tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118505542024-03-23T13:55:19.255-04:00InscapesBeth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.comBlogger476125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-53430917380527169072020-05-21T13:40:00.000-04:002020-05-21T13:41:05.439-04:00On St. Alphonsus Rodriguez<style>
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On St. Alphonsus
Rodriguez</div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In honour of</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">St. Alphonsus Rodriguez</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Laybrother of the Society of
Jesus</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Honour is flashed off
exploit, so we say;<br />
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield<br />
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,<br />
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.<br />
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;<br />
But be the war within, the brand we wield<br />
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,<br />
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet God (that hews mountain
and continent,<br />
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,<br />
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)<br />
Could crowd career with conquest while there went<br />
Those years and years by of world without event<br />
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.</span></div>
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We crave glory in action, to be seen as victors, crowned
with the laurel or the oak and hailed in the streets (or on the Internet).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we die for a cause, we hope to be
immortalized in song and story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s human nature, to want to do brave deeds and to be rewarded for our
doing, and we are diligent to reward our heroes.</div>
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Gerard Manley Hopkins recognizes this in the first five
lines of his sonnet in honor of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez: it’s the warrior’s
exploits that we say give off the fire of glory; his “scarred flesh” and
“scored shield” should record his deeds as worthy and keep them in
memory. However, he seems to be not completely confident, the phrase
“so we say” suggesting that perhaps the assertion is at least open to
question: we say that glory “flames off exploit,” but is
this always the case? Yes, he asserts with confidence, the scars of
Christ do indeed bring Him glory, but the scars of the martyrs only “may” do so;
it is not a certainty. </div>
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Why his hesitancy to assign this glory to the martyrs?
Because there is a kind of battle men engage in that no one sees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some martyrs die very public deaths for
Christ, their “gashed flesh” a testament to their faith, but “the war
within” is unseen and unsung, however intense it may be. This
warrior of the heart carries no tangible sword, wears no steel armor, makes no
resounding battle-cry, even in the “fiercest
fray.” Certainly the world neither sees his scars nor rewards his
victories.</div>
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But God sees. The God who created the earth
itself with its most immense features – mountains, continents; the God who
created the most delicate details of nature – the incremental growth of a tree,
the veins of a violet . . . this God sees the inner conflict. And He
cares: He “crowds career with conquest”; He gives victory in these battles,
even when they last a lifetime, “years and years” while little else goes on in
the world and the warrior merely watches a door which is never challenged.</div>
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It was said, Hopkins told his friend Robert Bridges, that Alphonsus
Rodriguez was often "bedeviled by evil spirits," but also "much
favored by God" with visions of heavenly light. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By all accounts, Alphonsus (1533-1617) had a difficult life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recalled from school to take over the
family’s thriving textile business in his early 20s, he lost his mother, wife,
and daughter in the space of three years, had to sell the business and move
into his sister’s home, and then lost his son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He desired to join the Jesuits but was rejected because of
his poor education; at last he was taken in as a lay brother (a lay brother
cannot study for the priesthood).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For some 45 years he “watched the door” at the Jesuit college in
Majorca, his duties simple and seemingly mundane:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>open the door to visitors, take messages, run errands, and
distribute alms.</div>
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Throughout this time, he was continually beset with inner
temptations – the nature of which I have not found described – which drove him
to continual prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps these
were temptations to despair and discouragement (look at the losses he endured
and his lowly status), perhaps a critical spirit, perhaps far worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they were temptations known only to
himself and the few priests in whom he would have confided, as his spiritual
director and confessors.</div>
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Yet he became a beloved inspiration to the students of the
college, who often sought him out for advice and consolation, and who spoke of
him with loving admiration throughout their lives; and he became the patron
saint of Majorca, where he was known for his love for all – rich, poor, black,
white, slave, free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And those to
whom he confessed his temptations chose him to preach sermons to the priests at
their meals on feast days because of his good works, done in the faith and
prayer that led to his holiness.</div>
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He pursued holiness in the midst of temptations by, as he
described it, “taking the sweet for the bitter and the bitter for the
sweet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would imagine himself
before the crucified Lord and consider how much he was loved, how much Christ
suffered for him, and that his love for the Lord should lead him to accept his
own suffering as a sharing in Christ’s – thus leading the bitterness of
suffering to become sweet for Christ’s sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, the world’s sweets – its esteem and
pleasures – became bitter in the light of Christ’s love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This meditation, he wrote, would help
his “whole heart [to be] centered solely on God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when the bell rang at the door, he would envision God
awaiting entrance and call out, “I’m coming, Lord!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Alphonsus’ struggles only became widely known among the
Jesuits after his death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so Hopkins
celebrates, gives honor to, the one whose battle was not seen and honored by
the world or even by most of those close to him, and does so in a way to
encourage all of us who endure such private struggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God, he says, “could crowd career with
conquest” – give victories enough to “crowd” one’s entire life – no matter who
else sees, gives victories as great as any in literal battles to those who
suffer in heart and soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing
happened while Alphonsus watched the door – no wars, no plagues, no suppressions
– just endless errands run and messages delivered . . . but the battle raged
and God gave victory throughout the years.</div>
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What remarkable encouragement, to be reminded that the
world’s honor is not what we need to seek, or our own honor at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should seek the honor of the Lord we
serve; after all, the honor we give to Christ and His martyrs is for His sake,
not theirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if there are no
outward deeds of heroism to be done that may earn outward honor for Him, there
are heroic deeds aplenty to accomplish in the depths of our own hearts as we
pursue holiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if only our
very closest counselors ever know of the struggle, yet God knows and He is
pleased with us when we turn to Him in our need and in our gratefulness, so
that He may give the victory.</div>
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Hope should spring from this realization. Few of
us, in the end, will do great deeds to be memorialized in song; few of us will
become well-known martyrs for the faith. But all of us will battle
inner demons: sinful thoughts and desires, discouragement and
despair. While Satan himself may well torment us, even without his
harassment there will be plenty to battle. I find myself so easily
leaping to anger, unjustified criticism, guilt true or false, loss of
hope. It is all too easy to give in to these enemies, to dwell on
them.</div>
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But this is not who I am. It is who I was, and
the patterns reassert themselves when I lose sight of my real identity: a
daughter of the King, a servant of the Lord God. In Him, I am the
one who can repent of my sin and seek reconciliation with God and man; I am the
one who can offer patient love to one who irritates me; I am the one who sees
beauty everywhere, who finds joy in the darkest hours. I am the one
who wakes in the middle of the night with the words “I love you, Father”
inexplicably echoing in my mind and heart, and who understands that Christ in
me speaks those words – and because I am hidden in Him, cloaked in His love,
they are my honest words as well. </div>
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And although too often I am fearfully ensconced in my
worldly comfort, I desire to pray with Alphonsus, “Through Your most holy
passion and death, I beg of You, Lord, to grant me a most holy life, and a most
complete death to all my vices and passions and self-love, and to grant me
sight of Your holy faith, hope, and charity."</div>
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Certainly, until He returns or I am removed to His presence
through death, I will struggle with the sinful and dispiriting patterns of the
old man. But I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i>
struggle: I will fight the battle and know that victory is already
mine – I am made new in Christ who lives in me, and however fiercely the battle
rages at times, He is my Champion, and even in this life I may at least begin
to see the fruit of refusing to lay down my arms in despair. No
matter what others see or know, I can know that He sees it all, and upholds and
strengthens me, and will give me whatever due reward He Himself has earned for
me. </div>
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Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-82885288248935340222020-01-13T16:42:00.000-05:002020-01-13T16:52:22.235-05:00A Letter to Sir Roger<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
I wrote to Sir Roger Scruton last September (2018) in order to thank him for <i>Gentle Regrets</i>, his collection of familiar essays. I present that letter here as a way of telling others to read those essays, and to note his graciousness in the reply he sent. Since I have not yet made this into a review of the book for others, the specific content of the essays is assumed -- after all, he wrote them! Still, I think there is enough to suggest, for those who know me at least, why they are worth the reading. The world is a less rich place today for his loss, and I look forward to reading his work that I have not yet encountered.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dear Mr. Scruton,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I first encountered your work at <i>The New Atlantis</i>, in the essay "Hiding Behind the Screen," which I regularly assigned to my freshman students for the past several years when I had them write on technology and its ramifications in their lives -- both for its content and as a model for excellence in the craft of writing. The ones who were capable of reading anything longer than a paragraph were usually moved at least to thoughtfulness, and some, I think, took it to heart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have now retired from classroom teaching, in part because I have lost the patience to deal with so many who are indeed hiding behind their screens, from knowledge and wisdom as well as from human contact. I hope, however, to continue to speak about the value of these out-of-fashion concepts as I have opportunity in new ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have not read as much of your work as I would like, but I wish to especially thank you for <i>Gentle Regrets</i>. I love the form of the familiar essay, and these moved me in so many ways. "Roger" vs "Vernon": I have gone by a shortened name all of my professional life, but only because I love my full name and weary of having it continually murdered in spelling and even pronunciation -- your essay made me wonder about deeper motives for this choice and what it says about me and my relationship to both my parents and my writing. And Sam -- I have had my own Sams, and your wonderfully poignant essay reminded me to appreciate them more fully. I laughed and cried all through your journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The essays on Africa and on your experiences in Europe opened new vistas for this parochial U.S. citizen; I was in Spain for a few weeks in college and otherwise consider it somewhat "broad" of me to have lived in both the Midwest (Kansas, Missouri) and the South (Mississippi and now Tennessee). And my personal experiences have been, well, family and the academy (graduate degrees and college teaching, the latter mostly in small Christian colleges). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I am a lover and teacher of literature, and it is through the honest reflections of writers such as you that I have been able to know more than I happen to live and thus find my horizons widened and my soul, too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I would never have believed I could love an essay on architecture, but I loved yours and learned so much from it. Obviously there is a lot of ugliness in the world, and I find it helpful to be able to understand why it is so and what makes up the beauty I love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And as a conservative and a Christian, your essays on these remind me of the value of these beliefs in the world as well as in my own life, and show me other angles and perspectives within them to consider; I believe in absolute truths, but must think carefully about the areas of legitimate differences and not take myself as the judge of all, as if I could possibly have all truth about anything in a mere 66 years on this earth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In short, this book of essays has challenged me and encouraged me and taught me, and all in a beauty of language I can never hope to achieve (but I can hold it, along with a few other favorites, as a star to reach for). I thank you for it, and for all the work you have done in writing and in other actions; I thank you for making the world a better place and making at least this reader want to do so as well, however I can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">God bless and keep you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Dear Professor Impson,</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am so grateful to you for writing in such an appreciative and encouraging way about my work, and especially about <i>Gentle Regrets, </i>which contains things that mean a lot to me. And I very much appreciate your comments concerning ‘Hiding behind the Screen’. A vast and troubling change has occurred, which has cut us off from young people, and cut them off from the past. Just where it will lead I do not know. But it is so good that there are people like you with whom my books communicate. I hope you won't think me impertinent if I draw your attention to a book of stories - <i>Souls in the Twilight - </i>that will be published next month by Beaufort Books in New York. They also publish my novel <i>Notes from Underground</i>, about the old communist Czechoslovakia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span>Kindest regards,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">Roger Scruton</span> </span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-8744875605900142382019-09-12T17:28:00.002-04:002019-09-12T18:19:43.427-04:00The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Review: <i>The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">by Anthony Esolen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ignatius Press, 2019<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anthony Esolen has written numerous books and articles on faith and culture, has translated Dante’s <u>Divine Comedy</u>and other works, and has taught literature and classics for the past three decades, currently at Magdelen College in Warner, New Hampshire.<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hundredfold-Songs-Lord-Anthony-Esolen/dp/1621642925/ref=sr_1_1?crid=I073XHDSDDCR&keywords=the+hundredfold+songs+for+the+lord&qid=1568324568&s=books&sprefix=the+hundredfold%2Caps%2C151&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord</a></i>, Anthony Esolen offers a masterpiece to draw us back into love with poetry – and with the God who gave man the gifts of language and beauty. One hundred poems in varied forms unite to create one work of praise, encompassing the Word from Genesis to Revelation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In a 40-page introduction, Esolen presents the common reader with a crash course on reading poetry – the best I’ve seen in 35+ years of teaching the subject, and worth the price of the book in itself. If you think poetry is over your head or too esoteric for ordinary enjoyment, attending to this introduction will allay your fears and open a whole new world of beauty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Modern education has left most of us sadly bereft of a tradition of art that leads to accessible yet deep and complex beauty that moves the heart, and Esolen calls <i>The Hundredfold</i>, which is solidly based on that tradition, “a first salvo in the Christian reclamation of the land of imagination and song.” He wishes to suggest by it “what might be done by people with greater skill,” characterizing himself as “a battered old soldier on bad knees, who knows the hill must be charged . . . crying out instructions that he himself has not the strength to fulfill . . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Having known Tony and his work for many years now, I know he is sincere in his self-assessment, hoping that more talented others will “charge past [him] in blood and triumph.” They will, however, have to be very talented and work very hard to do so. I have taught much, and read much more, of the world’s greatest literature, and have rarely been so stunned with gratitude at an excellence of craft and content. Just the first 10-line poem has held me for a dozen readings, and I’m sure I haven’t yet plumbed its depths. Not because it is hard to read or understand – enough to move the heart is readily available on a merely attentive first reading – but because, like all the greatest literature, it contains layer after layer of thought, new connections and allusions that the reader finds in each visit. It is based on the Scripture “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> God breathed, and man became a living soul;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> And still His gift is every breath I take.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Each pulse of time is hastening to its goal;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> He sends His Spirit, and waves of being break<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> On the shoals of a barren world; the flower<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Springs in the day, and birds and beasts awake,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Blessed with a spray of life one glorious hour<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Till petals fall, and the heart rests in death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The Eternal grants to man a farther power:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> To live not only by but for His Breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The 67 lyric poems are meditations on lines from Scripture, ranging from 10-line curtal sonnets such as the one just quoted to a 100-line poem that concludes the collection. Some are Esolen’s personal responses to the Word, such as one based on “How wonderful is thy name in all the earth,” which he begins with “I love Thy works, O Lord, and always will,” offering us the sun “shining forth in brash delight,” then “blushing gently in his evening fall,” and finally the “deeps of night . . . / A sea powdered with stars,” and ending “so from above / Glimmers a world of glory manifold, / And my return is gratitude and love.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Many explore the depths of a verse, others connect various characters or concepts (such as several that bring together Eve and Mary, Balaam and Saul, and so on), and still others explicitly tie the Scripture to our modern world. One of these last, based on “You shall not make your children pass through fire,” laments the choice of barrenness so many people make today: “The man wishes he had no seed to cast / In the warm spring upon the ready earth; / The woman, that her womb were bolted fast – / Death they may fear, but birth / Is perfect terror.” It is a numbness of the modern age “to the pulse of both the night and day” that leads to a refusal to be open to life. They do not need to “haunt where Moloch’s flames appall, / Because they would not bear a child at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In a number of articles, Esolen has lamented the dearth of excellent new hymns, as well as the overuse of shallow praise ditties and performance music difficult for common parishioners to sing. In <i>The Hundredfold</i>, we find 21 new hymns set to 21 traditional tunes with lyrics easy to understand but deeply resonant with Scriptural truth. One example can’t show the breadth of style Esolen employs, but at least suggests the beauty contained; here is the last stanza from #XVI (to the tune Peel Castle):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Except a grain fall to the earth and die,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Alone and barren it must ever lie;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Thou broken grain, bread for the wayward, be<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Thy fruit our own, that we may live with Thee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The 12 dramatic narratives are inevitably my favorite. Robert Browning developed and perfected the form, and until now I had never read any that approach his skill; Esolen’s have me feeling that I am in back in Brit Lit immersing myself in the master’s work. It is not that Esolen imitates Browning; it is that he has mastered the form (much as one might master the sonnet or the villanelle) and offers it to us in brilliant new subjects. His speakers include Mary the Mother of Jesus contemplating her sleeping Son, the Apostle Paul trying to persuade Gamaliel that Jesus is the awaited Messiah, the boy with the five loaves and two fish, blind Bartimaeus, St. Peter on his failure of courage, an adulterous centurion, a skeptical blacksmith, and more. Each one reveals a character striving toward understanding, struggling perhaps with doubt or sin, celebrating the Christ and longing for His victory in the lives of His created ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">An old man tells his grandsons of following Christ about the countryside and then, one day, a miracle: “It was the one good thing I did in life,” he urges them to remember. Loving his wife, children, grandchildren – “It was all there that one day on the hill: / I brought him two fish and five loaves of bread. / Do that, my boys, and never mind the rest.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">St. Peter cries out, “I have beheld your eyes / And that has ruined my sins forever, that / Has ruined my life”; and later, “I am / A sinful man, do not depart from me, / Never abandon me to be myself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“We must choose,” St. Paul writes to his teacher, who has ever counseled waiting to see if this Jesus could be Messiah, “Whether the season pleases us or not, / We must, Gamaliel; let the pupil once / Instruct the teacher, let the fiery soul / Inflame the patient and the temperate. / Come with us, taste the goodness of the Lord! / In this sole hope I wait for your reply.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Poems, Esolen says, “should bring to mind the human things, pure, corrupt, clear, confused; they should say things that <i>matter</i>, simply because we are human.” Of this particular effort, his hope is that “wherever you find yourself in the Christian pilgrimage, and however the skies may look to you in the land where you are, you will hear something of your heart in the utterances and the cries of these lyrics.” That hope has been fulfilled in my heart, and it is my prayer that this book will touch the lives of many, beauty showing us the way to praise.</span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-3218756478384495632019-08-18T18:29:00.003-04:002019-08-18T18:30:17.944-04:00"Saviour of the World"<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of my children sent me the following prayer:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Saviour of the world,<br />What have You done to deserve this?<br />And what have we done to deserve You?<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br />Strung up between criminals,<br />Cursed and spat upon,<br />You wait for death,<br />And look for us,<br />For us whose sin has crucified You.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>To the mystery of undeserved suffering,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>You bring the deeper mystery of unmerited love.</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Forgive us for not knowing what we have done,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Open our eyes to see what You are doing now,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>As, through the wood and nails,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>You disempower our depravity</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>And transform us by Your grace.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c;">Amen.</span></div>
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(Church of Scotland, Common Order 1994)</div>
</i></span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-77977081668110060792019-08-12T19:12:00.001-04:002019-08-12T19:12:42.689-04:00Hopkins Again<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>A couple of quotes from Gerard Manley Hopkins, and an early poem that I'd not seen before. Enjoy!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(I capitalize pronouns referring to God though GMH does not, simply to avoid any confusion.)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: large;">"It is sad to think what disappointment must many times over have filled your heart for the darling children of your mind. Nevertheless fame whether won or lost is a thing which lies in the award of a random, reckless, incompetent, and unjust judge, the public, the multitude. The only just judge, the only just literary critic, is Christ, who prizes, is proud of, and admires, more than any man, more than the receiver himself can, the gifts of His own making . . . ." </span>(letter to R. W. Dixon, 15 June 1878)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Also in some meditation today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions, not to preserve them from being lost or coming to nothing, for that I am very willing they should be, but that they might not do me harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He should have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He would see fit. And this I believe is heard." </span><span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(Retreat, 8 September 1883)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"The Habit of Perfection"</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(sometime during 1864-1868)</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Elected Silence, sing to me</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And beat upon my whorled ear,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Pipe me to pastures still and be</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The music that I care to hear.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is the shut, the curfew sent</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From there where all surrenders come</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Which only makes you eloquent.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Be shelled, eyes, with double dark</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And find the uncreated light:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This ruck and reel which you remark</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Desire not to be rinsed with wine:</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The can must be so sweet, the crust</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So fresh that come in fasts divine!</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Nostrils, your careless breath that spend</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Upon the stir and keep of pride,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What relish shall the censers send</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Along the sanctuary side!</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That want the yield of plushy sward,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But you shall walk the golden street</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And you unhouse and house the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And, Poverty, be thou the bride</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And now the marriage feast begun,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And lily-coloured clothes provide </span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.</span><br />
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<br />Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-47580139097258257042019-07-29T10:14:00.000-04:002019-07-29T10:31:47.305-04:00"World without Event"<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">It was said, Gerard Manley Hopkins told his friend Robert Bridges, that Alphonsus Rodriguez, porter in a Majorcan monastery, was "bedeviled by evil spirits" throughout his life, but also "much favored by God" with visions of heavenly light. For the saint's feast day, Hopkins wrote the following sonnet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>In Honour of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Glory is a flame off exploit, so we say,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>And those fell strokes that once scarred flesh, scored shield,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Record, and on the fighter forge the day.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>On Christ they do, they on the martyr may;</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>But where war is within, what sword we wield</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Not seen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Yet, he that hews out mountain, continent,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Earth, all, at last; who with fine increment</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Trickling, veins violets and tall trees makes more</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Could crowd career with conquest while there went</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Those years and years by of world without event</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We crave glory in action – to be seen as victors, awarded the laurel or the oak and hailed in the streets (or on the Internet). If we die for a cause, we hope to be immortalized in song and story. It’s human nature, to want to do brave deeds and to be rewarded for our doing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hopkins recognizes this in the first five lines of the sonnet: it’s the warrior’s exploits that we say give off the fire of glory; his “scarred flesh” and “scored shield” should record his deeds and keep them in memory. However, he seems to be not completely confident, the phrase “so we say” suggesting that perhaps the assertion is at least open to question: we <i>say </i>that glory “flames off exploit,” but is this always the case? Yes, he asserts with confidence, the scars of Christ do indeed bring Him glory, but the scars of the martyrs only “may” do so – and glory from literal war is perhaps even less sure. </span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Why his hesitancy to assign glory to the exploits of literal battle? Because there is another kind of battle men engage in that no one sees but that is no less important – and perhaps more so. “The war within” is unseen and unsung by other men, no matter how intense it may be. This warrior of the heart carries no tangible sword, wears no steel armor, makes no resounding battle-cry, even in the “fiercest fray.” Certainly the world neither sees his scars nor rewards his victories.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But God sees. The God who created the earth itself with its most magnificent features – mountains, continents; the God who created the most delicate details of nature – the growth of trees, the veins of a violet . . . this God sees the inner conflict. And He cares: He “crowds career with conquest”; He gives victory in these battles, even when they last a lifetime, “years and years” while little else goes on in the world and the warrior merely watches a door which is never challenged.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hope should spring from this realization. Few of us, in the end, will do great deeds to be memorialized in song; few of us will become well-known martyrs for the faith. But all of us will battle inner demons: sinful thoughts and desires, discouragement and despair. While Satan himself may well torment us, even without his harassment there will be plenty to battle. I find myself so easily leaping to anger, unjustified criticism, guilt true or false, loss of hope. It is all too easy to give in to these enemies, to dwell on them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But this is not who I am. It is who I was, and the patterns reassert themselves when I lose sight of my real identity: a daughter of the King, a servant of the Lord God. In Him, I am the one who can repent of my sin and seek reconciliation with God and man; I am the one who can offer patient love to one who irritates me; I am the one who sees beauty everywhere, who finds joy in the darkest hours. I am the one who wakes in the middle of the night with the words “I love you, Father,” inexplicably echoing in my mind and heart, and who understands that Christ in me speaks those words – and because I am hidden in Him, cloaked in His love, they are my honest words as well. </span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Certainly, until He returns or I am removed to His presence through death, I will struggle with the sinful and dispiriting patterns of the old man. But I will struggle: I will fight the battle and know that victory is already mine – I am made new in Christ who lives in me, and however fiercely the battle rages at times, He is my Champion, and even in this life I may at least begin to see the fruit of refusing to lay down my arms in despair. No matter what others see or know, I can know that He sees it all, and upholds and strengthens me, and will give me whatever due reward He Himself has earned for me. </span></div>
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<i><span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Matt 6:6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-34553270688949531332018-12-14T12:22:00.000-05:002018-12-14T12:22:50.328-05:00Birds in the Rain<span style="color: #cc0000;">Looking out my study window, I saw</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> a flock of robins,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> at least seven bluejays,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> at least four cardinal pairs,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> one dove,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> assorted finches and sparrows,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> two wrens,</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"> a woodpecker.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000;">They were never still. They'd flit to the bird feeders or to the seed on the ground, then flit into the trees. They'd light on the sidewalk and search its borders. They'd soar from tree to tree. One male cardinal chased another through the trees and across the street, then returned calmly to his browsing of the lawn. The rest seemed content to eat in harmony. </span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000;">I watched for at least twenty minutes. All at once, in a flurry of wings, every bird swooped up from the ground and the lower branches into high branches of the trees or into the wood across the street. A predatory bird above them, a cat or dog nosing its way toward the yard? I saw nothing, but something had alerted them all at the same time and they were gone.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000;">A lovely twenty minutes on a grey day with rain, rain, rain sprinkling down seemingly never-ending. </span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #cc0000;">Thanks to God for beauty in the world.</span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-90443030744263134072018-11-24T12:23:00.002-05:002018-11-24T12:23:33.845-05:00On Dictionaries: A Musing on Serendipity, Awe, and Precision<span style="color: purple;">I am currently immersed in Alan Jacobs' essay collection <i>Wayfaring</i>. I have admired his work for years, since I first encountered it at <i>The New Atlantis</i>. One of my favorite nonfiction books ever is his <i>A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love</i>, which challenged me greatly since I know so little of philosophy, but blessed me greatly both because of the challenge and because of the subject. <i>Wayfaring</i> contains short essays on a mix of subjects from Harry Potter to Kahlil Gibran to trees to Christian faith and living to . . . dictionaries.<br /></span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Jacobs is no Luddite. However, he has wisdom and discernment, and he is properly thoughtful about new technologies and their possible unintended effects. In "Bran Flakes and Harmless Drudges," he explores the history of dictionary making and dictionary use. Toward the end, he considers advantages of the online dictionary and its disadvantages; to my mind, and I think to his, the latter outweigh the former by quite a lot. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">"[T]he exhibition of sheer potential embodied in every dictionary," he writes, "only happens, it seems to me, when the dictionary actually has a [physical] body. Surely every user of dictionaries or encyclopedias can recall many serendipitous discoveries: as we flip through pages in search of some particular chunk of information, our eyes are snagged by some oddity, some word or phrase or person or place, unlooked-for but all the more irresistible for that. [. . .] The great blessing of Google is its uncanny skill in finding what you're looking for; the curse is that it so rarely finds any of those lovely odd things you're <i>not</i> looking for. For that pleasure, it seems, we need <i>books</i>."</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">Later, Jacobs notes that someone has said that the linear text of books "narrows and impoverishes" our views (as opposed to hypertext). However, he objects, "it turns out that, when it comes to dictionaries anyway, it's hypertext that narrows and impoverishes. The simple fact that I cannot pick up a [physical] dictionary and turn to the precise page I wish, or even if I could do that, focus my eyes only on the one definition I was looking for -- the very <i>crudity</i>, as it were, of the technology is what enriches me and opens my world to possibilities. Only when I hold the printed book can I be ushered into the world of sheer fascination with proliferating language that people like Maria Moliner and Samuel Johnson inhabited, and encourage us to inhabit."</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I am reminded of a story one of my high school teacher friends once told me. As they were working in the library one day, a student asked her what a word meant, so she referred him to the print dictionary in the reference section. After a bit, she looked over to see him staring at it with a look of awe. "I never knew there were <i>so many</i> words," he murmured to her. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">And the fewer of those words we know, the less able we are to think and talk and write precisely and well about our world. I am constantly taken aback at complaints about how hard my college students found certain readings because of the vocabulary, when it is often nothing I and my peers had not encountered well before entering college. And then the resistance to learning those new words . . . as if they are too impatient to learn, to know, as if they are content to stagnate at age 18. </span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;">I am more of a Luddite than Jacobs and than most people I know, but certainly I acknowledge the benefits of much modern technology and use a fair amount of it. However, I've often thought about what we lose in our rush to embrace every new wonder, because losses there must be. Awe before the remarkable gift of language, the serendipity of discovery, precision -- these are losses, and, since language is our means of knowing and thinking about our world, one has to wonder how much loss we dare incur. </span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-2169868548733944002018-09-03T13:02:00.000-04:002018-09-03T13:02:52.488-04:00On Seeking a Net to Catch the Days<i><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: x-small;">A distinctly rambling consideration of the use of time when others are no longer telling me how to use each minute.</span></i><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">In Chapter Two of <i>The Writing Life</i>, Annie Dillard contemplates the place of routine in our lives, noting that it "defends from chaos and whim": </span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="color: #134f5c;">"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order -- willed, faked, and so brought into being; it a a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern."</span></i><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">I have had such a schedule for some 35 years now as a teacher of college literature and writing. The semesters form the underlying structure, with their predictable beginnings and endings and breaks, and the days themselves move hour to hour, five days a week precisely scheduled from class to meeting to class to prep to class to grading to class to conferences . . . Then summers to recuperate a bit and prepare for another year. Day after day, semester after semester, year after year indeed blend into one another in a pattern both blurred (individual details must be sought within the pattern; they don't stand out immediately) and powerful (this was a good life; it held meaning every moment of every day). </span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Now what? If schedules keep our lives productive -- and if the family genes hold true I may have a significant span of life left to me -- how shall I form a schedule that allows me the peace and rest that I need while creating a new pattern that will lend significance to what I do?</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">I am finding that being able to sleep until my body tells me it is ready to get up has already made a difference -- I still tire easily (I tired easily when I was a child), but I do not begin every day utterly weary and drag myself through each week never feeling well. So part of my new schedule will not be "arise at X time every day." Nor will it be "go to bed at X time every night" -- chronic pain is better or worse on any given day and largely dictates when it is likely I'll be tired enough to fall asleep without hours of tossing and turning. Nor will I avoid naps if my body cries out for sleep; rest during the day often helps control pain. This is the greatest boon of retirement: beginning to find physical rest far more often than has been my wont. (That and not grading papers.)</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">I let myself have this summer to simply live moment by moment. I had tasks on a list, but I never <i>planned</i> on accomplishing them more than a day in advance, and I didn't hold myself even to that plan; maybe my husband would suggest an outing, or I'd be in more pain than usual, so I'd let it go. But the tasks, clearly in mind and needing to be done, have mostly been accomplished. (We can find things in the kitchen cabinets and drawers now, for example, without having to take everything out.) There's a bit more of this kind of thing to be done, but there is no urgency to it; it will get done as I am ready (probably when I wish to procrastinate from something else . . .).</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">And I finished a special cross-stitch project recently, just awaiting a frame to be sent to its destination. I learned one new minor technique in the process, and I'm looking forward to designing more projects and learning more techniques I've admired for years.</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Other than that, it has mostly been reading -- visiting new novels I've had on my list forever, and re-visiting dozens of old favorites. I've not challenged myself a great deal -- except that every time I read, even books I've read a dozen times, I am finding something new about the characters, the plots, the themes . . . I read for pleasure, but not mindlessly, because the <i>understanding </i>alongside the storyline is what makes reading most pleasurable for me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">I've started turning to the more challenging books now -- Roger Scruton, Matthew Arnold's prose, Josef Pieper, Alan Jacobs. I have to re-attune my mind to this level; exhaustion for the last several years has kept me lazy for this kind of reading. But the benefits of course will be more than I will ever be able to explain. </span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">I've not done a great deal of writing yet, but am easing myself back into it. The problem is not lack of ideas; the problem is far too many, and being unclear as to where I want to focus my energy. I can count four very different directions without thinking, and more with a little contemplation. But all I've done so far is revise a short essay about my friend who died in the spring, write a short review of a book new to me, start an essay in response to questions someone posed, and work on a presentation I'll give in a colleague's class next week. And some journaling along the way. All very different forms and subjects.</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;"> I hear so many people say they are bored when they retire. And so many of my colleagues kept asking me, "But what are you going to <i>do</i> when you retire?" as if life is made up of grading papers. My problem is the opposite: I have so many things I want to do I can't settle into them. I'm not concerned about this yet; I'm still recovering from the past few years of physical and mental exhaustion and I'm fine with that for now. But it's time to start figuring things out, and I'm wondering what kind of schedule might help me do that.</span><br />
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c;">Domestic tasks, needlework, reading, writing, rest. I like being able to take off with my husband when he appears at the study door and asks if I want to go here or there with him, so I don't want to schedule myself out of spontaneity. I intend to take care of my need for rest, so hourly schedules are going to end up as mostly mere suggestions anyway. I've been told that I must act in retirement as I've always done, with a schedule to keep to as if it were imposed from outside -- but that seems counterproductive to my greatest needs. But the need for rest cannot take over the need to give -- to keep learning and growing and to offer what I can to my neighbor. </span><br />
<br />Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-46629994962114630392018-08-14T11:43:00.001-04:002018-08-14T11:44:26.761-04:00Cliffs of Fall: Remembering Christopher<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Christopher left us on 9
February 2018; this is how I was at Easter.)</span></span></i><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Cliffs of Fall</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>On a rainy Saturday morning in early February, I decided to
take just a quick glance at my college email. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moments later my husband appeared at the door of my study,
concerned, and I realized my repeated refrain – “no, no, no” – had raised from
a bare whisper to an outraged cry.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>“It can’t be true,” I managed to tell him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They say Christopher’s killed himself.”</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Christopher: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my
advisee, my friend, just a few weeks from graduation with highest honors, one
of those few students genuinely loved by all on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until I encountered his
absence from the hallways on Monday morning and his empty seat in my Hopkins
class that afternoon that I really believed I wasn’t trapped in a nightmare.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>The beret, the bowties: eccentricities to be sure, but not,
it became clear, for the purpose of garnering attention – it was just a style
he enjoyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And still my fingers
want to type “is” and “enjoys.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
committed student: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if I arrived at
my office by 7:00 or even earlier, Christopher was sure to be somewhere about,
reading, writing, preparing for his day, often greeting me with a new book or a
new insight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brilliant: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>already on his way to seminal work in
ancient philosophy in both his senior theses (a double major, of course, in
classical studies and philosophy).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Curious and eager: I had to order him to stop reading so that he would
have time to actually write and edit his thesis on Heraclitus before term’s end
in the fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caring: “how are
you?” meant he really wanted to know, and his popularity rose no more from his
quirky, fun-loving ways than from his ability to listen, to encourage, to speak
truth.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>He came to our small Christian college a believer, but not
fully satisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My course on
Gerard Manley Hopkins played into his seeking, and he converted to Catholicism
during that first semester of his sophomore year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He loved the Church as he loved his Lord, and he taught us
much about his new-found home – which he was studying and living with typical
whole-hearted enthusiasm – and reveled in filling the gaps in our
Protestant-driven ignorance as we tried to understand the theology that drove
Hopkins’ life and work. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had
been retaking the class as an audit in this senior year, for fun as well as to
deepen his understanding of the poetry, and I had been relying on his
articulate explanations of Catholic theology and life.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>We knew he struggled with depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew our hearts, and our time, were
always open to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet none of us
had any idea how deep the darkness lay, and on Monday the campus itself felt
heavy with sorrow, anger, and confusion, as we met each other in hallways and
classrooms with aching hearts and weeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My own frustration turned from Christopher (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">why did you do this!</i>) to those who
seemed to demand that there be a specific, clear, easy-to-articulate answer to
that very question, wanting to blame his circumstances or his pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’ve been there,” I kept telling them;
“there is no answer that will satisfy you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I quoted Hopkins again and again: </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>O the mind, mind
has mountains; cliffs of fall </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>Frightful, sheer,
no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>May who ne'er hung
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>And inside I was crying out, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">O Christopher, why couldn’t you hold to the hope that your beloved poet
showed you even in his own darkest moments!</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>In chapel, the gospel was preached alongside the
memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There, thankfully, no
one tried to explain, only to offer hope, for Christopher, for us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some now-forgotten word spoken by
one of his other faculty mentors, I doubled over in near-physical pain –
because in that moment, I suddenly realized the awful pain we were feeling as only
the tiniest pang of all the pain of all the world, and images flooded my mind:
the horrific torture and killing of believers in the Middle East; the degrading
enslavement of women and children to the lust of evil men; abortion and the
genocide of those with Down’s Syndrome; murders on the streets, and in
hospitals where the elderly and the infirm are discarded like so much trash;
the suffering and death of multitudes from disease and injuries; destroyed
marriages, rebellious children, abusive or absent parents; the suffering of
those like Christopher – so many, too many – trying to find peace and somehow
missing it . . .</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>I literally could not breathe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>The moment passed, but I have held to it since, wanting
always to know that the brokenness I see is the barest image of the brokenness
that is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One can’t think of it too
often, much less feel it – we mortal beings aren’t made to bear the whole
world’s burdens – but it was good to catch that tiny glimpse of what our Lord
sees and bears every moment of every day, the brokenness we have brought on
ourselves in our demand to be like Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In some manner that I cannot explain, that moment of horrific darkness strengthened
my hope in His light to illumine our way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If He died for all that, if He carries all that every day . . . then He must love
us indeed.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b>And yet, despite that hope, the rain continues to dog us even
as April begins with its Easter resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that empty chair in my Hopkins class . . . that chair is
so empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-A6qVCv_w1fU9DpYMhTmzcP2xqWbIGA8X78nuCG8pwoeaMAYQUr-GguJijPwjLpZcDBjP0vOMzBIFsEqxlHNoTKoRlK8hnq0ufkAJr43EId_LWOrzwVM9cvEO5PrMQu9EC_p/s1600/desk+and+chair.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-A6qVCv_w1fU9DpYMhTmzcP2xqWbIGA8X78nuCG8pwoeaMAYQUr-GguJijPwjLpZcDBjP0vOMzBIFsEqxlHNoTKoRlK8hnq0ufkAJr43EId_LWOrzwVM9cvEO5PrMQu9EC_p/s400/desk+and+chair.jpg" /></a></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/celebu/8139979962/" target="_blank">Celeste Damiani at Flickr</a>, Creative Commons licensing</i></span></div>
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Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-36524549453015254552018-08-07T12:34:00.000-04:002018-08-07T12:37:19.079-04:00The Squire's Tale<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">Hunting for something new at McKay's the other day, I ran across a series by Margaret Frazer -- the Dame Frevisse Medieval Mysteries -- in which a nun in a medieval convent solves crimes. It looked intriguing, and a quick glance showed the writing to be good, so I decided to try it out and bought <i>The Squire's Tale</i>. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">It's a quiet, slow-paced novel, allowing the reader to get a sense of character, setting, and context without leaping into the criminal action. In fact, the murders to be solved don't even occur until nearly 3/4 of the way through. Yet I didn't find myself wondering when we would get to that point; I felt that the development warranted it and merely kept wondering which character it would be, given the dynamics among them.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">Dame Frevisse interests me very much. She is a woman of faith, who loves God and the worship of God, who gives willing obedience to her superior in the convent, who goes about her tasks with a generally willing and cheerful spirit. When her tasks are not to her liking, she takes herself in hand, bites back uncharitable words and thoughts, and gets on with it. When a matter is none of her business, she curbs her curiosity and turns her mind elsewhere. At the same time, she notices all that goes on around her and remembers it when she needs it.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">Not that she is a doormat, not at all. When the abbess proposes that she wear an expensive cloak (a gift from her cousin which she never wears because of her vow of poverty) on her journey, she points out that the other sister has no such cloak and it would look out of place for one to be richly dressed, the other not; the abbess accepts her assessment. When the lady of the house she stays in for a time acts the fool, Dame Frevisse rebukes her calmly and firmly and does not give in to her pleas for undeserved pity. When the men of the household demur at her asking questions, she simply asserts the authority given her by the master of the house and persists.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">Perhaps because the murders occur so late in the book, I did find the resolution a little too quick. It wasn't unprepared for; I had suspected the culprit now and then though without certainty. But we hadn't been as well prepared for the motive as I would have liked. (I also felt that one of the principle characters should have done a bit of penance before being rewarded, though the reward is just.) However, for me these were minor flaws.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">Especially refreshing: no foul language; no explicit sex or excessive gore; unashamed discussion of sin, repentance, love of God, right and wrong; characters who struggle with sin and desire to live righteously; a main character who is willing to obey God and man yet without being limply subservient and while upholding the claims of justice. In other words, I found it realistic without giving in to certain modern sensibilities which I find wearying at best.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">I'd put this novel on a par with </span><a href="https://www.fictiondb.com/author/ngaio-marsh~series~a-roderick-alleyn-mystery~1567.htm" target="_blank">Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn</a><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;"> series and plan to gather others as I can. </span><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">An enjoyable day's read, and, if you like character development and quiet pacing, definitely worthwhile.</span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-81922475711213877442018-04-29T21:38:00.000-04:002018-04-29T21:39:50.505-04:00Gratitude<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><b>We proclaim Him . . . teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ (Col. 1:25).</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I was never going to teach. It was not even at the bottom of a list of possible paying
vocations I’d ever considered. But
when the time came that circumstances forced me into the workforce to support
our family, it was the quickest way to that end – so here I am, some 35 years
later, about to grade my last projects, my last finals, and I cannot imagine
any work that would have been better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">There is so much to be grateful for:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my own teachers who prepared me so well
for such a time; the literature itself which shaped me, grew me, even at times saved
me;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my colleagues over the years
who have taught, challenged, and encouraged me; my students who have so
graciously allowed me to be part of their lives in and out of the classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Still, so often through the years, discouragement would
strike, and many were the days I dragged myself home wondering if I’d ever done
anyone any good, if the work had been worthwhile that day or ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so today I want to give a special
thanks to those who went to great lengths to show me, in this final semester,
that my work has in fact not been in vain, that this “Jack, joke, poor
potsherd, | patch, matchwood” has, in Him and Him alone, done the only work I ever
hoped to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The Academic Office put on a reception for the two of us
retiring this year (the other being the matchless, beloved drama
teacher/director “Mr. B” – Bernie Belisle).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My thanks to Kevin, Rhonda, Audrey for your work in
arranging the event (including AJ and the luscious cake and excellent catering
service).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your thoughtful gift to
me is one I will always treasure – the beautiful leather journal and the silver
pen inscribed with the Bryan motto, “Christ Above All.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you to all of you, to President
Livesay and the Board and the rest of our administration, for all the years of
encouragement, assistance, and loving friendship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have always made me feel at home in a place where Christ
is indeed held above all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNmjdw7zNOC8b4298zuDlNQw0AfLhUCnKUaOZg-Zy20_jNW3VA20AneV9HgOPlTJCHaGzzGwvMFrgbEC2IKdKbh6btXGdnHyoqeaKjlr7OjsR7oKKGahEzA6wLy3umAbkALRq/s1600/journal+and+pen.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeNmjdw7zNOC8b4298zuDlNQw0AfLhUCnKUaOZg-Zy20_jNW3VA20AneV9HgOPlTJCHaGzzGwvMFrgbEC2IKdKbh6btXGdnHyoqeaKjlr7OjsR7oKKGahEzA6wLy3umAbkALRq/s320/journal+and+pen.jpg" width="188" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqM8To_24xv6WX_Rguz5uvu4uvHYIyTjWCueQxldCzlSRrjad1sB-2pkmSSRDwodFqKMH8OhfgSZs7M8tbheZ4ICu8tDT-CEGi7fi_JGEVcgdwy0ew1OXxVP9lTdOCjxmPxNFd/s1600/journal+and+pen+box.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqM8To_24xv6WX_Rguz5uvu4uvHYIyTjWCueQxldCzlSRrjad1sB-2pkmSSRDwodFqKMH8OhfgSZs7M8tbheZ4ICu8tDT-CEGi7fi_JGEVcgdwy0ew1OXxVP9lTdOCjxmPxNFd/s320/journal+and+pen+box.jpg" width="204" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">My peerless colleagues in the English Department – Ray,
Whit, Daniel – made the week all the more special with a personal gift of
Victorian-themed embroidery tools (scissors, needle-holder, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have come to know me well, not
just as a colleague but as a friend, and so you know my various plans and
loves and I appreciate your showing your love for me in this sweet way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are my friends and my brothers, and I thank you for all
you have meant to me over the years, all the prayers and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>laughter, and the shared tears and
sorrows as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are the best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYcTVqx_UDKiNobE5vWJwdci8_L1nTcLbL6OS5BDRUUag1v1MiJGgEuwbRxeHu4Wr_u9wTwp96qU4i5n46efP26BWxqwlop_kj06wFWPbxYNtYI8n7VwTUaXILFhsneNrlwsDq/s1600/embroidery+accessories.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYcTVqx_UDKiNobE5vWJwdci8_L1nTcLbL6OS5BDRUUag1v1MiJGgEuwbRxeHu4Wr_u9wTwp96qU4i5n46efP26BWxqwlop_kj06wFWPbxYNtYI8n7VwTUaXILFhsneNrlwsDq/s320/embroidery+accessories.jpg" width="290" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But they did so much more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ray arranged an opportunity for our students and alums to
shower me with appreciation, gathering cards and printing off emails from them to fill a
lovely handcrafted keepsake box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dozens of the precious ones I have taught over the years took the time
to send such kind and humbling words; thank you, my dear colleagues, for
arranging such a special gift.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZAXf4vwvEaErTC_ZJWtpqLphQRhUB0MTA8LETt_JvM2SK5qaFkixQkgNQx8aMaCk2gW9WpW7J8tq2zX5hTDQbyzyn7QM4hG7UCUT_5karAyRTKCihhXdmsBZ77abNuhcgPlj/s1600/keepsake+box+2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZAXf4vwvEaErTC_ZJWtpqLphQRhUB0MTA8LETt_JvM2SK5qaFkixQkgNQx8aMaCk2gW9WpW7J8tq2zX5hTDQbyzyn7QM4hG7UCUT_5karAyRTKCihhXdmsBZ77abNuhcgPlj/s320/keepsake+box+2.jpg" width="211" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwYcR0WGj4CcRO_VasCrG4DNB4JF3QyRSlgi7nejw5igeWgzqI_n2l5buQ521FbEhEp8IeeP4o6aW_Vr27R6VtCc9ShGsV4VHOA34uGQkbUigAkatlq5UfYOa47OAIxm5K_4Cs/s1600/keepsake+box.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwYcR0WGj4CcRO_VasCrG4DNB4JF3QyRSlgi7nejw5igeWgzqI_n2l5buQ521FbEhEp8IeeP4o6aW_Vr27R6VtCc9ShGsV4VHOA34uGQkbUigAkatlq5UfYOa47OAIxm5K_4Cs/s320/keepsake+box.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">To those who wrote (and those who have written at other
times with similar words, whose letters and emails will also go into this box):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how can I ever thank you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You were always the reason that even on
the darkest days I could find a smile and see the beauty both in the work
itself and in your eager eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
specific conversations and classes and even off-hand comments you remember show
me the power of our Lord to work – through literature, through writing, through
a mere teacher trying to do her best by all three – to work His truth, His
beauty, His goodness into all our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thank you for that gift.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And thanks, too, for a candy tree growing out of unicorn
mug, for a lovely hand-crafted necklace, for an adorable crocheted pet, for a stunningly crafted blown-glass kingfisher which
will catch fire in my eastern window, and for the endless hours of shared
laughter, tears, failures, and victories, conversations silly and serious about
literature, about writing, about life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You are God’s blessings to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifrK3PKX7I_0SXoxil3BGavoNS_2h1u9mtGljVLHsAhFfDntVwd6Vz07M0T0nMUID9yda0xBqPy4JYcJtmGj-8eb1EwwZgeQDW0dgn1iFgn599uVLIYjMjXHrCBVeT9scUhxeg/s1600/kingfisher.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifrK3PKX7I_0SXoxil3BGavoNS_2h1u9mtGljVLHsAhFfDntVwd6Vz07M0T0nMUID9yda0xBqPy4JYcJtmGj-8eb1EwwZgeQDW0dgn1iFgn599uVLIYjMjXHrCBVeT9scUhxeg/s320/kingfisher.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I deserve none of this and no credit:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all is His work and His glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Live for that, dear ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Act in God’s eye what you are:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Chríst — for Christ plays in ten
thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To
the Father through the features of men's faces.” And know always that you
live in my heart as ones who have shown Him to me.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-90967678184642551702017-07-28T20:05:00.000-04:002017-07-28T20:05:37.228-04:00Goldfinches and Echinacea<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vDwX3IvFrjLOcksjKRnyvJMvPY7FNeRrfVO-r0noKB20ASN7ZSZQHV5xjkBDFiQT6eJ630RY2tF44vZz2WAVoo2HHEOTbSfhwlCWu2Zt1lE37fXrRtQSbta-jJoyjif_2ZQ1/s1600/Echinacea+purpurea+2.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vDwX3IvFrjLOcksjKRnyvJMvPY7FNeRrfVO-r0noKB20ASN7ZSZQHV5xjkBDFiQT6eJ630RY2tF44vZz2WAVoo2HHEOTbSfhwlCWu2Zt1lE37fXrRtQSbta-jJoyjif_2ZQ1/s320/Echinacea+purpurea+2.png" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;"><b>The echinacea are dying, but the goldfinches have arrived to harvest their seeds and offer sunbursts of color to replace the fading purple. The ladies, too, in their dusky yellow dresses create a lovely complement to their mates. As we stood watching from the window, one flew like an arrow through the echinacea across the yard and straight up to the glass as if to say hello. How sweet she looked, how bright her mate on the flowers, on this drab rainy day. Beauty everywhere if we only pause to look.</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI1jm512QFDXkc3JtI-lYZLAcc0HU1SlPCn8uYmNqb9bGmsUY0SCHzgH0uHQ67jzWkCc4rw1B7In9MibyetaouG1i08HbMvGCQ_60IGNAxphde6TXQ9lRacNYVcK1hlwzFzZ1t/s1600/5c59fe2d604e0e2f0955fc8af1ef6dd2--wildflower-tattoo-goldfinch.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI1jm512QFDXkc3JtI-lYZLAcc0HU1SlPCn8uYmNqb9bGmsUY0SCHzgH0uHQ67jzWkCc4rw1B7In9MibyetaouG1i08HbMvGCQ_60IGNAxphde6TXQ9lRacNYVcK1hlwzFzZ1t/s320/5c59fe2d604e0e2f0955fc8af1ef6dd2--wildflower-tattoo-goldfinch.jpg" width="320" /></a>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-88974490174641978432017-05-13T17:43:00.000-04:002017-05-13T22:14:57.711-04:00A Mother's Day Letter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgbYAmG8paZlFmoHfJd1rmSto1irOJM5u6owyU00xvWhQ_YpzE0hV5pb65Oq880298z2ouN6thx8b9HJcZTeH9UVtBhkis_sRxVxeZ8kyLIDE8gtd651U3so5catmPMwG15Y4/s1600/4+generations+Mar2016+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgbYAmG8paZlFmoHfJd1rmSto1irOJM5u6owyU00xvWhQ_YpzE0hV5pb65Oq880298z2ouN6thx8b9HJcZTeH9UVtBhkis_sRxVxeZ8kyLIDE8gtd651U3so5catmPMwG15Y4/s320/4+generations+Mar2016+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Four generations . . . </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">{The letter I wrote to Mother last year (2016) for Mother’s
Day}</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Dear Mother,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>It takes no special occasion to say “I love you” and we both
know how much that’s true both ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But today I just want to say it this way.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>I’m sorry for the <u>reason</u>
you are here in Tennessee already, but every day I thank God you <u>are here</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love being able to see you and to talk and laugh and cry
and gripe with you, to know how human we both are and yet to see – shot through
it all – God’s love and grace.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thank you for your wisdom – all the more precious because
you don’t pretend it isn’t hard to live it, hard to win it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all the grief I gave you when
younger, you were always the Orion leading me back to the Lord you serve and
love.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thank you for your example of loving – family, friends,
church, community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have given
and given and given – and you still are, though you find it harder to see just
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The staff there [at the assisted living home] love you, the people who come to visit you are blessed by
your smile and your humor and the love that shines through you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to be like you when I grow up!</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thank you for your love for Daddy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You two showed me every day what love is – the ability to
care for another more than for yourself, to set aside self to serve another,
all that the Scripture tells us love is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not holding on to little irritations, but leaving them behind, working
together to make a life of oneness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know you miss that so terribly, and knowing you will be with Daddy
again will make it easier for me when it’s time to let you go.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thank you for your good humor, and showing me how to be
honest about difficulties with those close to you without losing the bigger
perspective of God’s love, in it all,
even in the hardest of it.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>I have friends who have walked life with me, who have loved
me and prayed for me, and I am grateful for them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, Mother, you are the one who will always hold a place
that no one else could fill – your love has shown me how to love, and your love
will always be the most important guide on earth to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that is good in me has come through
you and Daddy and the One you have always pointed me to.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Thank you, I love you, and happy Mother’s Day!</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhRr-80GMovW-2Jku70yOWWyrIW_AEvJq6dlCjUsZr1h2WhyphenhyphennlE8hGG4BdPge6L-7DtFx9ggo_ba-vJeLSiU3LcclIcKaLHGoRUvvqQZOxoUlcdz6g6URhkK3r3dZC9XYpV2O/s1600/daddy+and+mother+wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhRr-80GMovW-2Jku70yOWWyrIW_AEvJq6dlCjUsZr1h2WhyphenhyphennlE8hGG4BdPge6L-7DtFx9ggo_ba-vJeLSiU3LcclIcKaLHGoRUvvqQZOxoUlcdz6g6URhkK3r3dZC9XYpV2O/s320/daddy+and+mother+wedding.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mother and Daddy's wedding photo.</span></div>
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Children and Children-in-law and Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren . . . (and missing a fair number of them, too!)<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKapEJB-PBfP6ja9VnKD6OsY0akIJtPs2NsD2Hnhkni3vR4-U0Zne4aRpz6h5d_aZLoDH1gtEoKMyhKFcHh7QtYHtftlvDBh-YpJk7j9CbDrjgEDQllmDrxK2uXLZkAVn7d02f/s1600/the+whole+family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKapEJB-PBfP6ja9VnKD6OsY0akIJtPs2NsD2Hnhkni3vR4-U0Zne4aRpz6h5d_aZLoDH1gtEoKMyhKFcHh7QtYHtftlvDBh-YpJk7j9CbDrjgEDQllmDrxK2uXLZkAVn7d02f/s320/the+whole+family.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-10351746943522041962017-03-16T23:17:00.000-04:002017-03-16T23:17:31.219-04:00Retirement<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><o:p> </o:p>I recall a number of years ago when a sweet 18-year-old
wrote a paper explaining how saving for retirement, even thinking about
retirement, is sin. We must use
all our resources for the gospel and never consider stopping work before we
die. Anything we save for the
future is utterly selfish and taking away from God’s kingdom, and laziness
could be the only possible reason a Christian would want to retire from
full-time employment.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was, by that time, beginning to feel some of the chronic
pain and exhaustion that has increased over the years, and I found her
reasoning to be, shall we say, youthful, as well as non-biblical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve heard iterations of it since, some
just as extreme, and mostly from folk who are either young or have physical
constitutions stronger than some of the rest of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I call foul.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Of course, part of the problem is the cultural vision of
retirement displayed all around us:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>make lots of money so you can fulfill all your hedonistic dreams for as
many years as possible, without responsibility to anyone but yourself or
anything but your desire for ease and pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, retirement need not mean this, not at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, this vision of retirement is
the one that leads to discontent, boredom, restlessness, and even, for many,
early death. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In fact, retirement can simply mean the ability to serve God
and others in different ways – and perhaps in better health because it is
easier to pace yourself, to rest sufficiently, to say no when necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The problem with modern retirement is
not the saving of resources or the withdrawing from full-time paid work: it is a
lack of purpose beyond ourselves for the time it gives us.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We are, certainly, to give generously to God’s work from
what we earn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are also to save
for the future so as not to be a burden on others unnecessarily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How each of us balances this tension
must be left between us and God, not mandated at some special rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may give now and find that others
cannot give later because they must meet the needs I failed to prepare for; I
may save now and find myself tempted to waste my overabundant resources
later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because there is no formula
here, we must learn to walk in the Spirit and cultivate our desire to serve God
with our resources, listening to His voice day by day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We have a responsibility to provide for family; in a
one-income family, if the working spouse dies, it is no bad thing if the other
is not thrown into penury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for
those of us with children, it is a delight to be able to assist them now and
know that if there are resources left after our deaths, these can benefit those
we love, to help them be more secure and able to serve more freely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parents are supposed to do this when
they can.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To work until one dies is simply not possible for many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The physical realities of aging can
make it imperative to slow down and do less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I am not capable of doing my job well, it is not loving
service to cling to it; love recognizes it’s time for someone else to do it
better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no one can depend on
dying in the middle of a workday; many people decline in physical and/or mental
health to the point where work is impossible and being cared for is imperative.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But slowing down before that point is not by definition stopping
one’s service to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is
always service to be done, and ways to use the wisdom we have – we hope –
accumulated over the years, even if it is “only” to be an Anna praying
faithfully in the temple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She,
after all, was rewarded to see the Messiah enter the world and to have her
praise and prophecy recorded for all time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Some may retire with strength and be able to do much active
service in the church, the community, the mission field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some may retire with lesser strength
and find a place in quieter and more isolated service – writing, mentoring an
individual or two, being involved in the lives of extended family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, kinds of service cannot be
mandated, nor can they be measured and compared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The invalid who prays faithfully may be doing more for the
kingdom of God than the elderly Martha who insists on heading every activity in
the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What, anyway, are we called to do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love God and our neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In every act we take, every thought we think, every word we
speak or write, we are to love God and our neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This call never varies and never ends, to the moment of our
death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My career is not my life;
it is only one small part of my life, however much time it may take of my
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am teacher, yes, but I am
also wife and mother and grandmother, daughter and sister, friend, neighbor,
citizen of a community, a state, a country – and above all and permeating all,
a believer in the Christ, in whose service all these things are to be lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Am I excusing myself here for the decision we have made that
I will retire after one more year of teaching?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t believe so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It has become clear in many ways that I cannot continue full-time work
much longer and do it well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am
grateful for the way in which God has allowed me to do what was required – to be
the necessary sole financial support for my family – by being immersed in
teaching the literature and the writing skills that I so love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now it is time to withdraw from
that work and move toward other works of service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know yet what that may look like – writing some of
the pieces that have burdened me for years, I hope; serving the home school
community in some way, perhaps; more energy to give to family, surely; who
knows what may come my way? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But I know I desire one thing above all else, however
imperfectly I live it, and that is to serve Him and honor Him to the day of my
death, as I have been privileged to see my parents and others before me do. I will appreciate the prayers of my
friends as we begin thinking through all the implications of this decision over
the next year, and most of all that we will be good listeners to His Spirit,
letting His voice guide us in it all.</span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-12422788279266357372017-02-04T11:50:00.000-05:002017-02-04T11:50:21.439-05:00Gratefulness<div style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.24px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>My wonderful mother lived at the Veranda (assisted living home) in Dayton after she moved to TN last year. (It's part of the Life Care facility north of town.) From the day she moved in we never had a doubt that it was a wonderful place for her. I can honestly say that we have had no significant complaint at any time, only praise.</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.24px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.24px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>The facility itself is beautiful, and is extremely well kept up. It's refreshing and calming just walking into it. I saw a number of the roo<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ms, and the residents have furnished and decorated them with pride; it was so much fun to visit them to see and hear about a bit of their lives.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
The nurses and aides and all the rest of the staff -- from receptionists to housekeepers -- didn't just do their jobs with excellence, they did them with love. My mother made friends with the other residents, certainly, but the staff became her friends too. They love the residents like family, making time for conversation and encouraging them every day. Every time I arrived to visit, before I could get to Mother's room I was met with stories of something she had said or done that had made others laugh or encouraged them, and when I got to her room, it was to hear stories of how they had made her laugh and encouraged her.</div>
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When Mother returned to the Veranda after a short hospitalization for her fall, the staff greeted her like a family member who'd been gone for months. Each one made her way to her room as soon as possible to let her know she was *home*. They told me they had hoped and prayed she would be able to spend her last days under their care because they had come to love her so much. I am convinced that hearing their familiar, loving voices made those days much more bearable -- not to mention the constant prayer with which they bathed her.</div>
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And they give that same love to the families of the residents; I am known by sight and name to many whose names even now I am unsure of, staff members I've only seen a few times. Their loving concern has been for me in these days as well as for Mother, and I have benefited so much from them. As I sat with her, they brought me meals, ice water, anything they could think of; they never left the room after caring for her without asking if they could do anything for me as well. They gave me hugs; they prayed for and with me. They cried with me when she was gone.</div>
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If you or someone you love has to have assisted living care someday, pray that you find a place with half the love and expertise of the Veranda and you will be in good hands.</div>
</i></span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-61844556649682771362016-12-10T22:37:00.000-05:002016-12-10T22:48:15.647-05:00All Flame<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cBtsbgmTlZaxBtL4V-IMFLX9t-FtDtioLR-rZSocP2cZeQnchimdNXiwBTIzEeowowhmE94BoGJyqw70o33f20C-2c8qOHkbIMot7YJFUfoWQIf4B7ZUsguGTD4jNjTpCkG_/s1600/fire-orange-emergency-burning.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cBtsbgmTlZaxBtL4V-IMFLX9t-FtDtioLR-rZSocP2cZeQnchimdNXiwBTIzEeowowhmE94BoGJyqw70o33f20C-2c8qOHkbIMot7YJFUfoWQIf4B7ZUsguGTD4jNjTpCkG_/s320/fire-orange-emergency-burning.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and, as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://orthodoxwiki.org/Sayings_of_the_Desert_Fathers#Abba_Joseph">Sayings of the Desert Fathers</a></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ-1wGIr47zOC3amgyDQijF8DzXlsPPP8mPjYRUpLziOiHbEg-zvnhqkUz27q8cCdrS0NDbEVqeMr27A94S8yc1cAJZNQ-awXEg64E9gRJLe80oqj0A49cYJ9PDs_tFMvo3rP/s1600/128535195560080925fireburning%2521%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQ-1wGIr47zOC3amgyDQijF8DzXlsPPP8mPjYRUpLziOiHbEg-zvnhqkUz27q8cCdrS0NDbEVqeMr27A94S8yc1cAJZNQ-awXEg64E9gRJLe80oqj0A49cYJ9PDs_tFMvo3rP/s320/128535195560080925fireburning%2521%2521.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span><br />
<br />Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-2192130538453875642016-10-08T22:49:00.002-04:002016-10-08T22:51:25.017-04:00Worm Theology<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">Worms normally come to my attention in one of two ways – I’m teaching Blake’s “The Sick Rose” to my students, or it’s raining. The literal worm evoked in Blake’s poem is likely to appear first to be one of those tiny green caterpillar-like creatures (actually the larva of the sawfly) which eats into the heart of a rose and destroys it; then, when the worm is said to “fly through the night,” it’s likely to evoke the image of a dragon. These creatures leave only ruin in their path, and they work in the poem metaphorically to lead us to see the destruction caused by the “dark secret love” that is lust. I have no sympathy for such worms, literal or figurative.</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;"><br />Earthworms, on the other hand, stay underground eating dirt, decently out of sight and mind, until it rains, when they appear in multitudes on the sidewalks. I hate walking to class in the rain because of these pale grayish snaky little creatures; invariably there are so many I can’t avoid the disgusting squish of several beneath my shoes before reaching my destination. And when the sun returns, the shriveled corpses of those who waited too long to return home continue to unpleasantly litter the walk until the groundskeepers’ leaf blowers scatter them into the grass. Living or dead, they seem of no particular value, worthy only of being crushed beneath our shoes as we go about our important business. <br /><br />It’s earthworms, in fact, that give us the phrase "worm theology," the image suggesting that we human beings, too, are just wretched worthless worms in the dirt, deserving nothing more than to be ground under God’s foot. I have always rejected this conception of human worth. We are indeed desperately fallen, but we were created by God Himself – whose creation was, by His own affirmation, "very good" – and are redeemed by the sacrifice of His Son: and that means we were and are not wretched worms (even if we foolishly choose to live in the dirt sometimes). We were originally destined for glory and eternal life with God, and we may still receive that destiny in Christ, who loves us even in our fallenness and delights in us when we become His brothers. As C. S. Lewis puts it, we would tremble before the least and worst human being if we truly understood that each of us is an immortal soul.<br /><br />Lately, however, I've been doing some thinking about worms. I remember the topsoil my daddy used to sift through, knowing by its dark, rich texture where he would find earthworms to bait his hook to catch trout for our table, where they had done their job well so that our garden would grow a rich harvest. And now, after a bit of research, I’ve decided that worm theology is not just unfair to man, it's unfair to worms. In fact, earthworms are greatly slandered if we think of them as wretched, useless creatures deserving of no regard. Rather, they are a lovely example of true servanthood.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">The earthworm, a simple, blind, not especially appealing creature, lives underground and is seldom seen (and greatly abused by bird and man when he is). He goes quietly, and mostly unremarked, about his job of improving our lives by aerating our soil so it will allow the roots of plants to grow deep and strong and more readily receive the nourishing rain. He eats dirt and organic matter, both dead and living, increasing the earth’s fertility by mixing these elements and thereby enriching the soil with his waste and, ultimately, with his very body. He may not look like much, his work may seem mundane and even disgusting, but our lives would be far different and more difficult without him. <br /><br />He is indeed a picture of serving at its best: fulfilling one's purpose, whatever God has made it to be, without complaint, without show, without striving after prestige or reward; giving one's life solely for the benefit of others. Of course, the worm does this without thinking about it, without agonizing over the temptation of sin and trying to rationalize his duty away. He simply does what he was created to do; he “selves himself,” lives the inscape poured into him by the Creator.<br /><br />“Worm theology,” as it’s usually intended, indeed fails to capture man’s dignity as a creature made in God’s image; but real worm theology shows us the excellent way: to live out that image in daily, unassuming service that glorifies God without regard to self.</span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-34247191011187104652016-07-03T23:26:00.002-04:002016-07-13T17:18:40.890-04:00Lest You Sorrow as Others Who Have No Hope<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i><span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">I Thess. 4: But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. </span><span class="text 1Thess-4-14" id="en-NKJV-29618" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.</span></i></b></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<b style="color: #38761d; font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="text 1Thess-4-15" id="en-NKJV-29619" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</span> remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. </span><span class="text 1Thess-4-16" id="en-NKJV-29620" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. </span><span class="text 1Thess-4-17" id="en-NKJV-29621" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Then we who are alive <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</span> remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.<span style="line-height: 22px;"> </span></span><span class="text 1Thess-4-18" id="en-NKJV-29622" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Therefore comfort one another with these words.</span></span></i></b></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i><span class="text 1Thess-4-18" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: large; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></i></b></span></div>
<span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>A friend died tonight. I hadn't seen her in years, true, and we'd only connected a little on Facebook in the past couple of years. But she was a friend. We were in the same church many years ago when I was a young married with a couple of little ones and when she met and married a wonderful young man. She was diagnosed at that time with MS, and the years have been tough for them. But they had a family and they had plenty of love and laughter, and they had joy, much joy -- so appropriate because her name is Joy. She had been in a home recently because it had become too physically difficult for Scott to fully care for her, and in the hospital, and I'm not close enough now that I knew any of the details of these times.</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i>But there was that time we knew each other, and that one conversation I've always remembered. Not the substance, but the knowing that here could be a heart sister, a kindred spirit. And so although I've not been part of her life for most of it, I still think of her as a friend, a special friend, in fact, and I am intensely grateful that I knew her even for a while, and that I knew always that her joy was infecting the world with His love every day, and that she was being loved by a faithful man and a deeply caring family. </i></b></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></span></span>
<span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i>I ache for them tonight; their loss is great. I pray for comfort in their sorrow, for sweet memories to lace the grief of loss. But I rejoice for Joy, who is whole and well and rejoicing in the presence of the Lord she loved and served. And I rejoice that Scott and those who have loved her will see her again -- and that even I will see her again and with all eternity to fulfill the promise of that conversation nearly 40 years ago. </i></b></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></span></span>
<span class="text 1Thess-4-13" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Love and prayers to you, Judy, and Scott, and all Joy's family and friends. </i></b></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-38161233359450281312015-12-03T21:39:00.000-05:002015-12-03T21:39:12.914-05:00Rain, Rain, Go Away<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Rain, rain, rain, rain. Day and night. Light rain, heavy rain, misting rain, dripping rain. Rain. </span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Rain is necessary for growth, yes. But so is sun. So weary of the rain. Thanksgiving, but willed against the wet grey of the world.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Wednesday dawned. Or at least one had to assume it dawned. Still grey, dreary. But -- hope: no actual rain. A slightly lighter tint to the clouds. A chill wind and the ground still sopping.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Finally, sunlight competing with the rain clouds, visible at last behind them, and spirits lifting a bit. Maybe it wouldn't really rain forever.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Wednesday night, midnight. Almost in bed, but seeing light through the curtain. Pulling it back and there she was -- Phoebe lighting up the cloudless sky and bringing the landscape to life. Reflected light promising the sunlight to come.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Thanksgiving from the heart instead of the will.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">And finally Thursday waking to a clear sky, a visible sunrise, the clarity of hope made real.</span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-14566687570411023972015-11-24T20:18:00.002-05:002015-11-24T20:20:02.121-05:00More Gems of Joy<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: #0b5394;">Yesterday, driving home from work as my Thanksgiving break began, I came up to the long curve on the old ferry road and there she was, Phoebe hanging in the afternoon blue sky, nearly full, so lovely I almost drove into the ditch drinking it in. She's been missing lately, my muse, and I've been feeling it. Grey skies and more grey skies, and even looking for the beauty in cloud formations and acknowledging the need for bountiful rain had pretty much worn thin. We've all been longing for sun, and at last Apollos shone out and skies cleared and there Phoebe was, too, celebrating with us. And just now, alerted by my husband, I opened the garage door and there she was again, very close to the full now, in the darkness of the star-kissed night, a glowing crystal to lift the heart and soul. Thank you, Lord, for gems of joy and days of rest.</i></span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-30722405062143397772015-10-08T08:05:00.001-04:002015-10-08T08:06:47.404-04:00Fall Break<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Fall break is right around the corner, and everyone is
feeling the need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been a hard
week for most of us, though sunshine after weeks of grey has helped to raise
some spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, the old
darkness seems merely to have deepened, the fog grown denser, as the skies have
brightened; and the sun’s promise just makes the mood worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>The promise is real, of course, and it keeps me alive and
functioning; some days I do this well and others not so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ones closest to me pay the most in
having to endure, and I am grateful more than they will ever know for their
love and laughter and the simple comfort of knowing they will now and always refuse
to be driven away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their reward
shall be great.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>I’ve written before that the sun can seem too bright, too
harsh, despite its gift of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” Emily Dickinson wrote; “Too
bright for our infirm delight / The Truth’s superb surprise [. . .].”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am indeed infirm, and the moon eases
me more, offers me light in doses I can survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this morning there she shone as I left, in the early still-black
sky a lovely crescent in direct line with Venus and Jupiter to bid me good day and remind
me of all I am – mere reflected light, and if today is closer to the new moon
than the full, I am still His, to do with as He will, to shine if and as He
pleases.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Strength for all of us, Father, in facing the various demons
that plague us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strength to do the
next thing, to smile when it hurts, to love and accept love when feelings scream
against it, to let ourselves remember and be what we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words:</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>I say móre: the just man justices;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>To the Father through the
features of men's faces.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: large;"><b>Christ in us – all that matters.</b></span></div>
Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-37350084414544920072015-09-03T07:35:00.002-04:002015-09-03T07:35:42.393-04:00Getting Out of the Way<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><em>I have been missing my muse, in more ways than one. Because I get to sleep late in the summer, I see Phoebe less often and usually only in the midday sky. A few nights ago, I was up around midnight and thought that the street light was glowing more brightly than usual -- but when I opened the curtain, I found that the full moon was shining brilliantly above the trees. Yesterday as I left the house for work, the morning star shone brightly above the horizon, and thought I'd missed Phoebe again, but when I arrived at work she shone above me, the light from her waning form as brilliant as at the full, fading out the clouds that tried to hide her. This morning, almost at the quarter now, she shone in a cloudless sky and lifted my spirit again. The day had seemed impossible, but no longer. It's not up to me to create light, just do my best to get out of the way, to reject the clouds, and let Another's light shine. I hope I can manage it, moment by moment.</em></span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-31087826167413892662015-03-23T09:28:00.000-04:002015-03-23T09:28:02.524-04:00Journeying: In memory of Kara Tippetts<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>For Kara, in thanks for her inspiring faithfulness, even unto death</em></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">White fog blanketed the world this morning, blurring the edges of brokenness and reminding me of beauty. It seemed a good setting for the bittersweet taste of loss -- sorrow, such deep sorrow, for what the world has lost and the evil of death that forces such loss upon us; and yet, and yet . . . sweetness of hope to know that Kara is fully healed and filled with delight in the presence of her Savior, that her loved ones will meet her again one day, that His grace will blanket them in their now journey through the sorrow.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I never met her, never corresponded with her. Yet she touched my life in ways I will never forget, and I taste the loss. How much more the sorrow of her family and her friends! And yet -- there is her witness to grace, her witness to love, her witness to selflessness for us to carry with us always, the beauty of one who put others before herself even in intense suffering, who strove to live in love in daily faithfulness to the One who suffered and died for us. </span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">God is real, and He is faithful. May we all learn to live like Kara, bringing a bit more hope and grace and beauty into the world through our own faithfulness in the mundane tasks of each day -- and thus preparing ourselves to face death like Kara, knowing His grace.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">From one of Kara's last posts: </span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><em>[. . .T]here is so much about this we cannot understand. [. . .] I hurt that I understand what this greater pain I’m experiencing means. I feel too young to be in this battle, but maybe I’m not in a battle at all. Maybe I’m on a journey, and the journey is more beautiful than any of us can comprehend. And if we did understand, we would hold very loosely to one another because I’m going to be with Jesus. There is grace that will seep into all the cracks and pained places when we don’t understand. In the places we don’t understand we get to seek. And how lovely is one seeking truth. Stunning.</em></span>Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11850554.post-35029154978988731852015-03-16T09:42:00.001-04:002015-03-16T09:42:34.792-04:00Saving Grace
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>The only saving grace of my early hour drive to work this
morning after a week of lovely break was the fiery coral above the mountain
announcing the sun’s journey and the crescent moon glowing in the dark above. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>This is a day of discouragement, for many reasons from work
to personal, and the ever-vigilant depression stirs in wait to rise and encloud
me any moment. These are the days
I lose sight of joy, though it too <a href="" name="_GoBack"></a>stirs below the
surface. These are the days I hate
even more than usual the clichés and perky songs and proverbs, no matter how
actually profound they may be. And
those that are mere glibness, that ignore the brokenness of this world . . .
those I hope not to encounter in any public forum. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>The worst is “count your blessings.” I know full well I have innumerable
blessings, and even on a day like this I am grateful for them all. I also know that any and all of them
can be taken from me in a split second.
On days like this, counting the blessings I have only makes me aware of
their fragility, and more acutely aware of what brokenness has stolen. But in any case, and on any day, while
gratefulness is always in order, it is not the blessings I can count that
count.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>There is no counting the love and grace and mercy of my
God. There is no counting the
mystery of the Incarnation, nor the Cross, nor the Resurrection. There is no counting the knowledge that
the God of the universe deigns to know us at all, much less love us so much
that He gave His only Son to die for us, that the Son willed to be separated
from the Father by our sin taken on Him. There is no counting the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell us, giving us light and life. There is no counting the fact that He uses us – me! – to accomplish His
will, even on days like this.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>Because it’s all about Him, not about me. The announcement of the rising sun
reminds me of the fierce beauty of the Father’s love; the moon reminds me I am
His reflected light. And even just
a crescent, even barely visible – as she was when I arrived at the college under the
sun-lightened sky – it is His work, not mine; His light, not mine; His joy, not
my happiness, that counts. Perhaps
this day my light will reflect His less clearly and brilliantly. Still it is His light only, never mine;
I have none. May it shine as He
gives grace.</b></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Beth Impsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15560137034653905618noreply@blogger.com0