8/30/2006

New Bible; Happy, Quirky Me


The mailman just brought my order: two nifty black ESV Journaling Bibles. Yay. One’s for my son, who has not possessed his own since the children’s story version of years ago. The other’s replacing my bulky, narrow-margined NASB as the one I can tote about and make notes in that don’t slant sideways off in hinter corners of the text.

Thanks, Mark Bertrand, for bringing up the Moleskine idea to Crossway Publishers and for posting details about their finished product. I wanted my son, who’s become quite a note-taker recently when things strike him as interesting, to have a neat-looking, functional good book. The price on Amazon made our dual-purchase possible.

I didn’t realize how small the print would be, even after viewing a picture. My aging eyes will be challenged a bit. But they’re not that far gone, especially since the optometrist started me with one contact’s prescription set for reading and the other for distance (the problem will come when I need trifocals--no third eye!).

I must ask at this point--and these following comments would be directed to Crossway, not J. M. Bertrand, yet still I’m wondering aloud to Christians in general--why the Christianesey introductions? What makes us have to say (“Introduction to the Journaling Bible”, p. i), “The book you are holding in your hands is a living, breathing book”? Do we hope for visions of a Harry Potter story to ensue? Later the reader reads (“What the Bible is All About”, p. vi), “What you have in your hands right now is a supernatural book. The words of this book are God’s own words, His own personal revelation of Himself to us. Here in the Bible we encounter God and come to know His amazing love for us.” Spooky.

Why not say, “Here’s the Bible. If you haven’t read one before, be advised it is a difficult book to understand, as are most translations of texts from ancient times. You’d do well to ask questions of someone who’s studied large portions of the Bible a while and who is committed to getting at the heart of the authors’ intended meanings. Such careful study is especially important with this book Christians consider holy and inspired directly, uniquely, by God. Give it a reasonable chance with your mind and heart, and you may get a glimpse of why so many people believe what Jesus believed, that the words of the Bible reveal important, true things God wanted us to know.”

Maybe that’s not any better a way to introduce it. Just sounds less ethereal or something to me. But I won’t complain further--I really like this package and am eager to get to know the new version.

The School of Writing and Hard Knocks

Whatever a man has in him to do really well he usually keeps on doing with an indestructible persistency.
-- Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction


For those of you who know me and were wondering, the short story I submitted was rejected, finally.

I remember this emotion, having experienced it myriad times and ways before, but I think it might feel worse now that I’m older. Still, I’m grateful this morning for running across the above-mentioned quote.

Believing it applies to women, as well, I shall continue. Not that I can help it. Until Tim and I are depleted of income and I’m forced to work swing shifts at 7-11, I will use any time God allots me creatively for writing. It’s what I do, and I’ll keep trying to do it better.

Besides, I also remember how fantastic it feels to receive an acceptance.

8/28/2006

Here You Go, Logan

At dinner one evening last week, a friend of ours named Logan bemoaned the existence of blogs. His reasons for despising them included a couple with which I agree. I don’t think it’s great to expect (in a going-after sort of way) the world’s praise and attention for venting unsolicited personal opinions. Blogging can be a vain pursuit indeed (see here and here for further, related musings).

I’m reminded today, though, why I enjoy this blogging hobby. Take note, Logan (not that you’ll ever read my blog; that’s okay ... sigh). It’s a great way for folks like myself to receive newsworthy missives creatively posted and pass them on (even if the passing-along only goes to two people who stop by every other week or so).

Anyway, today’s news from Mirtika regarding the Hugo Awards gave me something to tell my sci-fi-loving family, as well. Serenity (the movie) and two Dr. Who episodes we thought were cool (“The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”) won awards. That’s fun. Thanks, Mir. I’m not one to browse the sites of Hugos and such so wouldn’t have known otherwise.

A little thing, but worth a smile still.

8/23/2006

To Vaguest

It feels appropriate that my husband and I leave tomorrow for Sin City. I remember the episode of “That Girl” I watched (a few, ahem, years ago) titled “She Didn’t Have the Vegas Notion.” At the time I’d no idea what that meant. Today, while I’m not planning to flounce about in sinful activities, I’ve at least a notion my meandering thoughts are vague. Uninspired. Pretty darn self-centered lately.

Getting away, together with my dear Timothy, will provide warmth (Western Oregon’s sunshine has been less than inspired, in my view--it needs to heat me enough when I’m outside that the chill of house-shade feels good), plus glitzy excitement and rides. And, yes, I consider traveling on planes a fun time (including whatever gyrations the new security rules put us through). I do hope we meet up with a real good roller coaster in LV. Maybe one where we can fly.

Here’s wishing you a happy end of August. May your vaguest notions take wing, coalescing into ideas both clear and golden.

8/19/2006

Honoring God, Then and Now

I started the other day trying to put into words the big question that led me, to a degree, outside of mainstream and evangelical religious traditions. What follows here sums up at least a portion of the shift in my thinking. Feel free to comment if you're afraid my thinking is shifty.

My view used to be:

God knew, understood and loved me, and so He held out to me salvation.

I accepted.

At that point I received “eternal life” (John 3:16; 17:3): “salvation” and “a testimony.” I now knew and loved God, because He had known and loved me and shown me the way to be one of His children. As one of His, I was destined to become better at living this life (this eternal life I’d been given here and now), and especially I’d become better at doing good works. Therefore, my good works (which meant things I’d do for other people and/or causes, with the ultimate aim of leading people to Christ) would so shine before men that they would see them and glorify my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Problems I experienced:

I didn’t get better at living.

The things I did for other people seemed forced on my part, and the only thing that shined out seemed to be my sinful nature, or at least a false, flowery view to others of my inner person.

In any case, I did not appear able, with anything I did, to cause someone else to stand up and start glorifying God. Or even to start attending church. Or to stop believing in a false religion.

My view has become more like this:

To know and love God is not a built-in ability. It also doesn’t appear to be an instantaneous gift to me from God. In fact, the Bible may be saying that a big part of my life’s work (good work) is beginning to understand who he is and what he’s doing. Before, I saw knowing and loving him as a reciprocal response to his knowledge and love of me. And that is partly true, I think. It’s just that I have to be changed greatly inside to begin to want to know and understand the real God, who, incidentally, isn’t me and doesn’t work for me.

When I do begin seeing myself as separate from God (that is, a creature in need of his help), and I start to want to know what he’s really like (rather than just believing in a traditional picture of him), then I begin to see how large and exciting is the task.

There are different elements involved:

    • fearing God
    • trusting God’s promises to Israel and the rest of humanity
    • believing in the Messiah he sent
    • recognizing that eternal life happens (mainly) in the Final Age to come
    • accepting that I have no power to eradicate my sinful nature
    • relying on God’s mercy to protect me from his wrath
    • relying on God’s mercy to perfect me one day in the future

I’m beginning to see all this as a “good work,” the only one in which I can “boast” (Jeremiah 9:23 & 24; 1 Corinthians 1:31). It may be connected to, or the same thing, Jesus spoke of to Mary and Martha as being the one thing necessary (Luke 10:42), because in studying to know God, I learn the good news.

8/18/2006

Story Bound Update

And the winner is Lewis by a . . . Face. Looks like Mermaid will take second Chair. Dwelling Places still makes an all-Wright showing.

Mine’s the luxury of time to read three novels. Or maybe this is work I must always make room for, writerly-bent that I am. In any case, I finished C. S.’s book first, out in a lawn chair in my yard beside the Snake Shack, a building my husband put together on cement blocks which shelters beautiful garter snakes often coiled in the sand beneath it. As cool breezes tugged my graying hair, I eagerly journeyed the life of main character Orual. I won’t give away what she learned about herself and the goddess Ungit, but I can relate to her lessons.

Mr. Lewis showed his insight, his character, as he brought to light in his amazing fashion the woman and the other characters. Fictional, they exist. Long after their author, they remain. His history-wisdom allowed this tale a setting ancient as his hills, yet to my mind as relevant as any Christian tale. Orual is not spared Truth regarding herself, and so she goes on to Live.

Now I’m nearing the end of The Mermaid Chair. And I’m beginning to give Sue M. Kidd kudos as I see what I think she’s doing. For a time I was uncomfortable, guessing at meanings in her story that wouldn’t ring true to my own experiences and conclusions. It’s okay if she does end up in a very different worldview space than mine. But last night, reading up way later than is my norm, I began to see her paddling places I would have wished to go, had I fished such a tale from my tidal waters.

Comparatively, and not being a book-reviewer by practice, I’d say Kidd’s story has more to do with plot than character. She does paint well the players and locale, but hers are emotive themes, hints of inner hurricanes many readers may relate to having weathered or being storm-surge mangled by.

V. H. Wright’s writing is sad; there’s no escaping. Yet her Dwelling Places, the most current tale of my three, does things as well that I hope to learn to. You feel the dusty, gray wind and a hardening of winter in her scenes and characters’ lives. I begin to say, give me Wendell Berry’s sense of farming community, because this is too close to my suburban everydayness. But I pause at Wright’s steady, caring portrayals that do much for her characters without titillating. They’re real and just a bit mystic at the same time.

Before I wail over-much at the skillful works I’m reading and despair of my own measly talent, I’ll plop down the lawn chair by our Snake Shack for a few more hours of writerly gold.

8/17/2006

Big Question

Seven years ago I stepped outside the stream of evangelicalism. At least, that's the way I view what happened. It's the way I can describe what I was led to do, or found myself doing, or had no other option, take your pick.

I'd been immersed in ideas and catch-phrases for more than a decade. They helped me function. They brought me back to God after I'd rebelled against a tyrannical image of him. They opened my eyes to his love as expressed in the pages of scripture. Somehow during childhood church functions I missed out on gospel "meat." In conservative evangelical settings I felt more satisfied.

I still had questions, though. Always in my mind's back closet lurked this big one: Do I really know what this good news, that I'm intent on sharing with lost folks, consists of?

It wasn't that no one around me in evangelical waters could help answer my question. The problem lay deeper than words could solve. This was because people speaking the words continued to be of the sort who didn't live up to them. Like me. It didn't fit in my mind that God was giving us a better life, as the words told us, when we simply did not improve. If I followed our evangelical speeches and interpretations, I must conclude God wasn't living up to his promise to make me one who could let my good works so shine before men that they would see them and glorify my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). Either, I reasoned, God didn't really worry about that verse so much or something prevented him from carrying out his will.

Astute and wise readers will no doubt notice I had, again as in childhood, absorbed a fautly image of God. (Do I think my image of him now, today, has become fault-free? No; I'm just trusting it's a bit truer, and I'll try to explain it in one of my next posts so you can judge.)

8/15/2006

Changes

Isn't it just like life to take us from one viewpoint, one set of circumstances, one height ratio, to another.

My brothers and I were friends growing up (at least a portion of the time), and we still are today.

8/14/2006

Fave Pianist: MAH

He's "by far one of the most recognized, loved and sought after musicians from the Pacific Northwest." I recommend Michael Allen Harrison's music to any parent of small children who is at home and needs the occasional mind-escape.
His purist style first visited my house around 1992 when my husband, Tim, picked up a New Age category CD titled Emotional Connection. Each piece from that album has to be seared into my daughter and son's memories, I played it so often.

Then one summer evening Tim called from Roseburg. "Get a babysitter and meet me here at the Masonic Temple," he said. "We're going to a concert."

The stage in the old, downtown building was set for an intimate audience encounter. After I arrived, found my husband and we chose seats near the front, a slim man with longish hair strolled up the aisle, pausing to nod and tell Tim hello. I guessed he was another media guy, an engineer or possibly a sound man from the show Tim had met earlier, so I smiled politely.

Then the man continued forward and took his seat at the grand piano. Because my dear hubby savored watching the comprehending look appear on my face as Mr. Harrison began to play, he hadn't yet mentioned that he'd met the pianist at a local music store that afternoon.

I punched Tim. That would have been my chance to tell Michael A. H. how much his melodies had meant to me for years. But I also experienced a wonderful evening, taking in not only the piano but the vocals of Portland artist Bill Lamb, who'd collaborated with Harrison on Coming of Age.

It was a great night. And I did get autographs afterward.

8/13/2006

Of Fish and . . .

I've been reconsidering the name LittleFish, which until now I've used for my profile and signature. It helped me get started on Blogger, as I felt pretty shaky to begin and was quite aware of being a you-know-what in a big pond.

Apparently, many others launched with the same idea. Googling today, I discovered tens, maybe hundreds of thousands more (well, of course, duh!, it is a large body of wetness after all).

There's at least one Little Fish blog title. Plenty more artist-type folks recognize their smallishness in their endeavors but are leaping out there, sporting a logo or screen name or movie title, to dazzle the world on a littler, fishier scale.

Anyway, while it's nice to see I thought of a moniker others agree is worthwhile, I've decided it's time to stop swimming with those fishies. My mom chose, having enjoyed movies featuring Deanna Durbin, the name I'll hook back onto. Whether or not I make a splash from here, it'll be just ducky.

8/12/2006

Genuineness

A new story idea laps at the edges of my mind. I told my husband, while he dressed as I still lay abed, that right then I was actually working, thinking through details of my newest tale. He stood, staring at me blue-eyed, long enough for my "So, what are you looking at?". He replied, "I'm just watching you work."

The other evening a friend stepped up to say hello after I entered the front hallway at McKenzie Study Center. She gave me a hug and mentioned she'd been thinking about a story I read months ago to our haphazard writing group from church. Finding out she remembered a creative effort of mine started the night off right (especially after I'd spent far too much of my day anxiousizing over whether or not my latest written project might be accepted somewhere). Thanks, Gabe; you probably can't know the encouragement you splashed my direction.

We were at the brick building alternately known as the Study Center, Study Center House or Gutenberg (because it houses people who attend MSC classes and those of Gutenberg College). The evening's event took place in the Puccinelli Gallery, a basement room where many an artist's display has found viewers, college classes have enriched minds of all ages and assorted talents have expressed themselves via music, poetry, drama. I settled into a chair to experience a Gutenberg "open mike night" in conjunction with the institution's week-long annual Summer Institute. As always, I knew anything might happen.

It did. We were treated to guitarists, a banjo and cello player, filmmakers who'd forgotten to set up sound for their short film (and so the audience waited, kept from boredom by occasional callings-out: "Did you hear what happens when two hippies fall in love? It's an organic experience", etc.) and a musician experimenting with electronically-generated sounds played back on cassette and reel-to-reel players (achieving amazingly melodic results). Poets read their own and others' works; a good friend of mine recited hers. Then a young woman, recently graduated in mathematics from MIT, sang the "Tech Fight Song," and I managed to understand a few of the nerdy references involved.

Thunderous applause followed each act. We, the audience, meant it--these guys and women were good. Yet maybe there is such quality emerging, and the emerging qualities are appreciated, because of the kind of community painstakingly planted and nurtured here. The issues chewed over on many different, more serious occasions--and I mean really chewed over--are those arising from a sober grappling with historical texts, predominantly the Bible. Repeatedly these questioners, the radical biblicists I've mentioned before, lift out of the box an understanding of the gospel Jesus preached in order to handle and prod it, lovingly, in honor of its accepted authority, seeking to learn from it rather than use it to bolster acquired assumptions.

I still pinch myself in the midst of this group. These nerdy, artistic, reflective people arrived gift-wrapped on my doorstep one dreary autumn. They remain a vibrant example of God's way: the Creator charts a course least expected; plots a surprise unlooked-for; sets events in motion for the wonderment of his little ones as they discover his boundless generosity.

One act from our talent night soothed my artistic emotions and helped lift me out of self-absorbed funk-ness. McKenzie Stubbert skillfully played piano and sang an original song from his newly-iTunes-available CD, That Is To Say. His "This Isn't It" contains the lyrics:
Do what you want
with what you've got,
but it might not
be what you thought.
Just don't forget, this isn't it.

Treasure I receive from God's hand, whether it's a loving Christian community or an opportunity to set talents on display, ought be enjoyed and accepted as genuine, though temporal, and revealing more about the Giver than about me. Thanks, McKenzie; you may not realize how clearly your tuneful words proclaim.

8/09/2006

Story Bound

Today I've had fewer things going than on many days previous; consequently I've spent a bit of time in front of my whirring magic box with the keyboard and colorsome screen.

I am also reading books, however. Three at present. It's been a long time since I made way through so many novels at once, but as a kid I used to do it often. I'd read a chapter of Charlotte's Web, for instance, then switch to Old Yeller or perhaps my Super Goof comic book before returning to E. B. White's classic. Maybe I had ADD tendencies in the arena of prose.

The stories I'm into now are The Mermaid's Chair by Sue Monk Kidd, Dwelling Places by Vinita Hampton Wright and C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, all of which are new to me. I enjoy bouncing between the three, spending time usually for more than one chapter on each before reentering another. All have women protagonists, two of whom are about to cheat on their husbands, it looks like. Places is told in present tense, and I like the immediacy. Chair has a location I'm somewhat familiar with, having lived the first year of my marriage in Charleston, S.C. A good friend, who's also named Deanna, just finished and loaned me her copy; we'll get together after I'm done and discuss where we think Ms. Kidd is coming from. (I know, we can read another book she wrote that'll tell us her spiritual secrets, but Deanna and I'd rather postulate first.) Then, of course, Faces is living up to the imaginative fare I expect from dear Mr. Lewis. It's hard to believe he's been gone from the earth since 1963.

A wonderful book I finished reading deals with small, yet often profound, life events. Dorcas Smucker lives just up Interstate 5 from me. Her recent work, Ordinary Days: Family Life In A Farmhouse, describes "raising six spirited kids on a grass farm. Today." Dorcas writes a local newspaper column and is part of a writing group I recently joined. She's Mennonite, doesn't watch TV and is faith-wise (those may follow one another naturally).

Authors are cool. I hope to talk about more in the future, those I know personally, more whom I missed living on earth at the same time as. Some who, coolness notwithstanding, puzzle me greatly. Beware, if you write anything to which I've had access, you may show up here next.

8/05/2006

Neat Solutions

I worked this week with friends of mine from Baker Street Solutions. If you'd like to be surveyed or take part in trial usages of everyday products, check their web site and register to become a panelist. The concept, as they explain, is to provide "a marketing, consumer insights and product innovations company."

The neato thing for consumers is they pay their surveyees--though as they build incrementally their projects are occasional so far.

Attractively for business folks, they put together detailed, reliable reports regarding what people really want.

In my book, Baker Street deserves the success it's achieving as the company's methodologists "crack the consumer code." Having worked with their Oregon contingent, at least, I recommend this group as one of genuine integrity, able to do agreeable business with people one-on-one, over the Internet and via postal services. That's as good as the money factor, which they seem to be helping everyone make just a bit more of. Definitely not a bad idea.

Risky Pursuits

Nearly a month ago I spent a day lazing about in a hotel room in Bend, Oregon. My husband and son left me there, at my request, while they ventured off to find various holes and cracks in the ground. Their idea of a great time is descending beneath the earth and shining beams on frigid rock formations while hiking lightless hours to reach tiny, collapsed passages they must squeeze through on their stomachs so they can hopefully navigate back out, reach daylight and announce, "That was cool."

Forced into languidity, I made the best of it with a Jacuzzi bath and gorgeous Descutes River views. I read an excellent short story by Kerry Neville Bakken in the Summer Issue of Glimmer Train Stories. Then I walked a long while outside in sun-cured, sage-scented Central Oregon breezes before returning to make notes about writing and blogging.

It's important, I reminded myself that day, to let writing be and not be.
Let it not be:
  1. a taskmaster
  2. a list of rules
  3. a five-year plan
  4. about managing risk
  5. practical
  6. boxed-in
  7. my religion

Let it be:
  1. wobbly
  2. uncertain
  3. difficult
  4. risky
  5. a teacher
  6. fun!
  7. a gift

Blogging, I'm coming to see, is more about myself than about writing. Like journaling, it helps me process ideas, record events in my life and so on. It is a good practice space, an arena in which I attempt to show off at little expense. Here I can dream, pretending I'm a celebrity, just as I do within the "hard" pages of my journal.

The main difference here is someone may read what I've blogged the day I compose it, whereas my journal entries will only be perused by others (if at all) someday after I'm gone.

In the world of my journal, I am the celebrity. In the real world, celebrity for me is pretense. It's not who I am. I need never get wrapped up in blogging--it's playing at being a writer, rather than writing. A risk lurks in keeping a blog that is absent from journal-keeping: here I risk pursuing my own vanity, as if that were worthwhile.

Mulling over such issues this week, I read a blog entry by my much-younger-yet-growing-in-wisdom friend Erin Julian. She speaks well here regarding how vanity pretty much can't be dismissed from creative endeavors such as blogging, web-design and posting photographs, even when we're aware of our humanly sinful segments and are doing our best to have fun with our gifts, as God intends.

I may recognize desires for adulation and bury them far from sunlight, like ancient, lava-swirled boulders beneath an Oregon desert. Their reality, however, does not mean I must sigh and give up creative, writing-related hobbies like blogging. Life's pathway is strewn with reminders, cave-bound or not, of our darker, godhood-seeking selves. The big question is whether I make excuses for the bad chunks or strive to move beyond them, crying to my only Source of help when hopelessly stuck in a tiny passage.

I plan to blog at present when it serves me, and not the other way around. How to structure my time better (since it takes a while to try and express these tirades and rhapsodies pleasingly) is something I must learn and will gladly accept advice on from experienced ones who might stumble by. But more than blogging, I want to write. To be a writer, not a Writer. And that's fuel for another day's post.

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I've been consumed for a few years by care for my parents, so writing has fallen by the wayside. In and for my heart, this has become a ...