I had forgotten we had this book so, when I recently found it on the shelves, I read it right away. It's a lovely children's book about an elephant who appears magically and the lives that get intertwined and changed as a result.
I love this quote:
...he knew, without knowing how he knew, how to sing.
He knew how to construct a song out of the nothing of day-to-day life and how to sing that nothing into a song so beautiful that it could sustain the vision of a whole and better world.
Since I became a Christian again in college, for the most part, I haven't had difficulty with the idea of God as a loving Father. I think it's because my father was so loving that it seems totally natural.
I've been reading "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller lately. I like the way he describes the Biblical stories, not just in an analytical way, but really getting into the emotions and what things meant to people.* I was totally stopped, however, on page 139:
And so when I consider the way I am treated by Christ, the degree of kindness with which He guides me, I know that as Napoleon said, I would die for him because he threatens me; I would die for Him because he loves me... [emphasis mine]
I still can't get into, or over, the italicized phrase. I haven't resumed reading the book, and I won't until I can get past this idea.
At first I was surprised at myself. Of course, Jesus loves all of us. That's what it's all supposed to be about. Jesus is supposed to be the loving, Human Face of God.
However, I realized that, deep down inside, that wasn't my picture of Jesus.
How do I have a view of Jesus that varies so much from my view of God?
I went back to my original impression at the top of this post. If I could, in some way, understand God's love by looking at my father's love, what did I have Jesus tied to? It didn't take me long to figure out.
Jesus started the Church/church. That kind of puts him, in a Catholic sense, in the same place as the Pope, who would (when there is one again) definitely disapprove of me because we've used birth control and now dear husband has a vasectomy.
Okay, what about in a Protestant sense? No help there. Jesus ends up, subconsciously in my mind, linked to some leaders of local churches - ministers, priests, preachers, etc. [By the way, I'm discovering all these assumptions I had that had never totally reached my conscious mind before. This isn't something I ever consciously put together.] These particular leaders speak very authoritatively and often are very good at raining down judgment. There are some preachers I've heard that made me feel like I'm definitely one of the "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" (by God) [Romans 9:22].
In fact, I realized that I've incorporated every story where Jesus is angry into my view of Him, but not the stories where he is gentle.
One of the ministers I've known that was the best at raining down judgment was at the church we went to when I was in college. I knew that I wasn't everything that women were expected to be at that church. If I saw him coming down a hallway, I'd hop into the nearest Sunday School room and become engrossed with the bulletin boards. I didn't want to encounter his judgment.
I realized that this is the sort of thing that I have Jesus linked to in my head. Subconsciously, I've concluded that Jesus is Someone to avoid because of judgment.
I've read all the verses where Jesus is loving and gentle, but I can't hang anything on them. They're in a story, but they don't enter the real world for me.
I have known gentle ministers and priests - both men and women - so that's not it either.
I have no conclusion to this post, just wandering thoughts (and a window box from Charleston).**
* The sermon last Sunday was like that. It was my favorite sermon I've heard at our church.
** We were there for half of last week for part of older son's last Spring Break. Daughter is home on Spring Break this week!
I find it difficult to write book reviews. When I'm in the middle of a book and all enthusiastic about it, I don't know enough to write a review (and the time to take to write a review conflicts with actually reading!). Once I'm done, I'm off to another book.
I'm only about halfway done with The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, and I won't be finishing it anytime soon. I only read it when I have lots of attention - never when I'm the slightest bit tired. If I find my attention wavering in the slightest, I put it down and wait for another day.
It's that beautiful.
I don't want to miss a single word.
It's difficult to describe. You feel like you know the characters very well, but they don't chatter all the time, out loud or inside their heads. There's tension in the story, but it also feels perfectly balanced. It's unlike any other book, but it feels like what a book should be. It's like a dream you remember vividly.
Here's the Amazon description:
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
It's a good description of the basic plot, but it doesn't give a feel for the book at all.
I don't like to know much anything about the plot of a book so I've taken to reading the first sentence of the description and the first paragraph, or the first page of the book. In the last few years, I've realized that writing style is very important to me. If I like the way the first paragraph is written, I'll probably like the book. Here is the beginning of The Night Circus:
ANTICIPATION
The circus arrives without warning.
No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.
The towering tents are striped in white and black, no golds and crimsons to be seen. No color at all, save for the neighboring trees and the grass of the surrounding fields. Black-and-white stripes on grey sky; countless tents of varying shapes and sizes, with an elaborate wrought-iron fence encasing them in a colorless world. Even what little ground is visible from outside is black or white, painted or powdered, or treated with some other circus trick.
But it is not open for business. Not just yet.
Within hours everyone in town has heard about it. By afternoon the news has spread several towns over. Word of mouth is a more effective method of advertisement than typeset words and exclamation points on paper pamphlets or posters. It is impressive and unusual news, the sudden appearance of a mysterious circus. People marvel at the staggering height of the tallest tents. They stare at the clock that sits just inside the gates that no one can properly describe...
I'm very lucky to have it in hardback - my Christmas present from daughter.
The part of me that likes to discuss wants to finish it quickly so I can hand it on for the guys to read, but I'm not rushing at all.
The Chapel Hill library has a few available copies, though, and I have some books to return there...
I have a number of blog posts in my head and lots of vacation photos on my computer... and carpal tunnel in my hand, which means that I can't spend much time on the computer.
However, I have been spending lots of time reading. Last night, I started reading Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Anne Fadiman. She used to be the editor for The American Scholar, and dear husband eventually dropped his subscription (after she was forced out) because it was no longer thoughtful or beautiful. He loved the American Scholar under editor Joseph Epstein (the editor before Anne Fadiman who wrote under the name Aristides) because it was thoughtful and sharp-witted. He loved it under Anne Fadiman because it was thoughtful and beautiful.
Ex Libris is about her lifelong love of books, and it's wonderful.
I enjoyed the first essay, Marrying Libraries, so much that I read it out loud to the guys after lunch today - sitting outside in the warm, North Carolina, October sunshine by all the hundreds of chrysanthemum flowers. Here's the opening of the essay:
A few months ago, my husband and I decided to mix our books together. We had known each other for ten years, lived together for six, been married for five. Our mismatched coffee mugs cohabited amicably; we wore each other's T-shirts and, in a pinch, socks; and our record collections had long ago miscegenated without incident, my Josquin Desprez motets cozying up to George's Worst of Jefferson Airplane , to the enrichment, we believed, of both. But our libraries had remained separate, mine mostly at the north end of our loft, his at the south. We agreed that it made no sense for my Billy Budd to languish forty feet from his Moby-Dick , yet neither of us had lifted a finger to bring them together.
We had been married in this loft, in full view of our mutually quarantined Melvilles. Promising to love each other for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health--even promising to forsake all others--had been no problem, but it was a good thing the Book of Common Prayer didn't say anything about marrying our libraries and throwing out the duplicates. That would have been a far more solemn vow, one that would probably have caused the wedding to grind to a mortifying halt. We were both writers, and we both invested in our books the kind of emotion most people reserve for their old love letters. Sharing a bed and a future was child's play compared to sharing my copy of The Complete Poems of W. B. Yeats , from which I had once read "Under Ben Bulben" aloud while standing at Yeats's grave in the Drumcliff churchyard, or George's copy of T. S. Eliot's Selected Poems , given to him in the ninth grade by his best friend, Rob Farnsworth, who inscribed it "Best Wishes from Gerry Cheevers." (Gerry Cheevers, one of Rob's nicknames, was the goalie of the Boston Bruins, and the inscription is probably unique, linking T. S. Eliot and ice hockey for the first time in history.)
Our reluctance to conjugate our Melvilles was also fueled by some essential differences in our characters. George is a lumper. I am a splitter. His books commingled democratically, united under the all-inclusive flag of Literature. Some were vertical, some horizontal, and some actually placed behind others. Mine were balkanized by nationality and subject matter. Like most people with a high tolerance for clutter, George maintains a basic trust in three-dimensional objects. If he wants something, he believes it will present itself, and therefore it usually does. I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors, and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown, unless strictly confined to quarters. My books, therefore, have always been rigidly regimented...
On the one hand, reading challenges don't make much sense for me. I tend to read what I feel like, and I don't want to make reading into another chore. Currently, with dear husband out of town for the third week in a row, and with the gloomy weather we've had this week, I'm cheering myself up by reading The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
[I started this post last week. Currently, I'm 3/4 of the way through The Fifth Elephant, and this week has been sunny and warm. Dear husband gets back at midnight - the fourthe week in a row of traveling.]
On the other hand, I find reading challenges to be an interesting... not focus for, but maybe comment on my reading. For instance, I started The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, by Walter Moers, in November. It's an episodic book, and very imaginative so I don't want to rush through it. It's also 700 pages. Near the end of the year, it was tempting to read shorter books so that I could reach the 100 books in a year challenge that I set for myself. I didn't give into temptation or change the way I read, but I reached 100 anyway.
Usually, 100 books in a year wouldn't be difficult for me since it's only about 2 books a week. However, last year's summer musical was the most intense yet, and I was reading a trilogy of long books (Inkheart/Inkspell/Inkdeath, 2000 pages altogether) at the time. My book rate went way down.
I also did a library challenge - 50 library books in a year. Since in past years, I've gotten a majority of my reading from the library, I didn't think this would be a challenge at all. However, dear husband gave me a box of Regency Romances for Christmas last year, and also I've been reading lots of fantasy recommended by older and younger son from their bookshelves. I only read 37 library books last year, which, for me, may be an all-time low (well, all-time since about 2nd grade... or maybe earlier)!
This year, I'm going to do a few challenges. First, I'm going to do the 100 books challenge again. I'm also going to do the "Read X books from your shelves" - for me, that would be not counting Regencies, and from my shelves, not my sons' shelves (though, obviously, I'm still going to read from theirs too). That challenge is for those of us whose bookshelves languish while we read the latest library find. I think I'll try 15 of those. Lastly, I'm going to read 10 essays - in books, not online. This challenge is from the blog, Books and Movies. I love reading essays so the challenge for me with this one will be actually getting around to posting about the essays.
I finally updated my book challenge page, with some mini-reviews, for the first time in three months. I've done a lot more reading in October, which usually happens.
No internet, except for, every evening, laboriously checking Ray's Weather Center on my stupid not-smart* phone.
No computer for most of it (I did bring the netbook along so I could look at the photos on my camera, but gave that up after one try. I didn't want to look at a screen).
No TV.
No ads of any kind except for those in the two issues of the Mountain Times and the one issue of Our State that I read.
Lots of outdoors, hiking, and weather (more on that later). Lots of time with family and long conversations after meals, or on mountaintops, or by lakes. Younger son and I did two puzzles and played numerous games of Blokus and Carcassonne - all of which he won. This is a new development.
I read His Majesty's Dragon, which older son had recommended. I heavily recommended it to dear husband. He read it in a few days, and then he turned around and read it out loud to younger son. I listened to it also - that's how good a book it is. It's kind of like Master and Commander but with dragons. We're still quoting from it.
Older son and daughter were both there for a few days on their fall breaks (you know how HAPPY that made me). We did their favorite hikes those days. We repeated the Rough Ridge hike (below) again later.
I took over 1200 pictures. I got some new filters for the camera so I was experimenting with them. That's why I thought of looking at photos on the netbook. Instead, I'll be looking at the results over the next few days.
With the new filters, this sunset photo over Price Lake turned out better than it usually would.
The sky is bluer with the filters, and the distant mountains are much more apparent (Blue Ridge Parkway viaduct around Grandfather Mountain).
The weather ranged from tank-top-and-shorts hiking weather (in the 70s near the Bass Lake at the Cone Manor)...
...to freezing temperatures while wandering through a fairyland of rime ice on Mt. Mitchell...
...and these were only two days apart!
Dear husband says that I'm not ready to come back from any of our October vacations, but, to me, it felt like it was even harder this year. I've been running for months, and it took me most of the two weeks of vacation to slow down and relax. I found it much harder at first to really focus on reading like I usually do on vacation, although, by the end, I was back to my usual rate of one book a day.
Now that I've slowed down, I don't want things to go back the way they were.
Of course, the first few days back have to be focused on getting cleaned up, organized, and going through mail and e-mail (Note to self: Turn off Freecycle e-mails next year. They were half of the 700 e-mails I had). After I get settled in, I have to rethink how I do things.
Even though we had a wonderful walk around Hillsborough last weekend and good conversations with neighbors, I still wasn't ready to get back to our regular schedule. I didn't really get used to that until Monday evening when I drove to Broadway dance. I headed past Duke's East Campus and all the joggers & walkers on the trail that dear husband and I like to walk in the winter. Then I passed the spot on Broad Street where we watched the parade last month. I turned on to Ninth Street and parked in front of Francesca's - where we've gotten ice cream since before I was pregnant with older son. That's when I was happy to be back where I... belong?
We danced All That Jazz** in class, and I sang along.
* Said with great affection. I don't want a phone that sends me e-mail, or effortlessly gives me the internet.
** 1:40 to 2:40.
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....yes, I like what the filters do with the colors...
Flat Top Mountain trail, Cone Manor
From a Time Magazine Interview with David MucCullough (author of historical non-fiction):
Time: We often can't understand how people in the past could have owned slaves or not educated girls. What do you think people will wonder about us?
DM: How we could have spent so much time watching TV.
I keep meaning to write book reviews, but, between work, homeschooling, rehearsals, and enjoying family, it hasn't happened recently. I haven't mentioned the book challenges since March so here's what I've been reading since then (copied from my Book Challenge Page):
March (24 year-to-date)
April (32 year-to-date):
May (40 Year to date):
June (45 year to date - You can tell that rehearsals started this month):
July:
Currently reading:
"...because a garden is in part a scene intended for viewing, its design shares the two-dimensional, depictive quality of painting or drawing. But because it is also a space through which you move, the garden must also be handled as a sculpture. Unlike sculpture, however, a garden is constantly changing, and so, like music and dance, is an art form with a fourth dimension, that of time. In part, this dimension of time and change is a function of how we experience gardens, which is typically as a progression of sights, smells, textures, and views. Managing that involves a process that the gifted San Franscisco garden designer William Peters has defined as 'choreographing a walk.'" p. xix
Given my love of gardening and dance, I could end there. But...
"A garden changes through the natural processes of growth and death. The living elements of the garden are always expanding or shrinking, changing color, texture, even form, with the seasons. It's this that makes garden design so uniquely challenging and rewarding. The choreographer or the composer sets the time in a dance or ballad; in the garden, nature keeps the beat, which means that the progress, even for the most expert gardener, is always unpredictable. A garden is always, ultimately, a mystery." p. xx
From The Artful Garden by James van Sweden
