splendid to find

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.
It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
L. M. Montgomery

Sarah, Millie, myself, Rachel

 

to happen exciting

Here is something. I came across it today and am impelled to do something cheering with them in a creative way, because I love the wonderful characters of the Hundred Acre Wood.

I got my Mumford album today and am listening currently. While Norah eats crackers and apple, plays on the front sunshiny porch, breathing in the air-smelling-of-bonfires.

I do not doubt God is teaching me patience for the evidence is twofold: He gave me Norah, and He did not give me any other children yet. [Brett made me add 'yet' to the end of that sentence, but he's right.] I'm very thankful for patience. Really, very. Often angry about it, but not today.

  
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

grand schemes

This is from a journal entry I made six months ago, but I thought it fit here.

to be poor*

live on a gravel road

use very little or extremely efficient electricity/energy

self-sustain

travel twice a year

eat healthfully

walk every day

make music every day

read (meditatively) every day

It's a list of Grand Schemes I made because I was tired of Endless Plans. Rather than a meter or a checklist, these disciplines are like a mission statement or a code to live by. I've "accomplished" all of them in limited ways, but my hope is to cultivate these and reduce all else. I should clarify that I desire to do these things in the context of relationship, not inwardly or for myself; but for God and my fellow beings, invitationally. Devotedly.

At bookclub last night we discussed the great value of allowing others to see our brokenness. Several women shared painful personal stories, but redemption flowed from them so beautifully and poignantly we were all changed by God's mercy. What I mean is that I don't want to paint a pretty picture. I want to let Him use my weakness and failure, my foolishness and my hurt, and I'm certain He will, and I won't like it.

*A note on the word poor:
I mean this more in the sense of blessed are the poor in spirit than having less money than the average citizen. Though I have an aversion to material excess, the definition of excess is murky. Case in point: the picture below was taken with my first ever non-hand-me-down camera.

click to enlarge ...er, super-size?

incitement

I'm working on the layout, please don't hate me! Reading a post on offensive stories I found the following quote, and am subsequently doing this over the summer.


I once received a letter from a lady in California who informed me that when the tired reader comes home at night, he wishes to read something that will lift up his heart. And it seems her heart had not been lifted up by anything of mine that she had read. I think that if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up.

-Flannery O'Connor

porthole aka library

Another room remodeling post! This past week a friend came over to help me paint and Brett put up our bookshelf (in it's 4th home in 4 years!). Oh, and we call it the Porthole because it is the port side of our house, but I like the allusion to "Portal" because books are like Portals to other worlds... Feast your eyes:


North wall - the color is Poplar Summer


East wall - only 9 ft wall in the house


South wall - it's really got a colonial vibe going with the cream & green


close to 700 books in storage from May 2010 - Jan 2012


ex libra dregge!

[new: March 2013 update]

 

write/pray

Just picked up Gilead by Marilyn Robinson.

For me writing has always felt like praying . . . you feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now . . .

That is how I have always felt about writing for as long as I can remember.

Anyhow, I have a stack of books to read. Also a list of projects to ignore. All this talk of The Hobbit Part I has put me in a mood to watch Lord of the Rings, one disc at a time. So I just watched the first disc in Fellowship and laughed out loud over how all hobbits think about is food. Because yes I relate to Pippin, what if Strider forgets entirely about eating in a routinely fashion? Norah (snack-royalty if there ever was) asked me what was funny. Then she proceeded to ask me questions about hobbits and elves every 3 minutes for the rest of the movie. I think I'll be watching the rest after she's gone to bed from now on - the rest are rather dark anyway.

joy silenced me

It arrived only moments ago.

radicality

...reading The Radical Disciple, by the late John Stott:

"Life on earth is a brief pilgrimage between two moments of nakedness."

"We are all designed to be a burden to others. ...the life of the family, including the life of the local church body, should by one of 'mutual burdensomeness' ...Galatians 6:2 ...dependence does not, cannot, deprive a person of their dignity. If dependence was appropriate for the God of the universe [Christ's dependence on the Father], it is certainly appropriate for us."

"What then should our attitude be to ourselves? It is a combination of self-affirmation and self-denial--affirming everything in us that comes to us from our creation and redemption, and denying everything that can be traced to the Fall."

wandering barques

our tree in 2008, 2009, and 2010

He had come to his desire by going through everything that was opposed to it.

-Hannah Coulter

Three short years ago I married the boy who had mysteriously become my best friend. Words cannot express my gratefulness for this man who completes me. Marriage is the sweetest, most fulfilling challenge I've ever faced, and I long to build and share the rewards as much as possible.
At the break of 2011, I try to frame its unfolding within the Grander Scheme. I have more reason to be content than I ever have before - my desires are being fulfilled! Still there are daily opportunities to "consider it all joy."
Recovering from Christmas & NewYear celebrations has mingled with Brett's being out of work for a fortnight and observing our 3rd anniversary. As well as pursuit of a place to call and make our own. So a little ache follows me, an ache for beauty, an ache for my place, an ache for brokenness, an ache for wholeness, an ache for all the things I have and all the things I lack, an ache for abiding, and an ache for arriving.
Francie took her courage into her two hands and said, "Those stories are the truth."

-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

another name

If you couldn't tell: the snow makes me want to write.

I have also been reading, Betty Smith and Don Piper, but here is one quoteworthy:

"Come and have breakfast." said the Lamb in its sweet milky voice.

Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and fish roasting on it. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted.

...

"Please, Aslan," said Lucy. "Before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon."

"Dearest," said Aslan very gently, "you and your brother will never come back to Narnia."

"Oh, Aslan!" said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.

"You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to come close to your own world now."

"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are--are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

-Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis

Remodeling update: I was finally able to paint my in-laws' dining room walls today! Kitchen is still in progress, but a new stove is going to be delivered sometime this week. Brett had to work Saturday, and is at work now (Sunday), but then the plant won't have much to do for a few weeks, so he has to bank hours while he can (it'd be lovely if he got our anniversary off... *smile*). I am holding on to hope that I get to paint the kitchen before Christmas!

collectanea

I've been recording snatches of the days...

Elanor Dregge and Johannah Merz

In a homily for a wedding, Denis Haack explains that marriage is extraordinary: One proof is that even math has stopped working. Or more accurately, math is working at a far deeper, mysterious level here today. When you walked in here, 1 + 1 = 2. But when you walk out, 1 + 1 = 1.http://blog4critique.blogspot.com/2010/10/present-your-bodies.html

It happened. Sitting here at the computer, I heard the ominous succession of thumps that I had long dreaded: my toddler falling down the flight of wood stairs. As I ran to the foot of the stairway, her scream actually gave me immense relief (for then I knew she was conscious), and even before I reached her my mind ran through the possibilities of black eyes, bruises and broken bones. I observed poor norah sprawled face down for just long enough to determine that she could move on her own, but as she reached for me tearfully - sobbing something about falling down the stairs as if i might not realize what had happened - I was amazed to discover no visible injury. Nothing bleeding or broken. Once in my arms her sobs subsided and she asked for ice, which she does every time she acquires a bump, and we talked about how she needs to go down stairs feet-first and not try to walk down by herself.

Ned and I

"...when you were shipwrecked, you sailed from the place in a boat woven mostly of spells, and it didn't leak water. Was it illusion?"
"Well, partly it was illusion, because I am uneasy seeing the sea through great holes in my boat, so I patched them for the looks of the thing..."

-A Wizard of Earthsea

This made Brett and I laugh aloud, and such moments are precious and rarer than they should be. You might have to read the book to share our amusement. Ged is such a serious fellow most of the time.

Before reading this we approached the brink of catastrophe on a patch of ice early in the morning driving south out of Minnesota. Though we lost control for at least a quarter mile, my Superman-husband's steady skill and God's sovereign protection kept us on the road instead of in the ditch, where Brett was sure the speed and slope would have rolled the vehicle.

So we may have been a little giddy with being alive when we shook with laughter over the wizard's teasing.

Edmund chuckles at us. We beam.

My L'abri notes:

Platonic Dualism: The problem of dualism is not making a distinction, but creating a hierarchy (of value). The solution is to put all under God, not blur the distinction.
Hannah Coulter: Expectations are a puff of smoke. Education often encourages the belief that there is a better place somewhere else.
On Being a Neighbor: The hardest thing to give is ourselves. God meshes our desires and talents with His calling.
Then we returned to a land of white. I put an end to four years of dental avoidance. I finished my book a few minutes before bookclub. Hurray for offers of rides and spontaneous visits from friends, ending the evening with a succulent House episode. Got a lovely breakfast and great tips on jewelry versatility and chiropractice at MOPS this morning. Now to grate and freeze squash, scrape paint, start holiday projects. I know this Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be the best yet.

The Wrong Kind

Others apart sat on a Hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate,
Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argu'd then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and Apathy, and glory and shame
Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophy:
Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm
Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th'obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

--Paradise Lost, Book II

Too often my hope and patience are of the the wrong kind. Better to despair or rage with impatience than have fallacious hope or triple-steeled patience. Extremes must haunt me though, for to quote Jack London: I would rather be ashes than dust.

Steadfastness

A week ago I planted kernels of corn in black soil freshly turned. It rained all weekend. Yesterday, my little seedlings were an inch high! So proud of the little darlings.

Three summers ago Brett gave me a ring. It takes a little longer than a weekend of rain to see the product of our labor to build a marriage that honors the One Who gave His life for His bride. I hope upon hope that our relationship is a tiny little sprout that is maturing each day by God's grace.

In Created to Be His Help Meet Debi Pearl writes that most men tend to be dominant in one of three traits that reflect God's character: Commanders, Visionaries, or Steady men. My Brett is the latter.

"When you are married to a man who is steady and cautious, and you have a bit of the impatient romantic in you, you may not see his worth and readily honor him."

Hit home much? She goes on to give me many solid reasons to appreciate his steadiness.
...He is like deep, deep water
...His strength is exercised as he quietly assumes responsibility that other usually shirk
...His steadfastness is sure, his loyalty is strong
...His children grow up to highly respect their gentle-speaking dad.
...His still, quiet presence brings peace. He does not focus on the eternal picture, nor is he looking through a microscope, but he does respect both views as important. His vision is as a man seeing life just as it is.

"If you didn't attempt to change him into something other than what God created him to be, he would not cause you any grief."

The women in our small group studied Helper By Design by Elyse Fitzpatrick, and I am convicted by the way she explains what it means to be a helpmate.

"Eve’s punishment proves that God looked upon her as equal with Adam in His image. She was just as responsible to know and obey the Law as he was, and she was equally accountable for her actions. She wouldn’t be allowed to skirt her obligation with a flippant, "It’s my husband’s fault. If he had been a better husband, I would have been a better wife. ""

My MIL recommended Love & Respect. Then I heard it mentioned again in a friend’s wedding ceremony, so I picked it up and was so glad I did. Emerson Eggerich writes:

"The apostle Peter wrote to wives that if any husband were disobedient to God’s Word, "they may be word without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior" (1 Peter 3:1-2). Peter is definitely talking about unconditional respect. The husbands he mentions are either carnal Christians or unbelievers who are disobedient to the Word - that is, to Jesus Christ. God is not pleased with a man like this, and such a man does not "deserve" his wife’s respect. But Peter is not calling on wives to feel respect; he is commanding them to show respectful behavior. This is not about the husband deserving respect; it is about the wife being willing to treat her husband respectfully without condition. To say the least, doing something when you don’t really feel you want to do it is counterintuitive. Therefore, this passage must be acted upon in faith."

I am so thankful I am being reminded of these things continually. God has given me every resource I need, and though I deny, accuse, and rebel, He is longsuffering. And so, praise God, is my husband.