Archive for March, 2009
My current institution sponsors an annual lectureship; a faculty member gives a talk, and two other people respond to it, and then there’s a general discussion. I’m one of the respondents this year, and the event is next Tuesday. I’ve been thinking about my paper for some time, and I keep changing my mind. The paper is on the topic of happiness (see my colleague’s blog), and I’ve had many ideas about my paper. For the past two weeks, I’ve had a different idea every other day, and I’ve been getting nervous. I need to stand up in front of all my new colleagues and speak coherently and intelligently for 15 minutes. I’ve decided that I’m going to present the whole smorgasbord of responses, and let folks choose which they want to argue with the most. I think it might even work.
Tonight the Little Guy got his Bobcat patch. That’s the basic, entry-level Cub Scout patch. He had to memorize the Cub Scout pledge, the law of the pack, the cub scout handshake, stuff like that. He went up in front of the whole pack — all the local tigers, wolves, bears, and webelos — and was ready to take his stand. They had his whole den — the other tigers — come up behind him to say the pledge with him, but they were off speed, and he waited. He wanted to do it all by himself, which tickled the scoutmaster. He was quite proud of himself. It was sweet.
Proust will have to wait until the summer, because I’ve found the perfect antidote to Poisonwood Bible: Desert Solitaire. Dear, crazy, cantankerous old Edward Abbey will soothe me with thoughts of buzzards circling overhead. Such nice buzzards, though.
Well, I’ve finally finished Poisonwood Bible, and I must say that this book has the longest denouement of anything I have ever read. The first half is intense, the climax is intense and devastating, and then it takes a while to peter out. It’s wierd. The second half is almost anticlimactic.
I’m thinking of turning to Proust, but this time of semester, I’m reluctant to start a six volume novel.
This morning, when I woke up the Little Guy, he said, “I’m still tired.” He barely ate, and after breakfast said, “I’m still tired.” He was pale and listless. He’s had a cold lately, and he seemed poorly; I thought about keeping him home. What clinched it for me was the fact that he didn’t ask to stay home. He just got dressed in a vague, weak way. I pulled out some sweats and changed him into them, sat him on the couch, and told him he wasn’t going to school. “Oh. Am I sick?” he asked.
He spent the day playing Train Simulator and watching Chicken Run. He ran a fever during the day. I picked up his homework, and he did some math, and then went to bed early, still docile and quiet.
I’ve been reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, and it’s messing with my mind. It’s an excellent book, about Baptist missionaries in the Congo during independence, and narrated primarily by the 4 daughters (they rotate chapters). They don’t give us different perspectives on the same event, a la The Sound and the Fury; they narrate consecutive bits. Some chapters are from the mother’s point of view, from some future vantage point. The father is an alarming, unpleasant character who confuses himself with God. He never does narrate (not yet, anyway). It’s the kind of book where you wonder what the characters are doing when you’re not reading it, but it’s so intense that sometimes I think I need a break from it. I’m thinking of starting Recherche du Temps Perdu just because it would be so absolutely different.
I want to write about the book, but I can’t think straight about it.
Filed under: ramblingPosted: March / 25 / 2009
You learn the best swear words.
They were teasing the woman who rings the upper bells for having trouble with her quarter-ringing (two bells in each hand), and she said, “I don’t give a happy damn!”
I didn’t know damns had moods. Good to know.
Filed under: faithPosted: March / 23 / 2009
I know, you all think I don’t pay attention to the sermons in church, but I do. True, sometimes I imagine my own sermon instead, but that’s not the worst way to spend 20 minutes.
At any rate, today John 3:16 came up in the rotation — actually, John 3:14-21 — and the preacher actually preached on it (scroll down for the sermon, although I think last week’s is still up). Now, I’ve heard a lot of sermons on John 3:16 in my time, between the anxious folks at Calvary Chapel and the worried missionaries at Teen Missions. Mostly, they emphasized the second part of the verse — they that believe shall have eternal life. They worked hard at stopping right there, too. I’ve had to memorize “As Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness..” but I don’t recall memorizing, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world…” This is the bright line between saved and unsaved, right here, and all my teachers and preachers wanted to make sure I was on the right side of the line, and didn’t dink around among the wicked. (But they’re so much fun, the wicked, and they write such good books).
A few years ago, as I started reading more nature writing and the like, I started thinking more about the first part of the verse: “God loved the whole world.” This suggests to me that it is OK — in fact, imperative — that we love the whole world too. Even trees and endangered owls (or fish, or whoever is blocking your town from building a golf course or prison). It even means God loves gay people. They’re part of the whole world. This idea refreshed my interest in this passage that I’d thought had been wrung dry for me.
Our pastor today didn’t preach on that, and he didn’t spend to much time on the last part either. He focused on the Father and the Son, talking about a conversation he’d had with a Jewish friend, who asked, “If god is God, why does he need a son?” To which excellent question our preacher cleverly answered, “God doesn’t need a son, but we do.” He developed this thought nicely, considering what it tells us about God’s character that God would beget a son, and then sacrifice him, so that we could get to understand God better (no, I don’t use pronouns in reference to God if I can help it, but that’s another blog entry).
So there you go, that’s my report on today’s sermon.
The Little Guy and I decided to take Miss Baby into church with us today. My DH was staying home, still feeling queasy, so it was just the three of us. Bigger kids sit in the service until the children’s sermon (which is mercifully early on), and then go to their lessons, and Miss Baby is at an age where she can go either way. Usually, she goes straight to her class, but we decided we’d give it a try.
When we pulled up to church, she happily exclaimed, “Shoppin’!” Nope, I explained, “Church.” “Churchin’!” she amended. She was impressed by the sanctuary — she’s been there before, but not much, and not on Sunday morning — “Oooh!” She sat happily on my lap and watched all the people milling about. She especially liked the stained glass windows — “Pretties!” — and she adored the choir and organ. She applauded every time they paused, and clapped along with the hymn. It wasn’t some cheesy praise and worship stuff, either — it was “To God be the Glory.” No surprise that she likes Fanny J. Crosby. I went up with her for the children’s sermon, and she sat on my lap, and, if she didn’t pay attention, she didn’t misbehave either. When it was over, we stood up, and she wanted to walk back to her seat. She allowed me to take her downstairs, and she had a nice time there too.
Just yesterday, I was saying to someone that our crocuses never did come up. It seemed that they ought to have done so already, but I’d guessed that we’d planted them too deep.
As we were walking out the door for dinner, the Little Guy yelped: our crocuses had bloomed! Not all of them, but about half of the ones in the front yard did. It was pretty exciting. We took pictures and everything.
Hey, we planted something, and not only did it not die, it actually survived long enough to do something, even something it was supposed to do. This is nearly the high point of my horticultural life. When I was a kid, I successfully grew both carrots and radishes, and in grad school I had several houseplants that survived the entire 6 years. But since then, I’ve killed every plant that’s come my way. It was definitely exciting for the Little Guy, because, as he said, “I care for things.”
