Hungry



David Coleman | dreamstime.com

I just finished the Hunger Games series. I wasn’t surprised that the ending was similar to J.K. Rowling’s wrap up of the Harry Potter series. What is left after fighting the horror of evil but to hunker down in the reflection of the family firelight?

It called to mind the comment our Hungarian tour guide Peter made on how his country survived war and oppression. “Politics and people are not the same thing,” he reminded us. “People will find a way to be happy.” Katniss finds snatches of happiness in her children and in Peeta’s love.

[Spoiler alert] I anticipated that Katniss would not be allowed to indulge her raging desire for personal revenge.  She came close but chose the higher ground—unseating the new regime’s power play that would institutionalize the status quo. What if she had aimed even higher? The God who says “vengeance is mine; I will repay” could write an ending that truly satisfies.

Book Lust

When I started writing seriously my literature libido declined. Too busy engaging with my own little set of characters, I didn’t have the energy to mingle at someone else’s party. But now that Faerewryn has gone off to be compiled into a progressive novel that may or may not go to print and Dolores requires an additional 30,000 words of tale spin, I’ve started reading again.

Author Ann Voskamp says in this week’s World Magazine that when you hit a dry spell in your writing, you aren’t reading enough. She suggests reading several books at once. They talk to each other and you can join the conversation.  She also maintains that list writing generates spiritual attentiveness. To that end, I’m recommitting to my practice of keeping an annotated list of what I’m reading. I use the Book Lust Journal by Nancy Pearl.

I’m drawn these days to read imagined characters set in real world context; most recently Caleb’s Crossing and Remarkable Creatures. In both cases the protagonists keep their minds and hearts open while working alongside people with limited perception. It’s always a push to see the bigger picture. 

As engaging as writing and reading are, it’s still a party with fictional people so I took myself off in search of the bigger picture—to Central Europe to meet real people in historical settings.  It’s inspiring to see young people emerging from centuries of oppression with hope for better times, even though hope is tempered with uncertainty.

My travel companion Sharon and her Polish cousins

I love the café societies where people meet face to face and electronic devices are consulted, not worn as armor against intruders.

I’m back in the New World now, missing the city squares where people gather in front of makeshift big screens to cheer their favorite football team—for free! I love crossing bridges that span the old and the new, walking cobblestone streets, popping into an art gallery or a palace (there’s not palace on your block?) to enjoy a concert before dinner, gazing out my window over red-topped roofs that undulate across the horizon of time, punctuated by golden church spires that wear globes, crosses and stars like a Hapsburg monarch wore her jewels. 

As lovely as the Old World is though, I would not trade freedom for antiquity.  

Sibling Rivalry

Serban Enache | Dreamstime.com

The Wall Street Journal published a review (03/19/2012) of The Righteous Mind, which describes a research project that examines conflicting moralities. I read it the same day WSJTV host Gwendolyn Bounds called for Twitter comments about sibling rivalry—is  it more damaging in childhood or adulthood? I responded that unresolved sibling rivalry can play out in ugly ways at a parent’s deathbed and suggested adults should make peace before that happens. My remark was broadcast, prompting a friend to ask me for the link to the article. There wasn’t an article, so I’m writing one now.

The Tree of Life -- the movie

Order The Tree of Life from Netflix, light a candle and take a comfortable seated position on the couch. As a gripping meditation, Terrence Malick’s 2011 film The Tree of Life is a stunner.

 The drama of the human family plays out against dramatic visual imagery that paints the bigger picture.  Set to classical music and an original score by Alexandre Desplat the film poses God’s question to Job—where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?—but without words.

eMotion

I just put The Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey on my Nook. I discovered this adventure story in a bookstore in Antigua. Esarey lives in the Pacific Northwest where young professionals and people with salt water in their veins seem to converge. She gives us a generous peek into the cruising lifestyle along with some well worded wisdom on relationships (she was honeymooning with the boat captain).

One of many passages I could relate to was a discovery she made as she was being tossed in the air by a storm.

George Clooney and the 10/30 window

When I get the witching hour wakeup call sometimes I reach for my latest copy of World Magazine. Not that it puts me to sleep, au contraire. The January 14^th issue is definitely not warm milk and wooly sheep.  One article that has stayed with me is a Mindy Belz essay on the 10/30 window.  According to Mindy there are 2.4 billion youth in the world that are in an extended state of adolescence.  They begin puberty around the age of 10 and are not fully formed adults until they are close to 30. That is 20 years of teenage angst!

Furthermore, your kid is more likely to find a kindred spirit in a Facebook friend from Kathmandu than she is from an older family member.  And as she and her brother will search the internet for advice before they will consult their wise elders, there’s not much opportunity for torch passing.  

Even in our Christian circles adults are no longer a treasury of wisdom and experience for children but a directory of services.

Intimate Details

Corruption, depravity, desperation, sex, medical emergency – is this not the stuff of great stories? Intimacy is the common element that creates a heartwarming or chilling tale.

Today I am pondering the connections between two writers’ explanations of what inspires readers.

Roger Rosenblatt concludes in Unless it Moves the Human Heart: “The heart that you must move is corrupt, depraved and desperate for your love.”

In The Daily Writer Fred White maintains:  “Human intimacy lies at the heart of human nature.” He gives as examples of intimacy medical, sexual and spiritual experiences.

This tells me why so many of the stories that move us involve crime, life threatening medical conditions and romance.

My 1970s edition of The American Heritage Dictionary omits spiritual experiences in its list of intimacies, but in the 1930s edition of the Dictionary of the English Language(Oxford University) editor Henry Cecil Wyld defines intimacy as something that is knit together in close physical or spiritual relationship.

Intimacy is expressed in details that are private and personal.  Our favorite detective stories, murder mysteries and medical dramas are loaded with intimate details. Examples: The murderer who strong arms a victim and plunges a knife into a vital organ; the doctor who dives his hand into a patient’s chest cavity. We get involved with the intimate details of the crime or the surgery.

Stories about love, sex and revenge penetrate the essence of our human nature. They reveal intimate knowledge. Example: The shamed child who grew up with malice in her heart and enough familiarity with her antagonist to know exactly how to hurt him.

Some of the most inspiring stories are found in the Bible, the best selling, least-read book of all time. Stories like Sampson and Delilah and Abraham and Isaac knit together the physical and the spiritual and draw connections between desperation and love.  We are moved by these stories.

Perhaps God is the greatest storyteller of all time and we are His story.  

The High Road

When I chose to major in English at U.C. Berkeley my reasons were simple and self-serving.  I got my best grades in English and I loved to read. Times were turbulent (it was the 1960s) as they are now and the future was uncertain.  Most women I knew were on autopilot. We set our course to include an education and possibly a job before we married and started raising kids. It was not at all certain that a career would figure into the equation.

I just finished reading Joseph Epstein’s review of The Cambridge History of the American Novel (WSJ August 27-28, 2011), a 1,244 page tome that rates American literature on a scale of how the classics treat our narrow agendas on gender, race and class. Says Epstein:

Multiculturalism, which assigned an equivalence of value to the works of all cultures, irrespective of the quality of those works, finished off the distinction between high and low culture, a distinction whose linchpin was seriousness.

In simpler terms, Epstein is taking lit professors to task for teaching books of questionable quality to study that speak to their own biases  instead of encouraging students to cull the classics for timeless truth. The result is that even fewer people major in English now and serious readers are on their own in their quest for good books. Epstein characterizes the modern English department as an intellectual nursing home where old ideas go to die.

I was mighty depressed to read this, but the second to last paragraph perked me right up. Epstein explained that English majors of old were always “a slightly odd and happily non-conformist group.”

 He nailed it when he said we didn’t major in English with any thought to being able to work for a living. 

One was an English major because one was intoxicated by literature – its beauty, its force, above all its high truth quotient. 

Be still my heart if that isn’t the honest to God reason why I majored in English. Sadly, there are fewer of us oddball non-conformists besotted with the notion of truth these days.

So here’s the point.  Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be English majors.  Let them be business and economic majors instead. But don’t send them to University without a good grounding in the classics first.

Rewriting History

“I willingly turn off my brain to get through the racism and sexism on every other page,” Bruce Holland Rogers writes in defense of his love of Tarzan pulp novels. For the sake of a good story, I’m willing to do that too. When the sex strays into gratuity in film or when a hero spits out a racial slur in a novel I note it briefly and edit it out. At question is whether I want someone else to assume this task for me, or for school children. I do not.


The most present controversy is whether Mark Twain’s newly released journals should be banned from public schools or rewritten to remove the offending racial slurs. The terms in question are offensive in our day and they were demeaning in his day, but culturally acceptable at the time he wrote.

Eliminating the offense by banning the book or rewriting a treasure has two effects: We lose a teaching moment and children lose the opportunity to develop a critical thinking skill. Could we not present such writing in the context of history and then have a lively discussion of how things have progressed? Could we not go deeper – what words do we use today that we may be judged on in the future?

Stories laden with language that offends universally go out of print if they have nothing else to recommend them. Stories with raw language and gripping plots stick around. I’ve developed my own fine line of how much profanity I will tolerate for the sake of a good story. I’ve also developed an appreciation for the role of the profane in literature.

I recently posted a devotion titled “Season of the Witch” on FaithWriters.com. I was exploring the concept of the witch as an archetype rather than a literal being. Some reviewers felt I was treading on dangerous ground (with them, I was). Others were inspired by my suggestion that many of us experience a witching hour or season that can lead to useful self-examination.

A last thought. I watched Sonora’s Stage 3 production of Big River. The director made a creative decision to leave the n-word in play. It was a powerful account of the dignity of a demeaned slave. It made everyone uncomfortable to watch the effects of both intentional and thoughtless hurtful speech. (I felt deeply for the actors who had to deliver and receive such offensive lines.) I think the director made a good decision; up to you whether you bought a ticket or not. I highly doubt any of the young people in the audience walked out feeling they were now in possession of a new word that enriched their vocabulary.

Mammogram

No amount of tying and retying the short strings on the smock would hold the fabric across my naked breasts, so I finally gave up, held the garment in place by anchoring my elbows to my sides and reached for a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing. The perky radiologist came around the corner with my chart and said,


“What are you reading?” I held up the book for her to see. That instantly exposed my left breast but she was more interested in the book.

“Are you a writer?

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

In the room, I dropped the smock to my waist. We are both women, but she said,

“Oh no,” and pulled the smock over my right shoulder, leaving my left breast in line as the first candidate. She lifted it and plopped it down like meat on a tray. Then she threw a lever, flattened it and said,

“I just read the best book! Hold your breath now.”

Breathlessly, I waited for the synopsis.

“The Red Leather Diary, have you read it? You can breathe now.”

“I haven’t,” I exhaled. She adjusted her equipment, put my right one in a sidewise vise-like grip and retreated.

“A New York columnist lives in an apartment building. Hold your breath. One of the apartments is being renovated. The contents of the apartment have been thrown in a dumpster. She’s curious to see what got thrown away. She goes through the dumpster and finds a red leather diary and reads it. The woman who wrote the diary lived in the 1930s. She wrote about her life and it was so fascinating the author, I forget her name, wrote a book about it. You can breathe now.”

“Was it a good book?” I ask, gasping for air. She repeats the drill for my left breast.

“I didn’t want the book to end. That’s how much I liked it.”

My right breast is now sandwiched between sheets of plexiglass. She seems to be applying more pressure to this side. I focus on the music that is playing in the room. It’s not your usual massage room ocean-waves-lapping-the-shore soundtrack. This sounds like the music wafting through the lobby of an upscale resort hotel in the tropics.

“Gee, I feel like when I’m done here, I should go get a margarita,” I said.

“Good idea!” she said. “You’re done.”

I like this woman.

Choices

We watched an old 1953 movie, Hobson’s Choice. It’s British. It’s old-fashion. It got to me. Briefly, Hobson owns a cobbler shop. He drinks and depends on his three grown daughters to keep it all together for him. The oldest has just turned 30. She takes it upon herself to get herself and her two younger sisters married. Her motivation appears to be personal happiness and economic stability. How old-fashion is that?
Recently I read that 40 percent of Americans now choose not to marry. Instead, they choose from a multitude of options to form and reform families. Single woman choose to mother without a father present; gay men choose to parent without a mother present; an Asian billionaire creates male triplets to pass his empire to, no female required beyond egg donation and womb for rent. Some observations:

• This seems to work better for the rich than the poor.
• The jury is out on how well it works for the children.
• Traditional marriage is now under siege. 

Back to Hobson’s Choice; the older daughter sets her sights on a cobbler in her father’s shop who is skilled, hard-working and underprivileged. Combine those attributes with her business saavy, family legacy and faith in her chosen’s potential and by the end of the movie the couple has a happy marriage, a profitable franchise, siblings with a future and a redeemed patriarch.
Today, after a few sessions with a therapist, the older daughter could find good reason to dump the old man. And why spend time getting her sisters settled in good marriages? She is not her sisters’ keeper. They are not grateful. And how risky is it to emotionally invest in Casper Milquetoast? Today, he would not recognize the value of a Proverbs woman, who “rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household,” who “considers a field and buys it; and with the fruit of her hands plants a vineyard.” Instead, he would bemoan his loss of personal freedom.
 The most precious moment to Hobson’s Choice is when the young cobbler, who has recognized his good fortune in being loved by a woman who believes in him, takes his wife’s advice. Against his instincts to devalue himself, he claims his role as the man of the family. As a result, all members of the family thrive.
Without passing judgment on other people’s choices, I believe there is something to be said for the partnership and commitment of a man and a woman to each other. In his Oratio El Nino, performed by the San Francisco Symphony this year, John Adams explored the passion and commitment of Joseph to Mary. Mary chose to be vulnerable to Joseph’s reaction to her pregnancy. Joseph chose to bend to the will of the Almighty and be a husband and a father in the face of ridicule. The result was a legacy of hope for the world.

What legacy are we leaving for our children?

Vivilore

The normal condition of man or woman is one of health.

 So says Swiss medical doctor Mary Ries Melendy who published Vivilore in1904 and presented her work as: Life-knowledge as learned through a generation of professional service, dedicated to humanity and its progeny. How delightful to find this book included in an international Nabu press project that brings back into print culturally important work.

Everything old is new again: this delightfully informative book offers an old spin to postmodern angst. The first chapter describes the life centers of the body (I think we call them chakras in the yoga studio.) Here’s a sampling.

The brain is the organ of the mind. To keep it healthy, change your mind every day. Don’t get into mental ruts. Form new mental images. Don’t revisit the same mental landscape repeatedly. (Apparently that not only makes you a bore, it bores holes in your brain!) Vary your mental outlook as often as you change your clothing. Prolonged worry, study, illness or monotony lessens brain function, creating a feeble mind. (I wonder what texting and excessive internet searching does?)

The heart is the seat of affections. The cadiac plexus is a knot of nerves near the heart. Emotions such as love or anger transmitted through the sympathetic nerves quicken the heart beat, fear stops it and grief causes it to beat irregularly. Serenity born of loving and being loved causes an even heart beat quickened only by increased vitality and strength. (Getting a dog must be good for your heart; walking your dog, even better!)

The solar plexus is the sympathetic nerve center behind the stomach. It is what you know in your gut. Some people are lifters who radiate soul-shine that encourages others. Some people are leaners – chronic helpless whiners who sap the strength of those around them. To strengthen your solar plexus: breathe deeply pure air and sunshine; speak to yourself affirmatively and follow up with action. Act as if you believe what you tell yourself.

The reproductive organs are holy ground, an ever continuing creative process with vital, recuperative power, as much mental as physical.

So, now you know.

The author then delves into the four temperaments, recommending balance. A strongly developed temperament has advantages; its disadvantages can be modified.

 The body is after all the obedient though untrained servant of the mind through which each life can by degrees learn to control its own destiny.

In a nutshell:  

1. Think good thoughts, lots of different ones.  
2. Seek to love and be loved.
3. Breathe deeply and carry a big set of good intentions. Act on them. 
4. Marvel at creation. Participate. 

Kings David and Solomon said all of this in their poetic books. How nice to hear it echo down the ages.

Love and Death

A lot of books have been written about heaven. My favorite is A Travel Guide to Heaven, by Anthony DeStefano. The author speculates that God doesn’t create good things only to watch them die, so we will likely always have Paris. In other books, authors report actual experience. They have made a round trip, died and gone to heaven and come back to life. Ninety Minutes in Heaven, by Don Piper and Cecil Murphey, Flight to Heaven, by Dale Black, Return from Tomorrow by George G. Ritchie are among them.
I’m wondering why all these books are written by men. Do women not experience heavenly fly-bys? The men all express regret at having to return to earth; are women better at talking their way in?
There is surprising harmony among the accounts I’ve read. That God is light and love seems literal. He seems to speak a language of math and science. The eternal musical score is pleasing. The absence of sin is palpable. Newcomers are anticipated and welcome. It sounds as if Heaven hums with purposeful activity.
These accounts offer only peeks through the gates; different authors noticed different things – vegetation, villages, habitats, heavenly beings, but they all experienced unity and oneness.
In Heaven, we’re told by those who have tasted and seen God’s goodness, time doesn’t frogmarch a weary, frustrated population, nor does it stand still.
I haven’t read Ritchie’s book, written in 1978, but my friend Teri sent me this:

The last paragraph is "God is busy building a race of men who know how to love. I believe that the fate of the earth itself depends on the progress we make - and that the time now is very short. As for what we'll find in the next world, here too I believe that what we'll discover there depends on how well we get on with the business of loving, here and now."

When we watch the nightly news and wonder how we will ever dig ourselves out of an economic and moral deficit that threatens to undo us all, we would do well to remember that the business of loving is a profitable, high yield business with healthy returns that are not dependent on current economic and political conditions. That’s good news.

A Compassion Cocktail

I'm sure I'm not the first to define Existentialism as:
God is dead.
Get over it.
The book of Ecclesiastes might in turn be defined as:
God lives.
Get over yourself.
When I was at university, I found Existentialism to be compelling. Not the God is dead part, but the part that suggests that we might have the ability to live well and die with courage and dignity even if God were not in the equation.
I've always found Ecclesiastes to be heady stuff as well. Living well is not living for enjoyment, but it's a good second.
I just finished reading The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman. In this book a man loses a piece of his soul in a passionate act of selfishness and cruelty. The young girl who witnesses the scene loses her will to live. Both are redeemed by performing acts of compassion. In essence, the only way they could get on with life was to move past their own experience of joylessness and focus on the needs of others.
The dictionary definition of compassion is:
The deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another in the inclination to give aid or support, or to show mercy.
The proper mix of elements found in Existentialism, Ecclesisastes and compassion can be a powerful cocktail Consider this recipe:
Add together one living God as the base (the single spirituous liquor), the people around you as a modifying agent (aromatic wines, bitters or fruit juices that soften the raw taste of alcohol and enhance the natural flavors) and a dash of your abilities (the special flavoring and coloring agents). Stir with ice, strain into a glass and serve.
Other mixes are possible, but maybe not as powerful.

Casting God

In A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller the author suggests that we consider carefully who we think we are talking to when we pray. I often cast God in benign roles that focus on what He can do for me. Example: God is my boss, and if I serve him well he will give me good things.
Yesterday, Spring peeked it's head up through the warming soil and I began to think about the writing I am sowing on the path that meanders before me. Laying the seed before God, I entertained thoughts that if I just keep trying different things -- a writer's group, a daily blog, the Iowa Summer Writer's Fesitival, one day God might say "Ch ching! You have chosen Door Number Two! You win!" I had just cast God as a game show host.
God is not a boss to please or a game to win. Daily I must remind myself of who I'm talking to -- the great I Am -- holy, righteous, lover, judge, creator, sustainer. That casts a different light on my role in this relationship.