by law, we would all know that we got what we deserved. Under grace, we know we don’t deserve what we get; we deserve nothing, and are not capable of justifying ourselves. This is the stumbling-block simplicity of Christianity: there is nothing we can do for ourselves, for we are justified only by grace through faith.

This is what makes the chapter before Javert’s suicide in Les Miserables so powerful: he is an exact picture of someone who is so riveted on justice that he cannot accept grace. When the law condemns him, he refuses to acknowledge that there is a higher law which will save him, the law of right, and so he condemns himself.

And this is ultimately the problem with an idea of salvation based on works: it’s setting ourselves up as God, the arbiters of a different standard than the one He set. But it is easy to produce our own rules, by which we can condemn others and save ourselves, and much harder to admit that we are nothing, that we can do nothing, that we deserve nothing but punishment. That we need a God who will make us just because He is righteous.

“If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

“Grace, grace, God’s grace:
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace:
Grace that is greater than all our sin."

Mi Amiga

She wears red fingernail polish and hot pink lipstick, gold rings on her fingers (and possibly bells on her toes); but she is not gaudy, only vibrantly alive. Her red brick cottage overflows with radiant flowers; the fuschia bougainvillea which came with her from Mexico is most like her, and I think it’s secretly her favorite.

[we interrupt this blog post for a moment of poetry:

"Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.
What a name! Was it love, or praise?
Speech half asleep, or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish one of these days,
If only for that slow, sweet name’s sake."]

She has a lovely lilting Spanish name and a lovely lilting Spanish accent to go with it; sometimes I catch myself listening to her voice instead of what she is saying. She tells me about growing up in Guadalajara, heaven on earth, the city of fountains and roses; not too many people, like in OKC, or too few, like the gasping little town she’s in now, but perfect. Her family was well-off, but her father insisted she learn to sew, and go to cooking school. "Why?" she asked. "The maid can do that." "Yes," her father answered, "but you will need to know how to do these things if you marry a poor man, and how to order it done if you marry a rich man."

She married a poor man from here when she was 18, because all her friends were getting married and she didn’t want to be an old maid. "Tell me you aren’t even thinking about getting married yet, hahnee," she turns to me seriously. "You have plenty of time."

["Roses, if I live and do well,
I may bring her one of these days
To fix you fast with as fine a spell,
Fit you each with his Spanish phrase…"

We interrupt this poetry with your regularly scheduled post. Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to interrupt?]

When she crossed the border, the patrolman asked her why she had picked the worst state in the union to live in. "Don’t you know there are wild Indians there? They’ll shoot you with their bows’n’arrows and scalp you." "Is that true?" she whispered to her new brother-in-law.

["But do not detain me now,
For she lingers
There, like sunshine over the ground..."]

It was November when she came, and there was snow on the ground. The only shoes she had were sandals. She cried in her pillow every night.

["Is there no method to tell her in Spanish
June's twice June since she breathed it with me?"]

She worries that she’ll be cranky when she gets old (she’s only 70 now), because she’s always liked to be independent. But I know she’s sweet. She can’t go back to Mexico now, because she takes care of her ex-husband. He’s at their son’s for a couple of weeks so she can go to the doctor, and the cat she bought him tries to sleep in her bed, but she won’t let it. She doesn’t want it getting attached to her, so he can feel like it’s his very own. She speaks well of her daughter-in-law, and buys a chocolate malt for her dentist.

["Roses, you are not so fair after all."
~Robert Browning, from "The Flower's Name"]

conversation of the day

[after a discussion of the differences between Jehovah's Witnesses and evangelical Christians, part of which included their changes to the Bible]

Anon: I read my Bible, 'cause that's what I grew up with.

Me: Oh, yes? What kind of Bible do you have?

Anon: A Holy Bible.

Life in the Zoo

The little girl who had a little curl is sleeping with plastic bags around her bed. The reason: our house has become the domicile of undomesticated beasts. It happened while I was gone…

The house was silent; the inhabitants resting peacefully. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of baseball bats danced in their heads. And then they heard something which sounded like a woman screaming. It was. My mother, to be exact, who had been rudely awakened by the clattering of a tea cup — landing beside her. From the shelf over her head. Knocked off by a four-foot snake. In the ensuing battle there was unfortunately no carnage; the snake slipped through their fingers (metaphorically speaking—dad was actually using a broom handle and a baseball bat). And somehow the cover on the electrical outlet got busted.

It was enough to make my sister set up a guard across her door and around her bed. Unfortunately, I stepped on it two nights ago, and almost got shot. I would hate to be the snake if he meets up with a shriek like hers…

The coon in the back yard decided to take the opportunity to create a little havoc himself. And the scorpions thought the next day would be a good time to clean up in our bathtub. And then there are all the Yahoos...no. My brothers and sisters may be what they are, but they have not reached the point of Yahoo-ness. Wahoos, perhaps, but not Yahoos.

I voted yesterday in the Republican primary. But first I had to change into my red-and-white striped shirt, so I would coordinate when they gave me the "I voted" sticker with the American flag. I filled out all the lines very neatly straight across, coloring them in to the edges so that they were even, instead of leaving two half-arrows with a too-thin line between. When I was finished, I confessed to my mother what I had done (both about the arrows and about changing clothes) and found out she had done both of those things too. Then we went to the photography studio and straightened pictures in the waiting area.

I was amused when I read on the ballot that if you couldn’t write you should put your mark here. Theoretically, I suppose, you could read and not write, but the two usually go together. When I am dictatrix del mondo (yes, I know I’m mixing my languages, but I can do that when I’m in charge) I think I shall establish some basic requirements for voting, which include literacy. I shall also require voters to pass a proficiency test in history, and a mental competence test, which will consist of the following question: "do you intend to vote for Empress Hannah I?" A negative answer would, of course, prove that the individual was not responsible enough to have a vote.

We slept outside last night, although curl-girl wasn’t sure at first, with all those wild rabbits running around. We told her we’d let the snakes take care of them. And then she was the one pretending to be a snake crawling on me--can you imagine?

The snake spake unto the woman with a voice which strangely resembled that of the middle Backseat Boy.

The Caboose and I have different ideas of camping, incidentally. I wanted to sleep outside without the tent. He wanted to sleep inside with the tent. Sometimes I wonder.

We argued over whether lights were stars or airplanes, or falling airplanes or stars which had just taken off. We talked about snake repellent and falling tsars (not a typo), pretended to be cowboys camping on the Chisolm Trail who were about to be massacred, and (for the comfort of some) pretended to be inside the house pretending to be outside.

I recited The Highwayman with almost all the melodrama in my power. And when I was finished, the first sound was the Caboose: "I don’t get it." sigh. So I tried to explain it in as terribly boring prose as possible. I fell asleep to L telling Dr. Pepper stories…

Money, Money, Money

TEFL certification/visa/plane ticket to Bologna: $2,000 (well, okay, so I'm rounding and don't have the exact figures, but it's something like that).

Living in Italy: $3,000 (per month)

Obeying God's call to share His love with the Italians: priceless.

Yes, I have passed the grueling trial and have been appointed a missionary. Now I get to begin the really grueling part: raising support. If only I would get a letter in the mail saying that someone was supporting me for my whole amount without me even having to tell them about it. That would be so much easier. But no. I have to ask.

Why is this so hard for me? I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with my Tocquevillian independent-American-young-woman streak, that wants to be self-reliant and never need nothin' from nobody. And work ethic is a good thing. But the pride that never wants to ask for help is definitely not good--it's what makes me try to be good enough to please God. I can't live as a Christian by myself--I have to ask for God's mercy and grace not only for salvation, but for everyday life. Neither can I go serve Him by myself. I need His strength, and I need the support of others in the church, even (gulp) financial support.

It helps to think of it as asking others to give to the Lord, and me trusting Him for it, but I'm still the one who has to take the initiative. And it helps a lot more when I think of It--I am very ready to love It, but I have to get there first. Lots of people are probably still wondering why there? But besides the obvious cultural draws (Ferraris, you know), Italy really needs Jesus. Less than 1% of the population are evangelical Christians. Most of them are trying to work their way to heaven, and don't know about God's wonderful grace. Please pray that my heart will be broken over their lostness as His is. And pray that I will have the silly little courage to ask people for support.

And if I possibly happen to ask you--please know that it's ok to say no and don't go hide around a corner when you see me coming. I'll love you anyway.

"Italy, we're gonna love you forever..."

no longer a "missionary-to-be..."

Avant Ministries

by authority of the International Board of Directors, and upon the recommendation of the Candidate Committee and successful completion of Candidate Orientation, hereby appoints

me

to missionary service.

In testimony wherof, they have affixed the Seal of Avant Ministries and signed by their hand this Twenty-Second day of July, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Six.

Happy Birthday!

to someone who doesn't share Miranda's worry, but requires the same answer (and it's an excuse for me to post Ogden Nash, which I never refuse).


To a Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty
Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

H's Feet on High Places

Like the top of the stairs.

"I went to Kansas City on a Sunday
By Monday I learned a thing or two
But up 'till then I didn't have an idea
Of what the mod'rn world was comin' to...

Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow.
Everything's like a dream in Kansas City
It's better than a magic lantern show...

They've gone about as fer as they can go.
They've gone about as fer as they can go!"

~from Oklahoma! (slightly modified)


Yessir, that's right. Here I sit, in that very up-to-date city, properly having visited KC, since I've eaten BBQ twice. And yes, it was KC style BBQ that made me do a double take, it was so sweet. But that hasn't been the sweetest thing in this half-week...

Where do I begin
To tell the story of how great a love can be?
The sweet love story that is older than the sea
The simple truth about the love He brings to me
Where do I start?

~From Love Story (also slightly modified)

Yes, I'm at Candidate Orientation, and yes, it's amazing. I keep meeting people who know people I know. And all of them know my Father, because He's their Father, too! These people are thoroughly passionate about God, and committed to the concept that if we believe Christianity is real, it's going to affect the way we think and talk and plan and live!

So far, we're studying cultural differences, and interpersonal communications, and writing prayer letters. I'm realizing how many things I take for granted that are really only part of our culture, and aren't exactly normal in a different culture, and how helplessly American I am. For example, one question we had was: what irritates you most? My answers really reflected American values: "lack of honest communication, laziness." In other places, politeness is often more important than honesty, and people might not be so open to telling you everything about themselves. And what I see as laziness, a lot of other cultures would just see as being relaxed and enjoying life. So, I'll have some growing to do. We also talked about some of the things we will miss, and a lot of those make me think too: independence, the ability to be smart (how stupid am I going to look trying to speak Italian?!), being in a position of importance.

But I'm going to Italy!!!! This is starting to hit me. People who have been there keep telling me how much I am going to love It (coffee! chocolate! art! music! history!) and how much It is going to love me (warm, smiling people; as opposed to Germans and Czechs, who don't like smiling or making eye contact). They're making plans for getting my visa (pray about that please; it can be hit-or-miss)! I'm going to Italy!!! And they won the World Cup. Viva Italia (or something to that effect)!

God's grace is amazing.

Dante's Ninth

level, that is. Of a place that is not Paradiso. (not really--I just like euphemizing.)

Last night I was a spy in Communist Bulgaria. I was supposed to eat certain papers if I was ever discovered. Dr. Van was there--but I don't know if he was a friend or enemy. My family was there, too, and I didn't want anything to happen to them if I got caught, so I tried to put barriers between us. N was a spy, but he told Them that he was an actor, which I thought was pretty stupid and tried to cover up by insulting his acting ability, but I was nervous and made it worse. I thought they might be on to me--they made me watch the capture of a spy. But I wasn't sure. I desperately needed to tell someone something before they caught me. But I wasn't sure whether to disrupt the CC TV where They were always watching (thus making myself more suspicious) and make a dash for it, or wait them out. I was trying to decide...when my alarm went off.

I turned it off and rolled over, wanting to find out what happened to me. But then I remembered--I had to go to work.

5:45 is not my favorite time of day, but it's better than 4 (my mornings have been somewhere between these all week). At least there's a glimmer of light, which makes it seem not so bad. And I generally get home fairly early, which would be nice, if my inability to nap or go to bed early didn't hang on so persistently. I'm getting to know the road to the City well enough to drive it with my eyes closed, and I'm about ready to try. But tomorrow I get to sleep in until almost 7...

There are definitely good parts too--I'm reading a lot, and talking seriously with people. And I get to see a lot of the countryside. And yesterday I got to hang out at one of our new Starbucks popping up (which one of my regular riders perpetually refers to as "Starbuck"). I talked to the lady sweeping up and people who were adulterating their coffee, since my seat was near there (one guy asked me which was cream, so I told him I thought it was the one that said "half and half" sitting right in front). I read L's Father Brown book, and put in a good word for Chesterton to those who asked about my book (but one man told me he only read mysteries). The supervisor told me they wouldn't sell me any more refills. I laughed, which meant he was joking.

Today I told my riders they didn't want to see me without coffee. They thought I was joking.

I'm so tired, N, that I would be breathless giggling at the worst joke you could come up with. And since you're not here, I'm having to make the jokes myself.

from Conversation: a History of a Declining Art

"Swift lists two common faults in conversation that are difficult to remedy: talking about one’s own profession … and ‘impatience to interrupt others, and the Uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves.’ There are also those who suffer from ‘the Itch of Dispute and Contradiction, [and the] telling of Lies.’ And there are people "who are troubled with the Disease called the Wandering of the Thoughts that they are never present in Mind at what passeth in Discourse.’ According to Swift, ‘Whosoever labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit for Conversation as a Mad-man in Bedlam.’"

"‘Good conversation,’ [Swift] says, ‘is not to be expected in much company, because few listen, and there is continual interruption.’"

"Swift has a simple recommendation for improving conversation: include women. He praises the conversation at the court of Charles I: ‘the Methods then used for raising and cultivating Conversation, were altogether different from ours’ because ‘both Sexes … met to pass the Evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable Subjects were occasionally started.’"

"‘When [Esther Johnson] saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave when her friends asked the reason, was that it prevented noise and saved time.’"

"Swift says that if we lack the ‘useful Pleasure’ of conversation, ‘we are forced to take up either poor Amusements of Dress and Visiting, or the more pernicious ones of Play [gambling], Drink and Vicious Amours.’"

"The New York Times reports that Finland, a country where ‘silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners,’ and where people rarely have conversations during meals, has one of the world’s highest rates of suicide, depression, and alcoholism."

"Yet if conversation suffers from a lack of politeness, it also suffers from an excess of politeness…to question someone’s views is to risk being labeled judgmental or rude or arrogant (or worse)…instead of conversation we have confession…and conversation will languish because of suffocating politeness."

Life

Within the last few days, I have:

1. learned Russian for "butterfly," ("Babutchka"--"Babushka" is Grandma), and heard it for many other things, such as "I don't want to," "lets do ___," "this is," but unfortunately I can't repeat them all.

2. reconnected with my inner horsy nature. Neigh!

3. seen my former dentist as Gloucester in a Shakespeare in the Park. Don't quit your day job (actually, Edmund was pretty evil, and Lear enjoyable--he reminded me a bit of a mad Bilbo Baggins). The best part was right after intermission, when a small boy wandered through the lights, with a small "Daddy?" picked up by the microphones. The ducks also waddled through inimitably.

4. fallen in love. He has wonderful eyes and a wonderful smile, even if he only has six teeth. We don't speak the same language, but we can communicate easily. Unfortunately, he's about 20 years + 10 mos. younger than I am. And then, I may have to keep fighting my sister and all other females for his attention...

Yes, we have missionaries visiting (yay!). Mariya is 2 1/2 and speaks both languages (her mother is Russian), sometimes at the same time. Oh, that I had so much energy! And Lord Peter the Great is walking around in his race car and putting everything in his mouth. They are dolls--and I got to babysit in the nursery today. =) He wasn't very happy to see me, though--he had just fallen asleep when I took him away from his mother, and he opened his eyes and knew I was not her. Oh, well...

Rustico, Rusticare

Have I ever mentioned that I like living in the country?

I like getting directions like this: "when you come into town, go past first street and second street, and turn on the first paved road" (although, just for clarification, this is unusual even here).

Or someone telling me that when she started dating someone from a town 15 miles away, her dad asked if he couldn't find anyone there, and she replied that they were all related.

Or when someone I meet knows who I am and where I live and talks about calling my next-door neighbor to keep up on the news at our church.

Or when I ask someone if their children live close by, and they reply, sighing heavily, "No. They live in ___ (the next town over)."

But I still don't like Toby Keith.

Be fuddled, be mused, be wildered

I think that I shall never see
Anything as bewildering as me.

Or bewildered, perhaps. Especially when I wake up at a time I'm not expecting. Witness a conversation between me and my long-suffering roommate after I fell asleep (or after I woke up) on a Sunday afternoon sophomore year:

Me: Oh my goodness! I'm going to be late for class!

S:???

Me: It's 5:00! Why is it so light outside? And where is everyone? I need to get to class!

S: No you don't. It's Sunday. You took a nap.

Me: It's Sunday? I took a nap?!!!


Or between me and my long-suffering sister last week:

Me (shaking, because I slept until the alarm actually went off, and it scared me): C, it's 3:30.

C (groaning at being awakened--it was 3:30): so?

Me: Didn't you ask me to wake you up?

C: No. *(why would I do that when I can sleep?)*

Me: Oh. I guess not. I thought you did. Sorry.

C: zzzz


Or this morning:

Me: Oh, no! It's 3:00! I must have slept through my alarm! I'm an hour late! (leaping from bed, grabbing clothes, heading downstairs. Start to think about how I can make up lost time. Think: I was supposed to pick those people up at 6:00, which means I was going to leave town at 5:30, which means...oh. I was going to sleep until 5.)

I think I'm going to start setting two alarms so I can sleep better.

Otherwise, my day was quite uneventful. Read most of Lord Peter in the waiting room, took a few turns around outside, tried to take a nap (ha!). On the way home, I started hearing a flapping from the off hind tire. Pulled into a driveway to investigate. It wasn't flat, but there was a piece of duct tape sticking to it. I pulled this off, got back in the car, heard nary a noise, and drove off feeling happy.

I've also been reading Ralph Moody's books, and highly recommend them (they start with Little Britches). Fascinating and clearly-written autobiography about a boy/man who becomes the Man of the Family at 11 when his father dies, and how he works to provide for them and himself. Really enjoyable light reading--especially if you happen to like farming and ranching, but fun for anyone.

South of the Border

"The sun has ris,
The sun has set
And here we is,
In Texas yet."

Or was (were), at any rate.

Yes, we had a very enjoyable time. It was great fun to
meet my dad's relatives he grew up with and see his stomping grounds. My family are very welcoming and likable, and we heard lots of good stories and saw a lot of family resemblences (my dad has a twin uncle). We ate at Jim's (home of the best onion rings in the world) and went to the Alamo, and C almost set off the smoke detector in our room. And we found a trail of Starbucks along the way.

It was only slightly confusing at times, given the gorsy-ness of my family. An example: my great-aunts and uncles started talking about their Aunt Ollie coming. This took me a moment, because Aunt Ollie is also my great (count it- one)-aunt. And, while she is their aunt by marriage, she's a cousin (by marriage) to their step-brothers and sisters. This is because my grandma's half-siblings on her mother's side, although sharing no parent with her half-siblings on her father's side, are their first cousins once removed. No prizes for figuring it out, but you see why it's sometimes difficult to say exactly how someone is related to me (and kind of hard to keep track of their names, as their parents liked alliterative R names ending in ie/y). It might mean that I end up being some kind of cousin to myself, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

On the way back we went the less-interstate and more scenic route, winding around west Texas (not to be confused with West, Texas) hills and between cell phone towers. We started out with water over the road in San Antonio, but by the afternoon it was hot enough that the only water we saw disappeared just before we could get to it. The glare was bright enough that I thought I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror once.

We wandered around to the metropolis of Santo, stopping at the convenience store to meet Aunt Ollie (yes, the very same). Then we took out across the railroad tracks, down the road, and had to turn around because the bridge was out. After going about twelve miles out of the way, we made it around to the other edge of the bridge, where we turned into someone's driveway and drove past the house and through the gate and across the cattle guard through their pasture, past some inquisitive cows and a calf that dashed across in front of us, through another gate, where my mom waved the flag and I put on my sunglasses/security/motorcade look, across a high railroad crossing where we scraped the bottom of the car, through a couple more gates, and into the East Santo Cemetery.

My family had done some history detection in April, and found, in the very back corner, my great-great-grandparents, Isaiah and Amandy, and an unmarked grave we believe to be that of my great-grandmother, Katherine Serena. After planting some flowers and waving to the engineers of the train going past, we wandered around looking at the graves that had names, all of whom seem to be relatives of some sort or another. C and I had fun running our fingers over mossy slabs trying to make out the letters. One I finally figured was "infants of" who "was borned April 20, 1877." Eventually we headed back to air conditioning and cold drinks and the cookies Aunt Ollie had brought us. CLC said I'm going to be like Aunt Vicky--I let them have cookies before supper.

From there we headed to my mom's twin's house and family, where we spent a short night and morning/afternoon. We girls actually had a slumber party at the neighbors' house, since they weren't there (well, except their daughter) and it was Saturday night with one shower. Then church--their pastor used to be one of my parents' professors in Bible college. He has a marvelous Scottish accent, even if he has given up the bagpipes. Then more food and visiting, and eventually

home.

Non

I had thought about posting on (among other things) the goodness of Work. However, after a 13 hour workday yest. (beginning around 4) I have decided to pone this post. Instead, I offer you some of the less interesting thoughts I had during the day.

Interesting and/or common driving hazards in my state:

A. wind
B. dirt (see A)
C. animals (deer, coyotes, armadillos, possums, skunks, the most common--wildcats don't get hit very often, and snakes, rabbits, and squirrels, although hit, do not present much hazard; cattle or sheep/goats can also prove a hazard if they get out)
D. cars backing up down Main Street
E. tractors/wheat trucks/combines, etc. driving slowly down the highway
F. little old ladies who can't see over the steering wheel (kids who can't reach the pedals stay on the backroads, so they don't present much of a hazard)
G. people stopped to talk in the middle of the road (not on the highway)

other hazards, although not as common, include the usual rain, sleet, snow, hail. However, it is possible to get stuck in sand without moisture the same way you get stuck in mud or snow.


Other thoughts:

I think I have figured out how people here vote Democrat. It's very simple:

1. Presume that no one else in the world knows anything or is capable of rational thought.
2. Do not attempt rational thought yourself, because you have no need to think, as you already Know.
3. Presume that you are Entitled to Everything at no cost to yourself.
4. Regurgitate (while removing every bit of an attempt at a veneer of logical thought, because you don't need it) something someone told you, believing it to be your own Original Idea (which it now is) because, of course, no one else knows anything.
5. Vote


We have wild turkeys hanging around--they make very interesting noises.


And now, for something like substance:

Please pray for our family over the next few days. My grandmother's step-mother died, and my dad was asked to preach the funeral, so we're all packing up and driving to San Antonio and back, and taking my grandparents. This will be the first time we kids have met a lot of my dad's side of the family (yes, this is a gorsy part of the bush--"Nanny" was the Second Widow). Most of them are not Christians, but my dad says he wouldn't be afraid to be in a dark alley with any of them (and that is a reasonable comment, from what I hear). Please pray for him especially.

Hasta Luego!

Grace and Peace

"He saw me ruined by the fall
Yet loved me notwithstanding all,
He saved me from my lost estate,
His lovingkindness, O how great!"

~Samuel Medley

"God is love, I surely know,
By my Savior's depths of woe.
O how vile my low estate
Since my ransom was so great."

~Robert C. Chapman

Silliness

While reading through Eliot, I was reminded of a spoof I wrote during Brit Lit last year. And even though I am now so far separated and graduated, I still remember this feeling. So, for your amusement (one way or the other) I present:


The Paper-Writing Song of -----

And indeed there will be time
Time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And a thousand more revisions;
But how should I begin?
And what should I presume?

I have measured out my term with coffee spoons.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the coffee, M&Ms, DP,
Among the frenzied late-night ASEs;
Would it have been worth while
If one, setting down a red pen, emptied, by my name
Should say: "That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all."

No! I am not Shakespeare, nor was meant to be;
Am full of run-on sentences, not quite acute;
At times, indeed, almost illiterate—
Almost, at times—Forsooth!

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear my curlers rolled.

I have lingered at my desk
By books covered with letters black on white
Till my roommate’s voice has waked me, at the end of night.

And would it have been worth it, after all?

East of Enid

Soon--going to the City. Visiting man from our church in the hospital, visiting aunt and uncle, returning N to school by means of the airport. And then returning tomorrow, so I can start work. =[

Happy news: Enid now has a Starbucks. ( =D!!!)

In Other Worlds...

If I recollect correctly
Things which never were,
I knew you (with incorrigibility) in a world
Of possibilities,
When Time was not submitted to the tyranny
Of Coming-Into-Being (being thrown),
But we waited for a property, existence,
To pass to us, and through us in the proper way;
Waiting in your eyes I saw things later-than--
Unactualized
In this poor universe
Of pure and simple facts of accidence.

Happiness

In lieu of other posts (brewing, but not boiling), I present to you the List of Works (but is it a work, or a text? and where is the Meaning in all of this? or isn't there one?) sitting before me filled with the knowledge of their importance (or the importance of their knowledge?). In top to bottom order (incidentally, it is very pleasant not to be graded on what one is writing. I can stick in as many parentheticals as I jolly well please!):

Tristram (now I know where that name comes from! At least he's not Tramtris!) Shandy
(and speaking of which, H, somehow I walked off with your copy of) Le Morte D'Arthur
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Impressions of Theophrastus (where, I wonder, that one?) Such, George Eliot
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius/ The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis/ Religio Medici, Thomas Browne
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
Browning and Italy
(and also, being read in between times--and in between innings at baseball games, although they really deserve a Sunday afternoon--,)
Collected Poems, T.S. Eliot
Selected Works of Robert Browning
Bring Me a Unicorn, A.M.L. (mine! my own, my--)
(Oh, that I had one of the many languages at the disposal of the previous authors for an intelligent and educated-sounding interjection of happiness)

Works I tried to get, but not there when N went to the Enid Library with my list:

The Divine Comedy, trans. Esolen or Sayers
Bleak House, Dickens
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo
The War of the Roses, Desmond Seward
The Iliad
and Unknown Books

Just finished All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren. A Fascinating and Gripping and Thinking and Imaginative sort of book, although anyone interested should also be warned that it contains some objectionable content and a good deal of objectionable language. But it re-inspired (good or bad) my love of Reading to the Exclusion of All Else (When my mother saw N return from the library, she said "Oh, no.")

Also intending to re-read (much slower and more thoroughly) history and philosophy sorts of books.

This sounds very ambitious (notice, I haven't touched the more-so ones yet),

But where shall I begin? And what should I presume?

(does anyone have any suggestions? for what to read Next? or additions or subtractions or multiplications or vectors or mathematical sorts of things to do to my list? I want the Right One.) In the meantime, I sit and looook at them, with a similar expression to that inspired by Dr. Pepper, nectar divine (and not even by Lord Goring, or others who shall rename mainless).

Imitations of Immortality

There are some things in life which can make a person feel his own mortality to a painful degree. Saying goodbye is one instance I’ve noticed it. You stand and look at the person across from you, or what passes for the person in this world, and you think, I have thirty seconds more to look at this face; twenty-eight now. And you think how you want time to stop, just for a moment, just so you can make this last, and don’t have to come to the inevitability of the last moment, the turning-around-and-walking-away. But you can’t; you try to think how to hold on to those moments, and eventually your twenty-eight seconds are gone and you haven’t said anything, and you shake your head and shrug and nod. And you are utterly helpless, utterly at the mercy of the march of the sun across the sky, and you turn around and go.

And when you’re leaving a place, you think of all the things you wish you had done differently; the times you rolled over in bed because you were too lazy to get up, the times you thought you should talk to someone but didn’t know what to say, and walked on by yourself. You imagine your actions differently over and over again, trying to make them different, but in the end, you know: you can’t.

And when you’re coming to a place, and you see folks you haven’t seen in a long time, and it comes over you all of a sudden that they’re not the way you remember them, they look old, and you look at yourself and realize you’re not the person you were; you’re old too. And a tightness comes over you when you realize how different from that person you are, the person who had the same name, and connections as yourself, but whose fears and delights were so foreign to those you’ve had for a long time; and you weep a bit for the person who is gone and can never come again.

Sometimes you forget about your helplessness, and think nothing bad can ever happen to you, you’re too smart to let it. You think that life was made for you to live, and the continuing existence of the world is tied up with the continuing well-being of your own person. Everyone naturally wants to be your friend.

And then maybe you hit some kind of a glitch, where things aren’t all right no matter how much you insist they have to be. And it comes to you, suddenly, when your car is spinning out of control and it’s too late to stop it, that maybe not everything had to be okay for you after all. Maybe people will cry a little, and shake their heads and say, what a pity, and then go right back to their business, just as if it had nothing to do with you. Maybe they think life is about them, instead.

Or you sit on the porch in the summer when the power is out and listen to the rain pounding down around you, and watch the lightning chasing the thunder across the sky, and you know you are small and damp. You know that magnificence, that unharnessed power has nothing to do with you, and could consume you in a flash.

But sometimes you know that there is a Power behind that, a Power that is the meaning which you are not. A Power in control not only of the mere universe, with its laws of space and time marching on, but outside and above that. A Power to Whom the nations are as a drop in the bucket. A Power that is the reason there is a person behind the mask the world sees.

And then maybe, if you are right in your mind, you realize that this Power made you in His image, that He became flesh and dwelt among us, that He humbled Himself and became obedient even to death on a cross, that He adopted you as His child. And you remember that He has promised to be with you wherever you go, and give to His beloved, even in your sleep. You have not come to a mountain that cannot be touched, but to the city of the living God.

And then you whisper to Him Who Was, and Is, and Is to Come, Who can hear you through the noise of the rain and the thunder and your own whispering, "through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."

After words

Rhythm dancing on my face--

Living liquid silver grace--

Dust and time and tears erase.

And then the rain came. When we were so thirsty we had forgotten the sound of rain, its taste and smell, the cold wetness of it.

We would never have dreamed of it in the afternoon, when the dust wafted through us, filling eyes and noses, scouring our pores if a gust of wind came up. When our lips were dry, limbs numb, hearts panting for peace, peace. When we could not run any longer, wrung of every living drop, weary and faint.

Then the rain came. It flowed over us like the tears we had longed for (which would not come). The skies burst forth more furiously for being leashed, lashing us with liquid, pelting us in purity. The clouds broke and emptied. Our crust of bitterness fell away in the face of the unbearable gentleness of each drop.

The dust has settled, the air is cool now. There is a puddle in the yard, perfect for dancing.

Lightning leapt from His fingertips, but His voice was not in the thunder.

The View From Here

is something like this, although they haven't quite made it to our field yet. They say it's going to be the worst harvest in 50 years, but it still smells lovely.

Home at Harvest

My dirty toes barely reach the warm cement, pushing off to propel the wooden porch swing forward. I pick up my feet, letting it fall back, and the chains creak slightly. We haven’t had time to paint the swing yet, so I can still smell the pristine gold of fresh lumber, although I can’t see it in the dark. I look across the firefly-sprinkled yard toward the wheat fields. They sparkle golden in the sunlight, but now I only know they are there by following the bobbing lights on six combines, humming slowly back and forth.

The breeze brings me the sound of June-bugs and a man’s laugh from the next field over. It’s quiet enough to think here. Daytime heat relaxes a little now with the sun gone, but leaves the air ripe with the sweet fullness of wheat dust. It has been a good day.

The heat was much worse earlier. When I opened the door to go outside, wind hit me with the force of a yawning oven. I staggered into it, relaxing with every breath. Glaring warmth soaked into my back, my face, my tense shoulders, until I almost closed my eyes to sleep.

The dog started barking wildly in the front yard at our neighbor, who had driven up in his old gray Case combine. He offered to give us all rides while he cut our field. Caleb went first, of course, while we older ones sat on the edge of the porch and swung our legs, watching the slow progress forward and back, the roaring machine devouring everything in its path, chewing and spitting out straw in a golden cloud. Four young rabbits and a field mouse darted from their homes right before being demolished.

Most farmers don’t even own a combine anymore; they find it easier to simply hire the custom crews that start in Texas and work their way north. Those are usually made up of the swaggering type, wearing cowboy hats and tight jeans and Oakleys. Some of them are romantics wandering northward on the road for six months out of the year. Some are just running away. Some of them don’t know why they do it. My great-grandfather was a custom cutter too.

When it was finally my turn I climbed up the ladder into the cab and perched on the torn upholstery. We rumbled off. The height from the ground gave a clear view of my "neighborhood." Mesas stretched across the horizon five miles to the west, the dirt covering them just as red as when my mother climbed them as a little girl. The hollow caves in the layer of gypsum are full of stories. Men made them homes while hiding from the law; one of the ranches in the hills still belongs to the Daltons. Now the caves are dens of mountain lions, Prairie Rattlers and Diamondbacks, annually hunted in the area "Rattlesnake Rodeos," where you can eat fried rattlesnake, if you like the taste of rubber chicken. Between Cathedral Mountain and Lone Peak runs Cheyenne Valley, where the nomadic Cheyenne massacred cowboys riding up the Chisolm Trail.

Looking down from the air-conditioned cab, I saw millions of royal heads bowing to their fate under the swather’s onslaught. This was what they were waiting for, ever since they were planted last fall; through their December green; through the sparse rain and the early heat of May and the first regal week of June: to bring sustenance to men.

When my round was finished the field was bare, with only a heavy two o’clock shadow of golden stubble. We watched as the million flecks of light cascaded together in one pure stream from the chute to the truck bed, a pyramid slowly settling to fill in the corners. A couple of scissortail flycatchers sat on the telephone line watching us, occasionally chasing an insect meal on wings with their characteristic acrobatics.

Naturally we all wanted to go to the elevator. Six of us piled into the faded red cab of the 1950-something Dodge. Seats were ripping, smelling comfortably of grease and dirt. The window on my side only rolled halfway down. Caleb sat on my lap, his bare legs sticking to me. Levi straddled the stick shift on the floor and helped Stan turn the heavy wheel; we laughed. Slowly, we made our way to the elevator a mile north, and pulled in line to be weighed, then drove into the dark tunnel under the high white storage bins scraping the sky.

We couldn’t see the wheat, running out like golden treasure from a chest in Ali Baba’s cave, but we could still smell the richness and listen to the rush. When we went back to weigh the truck again, the attendant in cut-off sleeves and straw-dust stubble looked in the window and asked what we wanted to drink. We all asked for Dr. Pepper, and he came out balancing an armful. It was cold and sweet.

Now the diamond mine over my head is strewn with so many stars I can’t see sky in between. I tried to count them from a car window once when I was knee-high to a grasshopper: I think I made it to eighty-seven before falling asleep. If I stay awake long enough I can see the sunrise from where I am. The stars are dizzyingly close, closer than the lights of the nearest town. Eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight. It’s been a good day.