Surprise Party

I love surprises. Life is going along dull as dish water and wham, surprise! At least I love the good ones, like Jimmy. I'm hoping to pull off a surprise party for our Crowhook kids. I've asked them to come up with at least 35 examples of works inspired by The Odyssey. I'm willing to accept everything from the Odyssey episode of Arthur to James Joyce' Ulysses. If they pull this heavy feat off, I'm going to whisk them off to my house for pizza and the 1954 Italian classic, Ulysses. I'm so excited. I helped my kids with finding examples, so the party is guaranteed. Thank God for Little Caesars and great kids.

slow lane

When I was younger my mind leapt from project to project, belief to belief, book to book. These days I choose my projects with great care, making certain my slower brain can keep up and that the results will be worth the efforts. I still go in a round between ideas. I don't know how to focus on a single idea successfully for more than a few hours. Currently the neediest ideas are A Taste of Redwall, Crowhook classes, the new-to-me parts of the Bible, The Only Necessary Thing by Henri Nouwen, and my novel. 

The irony is I am much more certain about what I believe now. In the early days I was trying to force sense on ideas that simply didn't hold up upon deeper examination. I believed things I could not make sense of as an act of faith because emotionally and intellectually I'd never had the freedom to follow my conscience and my understanding. I have not found my new freedom any impediment to believing in and obeying Christ.

A Private Place

Lately there has been a change in how I write. I've started to sink into the work forgetting everything else. (Strange how I can do that at Barnes and Noble and I can't do it at home.) I've quit caring that the manuscript is so long and getting longer. I want to have my say. I walk into my mind palace and forget reality for three or four hours. I think that this is producing better writing, but I'm not sure. I'll find out this summer when I rejoin my writer's group.

Tobit

I loved this story.  I'd never heard it before, and it is so sweet.  Protestant marriage workshops are crying out for Tobit.  It's from a different time than any other Bible stories I've read, and that gives it a distinctive character.  Short story shorter--two people are critically close to losing hope. God answers their prayers through the ministry of an angel, Raphael. How beautiful and charming. You must read it for yourself.

My Yoko Ono

I love the Beatles. The concert "The Night That Changed America was delicious. I want the album. I want it now. It's one of the ways I tell off Plato, and remember that I am an artist. 

Members of my family tend to be opinionated.  The Beatles are one of the best ways to stir up discord.  From Mother requiring that Dad get rid of all his Beatles albums to whether or not Julian Lennon's blog is interesting.  We have opinions. Since my sister takes the hard line on Yoko Ono, I have to take the moderate view. At first it was because as crazy as it all seemed from the outside, John Lennon was more fully human after it. He wasn't right about a lot of things, but I think his heart was. This stance was largely to give me some room to breathe when Karen starts telling it like it is, until I found my Yoko Ono--the picture that for me, sums it all up. I'm researching The Plaza for my novel, so I purchased At the Plaza, a pictorial history.  On page 151, there is a picture of the two of them a short while before John was shot having a quick snack.  I wish I could post it for you, but I can't find it anywhere on the net. She is smiling, clearly enjoying their time together, but he is gob-smacked that she is there. His joy  is so fresh, as if they had just met. I may not like how they got there, but I'm glad they did.

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

There are some books that I can't have enough copies of.  I'm always lending them out, so I never have them to read.  I See Satan Fall Like Lightning is one of those books. Rene Girard, a man of many disciplines, continually challenges me to examine how I am living my life, which kingdom am I putting forward.  He has made me question the validity of so many ideas and practices that I took for granted.  I look at the way we refuse to abandon the teachings that we feel put us on the safe side of the contagion without acknowledging the wickedness of leaving anyone in the vulnerable zone. I used to dig moats and build castles out of theology and prejudice, but when you look at Jesus, he lived like a homeless person, vulnerable and open to everyone he met.

This is a book to challenge your thinking and to open your eyes to what kind of life you are really living.This is a chance to begin again.

Wonder Land

I'm beginning to realize that I'm working through the weird world of childhood in fiction.  I'm starting to let myself read my work as if it was someone else's. For example, I realized an Alice in Wonderland playhouse symbolizes my struggle to get help with or at least permission to interpret the Bible from the adults in my life.  The only book that was as weird as the Bible that I was allowed to read was Alice in Wonderland.  I worked rather hard trying to get the two to illuminate each other without much success.  The playhouse has always been there in my novel, but it was only recently that I saw the connection.

What a fascinating way to squint at your mind sideways, but I'd better not look too hard.  I'll never have the courage to publish anything.

Rediscovering Water

Mountain water, at least where I grew up, is just as good as the hype.  It made me a water snob, especially when I reached the flatlands here in the Midwest.  I took the water softener one step further and had them install a water purifier as well.  The resulting water was ok, and then we moved close enough to Lake Michigan that the water was acceptable without all the extra fuss.  Acceptable, but not as good as water from home.

I love tea. My grandfather made the best ice tea, and the flavor hot or cold is part of so many great memories.  On my weekly trip to Barnes and Noble, I get a Venti tea, and it always tastes so much better than tea I make at home. I bought the tea bags, and they were scrumptious, but the taste still wasn't the same.  What finally occurred to me was that they used filtered water.  When I checked with my barista she confirmed that the water was elaborately filtered and that did make a difference in the taste.  I thought about it for a week or two and then bought a Zero Water pitcher and fired up our hot pot. The tea was amazing.  Any and all tea is amazing.  

I love you, Lake Michigan, but you are better without the personality.  Thanks water treatment personnel, but chlorine is not delicious. Thank you, Zero-Water people, for increasing the healthy pleasures in my life. Thank you, Janet Tyson, for the gorgeous picture of the lake in winter.  Thank you, Barnes and Noble, for always having great teas on hand.