chin up

“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” – Victor Frankl

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious– the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not to curse.” –St. Paul

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” -Soren Kierkegaard

“Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall ever have a beginning.” -John Henry Cardinal Newman

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” -Thomas Edison

The advice from the Irish Jesuits on Sacred Space this week:

“Again and again in the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius Loyola returns to the theme the ‘uniform’ of Jesus’ followers is like that of Jesus himself, poverty, humility, false accusation, maybe prison and death. In the Exercises, you try to put yourself in the person of Christ when he was resisted, abused, accused falsely, and finally tortured and killed. You learn to be unsurprisable in face of hardship, and to recognise there the ‘livery’ of Jesus. You don’t look for it, but if it hits you, you don’t think it is the end of the world. You meet insults and hardship with as much love and patience as you can muster. You show your mettle more in the bad times than in the good.”

These quotes come from a friend’s facebook page. The words would be easy to blow off as fluff if lesser men had said them. A Holocaust survivor discussing attitude is more palatable than a cheerleader. These words remind me that life is a heroic journey even though I feel stuck in the Shire. The OT characters spent a lot of time waiting.

our democratic republic

It’s not enough to vote. A voter needs to educate herself. Checking out the candidate’s websites does not suffice, she needs to find out the candidate’s biography, Voting Record, Issue Positions, Interest Group Ratings, Speeches and Public Statements, Endorsements, Additional Biographical Information and Campaign Finances. This sounds a bit overwhelming.

Voila.

A nonpartisan website has compiled all this information. It’s called Vote Smart.

Are there other websites like this or that complement it well?

health care and pharmaceuticals

The medical industry frustrates me. Health care and medical school costs and third-party insurance is death to a functional system. Furthermore, the lobbying that goes on by the industries sickens informed citizens.

Here are some links:
Sick around the world was a documentary PBS ran, comparing the health care systems in Germany, Switzerland, UK, Japan, Taiwan and the US. Really interesting stuff.

Peter Rost’s blog,Question Authority. Rost is a physician that blew the whistle on Phizer.

Canadian Jackie’s entry, on American healthcare. Jackie put up some interesting links and commentary.

all things counter, original, spare, strange

Gerard Manley Hopkins led a fascinating life, and he’s quite popular with the academy right now. On the whole, Victorian poetry irritates me; it’s ostentatious and overblown. It makes me think of 13 year-old girls’ penmanship when they dot their i’s with hearts. Yet, I’m drawn to GMH’s poetry. Somehow he manages to be fresh and modern. I had about seven poems that kept me sane while I was in Japan. Two of them were his:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnuts-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced– fold, fallow and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge |&| shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast |&| with ah! bright wings.

JI Packer said that the end of theology is doxology. Good theology ends in worship. The best theology is art because God is beauty, order, truth, good. There is no system of logic to explain his beauty, but art gives us a glimpse. GMH’s poetry makes me want to sing. The language and the ideas are alive. I can sense God’s immensity, goodness and otherness in this poetry.

life compared to a sonnet

While I read aloud the last chapter in A Wrinkle in Time, tears welled in my eyes. The words and ideas were so gentle, poetic and cathartic. Ah, I’m fond of kid lit. The scene where Mrs. Whatsit waxes poetic is compelling.

A critic called this section “one of the most beautiful descriptions of human life that I’ve ever heard.”

Mrs. Whatsit compares life to a sonnet:

It is a very strict form of poetry is it not?

There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?

And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?

Calvin: You mean you’re comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?

Yes. You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

my dress

I finished my dress! It’s a teal, semi-fitted, cotton sheath with a bateau neckline that falls just below my knees. I’ve been pressing it, admiring my handiwork. One fine hem line, six equisite darts, one neckline to die for, and the divine zipper with hook and eye. I’ve tried it on three times since 3pm, bought some shoes and am brainstorming about accesories. I’m in love; it was worth the over 20 hours of work.

Next month, I’m thinking I’ll concoct one of black linen. Now I need to perfect my posture to be worthy to wear it. And, I feel immense satisfaction in having a tangible, wearable product. Sewing is hard work but good work.

scraps

I learned a new word today: utopious. Okay, so, it’s not a real word. Even better. It’s genius: utopia literally means, “no place” (yes, the Greeks were a bit cynical and that’s why we like them); so a fake word, utopious, fits the idea perfectly. I heard it at a training session I went to on substitute teaching. As for the overall experience, I can’t get past my gem of a new word, the drug test, and the eager certified counselor that sat across from me. They were presenting material I felt should be considered common sense. But, I survived and didn’t let one snarky comment set sail on the sound waves. “Don’t use sarcasm” was about number seven on the “Don’t List”. If they were serious, they would have listed it at number one.

****************

I am not a natural when it comes to sewing. One could say I’m unnatural. Sometimes my sewing teacher leaves the room “to get something”; she’s leaving the room to chuckle. At the end of one session, she summed it up, “Well… you didn’t cut a hole in your fabric.” It did take me over 2 hours to put in six darts. I did sew an entire seam without having the needle threaded; at least we didn’t have to pull out the seam ripper for that mistake. By the end of the session I’m annoyed with myself. It’s good for me. G must be “cleaning up” my work inbetween my stabs at sewing because the dress is looking good. She can’t stand the idea of that unstraight of a seam being associated with her workshop– even if it is the work of the least capable elf. It looks like I’ll wear it. Bonus.

*****

I received this email yesterday:
“How’s it going? I ran the sun run on Sunday and was thinking we should plan to run a marathon next summer/fall (whatever) somewhere on the east coast where we don’t have to have a qualifying time… What do ya say?”

I say, “Heck yes!”

I can’t sew but I can run. And, I’ll need a new outlet for my negative thoughts since sarcasm is banned. It’s all good.

summer rain by U2 and such

I woke up in the most delicious mood! I haven’t felt this light and free in months. I would have gotten up and danced around like a woodland nymph except I’m crazy sore. God is great, Sabu.

In honor of the grace of a frothy mood, here are the lyrics to summer rain (i took out some of the refrains)

When you stop seeing beauty
You start growing old
The lines on your face
are a map to your soul

When you stop taking chances
You’ll stay where you sit
You won’t live any longer
But it’ll feel like it

I lost myself in the summer rain
I lost myself
I lost myself in the summer rain
In the summer rain

Tequila and Orange
Jamaica and rum
At the Morella
Honey on my tongue

In a small boat on a generous sea
You let me be your enemy
Tiny hand
With a grip on the world
Holding our breath now
Diving for pearls

Just as you find me
Always I will be
A little bit too free
With myself

I lost myself in the summer rain
I lost myself
Now there’s no one else
In the summer rain

Raining now

Just as you find me
Always I will be
A little bit too free
With myself

It’s not why you’re running
It’s where you’re going
It’s not what you’re dreaming
But what you’re gonna do

It’s not where you’re born
It’s where you belong
It’s not how weak
But what will make you strong

slow news day

Were I a cat, I would have spent the entire day curled up in a windowsill, contemplating gray clouds and eternity. Instead, I read*. Woven throughout Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain are the books he was reading at the time. He talks about how William Blake, Dante, Gerard Manley Hopkins affected his soul and were part of his conversion. Reading his biography has inspired me to read. Books beget books, and books are way better than life right now. Is there such a thing as legitimate escapism?

The amazing books are

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely. It’s fascinating and compelling, and it’s even well-written. I was taken with the concept of “arbitrary coherence” and the general idea undergirding behavioral economics.

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. It won the Newberry. I admit, I’m down with kid lit. It’s uber cute and even poignant. It’s artfully crafted; the author is adept at using humor and symbols.

White Fang by Jack London. I’m going to get into trouble for reading this with a third grader, but I think she’ll like it. I believe kids intuit story, and I work with her on the vocab. But, the girl loves animals. How is the girl going to fall madly in love with reading by reading crap that’s on grade level. I hate AR. But, here’s the first paragraph:

“Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless,without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness– a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.”

Then the characters’ dialogue is written in dialect, which is highly entertaining. Maybe I’ll switch over to Higher Power, but this is the kid who digs Dracula and the Discovery Channel. We discussed Flower’s death on Meer Cat Manner; it’s sad but life.

Oh, and I found my favorite U2 mix with Summer Rain and Hallelujah, Here She Comes.

* I did some other things as well, but that rhymed and seems more poetic. Making phone calls, tutoring and cleaning are even a little prosaic for this blog– at least this entry. Shocking, I know.

hms poodle

After I gently chastised my brother for NEVER reading my blog, he suggested that a person could care for and even love me without ever reading my blog. I sighed since he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. Gentle (nonexistent) reader, it’s nearly impossible for me to rile my brother even when my antics are at the height of their game. This is good and annoying but mostly good. If only I could find a guy raised by a single mom and big sisters like that character in Jane Austen’s Book Club or my brother.

Later, I whined to my mother, “No one reads my blog!”

She employed the Socratic method, asking, “For whom do you write?” (She may have been insinuating that the tone and material are completely dull and whiney unless you reside in my head where it’s still whiney but earned.)

“The masses. If people were to read this genius, the world would be a better place… Don’t say I never tried.”