Thought for the Day

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." (Plato)

Wrestling with God, Again

I have been thinking a great deal about the nature of suffering the past couple of years. Lately, a number of young women have come through my door to ask me about depression, many of them having been told that they must "snap out of it," or "get right with the Lord," so that they can be happy.

Depression is my own most intimate knowledge of suffering. I am not a counselor, only a listening empathetic ear, but I do know this: the suffering of depression is not sin. One may, of course, choose to sin in response to that suffering (as I have so terribly, far too many times), but the suffering is not sin.

We tend, I think, to see it as such because, as Christians, we are told that we must rejoice. But joy and happiness are not the same thing. One can be most unhappy and still have joy. The key for the one who suffers from depression is learning where that joy lies and how to cling to it in the midst of depression's sadness and even despair, knowing the difference between the suffering of depression and the truth of God's love for us.

I love the scene in Lord of the Rings when Pippin and Gandalf are standing together on the walls of Minas Tirith looking out over the rising darkness from Mordor that threatens to engulf all of Middle Earth; they do not yet know whether Frodo is still alive or Sauron has recovered the Ring. Pippin looks at Gandalf: "In the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that underneath there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to burst forth."

And Hopkins, of course, in even the most terrible of the Terrible Sonnets, always seeing the spark of hope that is his salvation, knowing that the One who seems to be his enemy is in truth his Friend, and crying out to Him, even his cries of anguish a form of worship, however deep his despair.

And the star in the darkness above Mordor that gives Sam the hope that carries him through the last terrible days of their ordeal, reminding him that above the darkness is something greater and eternal, that the darkness, however long it may last and whatever evil it may accomplish, is still only for a moment in comparison to beauty.

Depression may come once, twice, or last a lifetime. But all of us suffer in this world, one way or another. What will we do with it, and will we let it overwhelm the beauty that objectively still surrounds us? In "When Roses Speak, I Pay Attention," Mary Oliver writes that the roses tell us, "Listen, / the heart-shackles are not, as you think, / death, illness, pain, / unrequited hope, not loneliness, but / lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, / selfishness."

The first things she names come to all of us, whether we will or no. We can choose -- though the choice can be extremely difficult at times -- not to wallow in the latter ones. May the Lord bring to us the friends and counselors we need to help us learn how to make that choice, not be too hard on ourselves when we inevitably fail (repent and go on living without wallowing in guilt, either; He knows our frame and has already forgiven), and daily draw closer to Him in whatever suffering He allows for our refinement.

"Why?" Hopkins asks in "Carrion Comfort" of the suffering given him. "That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear."

I pray, with fear and trembling, for clear grain, Lord, to serve You with.

"The Uses of Sorrow"

from Mary Oliver's new collection of poetry, Thirst.

The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.


I feel so close to understanding and so far at the same time. The Heavenly Hound, thank Him, is relentless. I want to stop and rest in His wild faithfulness, but I am so often afraid. Yet every taste has always been sweeter than honey.

Oliver writes in the title poem, the book's epilogue: "I was never a quick scholar but sulked / and hunched over my books past the / hour and the bell; grant me, in your / mercy, a little more time."

Oh, for a little more time, to learn Him in humility and love . . .

Brooding

(I wanted to post this last Friday, but computer glitches did not allow.)

From Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, #34

Although I know God's immanence can speak
In sunlight's parallels and intersections;
Although I know the spiritual techniques
For finding God in all things, when I pray
It is to nothing manifest at all.
And though I know it's only technical,
I do not pray to nothing. Yesterday,
One of those off-hand, razor-edged rejections
The world flips like a Frisbee grazed my cheek.
It drew blood. No consoling recollections
Of having shaken off that sort of play
Helped me to forget it. I could not recall
My strength, and brooded, lost and tragical,
Till, marking this blank page, I found a way.


Failure seems to be the predominant mode of my life lately. I love this poem because it reminds me, first, that I'm not the only one who can't seem to live by spiritual cliches, and second, that I need to write. So it's off to finish the grading and give myself time to write, seriously, for at least a few hours this so-called break.

Needing to stop brooding, lost and tragical. What a pathetic way to live this "one wild and precious life" (Mary Oliver).

Fall Break

Dragged home scads of paper today -- homework I'm behind on grading, exams and essays that need to be taken care of before classes begin again a week from Monday. Discouraging to look at, but I'm trying to keep remembering that what is done this week doesn't have to be done after classes are back in swing and more of it coming in.

I'm utterly exhausted. But so many good meetings with students this week that make it worthwhile.

A tiny taste during the week of letting go and not trying to keep control of my time, my work. Getting things done that had to be but without worry and frustration at interruptions and needed conversations. I hope to hold on to that and practice it again this week at home, with much to do here as well as for the job and the constant temptations there will be to laziness rather than good rest.

Oh, to learn to live in Him, to let Him live in me.

Dillard Thoughts

Glancing through the last chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek this morning, I was struck with the following passage:

I think that the dying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you, all down the air; and the cold carriages draw up for them on the rocks. Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. And then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing wherever you can, like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is, who takes no comfort among death-forgetting men, and who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part.

I long to be fearless, seeing. I long to be, instead of always striving. I will not part with the live coal I carry, and I will not take comfort where no comfort may be truly found. Be Thou my vision . . . nought be all else to me save that Thou art . . .

On Theory

All I have to say today is this: Never agree to write on a topic which you mostly know through theory.

God will not let you write from theory.

On Being Doormats

In Sunday School yesterday morning, one of the innumerable rabbit trails brought up had to do with "being doormats." The issue was framed something like this: "Everybody says we're not supposed to be doormats. But the Scripture seems to say we should be doormats -- go the second mile, if somebody takes your coat, give him your cloak . . . but I thought we weren't supposed to be doormats."

The teacher rightly ignored this remark, given that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of the lesson. But I've been mulling it over, since I hear it, or something like it, fairly often in this individualistic, rights-centered culture my students are so much a part of.

My first reaction always tends to be "Why shouldn't we be doormats?" In the world's eyes, surely Christ Himself was a "doormat" as He stood silent before Pilate and allowed Himself to be hung on a cross. Am I not called to live like my Savior? In the world's eyes, my humility will always look like folly, like weakness.

But the world is not where I should be finding my definitions, and its perceptions should not be my especial concern. In the situation brought up in Sunday School, how is the believer who obeys the injunction to go the second mile a "doormat"? He is constrained by law to carry the soldier's burden the first mile; anyone might do so, however grudgingly, to avoid punishment.

But if he then says, in cheerful humility, "Sir, because I love the Lord Christ, and through Him I love you, I desire to serve you by carrying this burden another mile" -- how is this being a doormat? This is precisely love in action -- and love is power. Not power to stand up for my rights and demand respect and protect my space -- to not be a doormat -- but power to reach hearts for the Savior who suffered and died for my unworthy self.

Reflected Light

Phoebe the merest sliver of reflected light on this morning's pre-dawn drive, but that resplendent sliver illuminating the mountains and valleys of her darkened surface.

Oh, Lord, to be even the merest sliver reflecting Your light.

Word-Craft

I have longed for someone to share my writing with -- someone who will be honestly, lovingly ruthless. Someone like LuCindy, who helped me tear apart and reconstruct my tenure paper a couple of years ago, who has been a Godsend to me in this and many ways.

True, we can help each other online some, and we do so, but it's not the same as when intellectual energy sparks across a room and productive silences explode into dynamic word-play.

This year, I've been blessed with two friends who desire the same thing and are willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

We are all busy with lives that draw us away from writing by urgent claims on our time, many of which cannot be ignored. Yet we are writers, and our craft -- whether publication is in view or not -- cannot become a casualty of the urgent.

So we decided to help each other maintain a discipline of writing. Every other week or so -- the realities are not to be ignored and if we try to do too much we will do nothing -- we will bring some work in progress and delight together in the crafting of language.

We met for the first time this afternoon -- affirming, questioning, challenging, laughing together even as we delved into complex and unsettling truths.

It was good. We love each other enough to be kind, yet we are confident enough in each other -- and in our work -- to be honest. As I told a colleague -- this is something I no longer have the time not to do.

The Struggle for Expression

Looking through Oswald Chambers last night (My Utmost for His Highest) in search of a quote I wanted for an article I'm working on, I came across this (the December 15 entry):

"If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally, then there will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say lazily -- 'I am not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow what I say,' the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God's truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.

"Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance."

I am trying to emphasize to my students the importance of writing well for the reader's sake. Chambers makes the case eloquently here. Taking the time and pains to articulate truth for yourself, which brings genuine understanding and the possibility of articulating it to others -- that makes you available to be used by God. Laziness leaves us all the poorer.

Inspiration to keep plugging at the article in process.

Home Thoughts

My students are writing an essay which will include description of a place. Last night I was playing around with the mode a bit myself, and I came up with this, from my years at the University of Kansas. The true irony, to my mind, is that Wescoe is the humanities building . . . :( Six years in it was -- what shall I say? -- uninspiring.

Wescoe Hall squats ungracefully in the campus center. Its concrete walls could not speak beauty in any setting; the surrounding buildings of native limestone and red tile roofs only heighten its dullness. These older buildings lift the eye toward heaven with towers or turrets or steeply sloped gables. Wescoe sprawls across the land, low to the ground, flat-roofed, ashamed perhaps to usurp the heart of this centuries-old place with its unlovely modernity.

There are fun places I could go with this very rough sketch, but student essays call. Perhaps I'll revisit it.

(P.S. The Shenk review will appear in October's Touchstone, for those who are keeping track.)

My Son, My Protector

My oldest son is heading overseas soon to none of us knows where for none of us knows how long. If we wish to write, we can send mail to his wife, who can take it to the base, where they will see it gets to him. I thought this would be not a big deal, but when I emailed him a kind of "farewell for now" note today, my heart constricted.

I will pray for his safety, of course; I'm his mother. But more than that, I will pray for a mission effectively completed -- because that is what is important to him. That is why he is going to wherever it is, doing whatever it is, and placing himself in harm's way. He knows the risks, and he chooses to take them because the cause for which he works is far bigger than any one of us. I wonder if this is just the tiniest taste of what Mary may have felt in knowing her Son as her Saviour? My son is my protector now, a protector of our country. I can no longer protect him, but only uphold him in prayer and let him know how grateful I am.

I am proud of him -- proud of his choices, proud of his character that has made him be chosen for the work he does, proud of the man he has become.

Another Beginning

Rebecca Anne made her appearance Wednesday night; all are well. She is, of course, adorable. She is the thirteenth grandchild and so very precious. Her big brother is perhaps a bit tired of sisters by now -- he has five (one older and the rest younger). But he will learn many valuable things about the female half of the species!

Welcome, Rebecca! You are deeply loved by many.

Of Risks and Tragedies

It would be so easy to condemn. She left her three-year-old child in the running truck, no car seat, no seat belt. He managed to pull it out of park, just playing around while waiting for his mom as she ran back into the laundromat to grab something she’d left behind. Somehow – maybe she hadn’t quite closed her door – he was thrown to the pavement as the truck lurched forward into the building’s wall . . . and then rolled back, crushing his skull.

So easy to point a finger, to think, “How could anyone be so negligent, so foolish?” So easy to despise her, to condemn her for the risk she took. So easy to think we’d never have done such a thing, never been so thoughtless with our own child.

But we are all of us this young woman. In this broken world, in this place where sin and the flesh cloud our reason (even when we have been made new in Christ; how much more if we have not), where we are so foolish and self-centered as to think – however subconsciously – “it won’t happen to me” or “it won’t happen this time,” we are all takers of foolish risks, meaning no harm yet daily courting tragedy.

The wonder is how often we avoid it, how often we “luck out” (or God lets our guardian angels intervene). As I listened to my daughter’s choked voice telling me of her next-door neighbor’s accident, the horrific death of her own son’s regular playmate, my mind replayed the hundred close calls with her and her four siblings, so many of them caused by little errors of judgment, little acts of commission or omission, never intentional desire to harm anyone.

We are all of us this young woman. We forget to replace the batteries in the smoke detector, because so many other urgent tasks crowd our minds; push above the speed limit, because we really don’t want to arrive at church late again; run alone despite warnings, because we need the time to think and nothing’s ever happened anyway; neglect the safety glasses, because they’re hard to see through and look silly besides . . . leave a child in a running vehicle, because our errand will take only a minute.

But these only mirror the more devastating spiritual risks we constantly take. We mean no harm; just as we can’t grasp that the logical consequences of our physical negligences may one day befall us, we are oblivious to the ways we court much worse disaster, disaster stemming from the self-absorption and pride which lead us to make little compromises with righteousness until our hearts are seared to Truth.

We are all of us this cavalier in our character. We neglect to pray for someone because our own harried concerns drive him from our thoughts; tell an authority we were ill when we have really been procrastinating, because we don’t want to appear lazy or irresponsible; allow a morsel of gossip to slide off the tongue, because we need to feel better about ourselves; follow the world’s fads and fashions, because it’s inconvenient and embarrassing to look or act “differently” . . . leave a friend alone in his sin, because we are afraid to offend.

And when someone else gets caught in some similar unnecessary risk, when it doesn’t pay off and tragedy ensues, we frown and self-righteously note how he should have known better, should never have been so foolish in the first place.

Perhaps so. And perhaps tomorrow or next week or next year, meaning no harm, we who condemn will take one risk too many, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And in the ensuing tragedy, what will we hope for, crave, desperately need? Mercy, comfort, forgiveness – and someone to walk with us through the valley and point us to the One who offers true consolation.

“Judge not, that you be not judged,” our Lord warns us. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:1-2 ESV).

We are all of us that young woman. We cannot avoid being human, taking calculated but unnecessary risks at times, at times being entirely oblivious that a choice we make even is risky. May we always remember, when we hear of tragedies that could so easily have been prevented, that it could so easily have been any one of us. And, as believers in a God of mercy, may we obey the Scriptures, “put[ting] on . . . compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience . . .” (Col. 3:12 ESV).

{This post refers to an incident which happened over a year ago. The laundromat is in the same building as my son-in-law's convenience store; his mom owns it. My daughter sat in the waiting room at the hospital with her neighbor until her child died. She doesn't live next door to the family anymore; she doesn't know how it's going with them now. We pray for her.}

Red Hats and Social Conventions

Yesterday I chose a black skirt and a new red short-sleeved jacket to wear to church. I thought I would wear the red hat my mother-in-law gave me years ago; I love it but don’t have a lot of chance to wear it, and this seemed perfect. Then I remembered the Red Hat Society. I’d never heard of it till recently, when I discovered that several ladies in my church are part of it. They’re great women, always looking for ways to minister to others, especially younger women who need a friend or a meal or whatever.

But they wear red hats. And I began to wonder what others would think if I wore my red hat to church. I’m not a Red Hat lady, after all. Would members think I was flouting them somehow? Would others think I was flaunting a membership I don’t actually have? The Red Hat ladies don’t wear their red hats to church, you see; they reserve them to wear with their purple dresses in their meetings or when they explain the Society at retreats and so on. They are meant to symbolize eccentricity, and Southern ladies are not eccentric in church.

So I didn’t wear my red hat, which just a few years ago would have been merely a fashion choice but has suddenly become more than that: wearing it may send messages I don’t intend; not wearing it makes me a coward. Frustrating.

However, there’s a greater irony here. The Red Hat Society takes its name from a poem by Jenny Johnson called “Warning.” The first lines read “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple / with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” The speaker goes on to tell the other things she will do unconventionally to “make up for the sobriety of [her] youth,” such as spending her pension on “brandy and summer gloves,” “gobbl [ing] up samples in shops,” and “learn[ing] to spit.”

For now, she knows “we must have clothes that keep us dry / and pay our rent and not swear in the street / and set a good example for the children,” though she ends the poem pondering if she shouldn’t begin to practice her unconventionality a bit so that “people who know me are not too shocked and surprised / When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”

In other words, it’s all about choosing to do those things that she enjoys without having to bow to the conventions of the culture. She knows she’s got to be at least mostly conventional now, while she has children and needs to be a responsible adult in raising them. But someday, she knows too, she will be free of that responsibility and intends to be “shocking” by doing or having some of those “silly” or “extravagant” things that appeal to her.

So . . . now we have a whole Society devoted to the convention of wearing red hats and purple dresses, and making me – whom red suits quite well, thank you – feel that I can’t make a personal fashion choice that I used to make without much thought. In other words, they’ve undermined the whole point.

People are really strange.

(And yes, I include myself. If I really believed anything I say I believe, I’d have worn that hat yesterday.)

On Writing Letters

My friend Cindy wrote me a letter recently – a real letter: handwritten and sent by U.S. mail.

There is something powerful in finding your name written by hand on an envelope in the mailbox, or waiting on your desk when you get home. As much as I love seeing Cindy’s name in my email inbox – it’s always good to hear from a friend, no matter what medium – it’s not the same as a letter I can hold and handle, open and slowly savor page by page, rustling the paper and enjoying the lovely, clear hand in which she writes.

I appreciate being able to stay in touch quickly with email; I like the pictures I get of kids and grandkids and friends’ kids. The medium has its place.

But I wonder if the very ease of it has drawbacks, too? A student once mentioned that email and the proliferation of diary weblogs like myspace and xanga have overburdened her with what feels like too much knowledge about too many people she doesn’t have time to reach out to and pray for in meaningful ways. She becomes discouraged at her apparent lack of compassion, but perhaps she was never meant to know so many burdens that others carry.

And I wonder if this medium contributes to the human tendency to laziness? “I’ll whip off a quick response and I’ve taken care of my obligation,” instead of taking the time for reflection that’s needed for any real depth. I’m often startled to find, in clearing out my email, that I’ve done just that: sent a quick reply and then never followed up with real concern. May God forgive me.

The art of letter-writing is rapidly dying. (And yes, I’m aware of the irony of the medium in which I am lamenting this.) I don’t write letters – I do well to get birthday cards to 23 family members somewhere near the right dates, and these are usually accompanied by, at most, short notes on the cards themselves. I have been (and will continue to be) guilty of the once-a-year (or so) “mass mailing” of a family update to friends I value but simply can’t seem to find time to write to individually.

I don’t believe the common saying, “you have time for what’s important to you.” Life consists of many urgent tasks that eat up time, there can be more important things than there is time to do, and some of us have little energy to begin with. Truly important things can be left undone because there honestly isn’t time for them. But still I think a world in which real letters come often in the mail is a richer one, and I mourn its loss, for all of us.

Be Still, My Soul

Sunday morning alone with the hymnal again . . .

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

On What Makes an Artist

Okay, the last post was frustrated. On a more positive note, I have found a wonderful catalog which appears to have outlawed the use of the exclamation mark altogether, as well as to have thoughtful writers creating its descriptions. So I spend a lot of time browsing the pages of the Veritas Press catalog -- and probably spend more money than I should, as I buy books for myself as well as for the Young Man. But one must reward common sense where it's found, yes?

Veritas also scatters cool quotations throughout its pages, like this one from St. Francis of Assisi:

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

Choices and Exclamations

Summer is time to choose next year's home school curriculum, the most frustrating part of the process (after, of course, the part of getting the kids to buy into it). Back in the dark ages when we began, at a time when few non-missionary families were yet teaching at home, the choices were pretty simple: A Beka, Bob Jones, or the public school texts. We'd supplement with biographies and so forth, of course, but the basics required little time.

Now the choices seem endless and quality is difficult to judge; reviews abound, but which ones are trustworthy, which reviewers share my particular perspective on what makes a good text? As is the norm in all things found in large supply, most of the options are not worthy -- but how to glean the gold nuggets from the abundance of pyrite -- and accomplish anything else with one's limited time?

Reading the hundreds of product descriptions and reviews is excruciating in itself, but many of the catalog writers seem to think that exclamation marks will make their products more appealing. I am tempted to declare a boycott of any catalog that uses more than two of these awful marks on any given page -- but then I find a significant financial savings on something I want, sigh, and continue. Because! these books! are the cheapest! that you! can possibly find!

Argh. It's enough to make me want to send him to public school (where he, too, can learn to use exclamation marks every time he's too lazy to find the words that will create the emphasis he wants.)