It's the end of the year, and I'm thinking about all sorts of things, trying to do a little planning, hoping to make the most of 2012.  I'm thinking about doing some gardening and yard work this year, trying to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing to jump-start my five-year-old son's formal education, hoping not to miss the special occasions for celebration that are coming.

The same old spiel: This year I would like to become a better wife and mother. I would like to begin to put the proper emphasis on managing our home: not too much, not too little. I would like to live healthily this year.

I prayed this morning for several things, having copied down I John 5:14-15 in my notebook. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask for anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him (NIV--the pronoun capitalization is mine)."

For the past couple of days I have been making decisions about what my Bible reading plan is going to be like this year, having perused this blog post yesterday.

Let me say here that I didn't read Justin Taylor's suggestions very carefully. I did not find out what the strengths or weaknesses of any of those plans were. Let me offer this suggestion:

A schedule you have to print out to follow, that fragments your reading among various books each day, is not going to hold your attention or build interest in God's Word unless you are already quite the disciplined person. If you are more like me, if you want to actually read the Bible this year and get something out of it, Keep It Simple.

I tried for years to follow one of these lovely plans, and never made it very far beyond January no matter how much wiggle-room the reading plan supplied. If you really want to read the Bible this year, this is what I recommend:

Set aside a particular time for reading every day. I don't care when it is. I started out by reading in the evening; now I prefer to do it early in the morning. Set a reasonable goal for yourself, and commit to meeting that goal most days. 

This'll be my third year to read the entire thing through.

The first year I read a few chapters each night, and read a little extra on Saturdays. I'd read two chapters from one book, and two chapters from another, unless the first book really captured my attention. Some weeks I didn't read at all, but I never let it go for more than about a week at a time without reading. You might have to be a little more strict with yourself in that regard. My goal that year was simply to get through the material. I wanted to get the words into my brain so that I could be mentally working on thenm sort of in the background.

I'd read a couple of chapters from one of the Old Testament narrative books, and a couple of chapters from the New Testament, or I'd do narrative/prophecy, or some other such combination. Whatever seemed good to me at the time. I think the key was to stick with a book until I had read it from the beginning to the end, and make sure that I covered all 66 books (in the Protestant Bible). At this point I wasn't particularly concerned about reading comprehension.

The next year I was more attentive in my reading. I found that I didn't like separating my reading between two different book as I tended to lose a sense of the book by so doing. My goal that year was to pay attention to what I read, and to write down any questions or inspirations I may have concerning the text. If you look at my notebook you'll see that my notes gradually evolved during the course of the year. I started copying down verses that became important, writing out prayers etc. The only thing I made myself do was summarize, and I was lenient with myself even in that. If I really didn't have time to summarize I didn't summarize. But most of the time I made at minimum a brief summary of what I read in each chapter. It's been a wonderful exercise for me, and has greatly enriched my experience of God.

In the past year I have begun to notice that reading a book wasn't enough. I really need to study it to know what is there. This year my goals is to study a book at a time, and not worry about how long it takes me. I tend to rush, so what I really need this year is to slow down. I also want to try to read through the entire Bible at least once this year, but this is a separate activity from study. For the reading I'm going to use a New Century Version that has been sitting on my shelf for sometime and just read. For study I will use either NIV (New International Version, which is the one I made heavy notes on last year) or NASB (New American Standard, which is the one I have used and carried around with me for the past sixteen years).

That's it. Simple. The point is not to read a certain amount in a year. The point is not to become a renowned Biblical scholar. The point is to make the Bible an integral and integrated part of your daily life.

The best way I know to do that is to make Bible reading a priority, but also to Keep It Simple.

Has anyone ever put a patent on those words?

A Review of J.P. Moreland

The following is a book review I just added to my profile on goodreads.com. It concerns Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason on the Life of the Soul by J.P. Morleand. I'm afraid the voice was influenced by a television review I read this morning on hulu.com. I started working on a blog post yesterday that was inspired by this self-same book, but I may not get to finish that one, so here's the review:

I loved reading this book. It filled a need for a week and a half that I've been feeling for over a year: the need for someone to open the discussion of what it means to have a Christian intellectual mind. I don't think the book is perfect, not by any means, and sometimes I considered Moreland's logic to be less than convincing, mostly because he holds logic so highly, and applies it so pain-stakingly in his appologetics that he misses certain non-logical but valid objections to his case. His argumentation wasn't perfect, in other words, but I think his view of things is very sane, and useful to those who feel like they have missed something in their pursuit of a Christian education. He offers plenty of practical suggestions for the church, which he posits should be seriously considered and discussed, if not assiduously implemented (and I did have to look up the word "assiduously" to make sure I was using it correctly). In the last chapter he comes right out and says, "If you don't agree with the ideas and suggestions to follow, then at least argue about them among your brothers and sisters. Find out where and why you think I am wrong and come up with better suggestions." I love this. Moreland says, if you disagree with me, that's fine, but please take the time to figure out how and why so that you may be edified. This is exactly how I think any suggestion in any book should be read and evaluated. This book offers a useful (if slightly confusing) introduction to logical constructions. I'm pursuing supplementary material in that regard. J.P. Moreland's overall point is that every Christian ought to be equipped in such a way that they are able to think through quandaries they encounter in every area of life and hold them up to the light of truth. They must be confident in what they believe so they can be fearless (and non-defensive) in their interactions with others. And those Christians are pursuing the life of the mind should be supported in this so that they may be effective in their service to the cause of Christ.

Hastily Written Commentary on the Hustle and Bustle Associated with Christmas

I'm feeling grumpy about gift-giving. Why? First of all, I'm not very good at it. My mind and heart are not alert to notice what might make a nice gift for someone I care about, except at the most incongruous and inappropriate times. Second, I hate shopping, and the very last thing I want to do is be in a store when it is at it's busiest. Third, I am absolutely no-good rotten at planning ahead. I thought that I would be very good at it, but I'm not.

This is a problem when it comes to birthdays and at Christmas time. It just so happens that all of these things happen in our little family unit in the space of three short months. It certainly doesn't help that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, to top it all off. If you look at the symptoms as described on Pub MedHealth's website (linked above), you'll know quite a bit about what my life tends to feel like during the winter months. Add to that the lovely and enchanting pressures of the holidays.

But wait! What's this? Nancy Wilson wrote a true and lovely piece about gift-giving that she posted on her blog today. Reading Nancy's post doesn't exactly make me feel better, but it does give me hope that even though Christmas is often threatened with the danger of losing it's meaning and specialness, all is not loss. Gift giving isn't just about the gifts. And with Nancy's words in mind, maybe I'll get to have a better attitude about it when it comes around again this time next year.

My Love of Books Is Quite Ridiculous For the Moment, I Admit

It turns out that I have little interest in writing right now. Reading has been my focus for several weeks, and shall continue, it seems, to be so for the foreseeable future. I invite you to visit my profile on GoodReads, or to view the sidebar to the right of this post to see what I am currently reading.

The Mystery of G.K. Chesterton's Wonderful Facility with Argument

I would like to know G.K. Chesterton's secret, how he could debate with such men as George Bernard Shaw, and disagree in such a way as to criticize ideas without alienating the man. How does one learn how to do this? How can I learn to take an idea, analyze it thoroughly, and criticize its weak points, while still elevating the dignity of my opponent? I'm beginning to hate that word, opponent, as I become more and more aware of its singular negativity. I've noticed recently that it must be human-nature to see anyone who disagrees with one as an enemy to be crushed, and I wonder if therein lies the problem? Why is it so difficult to disagree as friends, with the purpose of sharpening one another, instead of seeking rhetorical annihilation? I would very much like to develop such a skill.

The desire to do so, at least that is a place to start. My Dad seems to do this well, somehow managing to make opponents into friends. Our egos are generally so fragile that we tend to take contradiction personally. A shame it is, a shame. or—A shame, it is a shame.

excerpt from a version of The Living

An excerpt from Annie Dillard's "The Living" as published in its longer short-story form:

He was aware that common wisdom counseled that love was a malady that blinded lovers' eyes like acid. Love's skewed sight made hard features appear harmonious, and sinners appear saints, and cowards appear heroes. Clare was by no means an original thinker, but on this one point he had recently reached an opposing view: that lovers alone see what is real. When he courted June he thought it a privilege to wash dishes with her in river sand. He thought it a privilege to hold her cutaway coat, to look at Mount Baker from her side; he thought it a privilege to hear her family's stories over tea and watch her eyebrows rise and fall. Now, he knew it was.

Is this too romantical? I don't think it is. For several years now I have been observing the mystery of beauty, and I don't believe I understand it any better now than I did when I began. I notice that love uncovers beauty. Infatuation, which carries with it an intrinsic lack of knowing, is what covers ugliness and blinds men's eyes. Love redeems the beloved in the lover's gaze, cherishing what is there even as it seeks for betterment. I think the conflict one experiences within marriage betrays a lack, or failure, of love, a lack that may only be made up when we ask God to let us see the beloved as He sees, and love them thus as well. And this too is love: the commitment to seek God's love when our own limited capacities for love fail.

I love, and cannot love, and this is a mystery as mysterious as beauty. That those who have rejected God can sometimes love as He does, this too is a mystery, though I believe it happens sometimes because of grace, and because of His mark upon them.

Is this mystical? It is. Articulated well? Perhaps, perhaps not. I can't say that I know, but I think it is true. I'm trying now to remember the Spanish phrase we translate into English as "so-so." Asi'-asi'?

The Artist, Conflict, Voices, and the Inner Mono(Dia)log

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, writing about the internal conflict that occurs while the writer writes or the artist creates:

If you're not careful, station KFKD will play in your head twenty-four hours a day, nonstop, in stereo. Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one's specialness, of how much open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn't do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn't do relationships well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one has not talent or insight, and on and on and on.

Levi Weaver posted this video last week on youtube. It too is about conflict. I leave you to draw your own conclusions:

Books piling up on my desk, and a house beginning to smell of yellow lab.

I expected to have plenty of time for writing, and to be fair I must realize that distraction during the holiday season is to be expected, but man, right now it is hard to get anything done. Hardest to get done is any quality writing, or any writing at all, for that matter. Other things keep crowding the writing out.

I surely am glad I didn't try to participate in NaNoWriMo this November. I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, among other things, and like Orson Scott Card, she makes the act of writing fiction seem possible. On the other hand, who has time to stare at a computer screen for an hour waiting for the words to come? At this time in my life I do not, but I have to remind myself that I have other priorities chosen for me by our amazing, sovereign God. 

This week I'm reading books about marriage (Love Busters by Willard Harley, Jr., The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs), I'm trying to type up a recommended resources list for my Sunday School Teacher (who is also my brother-in-law), and I'm trying to handle the vast array of detritus that accumulates the day you not only move you're formerly outside-dog into the house, but also erect the Christmas tree and pull out every decoration you can find. On top of that I picked out an intense book for my spiritual reading (Desiring God by John Piper). I've done this to myself. You know that metaphor people like to use that describes drowning? I just had a vivid mental image of myself holding my nose under water and trying not to breathe. I can almost imagine the burning sensation about the nostrils, based on memories from the swimming pool where we spent so many days during my childhood summers. But there isn't an item on my list that I haven't chosen. Well, at least there isn't a book or administrative task on my list I haven't chosen.

You can always see my book list, what I'm reading, in the right hand column of my blog. This list changes often because I've obviously prioritize reading as a constant in the midst of whatever else is going on.

I am a studier. It's clear. I may not pursue degrees, but I will always pursue study. This article, I find, has helped me reconcile myself, or at least helped me to see the course I should pursue in terms of school.  Yesterday I was at the church surrounded by books and Tim (my associate pastor and worship director), passing by, asked me if I was studying Systematic Theology. Well, I would never dream of going to seminary, but thanks to many influences, including the aforementioned article, I know now I can study these things that interest me to my hearts content. Though classes are great (and I really, really like taking them), they are not absolutely necessary.

So there you have it.

The Attributes of God by Arthur Pink

This morning I wrote a review of The Attributes of God by Arthur W. Pink. I used to be able to publish reviews directly from Goodreads, but it seems that they have made some changes to the way they do things over there, and I haven't figured out how to work it. So here I am, cutting and pasting. Enjoy.

I think this is a very good book, though not without its problems. What it does it does rather well. Pink's intention is to present the excellent attributes of God, and he emphasizes those ways in which God is so far above us in His person, in His goodness, in His wrath. I do think that it presents rather a one-sided picture of God's relations with mankind. At the same time he takes great pains to correct some misconceptions, for instance, our tendency to believe that God owes us something by virtue of the fact that He created us. This is a very human way of thinking, and I think Pink's intention is to liberate us from it.

The book comes off as harsh, probably because Pink takes what he believes to be a very objective view of man, by which term I mean all persons created in God's likeness, both male and female. He describes and examines God's wrath, which is certainly a necessary exercise as we tend to misunderstand what it means to fear the Lord. We just want to respect Him, or think of Him as our pal, instead of granting Him the fear that is His due. On the other hand, God has always dealt very gently with mankind, if you'll take the time to think about that a bit. I feel like Pink errs to some extent in his emphasis on God's eternal punishment of evil-doers, mostly in the satisfaction he derives from such. Though these are very different books, I feel that I have benefited from having read *Reflections on the Psalms* by C.S. Lewis so recently before embarking on this book.


I liked this paragraph from the chapter titled "The Love of God" enough to post it on facebook:

Here then is abundant cause for trust and patience under Divine affliction. Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution. He hungered and thirsted. Thus, it was not incompatible with God's love for Christ when He permitted men to spit upon and smite Him. Then let no Christian call into question God's love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials. God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity, for 'He had not where to lay His head.' But He did give Him the Spirit 'without measure' (John 3:34). Learn then that spiritual blessings are the principal gifts of Divine love. How blessed to know that when the world hates us, God loves us! (81)

This helps me to think about the difficulties I have often had with faith. I took some time a while back to make some notes about the way I think about trusting God, but I never finished them. I find it easy to trust God in the sense that I know He is good, He is trustworthy, He has blessed those who have trusted in Him with every spiritual blessing. I have a hard time trusting that the sources of my stress will necessarily be removed. "Christ was beloved of the Father, yet He was not exempted from poverty, disgrace, and persecution." Even if we aren't facing imminent disgrace, persecution, and who's to say we aren't, there are things I have to trust God for that are not guaranteed. On the other hand, there are things I can trust God for that are guaranteed, even if they aren't the "things" that seem desirable to me at any given moment, if you know what I mean. More on that at some later date, I hope.

Pink's book is a valuable resource, to be read prayerfully, and with much thanksgiving, but read it with the understanding that he has not presented the entire story of how God has interacted with mankind. This book is about God more than it is about us. And of course the Christian life is meant to be more about God than it is about us.

Don't worship Pink or Pink's representation of God. Worship God. Use Pink's book as a tool to help you develop the proper awe that inspires worship.

A Morning for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is coming. It's almost here. Two quotations for which I am thankful, that have lodged themselves in my brain so recently:

...seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

I Peter 1:3-4

I felt like God gave this verse to me in the midst of a miserable Bible study I was doing. It was miserable for me, but out of it came this verse, so it was totally worth it. And I believe I have shared this one before, but it is such a blessing:

"Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [imbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840, and quoted as written in Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot)

I was reading I Corinthians this morning, and it was almost a random choice that set me to reading it. Looking back over this that I typed up last night, I see the connection between the two. Paul says, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void (1:17)," and he was writing this to people who were greatly impressed by clever speech, people who loved to attend orations. If anything, I am encouraged by this because of the difficulty I have in explaining these things to people who don't already understand. God can use even stammerings, and faulty conversation, to show His glory through the gospel.

From my notebook this morning, on I Corinthians, chapter 1:

It seems that Paul was writing here to people who were very impressed by intellectual abilities (what Paul calls wisdom), and physical prowess. Corinth was one of the major cities of ancient Greece, remember. But Paul tells them that God doesn't operate according to these things. Instead He uses foolish things to confound the wise (27). Paul preaches the cross of Christ, which is "foolishness to those who are perishing (18)." So God gives intellectual ability to whomsoever He chooses, but it's almost a consolation prize, because it isn't what He uses to spread the gospel, and not only that, it is a block to receiving the gospel. I think of two wise men: Daniel, who was faithful; Solomon, who was not. One thing I've noticed lately is that intellectual ability is not guaranteed, but the cross of Christ is. There are diseases and injuries that can destroy brain function, but since salvation is not up to us, it cannot be stolen away. Too, our intellects are not what makes us an effective witness for Christ.

And I am thankful for this.

Material things are great, and I am thankful for them. Having a useful brain that does (at least some of) the things I want it to do is great, and I am thankful for that too. Spiritual things, that come from God alone, these far outweigh them all.

Embarrassment at the Grocery Store: What it Really Means

This isn't a terribly Thanksgiving-ish blog post, but I thought I'd just go ahead and post it anyway. It is the fruit of my very first dedicated morning writing session, which happened last week.

I find I like to be thought well of. I feel terribly embarrassed if I do something I think makes me look stupid. Physical embarrassments don't bother me. Intellectual or commonsensical embarrassments do. That's why going to the grocery store can be such a chore. Tuesday night I told my husband it is an exercise in humiliation. I feel like such a ditz when I'm in the grocery store.

On Tuesday night I bought a gallon of milk in addition to those items purchased with WIC vouchers. First she asked me if I wanted to pay for the milk, which is protocol, but still rather embarrassing. When she told me the price, $4.35, for some reason I got it in my head that when I gave her a five dollar bill and the necessary coins that would be it. Consequently I was surprised when she handed me back a dollar. I looked at that dollar confusedly for a moment, which prompted the cashier to ask me if anything was wrong. I explained, using far more words that were necessary, and I imagine the cashier didn't notice that I was bothered, but I was. I don't always notice my own feelings until many moments later, at which time they sink in very painfully. This is part of what I mean when I say it is difficult being a person like me.

I came home. I complained to Michael. I wondered aloud why it was God has to humble me like this on almost a daily basis. A few moments later I started singing the chorus of a song, which struck me as truthful only after I had repeated it a time or two. “I'm a stranger in this la-and/ Won't You take me by the hand/ I can hear that distant band/ but I'm still a stranger in this land.” It turns out my pain in the grocery store isn't about humbling. It's a reminder that, while God has made me with the roots of all the attributes and character traits He means for me to have, I never ought to get too comfortable here. If I were always comfortable and self-actualized (whatever that means) I might become complacent; I might forget how very much I need God as my comforter and sustainer. Don Chaffer's song goes on to say, “And all I've got to do-oo/ is to believe on You-oo/ then every struggle seems worthwhile/ I can see the promise of Your smile...”

Yes, I'll say it again. Those Don and Lori Chaffer/Waterdeep songs mean a lot to me. I had to take a moment to go online and look up those lyrics, which pulled me briefly out of the writing-process. Now I'm struggling a bit to get back into it.

I used to think I didn't embarrass easily, but I do. I really, really do. It's only that I don't get embarrassed by the same things others are embarrassed by. I am embarrassed my my habit of misinterpretation, which wouldn't be a big deal if I weren't committed to care in interpretation. I most often have trouble interpreting visual information. When Michael and I watch a movie together, particularly one in which the characters all have Western European accents, I often am able to explain dialog to my husband, but he has to explain anything that is only shown on-screen. If it is spoken, I'll usually get it. If it is only shown, I'll usually miss it. This catches me by surprise every time, and I have to ask him over and over again what just happened. He is very tolerant of me in this. I am also surprised by the fact that, while Michael does not tend to remember names, he is very good with faces. He'll recognize an actor that we've seen in other productions, and I'll wind up checking on IMDB (Internet Movie Database, one of my favorite and most visited websites) to find out he is right.

Other things that embarrass me. Standing ovations at concerts or plays. Clapping in church. It doesn't matter who is doing the clapping, or for whom, I always feel a guilty smile coming over my face, as though I were the one on stage. Even though everyone around me is doing it, still I resist. I almost always stop clapping before everyone else does, unless I am really, really pleased, as when we went to see Gillian Welch at the Work-Play.

Joy on a Gloomy Day

I wrote this a month ago, on a gloomy day, the same day in fact when I wrote this, the day I found the Kay Arthur and the Sarte. I had my voice recorder with me that day, and part of the following is what I recorded. Then yesterday was again a gloomy day, even if the light turned golden come late morning:

I'm walking out of the library. I just found a book called Logic for Philosophers, which may or may not meet my needs for a logic text. I see a guy sitting on a bench with a backpack, and I think he's reading a book. I didn't look carefully enough to tell. I see two other guys testing out a sprinkler system belonging to the library and just seeing those people out there makes me smile, makes me think that the world out there is a wonderful place.

We watched Doctor Who: Gridlock Tuesday night. The episode takes place in this world where people get on the highway and travel for the rest of their lives and they're never heard from again. The world is full of pollution. The sky is hidden from view, nothing to see but the roof of this tube over-head. People get high on emotions that they buy in the form of stickers that they place on their necks. There is no outside. There is only smog. There is no taking a walk. The only way to travel six miles is to get in your car and drive and it's going to take you twelve years.

This New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New, New York (and that may not even be enough news), the setting for “Gridlock”, is an imaginary world, but here we live in a world where we can go outside any time we want. The sky is beautiful even on a cloudy day like today. There are puffy, cotton-puff clouds in the sky as I drive my car. It's beautiful. The sprinklers made me smile because I had to walk around them not to get wet and that made me happy. There is so much joy to be had in these tiny little things: the fact that I walked into the library book store today and found books that I wanted; the fact that I had my little tape-recorder with me to record my amusement over being wet by sidewalk sprinklers; the fact that people sit on little benches, and sometimes they even still read books, the fact that even though I walk alone, I can share the joke with you.

I'm up; I'm reading; I'm writing; It's marvelous

For now I'll pretend we've been in communication all this time. If I find the time I'll get you blog readers caught up later.

I think that Michael and I made a very good decision last night, all at my husband's instigation. I've observed recently that my most productive working times are certainly in the morning, but only the first hour or hour and a half of any given morning has been free to me. I'm struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) now that the time on the clock has shifted, which means my afternoons are good for very little. This makes it hard to read theory, hard to write, hard to do much of anything other than sulk, and of course sulking is no good.

At five o' clock this morning, instead of sleeping in, my husband took over. We had some time before the children woke to work on Bible study and devotional reading. This has been my habit for a while now, but historically the children demanded attention very early, occasionally as early as 5:30. This morning, when my almost-three-year-old awoke at 6:00, Michael took care of him. He told me that I had until 9:00 to work on whatever it was I needed to work on.

It occurred to me to want this several months ago, this aggregate of four hours in the morning to work on my brain-stuff, my unpaid self-employment, before my husband would start his working day at nine. At the time I did not really consider such a thing possible.

This morning I made the beds with five-year-old Parker, which is a practically a miracle in itself, and then returned to my office, my study, the laundry room, whatever you'd like to call it, to spend an entire hour reading a difficult French literary theorist. I still don't understand Lukács per se, but for once I got to read him during one of my brain's more active and alert times. And now I have this hour in which to force myself to write. The distractions are still there, but they are minimized. If I am right, this simple schedule change could revolutionize my day.

A friend of mine often talks about limiting obstacles to success. Working in the morning, and allowing my husband to start his working day at what is still a reasonable hour, will go a long way toward limiting those obstacles I've been facing every day. That is our intention in this change, anyway. Only time will tell of it's success.

I've also been doing some different things with the children recently. There will be plenty of time to talk about that later.

For weeks Michael and I have been talking about purposefully setting aside a certain amount of time for writing so that writing will happen more often than not. For weeks I've found the task of sitting down to the computer without allowing myself to do other things to be impossible. But now it's morning. I can sit at the computer and force myself to write in the morning. Knowing that this necessary work is behind me, I hope will stimulate me to use those times so full of family responsibilities more wisely.

I admit to you I harbor hopes that this will combat my SAD more effectively than candles and warm socks ever could. Of course that remains to be seen.

I know better than to pin all my hopes on a single idea. I know that the excitement of beginning often dissipates once routine sets in, and sometimes routine gets irretrievably disrupted. This disruption often turns out to be for the better, but the truth of this rarely reveals itself immediately. I feel like every day is another experience in having God humble me. But for now I am excited because this is the first time in many weeks that I've sat down at the computer and expressed myself in any media other than the brevity of facebook. And the day that begins today is more hopeful than those that have begun otherwise in recent weeks.

I am going to have to find a different time to walk the dog, though.

A Poem, A Poem, A Wonderful Poem about Language: English More Specifically

Last week sometime I was going through my inbox making changes due to Gmail's helpful new design. There were plenty of starred messages I had once intended to revisit, but never had. It took a while for me to get things into manageable order, but in the process I found an email my brother sent me months ago. His email contained a link to a poem that I immediately fell in love with, having a rudimentary passion for languages, as I do, and the ways in which they are spoken.

To see the poem, click here.

I read the entire thing right way, out-loud, and am surprised I didn't draw the comments of my family. There were, in fact, several words I had never seen before, and my pronunciation has adjusted slightly as I have read the poem out-loud daily since I found it (except that I forgot to read it yesterday). Give it a try. I think it is fun.

Note the poem has not been properly attributed. If you'll do a google search you'll find more information. Pronunciations, of course, vary depending largely on where you live. You're better of seeing the poem as it is being read, or reading it out-loud yourself.

Don't Psychoanalyze Me: Another Fragment

This one written this week. I used the same name as before because I couldn't imagine another one that wouldn't feel trite to me. I had been considering participating in National Novel Writing Month, which is why I began working on this. Note that I haven't worked it; this is just what came out. Compared with what I wrote months ago and posted earlier this week, it seems to be more of the same.

I can't actually imagine writing a novel, coming up with characters, naming them, researching things I know nothing about. How did Walker Percy do it? How does Buechner? How does anyone?

Not this anyone.

She ran down a corridor that seemed never ending. Never ending. Never ending. Rending. Past the soda machines. Past the closed doors with their glazed-in openings. Yes, the corridor seemed never ending, but so did the running. Her memory of her running had no beginning, and it seemed quite possible at the moment that it wouldn't end. Running toward something? Or away?

True that the corridor branched off in other directions at times. For some reason the turnings seemed ominous and she couldn't remember having taken any of them.

Running and Running and Running. Never foot-sore. Ever fleet.

“I've been reading too much symbolist crap,” she said out loud. And that was it. There was nothing after that. Not even a transition.

Waking. Walking. Not even out of breath. Outdoors. Sunshine. Sidewalks. No running.

Min's life was quite conventional, in fact. There was the waking every morning, both suddenly and early. The stumbling to the coffee pot, pouring a cup in the dark, using the light from the microwave to insure she wouldn't spill. Not even feeling her way as she walked silently through the dark. At least Min hoped her steps were silent. There was no way to be sure. Getting dressed. Walking the dog. A quick breakfast and then to work. The evenings were practically the same, only in reverse.

It seemed like there might be an element of haunting going on, though she wasn't sure what it was that gave her that little chill at an unexpected moment—an undisclosed moment almost, as she had a very hard time finding a way to frame it. Was it before or after the wine was poured, or somewhere in between? Was it in the second between turning the tap at the sink and the water rushing out?

A Fragment of a Story About Min

I don't have the discipline or the imaginative scope to write fiction. The best I can do is drift along with the thoughts that occur to me in the space of ten or so minutes. Yesterday I tried it. The results were directionless, but I hope they were at least interesting.

Here's a fragment of fiction I tried many months ago, with introductory rambling. My brother, David, provided the name:

If I were to write a story about a character named Min, what sort of story would it be? Is Min male or female? Where does she live? Does that even matter?

My imagination is too underdeveloped for me to know how to do this.

She made pancakes one morning, but she couldn't find the syrup. She was out of butter too, so she had to eat them dry. But the coffee was hot and black.

In the corner of the room sat an angry pile of abandoned art supplies. She had used her entire paper ration in the space of two weeks, and though she was unsatisfied with her drawings, she had yet to make the decision to throw them away. The ideas had refused to come. The lines, though often converging at the appropriate angles, refused to represent either her thought, or her view of the abandoned meeting house across the street.

She longed for the meeting house across the street, with a longing that made no sense at all. She thought, how sad that the space had been left empty for so long. There should have been someone there to care for it, someone to fill the rooms with lamplight by night, someone to trim the hedges, repair the wall, sweep away the cobwebs, bring it to life, fill the halls with voices of spirit and joy, but there was none of that now. Hadn't been for some time.

At least there was light in her little room, and she had windows. Windows to watch from, windows through which to see. The windows were what made her life possible. Without light from the sun by day and the moon by night, she might just curl up into a ball and never try again. The light called her out of sadness. It called her out of gloom. But what it wouldn't do, and never could, was restore to her what had once been lost.

He was watching her. She knew it. Waiting to see what she would do. Would she reject the gift that he had left her? Would she ever remember to ask him what it was for? She had such a hard time remembering, remembering to ask him that question. Sometimes it was there, right at the tip of her tongue, but then she would swallow it, embarrassed. She thought somehow to know without asking. She thought perhaps that for once he would refuse to do his duty by her, maybe just this once, she would fall and he wouldn't catch her. Maybe just this once, if she stayed very, very still, he would forget about her, let her plunge. Maybe just this one time she would lose his grace, and she would finally get what she had coming to her. The earth had bewildered her, until now she preferred his judgment to his love.

I thought about her that day, as I tried again to understand myself. Why would she prefer his judgment to his love? Did she think his judgment would be easier to bear? Did she think that judgment was better because it gave her a measure of control? I thought of her as nothing but a dream I'd dreamed myself. I had never been quite sure if she were real. And maybe that was her problem too. She couldn't figure out whether she were real either. That might explain why the drawings never worked.

Whatever the truth of the matter might be, it was time for me to go about my business.

How to Calculate a 15% Tip

I remember the day I learned how to calculate a fifteen percent tip. I was having lunch at the 15th Street Diner in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with my mom, when I overheard a woman at another table explaining it to her teenage daughter. First calculate ten percent, she said. Ten percent is easy. It sounds complicated when I say that all you have to do is move the decimal point back a space, but you can probably make that calculation without hardly trying. Then you divide the ten percent in half to get five percent, and add the two together. However she explained it was very clear and simple, and I'm afraid my explanation isn't nearly so.

Here's an example: Say you spent $32.82 on your meal, and you're on a tight budget so you only want to leave a fifteen percent tip. 10% of $32.82 is $3.28. Half of that 10% is $1.64. Add the two together ($3.28+$1.64) and you wind up with $4.92. $4.92 equals 15% of your total food bill. If you're dining with my husband you're going to tip more than that. To quote My Blue Heaven, "I don't believe in tipping; I believe in over-tipping," though what we do can hardly be referred to as over-tipping. My brother, who has worked in food service for a time, suggests a $3.00 minimum tip.

Once you know how to calculate 15%, 20% becomes easy.

Thoughts on God and us

Sometimes I only want to tell you everything I did today. Sometimes I don't want to expose myself to criticism. Sometimes I'd rather not talk about it. Sometimes I cannot shut up. I learned a useful prayer from reading Elizabeth Elliot, useful when you need to pray but don't know what to pray, useful for praying for anyone, in any situation.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

This has become part of my prayer today and every day:

Have mercy on us, Oh Lord, have mercy. You know the secrets of our form, how weak we are, both how much we can endure and how little. The mysteries of our human existence are no mystery to you. Be gentle with us, Lord, we beg you, but at the same time make us more aware of your limitless grace.

I appreciate that we are never useless tools in the hand of a mighty God. I liked this quotation, very much, as shared by Elisabeth Elliot in Keep a Quiet Heart:

Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [inbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make of many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremeist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840, exactly as quoted by Elisabeth Elliot.)

I quote it here because in my prayers right now I have nothing but stammering words. When I meet with my friends to discuss what seem like important things I have nothing but stammering words. When the Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door I have nothing but stammering words. Have mercy on us, Oh Lord, have mercy.

Shakespearean Intrigue, and a Place Where Some Very Bad Ideas Can Come From

I am not a Shakespeare scholar. Heck, I'm not even much of a Shakespeare fan. I usually come back from a Shakespeare performance (I've seen a few) knowing that I was supposed to enjoy it, but didn't. I spend the majority of the play wishing it would be over soon. Sorry. The best, most entertaining production I ever saw was A Midsummer Night's Dream performed by teenagers. I hated the movie.

I'm not incapable of enjoying Shakespeare, but I prefer the bard in small doses. On the other hand, I did spend many hours last summer watching the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC's) Playing Shakespeare, facilitated by John Barton. I enjoyed Stage Beauty and the Shakespearean parts of My Own Private Idaho. I think Much Ado About Nothing, and the musical, Love's Labour's Lost, were delightful movies. I like the Zeffirelli Hamlet starring Mel Gibson, the Baz Luhrman Romeo + Juliet. I watched the David Tennant Hamlet over the summer, but didn't enjoy it in spite of the awesomely charismatic and compelling (not to mention very good-looking) David Tennant. I like the Shakespeare episode of Doctor Who (ep. 3.2, “The Shakespeare Code”). I did think it was cool when Brick started quoting him in a recent episode of “The Middle.”

Anyway, all that is to say that I have had exposure to the bard, but I don't love him. I was, on the other hand, intrigued when I started seeing advertisements for the upcoming movie, Anonymous, on goodreads.com. The byline is “Was Shakespeare A Fraud?” When I watched the trailer online I thought the idea was hardly revolutionary, but when I read this article, published in The New York Times, I realized that all I know about the controversy surrounding Shakespeare's identity was gleaned from the pages of another work of fiction, Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next Series. I learned from Thursday herself that some scholar's argue Shakespeare's oeuvre was written by Christopher Marlowe. This just goes to show how influential even fictional media can be, which is part of Stephen Marche's point. The general public does in fact believe a lot of what it sees. Sometimes the things it sees are a matter of responsible scholarship. Sometimes they are not.

I like this line from Marche's article: “Along with a right-wing antielitism, an unthinking left-wing open-mindedness and relativism have also given lunatic ideas soil to grow in.” I am not smart enough to draw any conclusions from that statement, but I am storing it away for consideration at a later date.

Poetry, Philosophy, Buechner: Have I No Restraint?

If I have any sort of an addiction, it's to books and television. Richard Foster, I believe, would induce me to kill my addictions by purging my world of accumulated books, a notion I fiercely resist, thus proving his point. Television? I don't know what he'd tell me about television. Considering he is a Quaker, I can make a good guess. When I started thinking about the two things that mastered me today, Richard Foster's name came into my mind because he writes about the discipline of simplicity in his book, Celebration of Discipline, which my husband and I read together with our friend Damon last year.

Another trip to the library today, and I came home with even more books. I kept the two Stephen Hawking's from last week, as well as Physics of the Impossible and the Surprised by Oxford memoir. Again, I don't have time to read them, won't get to them this borrowing session, will probably renew them, but I couldn't give them up just yet. Odd since they sit in a bag in the corner of my dining room day-in and day-out. I made two mistakes this afternoon. I glanced at new non-fiction books shelf, and I set foot in the Friends of the Library Bookstore.

On the new non-fiction books shelf, and yes that is books, plural, on purpose:


The cover of Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds caught my eye. I picked it up. I put it down again. I picked it up; I put it down again. I thought about that book all the way out the door and to the car. I totally want to read a book about pop culture's addiction to its own past. I also liked the feel of the paper cover and the way the back matter was formatted. Nope. Didn't find out anything about the book while it was in my hands. I only know that it will be coming home with me at some future date. For reasons I can't fully explain, I have a bit of an obsession with pop culture. Maybe it's an anthropological interest; maybe I just like to be entertained. I think it's some sort of combination of the two, probably going back to my urge to understand this world we live in, this world I'm not entirely comfortable with. Some of it is the best and safest way I know to engage.

Next to Retromania on the shelf I saw a book with an oddly familiar cover. I look at it now and see only the slightest similarity to James K.A. Smith's Who's Afraid of Postmodernism, but the name Derrida does occur on the cover. And there's a strong vertical and horizontal element in the design. The book is Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy by Anais Spitzer, from the Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory series published by continuum books. So both books are from a series. They have that much in common, right? I like the feel of the book. I like the cover. I like the fact that the book is brand new. Beyond that I'm basically a pretender. The word "Philosophy" draws me in. I've made this same complaint before. Just because I want to read a book, doesn't mean I'm equipped to read or understand it. And I'll have you know that reading and understanding can be two separate events.

As soon as I arrived a the library this afternoon, I noted that the book store was open and wanted to go in, but I held myself back long enough to get the DVDs my children had asked for. I was afraid this would happen. I was afraid that even though I was looking for a particular book they were unlikely to have I'd probably spend money on more books I don't have room to store.

I purchased three books, and looked at more:

The Life of Graham Greene Volume I: 1904-1939 by Norman Sherry. I adore Graham Greene as a writer, and I wonder how many volumes there are in this series. Maybe only three? Of course the inside flap of the book doesn't say. I am slightly alarmed by the blurb on the cover in which Margaret Atwood claims Greene's times are described "in Proustian detail." How much detail could Sherry possibly go into?

Poetry: An Introduction by John Strachan and Richard Terry. Just this morning I was lamenting the fact that I didn't know or remember any of the poetical conventions. I remember what an iamb is, I think, but not what is it's opposite. This book claims to help students understand the technical details of poetry that tend to trip them up, in a way that is accessible, with plenty of examples from existing poetry. It's definitely academic, but it also looks like it will be both interesting and useful. I hope to pick up a copy of Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse by John Hollander some day.

And then I found Son of Laughter: A Novel by Frederick Buechner. I read a bit of it tonight and it was wonderful. It tells the story of Jacob the patriarch, with Jacob himself as narrator. The part I read described Laban's trickery as sort of an after-thought, an action he didn't mean to make until he made it. It told of Jacob's own machinations to cheat God, who he refers to as the Fear, out of his victory. It was vivid in the matter of only a few pages...

...and I think: This is why I can't be an academic. Because I want to read what I want to read, and it isn't all on one unified subject, and it won't wait until I'm finished studying whatever it is I think I want to study.

So what do you say to that?

Motivism and the differences in Motives

I'd been reading Wayne Booth's Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent over the last couple of weeks, and though I haven't been able to continue reading past the first chapter, that first chapter sparked a line of thought.

According to Wayne Booth we have fallen prey to a modernist dogma known as motivism. From what I've understood, motivism means an underlying and ardent belief that statements of motivation, or reasons given, are always a rationalization constructed to mask an underlying motive. A couple of days ago I was reminded of an example from television.

There's an episode of Friends where the friends set out to prove that Phoebe's altruism is actually based on purely selfish motives. She is kind to people only because there's a payoff: she gets to feel good about herself.

I don't remember the outcome. I don't care a bunch about what happens on Friends, if only because it was such a popular television show when I was in college. Wayne Booth seems to say that this modern dogma is specious. It is wrong to claim that a person's stated motives could not possibly be their actual motives. It is an assumption that may be true under some circumstances, but that cannot be accurately applied to every situation.

I had a conversation about this with Michael just a few nights ago. We were talking briefly about a friend of mine named, who I'll call Vickrum (another Friends reference), who told me, back when Michael and I were contemplating marriage, that I wasn't ready to get married because I didn't know who I was or what I wanted yet. I immediately qualified this statement to Michael by saying that of course that wasn't the real reason he objected to our engagement. The act of making that statement stopped me short.

Now it's true that Vickrum had a second reason for objecting to the engagement. It's true that Vickrum had a stake in my remaining unattached, but that does not mean that the reason he gave for objecting to the engagement wasn't a real reason. There were at least two levels of coexistent reasoning going on. On the one hand if I were to marry Michael, I would no longer be available toVickrum . On the other hand, Vickrum was correct that I didn't really know who I was or what I wanted. This not knowing could be a liability in marriage, and marriage would put a definite spin on the answer, might possibly even remove the question entirely.

Theory of the Novel: A Continuation from 9/28/11

One morning, as I was sitting at my dining room table and the children were otherwise engaged, I started making notes about the paper I would write, this paper concerning the theory of the novel. I was thinking about the paper in two respects, working out some method that would allow me to get the job done, and working out some ideas about the novel genre, ideas that had already begun to dominate my thinking on the subject.

Having read McKeon's general introduction to Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach and introductory notes to the first section, I take you back in time to the hand-written notes I made that morning. Note: I'm giving you access to my mind as I set about the beginnings of the project.

I don't know whether hand-writing my notes here in my notebook will serve me better, or typing away into my computer. I expect it will be a combination of the two. Right now Parker has co-opted my computer access, so pen and paper are all I've got (and Susan Bell's The Artful Edit indicates, this may be a good thing). I wonder if I will be able to work outside to some extent and how I need to plan my schedule. If I'm going to write a seminar paper for Fred, I'm going to have to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to it, balancing the work with my other obligations. What is a seminar paper, anyway?

• What is a seminar paper? And how do I, as serious as I am, avoid “monumentalizing” it?

I looked up “What is a seminar paper” on google, and this guy's webpage seemed to give the most useful response. I don't expect to have to use the little trick he recommends near the end.

What do I know, or believe, about the novel here and now, today, without re-reading a bunch of theory about it? This is something Fred tried to do with us in class the very first day, but I didn't feel that I knew any more at the end than I did at the beginning. McKeon does something similar at the beginning of his anthology.

• What are my premises or claims?

• Novels are usually, maybe not always(?), narrative, which means they have a plot, even if only a very basic or concealed one, they are told, and they are told from a particular point-of-view.
  
• Usually they are fictional which means they are imaginative, but imaginative in what way? Because even non-fiction can engage the author's and the reader's imagination.
  
• It is a more intimate form than those that preceded it in that it deals with the doings of individuals, and invades, in a sense, their private lives, often even their private thoughts. The novel form, then, probably originates in modernism when the importance of the individual first (first?) came to prominance. How and why was the pre-modern world different, and how and why did this change? Something to do with the enlightenment? Need to think a bit about the time-line. It all comes down to philosophy, doesn't it? What is philosophy? It is anthropology which is the study of man, right? Philosophy has to do with common experience per Adler, my absent reading-tutor. What do first order questions and second order questions have to do, if anything, with the emergence of the novel? But I am getting off track. Or am I?
  
• The novel privileges the author's voice, doesn't it? Privileges individual modes of expression? Or is this contested ground? Maybe it privileges narrative voice more than the author's. These don't have to be the same thing. And it may be that the privileging of the voice is a relatively late development. Certainly the novel does not privilege narrative voice as much as does certain forms of modernist and contemporary poetry.
  
• Postmodernism, which James J.A. Smith claims is actually pre-modern, is, or can be, extremely narrative in that it recognizes the narrative nature of perception. Does this have any bearing on, or reveal anything about, the emergence of the novel in the modern era? How has postmodern philosophy changed the novel from its origins?
  
• The novel is a modernist phenomena.
  
• The novel is more likely to be a popular narrative form. (More likely than what?) It is generally accessible to the masses, and does not necessarily imply an author's mastery of narrative technique.
  
• Are there any non-narrative novels? Can there be a novel without a plot? I think of Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient. The melieu story, the idea story, the character story, and the event story. Would these categories be applicable to novels as well? This gets into a question of ways in which the novel may be categorized. I was just reading an excerpt from Marthe Robert that touches on categorization, and the limitations of trying to categorize a novel based on plot elements.

There's got to be more, but those are my initial thoughts. I notice I have asked a lot of questions, and the reality is most of my premises are actually questions. As I was writing, a few notes from my reading of the McKeon introduction popped into my mind. And as I typed the same notes later the same thing happened with items from The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism, edited by Joseph Childers and Gary Hentzi. They're gone now. I hope that I can reclaim them later, maybe after my shower if the children don't need me too badly.

And of course on this day in October I look back on it and know that the children indeed needed me too badly to get back to those notes. I was pleased that day, in fact, with how much I was able to get down in such a small amount of time. It felt like a good beginning. Pathways of thought were already opening up. Where will those pathways lead?

A List of Books

A list of books I brought home with me from the library yesterday, even though I won't have time to read any of them. This is what happens when I wind up wandering the non-fiction aisles. Please note, I've rarely in my life read any physics or natural history. I've had very little exposure to linguistics. These books caught my eye. It's all Stephen Hawking's fault because I couldn't remember the call number to the book of his that I was curious about and many of these were nearby.

The Grand Design Stephen Hawking with Leonard Mlodinow
Color: A Natural History of the Palette Victoria Finlay
The Physics of the Impossible Michio Kaku
A Briefer History of Time Stephen Hawking
Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid Wendy Williams
Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir Carolyn Weber
What Language Is (And What It Isn't And What It Could Be) John McWhorter

and from the Friends of the Library Book Store:

How to Study Your Bible: The Lasting Rewards of the Inductive Approach Kay Arthur
Logic for Philosophers Richard L. Partill
Essays in Existentialism Jean-Paul Sarte

I keep hoping I'll find The Girard Reader in the library book store, but yesterday I was looking for Perfecting Ourselves to Death by Richard Winter. If you are familiar with any of these books, please tell me what you think of them. As I indicated earlier, there is little chance that I'll ever actually read any of them, but still I had to hold them in my hands and bring them into my home.

More about the blogging plan--making it up as I go along

It's that time. It's early in the morning, though my children are likely to rise from their beds at any moment. I've made a list of things I want to get through today, everything that came into my mind to distract me in the early hours this morning, hours that I'm afraid were not quite early enough. An hour and a half is so little time to collect my thoughts.

I don't collect them. It's more like I settle down into them, at least, that's what I'm telling myself this morning.

I think I'm going to start following Rebecca Brown's plan, in which the blogger shoots for two to four blog posts a week instead of trying to get something in every day. My fear is that this won't go the way that Brown (among others) describes. Two to four well-written blog posts per week? Well-written and spell-checked? The idea is that you can put more time into a post, focus on producing a more polished (and consistent...consistent?) product that will mean more to your readers than five to seven slap-dash posts every week. But here I am typing this out only an hour and a half before my self-imposed deadline.

Yup, that's me.

The Trouble of Locating Beauty and Joy in Housework

I've been reading about work in Elisabeth Elliot this morning, three articles in a row concerning an area of my life in which I greatly struggle. I don't fully understand the problem.

I have a bad habit of only doing as much work as I feel like doing on any given day. And yet, in principle, I like work. I like the idea of being productive, taking care of my family, providing a pleasant and fun living environment, doing paperwork for the church, assisting my husband. I like the idea of getting down to the hard work of reading and writing, and going after it with a will. When I had a job outside the home, I was up and down out of my chair all the time, always looking for the next thing I could do, the next way I could get a little exercise. So why is it that I don't enjoy doing the work at home?

Meal planning is like paperwork. Going to the grocery store is an outing which involves using my muscles to move products from one location to another, stretching my legs as I move from aisle to aisle, running with the cart exuberantly, and as it happens, serving the parking attendants by moving my cart, and other stray ones, to the appropriate cart receptacles is the part of the outing I most enjoy, yet I hate going grocery shopping. I'll put it off as many days as possible, until the milk runs out. In truth there is no form of shopping that appeals to me more than any other, though looking for books at the thrift store brings the best rewards.

Vacuuming doesn't please me, nor does making dinner. Laundry can be enjoyable if I get it started early enough in the day.

As I say, I don't understand what is this problem I have with work? It isn't that domesticity is beneath me, yet I experience mostly confusion when asked to help with preparing or cleaning up food. I'd like to be energized by house work. I'd like for my children to see it being done, to absorb the making and execution of a schedule, the joy that can be had in mastering an arduous task. I'd like to be more grateful for my work, to do it as unto the Lord, to put my intellectual tasks in their proper place, and progress in them, though not at the expense of the housework. I'd like to enjoy those times when I am at my leisure heartily and not with ennui. These times should be meaningful. I should come to know my children through the time I spend with them. Be ever mindful of, and curious about, my husband's interests and concerns.

I should walk the dog in the morning. I should worship the Lord at night.

I wish it would happen naturally. I wish it wouldn't take so much work. What would be required for such a momentous change to occur? How do you find the balance between finding the modes of expression that are yours, and imposing the discipline of the every day? How does one become good without also becoming a perfectionist? How does one serve God properly and well?

I'll Pretend This Post Was Sponsored By Annie Dillard's *Living By Fiction*

Slept late this morning, staying in bed until almost 6 am. Slept hot and didn't sleep well. Forwent (is that a word?) the Bible reading this morning. Hoping the children will stay in bed a while longer, long enough for me to knock out some sort of blog post. Hoping I'll get to take my dog for a walk before Michael goes down to work, hoping I finally make it to the bank today after five days of failing-ailing expectation. Reading Annie Dillard this morning, trying to make sense out of her arguments concerning the lack of interpretative possibility in the natural world, that all things must be interpreted as though they were art objects, and that, in the end, this requires the positing of an artist. She isn't making a creationist argument or anything. Whatever it is she says, she says it well. The trouble I have in making sense has to do with the limits of my understanding, my lack of patience in untangling the threads, to borrow a metaphor from Dillard, and the fact that I am not as widely read in every area as I would prefer to be.

It's sort of funny, that, this idea of not being widely read. I read a lot, and my tastes are rather eclectic, if limited to particular themes. I try to expand those limitations and find that every area of different reading brings up the painful recognition of further limitation. I imagine that I could read every book in the Tuscaloosa Public Library, or better, Gorgas Library at The University of Alabama, and still feel that I hadn't read enough. This plays into Dillard's arguments concerning meaning, I think. Read Living By Fiction for me and see if you can explain to me how.

I was already convinced that the things we apply our reasoning to are based ultimately in faith. I know (and how do I know, I cannot tell) that God is a reliable guide to the universe. It is, as Dillard might point out, a tremendous leap of faith to believe even that the universe exists. I have often imagined, spontaneously, that everything I know and see and touch and taste and experienced is a dream. It is actually possible in some abstract way to imagine that these things don't really exist. Maybe this imaginative ability is a peculiar blessing of this age, or maybe it isn't peculiar at all. Philosophers claim, and I include literary critics under the heading of “philosophers,” that interpretation is the only thing our brains can use to make sense of the universe. I think the reality is that it all comes down to faith, a word that many have misunderstood and will continue to misunderstand until as the Bible promises, faith has become sight.

In no way can I abandon metaphysics, because reason in its essence is a metaphysic, and even if you choose not to believe in God, or choose not to believe in anything, you still wind up putting faith somewhere. Humanism, from what I've seen, is the one that makes the least amount of sense.

Do I know if I've said anything true in my ramblings above? Nope. Sure don't. But I'm not going to let that stop me. Luckily, since rarely does anyone comment on here anyway, I don't have to worry about being challenged on an argument half made or half explored.

Television Glut and a Podcast

One morning I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote down every conjecture or assumption I could think of concerning the novel as a genre. Probably took me thirty minutes. That week I had several bouts of inspiration in which I was able to make notes, actual, useful, convertible notes, on what I was thinking and reading. I hope that sort of inspiration will come back soon, because somehow in the last week and a half I have lost it. I can hardly tell I think at all, except these thoughts keep coming. Today after some weeks of exercising discipline I engaged in a television glut, as if the shows I hadn't been watching were going somewhere: Castle, Warehouse 13, The Lying Game. I finally dropped Eureka from my queue because after the first couple of episodes of those aired in the last two months, the show lost all appeal for me.

For inspiration I shall begin listening to Writing Excuses again. I adore their slogan: Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart. Their podcasts actually vary in length. I make that observation based on listening to two of them, their first episode ever, and one more recent one. The podcasts, I believe, are geared toward the writing of science fiction, which is fun, but most of their advice is applicable to other efforts. Writing Excuses. Now there's an idea.

Some further notes about my reading, as none of my other ideas have been coming through

It's Monday night as I write, and my husband is in bed because he's sick. I suppose you've noticed already that it is very important to me to identify when it is I am writing whatever it is I am writing.  I prefer to schedule these posts a day or two in advance, and when I do, I try to adjust the tenses I use based on when the material is going to be published. For instance, in my journal I may say that "so-in-so happened this morning," but if I prepare the same material for the blog, to be published the following week, I'll changed it to "so-in-so happened last week."

Today I've been reading Ian Watt in my anthology, and as much Annie Dillard literary criticism as I can absorb. I've also been trying to make way in The Brothers Karamazov, a book I began well before I took on this seminar paper project. I think I've decided I'll feel better of I finish it before moving forward in The Living. Sometimes it is hard for me to know if I am doing things in good order or not. I'm at a point in The Brothers Karamazov that is really giving me trouble, at a point where one might expect the narrative to pick up, the point where Dmitri Karmazov is guilty of murder. Honestly I don't understand his motivation. I don't understand why he would be moved to rapture at the idea that the object of his affection loved him for a single hour at the hight of their original spree. I'm actually having a hard time making out what is going on at all, but I know an investigation is about to begin because I've been looking at the section titles. I'm right around half-way through. The Brothers Karamazov is a novel anyway, so reading it isn't quite a waste of precious study time, even if catching on Warehouse 13 online possibly is.

I was at a similar point in The Living when I broke away from it, where one major section had ended and a second had begun, and I was having trouble getting acclimated to what is apparently a different set of primary characters. This is one of the reasons I didn't use to enjoy short stories. You have to acclimate quickly in a short story, and that process often takes me a little bit of time. At the same time I will tend to skip the first two chapters of any Stephen King novel in order to jump-start the very same process of acclimation.

Part of the problem I have with my reading is that I am impulsive. I watch more than one television show at once, I argue, and when I was in college I had to read at least two or three different works simultaneously at any given time, so why should my personal reading be any different? In fact my personal reading isn't any different. This is one of the reasons I need to begin to force myself to slow down.  I say begin because I never quite reach that point of making a beginning.

What Else Was In That Box?

Receiving a box of books in the mail makes me giddy, like Pete Lattimer when his ex-wife brought his comic book back. It's a Warehouse 13 reference, from an episode I finally saw last week.

What else was in the Amazon box you ask?

The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea, by David Dark, which I borrowed from the library several months ago in a short-lived flurry of Christian/political literature reading. The book isn't about politics, rather it is about American culture, and how we need to examine our assumptions in every arena of thought, including the political, not only examine them but talk about them too. Dark engages all manner of American culture. I read his book in a week, fell in love with it, and knew I had to have it for my own.

I didn't fully understand the book, and I didn't take notes on it, which is one of the reasons I wanted it for my own. I want to study it, figure out what Dark did and how. Though I don't think I would agree with Dark politically (if I understood politics well enough to know what I thought), I would like to emulate his methods. I'd like to know what his arguments are so I can engage them more fully. I'd like to do the sort of work that he is doing. David Dark writes a blog, called Peer Pressure is Forever, which he shares with his wife Sarah Masen, whose music I adore. I wrote an imaginary letter to David Dark after reading his book, which you can read if you really want to, by clicking here.

The Gospel According to America is sort of hard to read, not because the language is complex, or because the ideas are too highly specialized. It's hard to read, for some strange reason, because of Dark's highly personalized style. I believe that the difficulty is totally worth it.

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church by James K.A. Smith. I've written about this book on here before, and now I have at last my very own copy. This makes me very happy. Smith somehow manages to demystify postmodernism, explaining it in a way that I can finally understand, and then shows how postmodern ways of thinking are not entirely antithetical to our Christian faith.  This is a valuable service. Smith also give some pointers on how the church could adapt some of these ideas to become even more itself instead of less, more kergymatic is the word he uses. The church can be more bold in its presentation of the gospel because we get to be more transparent about where we are coming from. I wish I could describe it better. All I can really say tonight is read the book. I look forward to tackling it again once I've completed some of these other projects that are eating up my reading-time. Smith has a blog that can be read here.

The last book in the box was Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent by Wayne Boothe. I don't know much about this one, only what I have read online, and that it was recommended as a book I might read to understand the rhetoric of argumentation better. I've read an essay by Boothe in The Norton Reader, and have read bits and pieces of his book The Rhetoric of Fiction. I know I like his writing style already. I just discovered via Wikipedia that Boothe died in 2005. I look forward to reading as much of his work as possible, and wonder if I can incorporate him into some of these other projects.

Yes, it's true I have a lot of reading to do. And I look forward to it. If you are interested in seeing what titles I am reading now, take a look at the rightmost column on this page. As always I fear I have gone a little overboard with the reading.

An Unlooked for Blessing in the Guise of a Semi-Random Book

At first I didn't think I wanted to read the book. At first I thought Elisabeth Elliot's writing would be all fusty and pious, and I'm so not into that. I read the first brief essay and then put the book aside. That is until I picked it up again on Sunday morning.

Keep A Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot has been hitting all the right notes with me. A short, short essay I read Thursday morning was called "Ever Been Bitter?" Who, me? Bitter? Naw. I'm much too sensible for that. But when I thought back to some of the things I said to the woman sitting next to me at the church's business meeting last night, I had to reconsider my personal assessment. A less discerning listener than she may have suspected a note of bitterness in my speech. For instance, I complained that for several years before my husband lost his job we didn't get a raise. The last two years we didn't get any sort of Christmas bonus, and the year before we took a cut in pay. For a year we've been self-employed and living off our savings, and choosing to trust God all the way, we're still unable to detect an end in sight.

Elliot writes:

Sometimes I've said, "O Lord, you wouldn't do this to me, would you? How could you, Lord?" I can recall such times later on and realize my perspective was skewed. One Scripture passage which helps me rectify it is Isaiah 45:9-11 (NEB): "Will the pot contend with the potter, or the earthenware with the had that shapes it? Will the clay ask the potter what he is making?... Thus says the Lord, would you dare question me concerning my children, or instruct me in my handiwork? I alone, I made the earth and created man upon it." ...I don't understand Him, but then I'm not asked to understand, only to trust....(44)

She goes on to say that it's okay to ask God why, taking Job as an example of one who asked monumental questions. The excerpt I've included here frankly doesn't do the essay justice.

I quoted from her earlier on facebook, from another essay in the same book. I had spent the week before regretting a lack of opportunities in my past, then yesterday I read this in Elisabeth Elliot: "All of the past, I believe, is a part of God's story of each child of His--a mystery of love and sovereignty, written before the foundation of the world, never a hindrance to the task He has designated for us, but rather the very preparation suited to our particular personality's need (24)."

If you get a chance to read this book, I suggest you do so. With that I shall leave you in suspense over the weekend as to which other books were in yesterday's box. Today I found that I had something else on my heart instead. My break from reading literary theory on a Thursday night is now officially over.

Some Books I Ordered

One morning a couple of weeks ago I sat down at the kitchen table and started listing everything I knew or could think of concerning the novel. There were hypotheses, and doubts, and suppositions that I thought I might examine that would give me some direction concerning the writing of this paper. Earlier this week I started to look at them, not for the sake of the paper, but with the intention of formatting them in some such manner that they could be published to you here.

I look at these notes, these bulleted lists, for a moment, a mere flashing of my eye across the page, and I panic wondering how I'm going to synthesize these random seeming remarks into a form that is interesting to you, the reader. When I look at them again over the weekend, or later this afternoon, I expect they will appear differently to me. This has often been the case. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right moment when everything becomes clear. You have to wonder how coherent manuscripts are ever formed by anyone, yet somehow, in a strange amalgamation of magic and skill, they are.

Anyhow, today is not the day for bulleted lists about the nature of the novel.

Yesterday's post seemed a little dry to me. Since I got a box of books in the mail from Amazon yesterday afternoon, I'll tell you what was in the box instead, beginning with three by Annie Dillard.

Living By Fiction by Annie Dillard

I ordered it thinking it might shed some light on my paper, since fictionality seems to be one of the few agreed upon characteristics of any novel. Even that idea is contested in some quarters. Dillard's book seems to be generally about the novel, even though it wasn't described in those exact terms. I borrowed this book from my public library once upon a time, but at that time I didn't find the opening pages to be accessible. The mommy-brain may have had something to do with this. I wondered then what sort of fiction Dillard claimed to live by. The book has since been discarded from the library's stacks and I wonder why.

Dillard's primary interest here, it seems, is in something she calls contemporary modernism in literature. For her, modernism has something to do with surfaces, and I haven't managed yet to figure out what that means. In what I've read so far she discusses modernism's tendency to fragment and shatter time and space, just as more visual modernist artists do. Often literature and art attempts to get away with meaninglessness, but Dillard doesn't let them get away with it. I'm excited about reading the book. So much so that I started reading it last night, despite my ever growing list of books in progress.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

I wanted very badly to purchase a copy of this book when it first came out. One day as I was wandering the shelves at Books-a-Million, years and years ago, I spotted it. It was love at first sight. One thing you may as well know about me is that I am drawn by author's names and the cover design of books. I soon borrowed it from the library, but found it difficult. I have a clear memory of lying on the sofa in my living room trying to it.

The cover is so pretty and so minimally designed. Minimally? Minimalist. These aren't quite the same thing are they, even though the descriptive "minimal" forms the root. The books cover is minimalist in it's design. It is textured, and beautiful, in cream and almost imperceptible tan, with those faux penknife-cut edges that can be so appealing. The paperback copy I received in the mail is different from it's borrowed counter-part, in blue and cream, but it appeals to me as well. The book is about a couple by the name of Maytree, not a shrubbery known as a Maytree as I first suspected. It is narrated. Very, very narrated. If you browse through a dozen pages or more you'll see exactly what I mean. Extensive narration seems to be one of Dillard's peculiarities as a novelist. Every detail is presented through the mediation of an omniscient narrator. I'm learning from Ann Banfield that narrated interiority was a late development in literature.

The Living is the last book in the set of books I ordered written by Dillard.

In general it is about a family and the descendants of a family who settle on some land off Bellingham Bay in Washington. It may follow the fortunes of the town of Whatcom. The land may be important as a character. I haven't figured these things out yet. Again, the story is highly narrated, and I am making my way through it slowly, which will be aided now by my having my own copy. I can't tell you what the title of the book means, though I have some ideas, because I haven't figured it out myself just yet. It's possible the title encompasses several shades of meaning. I plan to let you in on some of my thoughts on this at a later writing.

As this post has grown long already, and because I am tired (written Wednesday night to published in the morning), I'll tell you about the other books that were in the box on Friday. Now there's something for you to look forward to.

An Act of Documentation

I started out by telling you the story yesterday. Now the set up for the work, a picture of my state of mind as I begin:

The book I am using is Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, edited by Michael McKeon. I sent Fred Whiting the following message a couple of weeks ago. I include it here to give an idea about what I was thinking going into this project.

Thanks, Fred,

Whether it matters or not, I want to go ahead and write that paper. Now that's been decided, what do you need from me? How many pages should I be aiming for? What sort of proposal shall I make, etc.?

I plan to do some reading before I start to write, partly because my brain was mush while I was taking your class, and partly because it has been so long since I read much about Novel Theory. I still have the text, which was Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, edited by Michael McKeon. I have two areas of interest at the moment and I realize I need to zero in on one of them.

1.  It makes sense because the book I'm working from operates from this historical approach, but I am interested in sociocultural changes, such as changes in the conventions of representation, that produced the novel form. I suspect that it happened at the same time that fine art was allowed to invade the domestic sphere. I was thinking about starting by reading the material from Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding and the selection from Nancy Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. That might be a little broad

2. My other interest is in novel rhetoric, i.e. modes of expression that are peculiar to the novel form. There seems to be a good bit of that in the anthology, and I find that I am particularly drawn to matters of rhetoric and hermeneutics in my regular reading.

Actually, I'll start by reading McKeon's introduction to the anthology.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks again,

Kelly

Fred responded with the requirements, saying that either of my stated areas of interest would be fine. He also warned me not to monumentalize this paper, to remember that it's only a seminar paper. I'll try to keep that in mind. I think that whether I ultimately use one of the ideas already mentioned won't matter, so long as they get me moving. Seems like, for me, movement is what's key right now. As I've told Michael, I think I will enjoy the process once I get in there and get started doing it, but there is a certain resistance within me as I contemplate what must be done. That is part of my problem, of course. I think too much. I waste far too much time worrying about the work instead of doing it.