God's strength + my weakness

It has happened. I done graduated. I have more to say - much more - later: it's been a whirlwind week, full of finals and family, sickness, sunshine and volleyball, and lots of grace.
Now I'm trying to pack and clean and move - in the next 4 hours.

Best thing by Camus in 79 pages

Albert Camus wrote a book called The Stranger. I looked him up online and the fellow has a definite Humphrey Bogart thing going on, which is of course spiffy. But I'm not sure about him otherwise. I do not understand him. I don't understand the style, the short sentences, the spare words, the character who does everything without life, without hope, without reason, without belief. How sad and meaningless is this nihilistic jerk and his pitiful life!

I await Mr. Grieser's thoughts on the novel and, in the meantime, relish this, the best quote in the whole book so far:

"I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored."

Herp Glory

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:24-5

Yesterday we went herping (hm, yes, I guess Jordan was right, that does sound pretty weird. Yet it is a real verb). Herpetology is the study of Reptiles and Amphibians, and I'm taking this elective from Dr. Gordon Wilson, our resident scientist. Kenny headed up the expedition, and with Kellen, Lindsey, Stephen, Noai, Dr. Wilson and his nephew Rory, I went a-herping in the hills around Moscow for the entire afternoon. Here are a few finds.

Western Skink (Eumeces skiltonianus)

This is the second skink we found (#1 had lost his tail, and wasn't as pretty). Fiery little fellows, quick as snakes and quite frightened of us, but would settle down as soon as they'd scurried up onto the black shirt of Kenny or Kellen. Then they'd wait, completely still, as if successfully hiding from us there in the dark. Their golden-brown-black striping, fine cycloid scales and stunning blue tails make them quite handsome.

Rough-Skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa)

Reading Wodehouse for years before meeting newts, I've been tempted to think they were his brainchild - like Finknottles or Black Shorts. But they're completely real. This fairly calm fellow lived under an old stump. His underside was brilliant orange, his costal grooves obvious, his nubbly back almost purplish brown, hands pudgy and childish, and his throat would move up and down quite a bit as he breathed.

Long-Toed Salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum)
Catch #2 (the first was badly enough injured that Dr. Wilson thought it better to not let him loose to suffer in the wild). This one was dark, his green dorsal stripe not as easy to see. His tail was flattened, almost like a newt. It was easy to identify him as a Long-Toed rather than a Coeur d'Alene, simply because of his long 4th toes on his rear feet. I love how salamanders walk, and the way their little elbows stick up above their splayed front feet.

Columbia Spotted Frog (Rana luteiventris)
Mr Frog (the only specimen we found) was small. The field guide tells me they are avg of 1 3/4 to 4 inches long, and I would guess he was at the very smallest end of that range. His belly was pale yellow, his ear drums small, his back covered with small spots and insignificant warts. Frogs are always a bit difficult to convince to stay on your open hand, but we did get him to hang around long enough for a few pictures before we let him go again.

(Northern?) Alligator Lizard (Elgaria coerulea)
Can you tell why he has this name? Look at his head, short legs, general configuration, scale pattern, ect. This one didn't try to bite (unlike one last year), but he really wanted to go back home rather than be a celebrity in the midst of our admiring circle and cameras. You might be able to see the fold of skin along his side, between belly and back scales, which expanded and folded thin again with every breath he took.

Wandering Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans vagrans)
The only snake we found, this fellow was pretty tiny. He was content to wind slowly around our fingers as we talked and took photographs. The wandering is a lot plainer looking than the common garter, lacking its nice red-orange spots, but is still pretty captivating. He has keeled scales (running your finger down his back, you feel more texture than a smooth-scaled skink). His tongue flicks in and out, darting dark and sinister looking.

The way of a serpent upon a rock was one of three things too wonderful for the wisest man of all, King Solomon. And we have this glory, to seek out in the world those things which God has hidden for us.

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." Prov 25:2

Still Praising (Tuesday of finals week)

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was but a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been of defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. (From The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien)

Sometimes I feel this way during finals week. Most of the classes here have an oral and a written component, and oftentimes it seems that the week will never end and fade off into the past so we can glide off into Spring Break. For at least a week now, life has been full to overflowing with finishing assignments, paper writing, memorizing from Tolkien and the Greek New Testament and a collection of Romantic poetry, filling out endless study sheets, gathering over coffee and sweet things to study with others, flipping through underlined pages to refresh on what the heck Kant actually thought about Hume, etc etc.

But life is definitely more than this, and there is goodness beyond the reach of whatever distress or disappointment is staring us in the face. There are great glories and there are simple ones.

-We can sub-create things. In fact we are supposed to: we are sub-creators because we are human. We are supposed to write poems, and knead bread dough, and stir oil paints, to devise faster more beautiful cars and pianos and plays, to make music, and gardens, and children.

-Snow. When you least expect it, it is the most spectacular. When it coordinates with sunshine, it is fairy.

-The 5 year old daughter of my host family came into my room earlier. "Do you cough the most? Are you the sickest?" she asked me. "Do you eat cough drops?" Then I realized she had a box of kleenex and a bag of cough drops in her hand. "They are apple kind. Do you want one?"

-I love knowing (not just words but whole verses of) Scripture in Greek. I love the thick sound of the words, how involved your mouth has to be at producing those sounds, how we can 'speak God's words after Him' by speaking the words of Christ in the Gospel account.

-Honey roasted peanuts.

-Looking forward to a sister and brother coming to town this weekend.

-Knowing that when I do my best in faith, God is contented with where I am. He does not berate me like I do myself. He does not review my failings. They are crucified with Christ and no longer live.

Grateful Anyway, Sunday edition

I've been kneeling on the carpeted floor by a stack of books on the Romantic Era and a stack of handwritten notes and study guides almost as tall, going through a final exam review sheet, pretty much since dinner. So tired. Still coughing after almost 2 weeks. Not really sure how the next 5 days will be. But knowing I should be grateful.

-My family came to town today, stayed 4 hours, and drove back home - Five hours of driving to see us! They are sweet.

-Grandma Smiley sent my birthday present with them. I love this sweater!

-Brownies. The kind made with several kinds of chocolate and so much butter that Julia Child would definitely approve.

-Tea with honey and cream

-Teachers who say things like, "I'm pretty much free all day tomorrow if you want to meet and talk about translation or anything you're having trouble with." Or, "Memorize 4 passages from Tolkien and incorporate them into your presentation." Awesome.

-Naps in the Big Chair under a fleece blanket.

-Coldplay (E.g., Til Kingdom Come: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo49REpQCwA)

-Kleenex

Monday Night

(Or A Post as Disjointed and Bi-polar as I Feel)

Tonight, I am balancing between a lot of different feelings. Or maybe balancing is too optimistic a word, but for now let's leave it there; it's what I would like to think.

-I finished the Greek parable I should have done for Friday. Grammar books are frustrating.

-I am exhausted, body and brain. So what is new?

-It would have been intelligent to start my paper, but the hours shrunk away into the darkness and my bed is calling me.

-I wish I could bestow life with my words. I wish they were grace.

Today, every day, living on this earth is a thing that is sharp and it is sweetness and it is bitter, it is long and far too short all at the same time; God is rough and He has faithful hands; I want to beg Him for things, but I have enough thanksgivings that I could be busy saying them for ever.

-Singing in choir today filled my soul and body with vigor, and I was satisfied.

-Maria, Becki and I ate milk-duds and laughed at near-nothings as we hadn't done in weeks.

-My weekend was beautiful. The need for rest is, indeed, the pulley that turns us back.

-The sky broke open and spilled thousands of small wet pieces like diamonds, or paper clippings, all over my town. My feet got wet. My car is stuck. But my hair wore those diamonds, and my sister and I snowballed each other on the way to the car, and the hills are gloriously smooth and pale, fading into the white sky at the horizon.

Yet every week, all of the time, I am pulled in so many directions and am so inadequate. Between readings and quizzes due for classes, and studying for finals fast approaching, and seriously working at resumes and job applications for summer work, between the work I have now, and headaches and letters to respond to and choir and car breakdowns and desperately wanting to sleep for ever, between realizing I don't read my Bible enough and trying to finagle CRF meetings or coffee-with-friend-dates into my schedule, and never picking up a newspaper or getting involved with the rest of my community... I'm not really sure what I should do when I get an hour, or half an hour, or 5 minutes in which to do something. It is, frankly, sometimes more than I feel like applying myself to. But I want to be able to do things.

-I want to be diligent, industrious, focused, and do well in my studies.

-I want to branch out, to learn, devour and plan a future, to be taken by the glories of the wide world that stands pulsing with possibilities at my door.

-And mostly, this week, I want to be with my friends who just lost their baby. I want her fear and pain, their sorrow and confusion, to be taken away, to be healed. I want to live with comfort in my hands and my presence, living like the Spirit teaches.

I cannot truly balance these things. And so I lift my eyes to the hills again.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God." Psalm 42:11

Glance at my thesis

Pre-writing, or What *AM* I doing after graduation??

One of my professors' assignment was writing a 1250-word paper, due week 7 of our term. But the method meant starting back around week 3: multiple paper drafts, each one written in at least two sittings, printing and proofreading before typing the next one. Confusing? Yes.

The best thing about this plan was stage 1, which we call the Zero Draft. It's seriously the least-intimidating, least-stressful kind of writing on earth: brain-dumping. You don't have to have a thesis statement, an argument, even complete sentences. You just start typing about anything remotely related to the subject, plopping in block quotes from sources, brilliant and idiotic statements from you, questions to self... yes, stream-of-consciousness brain-dump.

Of course, once you've done the gathering-of-stuff, it's time to take up hammer and nails and actually construct something out of the mess of materials. But this pre-decision, pre-building, is not to be underrated: you need it to check inventory: what you have, what you need, what you want, what you like, what is a possibility and what has absolutely no basis for inclusion here.

I'm pretty sure this is time for Zero-Draft inventories regarding my life, and the pages aren't pretty at the moment. I don't have a strong thesis statement yet, but I know I need to eventually: decided, supported, printed up and stapled with a satisfying click. Maybe graduation would make a nice deadline for this plan to be complete. For now, I have a lot of random thoughts, likes, notions, dreams, all bumping around in my noggin, that aren't formed enough for me to pick out of it a direction to go, a blueprint to build on, a paper to write.

But I'm grateful for the time I have for zero-drafts and rough-drafts and red-pen editing of my life's plan. Teach me to number my days, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.

Goings-on

Life is busy. Life is tired. Life is happy. Life is stressful. Life is insane. Life is confusing. Life is God. Life is life.

I've been keeping plenty busy. And for some reason I can only attribute to God's grace, my attitude has been keeping pretty much at an even keel. Of course I have moments like last night around 10pm (when I look at the paper I'm supposed to be writing and scroll up and down it and have no idea what to write on it next and lean back on the couch and let my eyes unfocus as they are wont to do and realize that I am ultimately TIRED and decide I will just go to bed), but mostly, it's been a doable thing, this Living.

Lots is on my mind. Here is some of it in its kind of messy glorious randomness:

-We're reading Bunyan, and discussing things like whether he should be considered one of the greats of English lit, and the theme of sight in his book.

-I like Mat Kearney's music.

-Today one of my classmates told us about the movie The Tempest coming out. I'm not sure what Shakespeare or his diehard fans would think, but I'm excited.

-What passage of Greek should I memorize for my final?

-I really, really, really want to play Balderdash lately. Does anyone have it that I could borrow??

-Lots of people think Milton was unfair to Eve. I think Eve and Adam had the exact same problem in Paradise Lost. Hopefully my paper will prove that.

-I love having new studded snow tires on my car and actually being able to stop at a light and not slide into someone in front of me.

-I lost one of my driving gloves. Yeah, that's annoying. Hopefully someone will run across it at school and I can get it back. It might have fallen down behind the candy machine.

-The other day I went to the dollar store and had way too much fun. I love the cinnamon-apple candle and the pencil-case I now have.

-Wake Awake has been playing in my head today. Beautiful Christmas song!

-Paychecks are awesome.

-Seth T is hilarious. End of story.

-It's just about a month until I go to Montana for Justine's wedding. This makes me very happy.

-The juniors put at least 4 trees up at school (I haven't gone into every room, so maybe more). Nice job! Although I wouldn't say they did better than we did, the Commons tree = fabulous.

-I have two finals for each class I'm taking. ***freak moment*** Okay I'm back. At least that's only 6 this term, plus my thesis being due. Only.

-I have no facebook account right now. I think I'll be back in a few weeks; taking a little hiatus.

Hopkins' and the Greeks: perfect circles and sin

“The circle image," James Cotter says, "also provided Hopkins with a traditional figure for the triune godhead: ‘The immortals of the eternal ring/ The Utterer, Uttered, Uttering.’ Since only God himself is perfect completion, every finite sphere must show its imperfection of being in asymmetrical form.” (Inscape: the Christology and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins)

“All the world,” Hopkins says in a journal entry of 1973, “is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as a purpose.”

Cotter again: “God gave things a forward and perpetual motion, but Satan, his counterfeit image and Antichrist, projects a rival spiral... [which] draws toward non-being instead of mounting toward its target of truth... sin is inscape gone awry, a self-centered enthronement of strange gods in one’s own God-likeness.”

State of Mind

In Paradise Lost, Satan knows that Hell is not only a place: it is also a state of mind. He will take it wherever he goes, and it is not only within him (disturbing and warping all he thinks and sees), but it also alters and destroys what is around him. He brings his own Hell with him, and gives some of that Hell to those he meets.

What is my state of mind? Do I carry some Heaven with me, or a bit of Hell? Is my mind (and my outward flow of thoughts, words and deeds), ringing with the light and truth and righteousness of Life, or is it growing moldy with the slime and sin and envy of Death?

What we think influences how we act and speak. It influences how others act and speak and think because our actions build or tear down those around us. Gratitude is contagious (just as complaining is). Both will spread from little quiet corners and random statements into all of the open spaces of your thoughts and conversations.

And so [if you will pardon the helplessly mixed metaphor - it has been a morning of muddled words] I feel the need to air some of my thoughts today (air my clean laundry? ahaha), so that they can shoot runners out like excited strawberry plants in the spring and begin to take over more ground.

-I love the happiness an Americano coffee brings - $2 for a whole morning of perkiness.

-Did you know that there were snowflakes in the air this morning?

-Yesterday I listened to Mumford and Sons for a couple hours. LOVE THEM.

-Yesterday I also finished all of my reading for the week (barring Greek). This is a very full and hopeful feeling: I can work on Thesis today!

-We do not have to write an SRP (short recitation paper) for tomorrow. Instead we memorize and deliver 12-20 lines of Milton before professor and classmates. Mr. Grieser is awesome.

-I think I've heard this CD of classical music here at Bucer's enough times to know which song comes next.

-Did you know it is 2 weeks + 1 day until Thanksgiving?

-Zoe yogurt (honey flavor) was my breakfast. YUM.

-Mr. Griffith reading the crazy stories in the Apocrypha with us... SO good.

"Demonology isn't an area I'm really strong in."

"You guys are doing a really good job of what Gwen always used to do: ask questions about all the dirtiest parts of the story."

"Angelic bonds. They probably grow white. I mean glow."

Motivational

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Life has three categories: things that are, things that were, and some things that have not yet come to pass.

-

Yesterday I had a Sabbath meal at the Foucachon's. There, us 3 college girls were brought into a home where generosity looked like autumn light coming in the big windows, stories and questions, relaxing music, a French accent, strong espresso, and some wine and food at their table. Flour and butter had been turned into appetizing puffs, a creamy green soup was the best lentil dish I've ever met, fresh-venison stew anchored the meal, and I had my first taste of creme brulee. Thank God for rest.

-

Yesterday is already sown and grown; tomorrow's weather is not yet revealed; today we are in the fields with strong hands and a warm sun on us.

-

Today I woke up at 6. Shower, breakfast, makeup, pack lunch and book bag, and off to scrape the windshield on the car to drive to school. Our Latin mid-term was this morning, followed by finishing up an assignment for Paradise Lost (successful, although it's possible that I translated into English something even crazier than was written there in the Latin, and I'm not sure I did justice to John Milton's poem by reading the last 40 pages in 20 minutes). Class, home, work, dinner, cleanup, studies: Thank God for work.

-

We do not know what may come tomorrow or next week or a year from now. Ours is only to decide what to do with the time we have been given.

-

I have plans for tomorrow, and they are all reasonable and decent ones: finish Greek homework, write on my zero-draft paper, accelerate on thesis work. And I know what I'll be working on in the next 6 or 7 months. I have very few plans past that, but I trust that the structured chaos of today's work and the good strengthening of yesterday's rest will repeat itself many times over before then, and prepare me for that kinda big tomorrow. And I thank God for hope.

To make myself get to work

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.

- Henri-Frederic Amiel

Language

Today I used an adverb I hadn't used in probably 6 or 7 years. And it came out so easily that I sat and admired it for a minute and wondered why I'd neglected it for so long. It was French, the language I studied for about a year in high school.

Three days ago I started taking Latin again. It's a good year and a half since I took Aesop's with Mr. Griffith, and it's obvious I haven't done a whole lot since then. It has been sneaking away, one little verb ending at a time, and I find that I need to start scouring the countryside to re-collect everything I once owned.

Tonight I need to translate Numbers 1:1-21 from the Greek. It sounds fabulous to be doing both Latin Vulgate and Greek Septuagint - reading and translating Scripture for homework. This is a beautiful kind of work, and I just want every word that I note and look up to be written in my mind with an iron pen and lead forever.

I want to know all of these languages well. I want to keep a journal like Gerard Manley Hopkins of words and their origins and even make up a few of my own; I want to choose the word I say because little strings connecting it to other words tug and ease and twist and tease it to mean exactly the right thing. I want to savor their long vowels and roll their R's and dwell on the silent letters hanging off the ends of the French words. I want to eat these words and let their shapes change me as they enter me. I want language, like food, to not be merely fuel for energy and efficiency but something that alters, shapes and remains with me, and those I share my words with. I want words for the Eschaton.

Sunday and Monday update

Sunday was full of family, worship and feasting, taking pictures in the park, having tasty drinks together, receiving prayer and losing stress. Late at night, sisters and a good friend to snack and laugh and look over thesis with.

Monday, God's goodness didn't go anywhere. Praise Him for bringing my thesis defense, for making the way (mostly) smooth, and for giving so much relaxing and coffee afterwards.

Now it's off to finals-prep, and I believe He will be there for each of those days as well, For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. (Ps. 84:11)

Father of Lights

Today is a day to be grateful for the little things.

pumpkin spice latte

windshield wipers

donuts

the bank

ice water

Spenser

Shakespeare

emails from mom

high heels

Mr. Schwandt

Was Hopkins successful?

“I am sweetly soothed by your saying that you could make any one understand my poem by reciting it well. That is what I always hoped, thought and said; it is my precise aim.” Gerard Manley Hopkins, letter to Everard Hopkins Nov 5 1885

Two More Days

I will only be home for two days longer. It's not the end of summer proper, but once school starts it certainly doesn't feel like summer anymore. So... two more days in which to do so much, and then we let go of all the things we somehow think should have made it into life the last couple of months. Here is my (mostly) realistic to-do list for the next 48-ish hours:

-Talk everyone into one more afternoon/evening at Albeni Cove

-Spend a few more hours on Hopkins stuff so that I'm a bit more prepared to talk with my advisor

-Make a new dress

-Gather class schedules for Maria, Becki and I, plan what time we'll drive to school each morning.

-Pack clothes

-Pack books and supplies

-Clean my car and check the fluids

-Print off and prepare various NSA documents to bring in on Friday

-Buy a computer sleeve

-Clean (w/ canned air) this crazy computer so it might stop overheating

-Re-send job applications/requests for info, and pray for some work!

-Don't stress.

What is culture?

From Jean LeClerq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God:

From a very general point of view, culture includes an overall conception of the world and of life, and the means for expressing it - that is to say, language and the arts. Precisely, language is the foremost of the arts, the art of speaking well, writing well, and of expressing thought well. Thus, language is always the symbol of a culture, and it shows the level of a culture.