book review

Not from me, from you.

I know most of you have read The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. What did you think of it?

Confessions

1. I want to go home. Which is probably the oddest thing I can say while sitting in my hometown (more or less) in my parents' house, but it's true. The adventure has been fun, and now I'm done. Except that it seems I don't get to make that decision anymore ... I keep thinking of the line from "Cathedrals." "In the cathedrals of New York and Rome there is a feeling that you should just go home and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is." PS My parents have been so good to us. This has nothing at all to do with them - it's all me. Just so you know.

2. I've had the strangest experience as a barista lately. I've been working with my step-brother (my dad's wife's son), and it's the most time I've ever spent with him. My dad and his mom got married about the same time Brian and I got married, so we really have only seen one another at holidays. I don't know if he sees it or not, but the two of us have more in common than I would have ever guessed. It is w-e-i-r-d to realize how much we are like, considering that we share the same relatives, but have never lived in the same house. Very Strange.

3. I am beginning to wear maternity clothes. I don't mind looking pregnant - I'm excited to BE pregnant, so looking the part is ok - but I haven't enjoyed the in-between stage, where you look and think, "Is she pregnant or is she fat?" Fat isn't fun.

4. God has been teaching me lately about Paul and Silas' stay in prison (Acts 16). The most interesting thing about this story is that they chose to stay, even after an earthquake opened the prison doors. God gave them an out, and they chose to stay. Because they did, a). they were let out legitimately, a little while later, and b). in the meantime, an entire household became believers. I don't know what the application of it is, but that feels significant to our lives right now.

5. I'm a little jealous of everyone's adventures. Only a little, though. Boston and New York and Florida and Massachusetts ... it sounds like fun. Meanwhile I'm making coffee, BAKING in the oven known as Montgomery, and waiting to find out where and how I'm going to live. Still.

6. BUT - I have my very own little adventure just around the bend. It's the size of a fist now, about 4 inches long, and next week it will have the ability to suck its thumb. The books say this is impossible, but I swear I've already felt it move. And in about five and a half months, regardless of where we are living or what we are doing, our own little adventure will begin.

Yay.

PS I think we've scratched "Brennan" altogether. It has nothing to do with being phobic - because I'm not - it's just that I like feminine names for girls, and masculine names for boys. I also wouldn't name a girl "Bailey." We have new names that we like, but I think I'm going to hold off on publicly discussing those right now. I'll talk about them privately, though, so if you see me, feel free to ask.

7. A short Slap-Out update: There Is a Snake Living In the Walls of our House. It is a Moccasin, Which is Poisonous. My dad tried to kill it last night, but, when cornered, the snake crawled into a crevice in the wall. Yikes.

reading update

Good morning.

I finished the Narnia series a few nights ago. I loved it. Except that my two least-favorite books were The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle, and those are the two most overtly theological stories in the series. I liked the subtleties better. The Magician's Nephew, I think, is my favorite.

Someone asked me about Barbara Kingsolver recently, and I realized that I haven't talked enough about Barbara Kingsolver here. If you haven't, read something by her. If Poisonwood Bible was too involved for you, try The Bean Trees or Prodigal Summer. She's just SO good. That's all.

Happy Friday to you.

gypsy flat road

"I wrote this song on a travel guitar in Switzerland last winter. It`s the meeting grounds for the emotions of gratitude, longing, celebration, and grace." (taken from her website)

Across the gypsy flat road
Where everything closes down tonight
Across the gypsy flat road
Where the steps and the stars are light

And it rained all day
And it rained all day
And it rained all day
With the bounty of new wine

The sky settles in low
On the rooftops of this trainboard town
We are upstairs alone
And we speak only with the whisper sounds

Will there come a day
When our faces will not lift out of the dust
Can we then still say,
That this mercy is our only trust

…what was incurable, desperate blindness
has been bound up from all sides with lovingkindness
comfort for sorrow,
rivers for dryness
come and drink you who have no money

And it will rain all day
And it will rain all day
And it will rain all day
With the bounty of new wine

sunday morning

by Sandra McCracken

Driving on the faded mid-western dotted line
with nothing but the fighting wind to slowly count the time
racing with the fences as they guard their farms
here I come, there I go, help me lay down my arms

Just as I am, you rush in without a warning
I didn`t think that you would want to come to this place
and make it feel like a sunday morning.

I have been a blacksmith with the tools in my hands
with plastered eyes I build the lie and cannot understand
feeding on the ashes of a deluded heart
but in the place of dust and death I see you have come this far

And just as I am, you rush in without a warning
I didn`t think that you would want to come to this place
and make it feel like a sunday morning.

You were the first, and you`ll be the last
and like a cloud on the Chicago skyline
these things are past

Maybe it`s the way your love swells beneath my skin
or maybe it`s because my senses are full again
maybe it`s because I can`t quite mark the source
or maybe I`m afraid to let it run it`s course

Just as I am, you rush in without a warning
I didn`t think that you would want to come to this place
and make it feel like a sunday morning.

Dear Sandra McCracken,

If you ever write a book, I will read it. All lyrics are poetry, but few are good poems. Yours are the exception. You remind me of William Carlos Williams in the way you use ordinary life to describe deep emotional and spiritual realities. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Stephanie

just to confirm that blogging is not out

first: I don't think I always believed in ministry as a calling. Before you throw your tomatoes, this is what I mean: I always thought that church ministry, like teaching or engineering, is a matter of doing something that you love and are good at. I don't think I thought specific people were "marked" or "called" into ministry. But God is changing my mind, because of how things have unfolded in the job search for Brian. I have a hard time with the concept of God's specific will for individuals - how does that work with free will? My mind cannot put the two together in any sort of coherent way - yet God keeps disproving my personal theology. So. That's that. Maybe we are called to specific things at specific times. Maybe it is more than God just blessing what we decide. Who knows - but it seems clear to me now (though I'm not sure it ever had before) that God has something specific in mind about where we're headed.

ANYWAY, we're like, this close to knowing more about our future. And I'm so ready for that! We've known for a few weeks now that wherever we live in mid-July will be where we live when we have this baby, so we're anxious for something to work out in Nashville NOW.

Anxious, but not hysterical. Not this week, anyway. Hysteria is like allergies - they come and go, depending on the day, but you're not completely rid of them until the season is over.

second: Since several have asked, I'll give a pregnancy update. I'm 12 weeks pregnant now. At 12 weeks, the baby is the size of an apple. It has taste buds and fingernails and can digest food, and that completely blows my mind. This little person did not EXIST in January, and now it has taste buds. Go figure. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and they should be able to hear the heartbeat then. We're still working on names. That's all I've got for now.

third: I don't think I'm overstepping my bounds if I say that, if you are the praying type, now would be a good time to pray for Janet at BUF. That's all.

fourth: My mom got a new computer! So I'm now able to carry on with regular blogging activities at home. Yay.

fifth: Nick asked if Scooter was still alive. She is. She's working a lot at a job that she likes, so she's just not spending as much time perusing the internet as she used to. But she's still kicking, and will be over for roast and potatoes at approximately 6 pm this evening. The Hawkins (Allison's in-laws, and they feel like mine, too) stayed here last weekend, and that was great fun. The Hawkins are a sweet family.

Over and out.

art inspiring art on a hot sunday afternoon in alabama.

Sometimes I wish I had a liberal arts education.

Not often, mind you, because I enjoy the work I do, and a liberal arts education doesn't provide many marketable skills (not that I need a degree to be a barista, but you know what I mean). On days like today, though, I wish I knew more about art and literature. I wish I had a better way to explain my thoughts. Mark, my professor at Vanderbilt, was right when he said that language sucks in communicating exact words and ideas. We spend most of our time defining words. If we have a common definition, we can at least hope for a common understanding. Language sucks, but it's all we've got.

I discovered Deb Talen yesterday. There was one song in particular that I really liked, called "The Gladdest Thing." Deb Talen used Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Afternoon on a Hill," adding additional lyrics and a melody. It's the idea of art generating more art that has me wishing I had a liberal arts education. This is what happened with Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts", which is describing a painting called "The Fall of Icarus." Lane is reading a book right now, called March, that is an expansion of the father's life in Little Women. Ahab's Wife describes, isn't it the fisherman in Moby Dick? Anyway, the idea of art inspiring more art, creation purely for its own sake, is what I'm thinking about today.

Art inspiring more art, different from art capturing a life experience. But it's the latter that has happened the past few times I've been to a traditional worship service (which have, coincidentally, all been UMCs). I've begun to see elements of literature in the experience of traditional worship. On Palm Sunday we were in a traditional service, listening to the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem, a king on a donkey, with children in the streets announcing his arrival. As I listened to the story I thought of Flannery O'Conner, who wrote short stories which illustrated the ugly underbelly of southern religious culture. But Flannery O'Conner was a devout Christian, and in every story there was some figure that represented Christ. Usually the figure was ironic and absurd - not at all what you'd expect from a savior. Listening to the story of Jesus, I finally got what Flannery O'Conner was saying. Jesus, the king of the Jews, riding into his holy city with a makeshift parade and no official recognition. Not only so, but he was intentionally riding toward his death. It's ridiculous. This man, Jesus, was utterly, beautifully absurd.

So this is what's on my mind today. Art inspiring art versus art describing life. And since lately I haven't been able to complete a sentence, much less explain a thought, I thought I'd better spit it out while I could.

The Gladdest Thing
Deb Talen
(bold lyrics are from "Afternoon on a Hill", by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

Doesn't each of us have a place
Where we belong.
Could be a sidewalk crack
Or a sad song.

Inside our searchings is desire
To etch a silent thought in stone
To make a tender heart known.

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

Everybody wants to be a hero
Or a savior of small things
I want to be champion of evening
To forget not the beauty of the in-betweens.

Every one of us an orphan
Our bodies born from dust of the stars.
We can comfort each other in this place
I can look into your eyes
And see my own face.

whoever said being green was easy lost his mind.

Today's 6-6-06, and that gives me the creeps, and I'm not a particularly superstitious person.

I like the name "Brennan" for a boy, but I'm afraid it's like the name "Taylor" (for a boy, not a dog). 15 years ago it was a great boy name, and now it's been used for girls so often it sounds effeminate. Anyone want to weigh in on this? Is "Brennan" the next "Taylor"?

Today is voting day, but I'm not registered in Alabama. It will be the first election since my 18th birthday that I've missed.

I don't write much these days because I'm TIRED of talking about us - I'm tired of thinking and talking and thinking again about where we are, how we got there, where we're going. We thought we had a plan, then we didn't, then we did. Now God seems to be redirecting us toward a church. We have a love-hate relationship with church ministry - we believe in it but just can't bring ourselves to do it, when you boil it all down - but God's just not letting us out of it. When Domino's Pizza doesn't call back, friends, it's time to pay attention.

I've been thinking about religion and literature, and have wanted to blog about it. But I'm too tired - tired from being pregnant and tired of our extended transition and tired of hearing myself talk - so I'll save it for when I have more energy.

Next week I'll be twelve weeks pregnant. I've almost hit the first milestone - end of the first trimester, still with child. I have ultrasound pictures that I could share, but don't have access to the technology right now. Maybe I'll get Nick to scan next week's ultrasound so the world can have its first look at Baby Gates.

That's all for now.