Since today happens to be my mothers' birthday, I sped home from school to give my well-wishes via Skype phone. However, on the Skype listing, "kingsman" is very grey and not available. Bother.

In lieu of a direct connection, I've contrived a short birthday toast:

Susie is a farm girl by upbringing and by heart--
with an inclination for thunder storms, bare feet, and hard work,
with an approachable manner and an unflinching brow for gross messy jobs that have to be done (think 8 children--they're just as bad as mucking out stalls at times).

Sue is a wife in love--
with a cute smile, dark curls, and a glint in her eye,
with 32 years successfully laughing with, teasing, loving, and following Bob.

Mum is a mother (her dream job, she says)--
with a penchant for tea parties, popcorn for dinner, weekly library trips, traveling to far-away places (remember the 8 kids?), making doll clothes,
with a delightful sense of adventure, fun, and understanding.

Thank you Mumma, for letting me hang out on the end of your bed, for telling me that it was OK to cry, for training me to work faster (how I hated it), for painting my bedroom, for teaching my little girl self how to hear God speaking, for letting me mess up your kitchen with my "mixtures", for not overcooking your vegetables, and for your curly hair.

I love you!

Orange Benefits

This morning I was backpacking up the hill to culinary lecture. I say, "backpacking" because that's what moving around the Delhi campus essentially is: hiking on a mountain with a pack. Anyway, I digress. So... I was trying to speed to class at a fast clip, doing my thing, focused on the tasks ahead, and then I saw brilliant orange floaters (you know, the seed pod thingys that fall off of trees) on the sidewalks, grass, everywhere. They hadn't been there yesterday, but they were here now. Combined with an unusually balmy breeze, it was like God flung a bold swath of confetti on the school, really cool and beautiful confetti.

"Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation (Psa. 68:19)."

Baked Beans and Bundles

If ever there was an excellent observation about good food, this is it. Elizabeth Goudge just vindicated my vocation here in these two sentences:

It is possible that good food had been as instrumental in accomplishing the spiritual salvation of Jo Isaacson as the Hollys' kindness. Thoughts of suicide do not flourish in an aroma of baked beans, and belief in God is strengthened, not weakened, by a well-cooked ham...

I believe it was Catherine Marshall that invented the term, "my bundle." "Bundles" are the people that God puts in my path. You know, the darling individuals that pop up frequently in your days (and sometimes minutes) and become "yours." I love Mrs Holly's matter-of-fact attitude toward Mr Isaacson, clearly her "bundle," in the remainder of this passage:

...She'd not had an easy time with Mr. Isaacson; and, if her compassion had not be strengthened by the conviction, shared with Mr. Holly, that in a world gone mad with destruction everything that could be salvaged must be salvaged, bones and chocolate paper and immortal souls, it is possible that after a reasonable time had passed she might have looked about her for another lodging for him and given herself a bit of rest from those eccentricities in Mr. Isaacson that she did not particularly appreciate... She wished she could push Mr Isaacson on to some other woman to look after; it was, she felt strongly, some other woman's turn now; but she was determined not to do it until she could find a woman capable of carrying on Mr. Isaacson's rehabilitation as expertly as she was doing herself. And then, as she would say to Mr. Holly, we can't pick and choose in this world, and if the Lord had seen fit to send her Mr. Isaacson to care for, rather than a nice little boy and girl, she'd best get on with it...

Elizabeth Goudge, The Castle on the Hill (pgs. 247-248)

Ahhh!

CS Lewis did it again. My thinking is fixed again. Reading Mr Lewis' arguments is like receiving a mental chiropractic adjustment. This particular passage from The Four Loves recently walloped a huge curvy crick out of my philosophy:

It remains certainly true that all natural loves can be inordinate. Inordinate does not mean "insufficiently cautious." Nor does it mean "too big." It is not a quantitative term. It is probably impossible to love any human being simply "too much." We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for the man, that constitutes the inordinacy. But even this must be refined upon. Otherwise we shall trouble some who are very much on the right road but alarmed because they cannot feel towards God so warm a sensible emotion as they feel for the earthly Beloved. It is much to be wished--at least I think so--that we all, at all times, could. We must pray that this gift should be given us. But the question whether we are loving God or the earthly Beloved "more" is not, so far as concerns our Christian duty, a question about the comparative intensity of two feelings. The real question is, which (when the alternative comes) do you serve, or choose, or put first? To which claim does your will, in the last resort, yield?

Lewis, The Four Loves, pg. 170-171

My Year: ADD style

Upon perusal of my blogs' draft folder, I made a discovery, or, I should say, discoveries: SEVEN very abruptly unfinished blog posts (including one completely blank page)! At first, I was frustrated and annoyed and pecked at by familiar self doubts. "All right, all ready, I've probably drafted more posts than I've finished posts!" Why can I never finish what I start?" But on second thought I decided,"why not make lemonade when I have so many lemons?" "Why not make ONE GREAT BIG FAT blog entry out of the SIX STUPID SKINNY INCOMPLETE posts?"

I've introduced each post with a few snippets of context, but every word in italics is just the way I left it in my draft folder, excepting a few minor editorial changes. Here is 2009 in snatches:


I vacation with Aunt Shirley and my cousin, Drew at their condo in Myrtle Beach, SC:
Now that I'm at the beach, I figure I should post about it. I mean, what is more noteworthy than paradise? A few glimpses:I met a hermit crab in the resort parking lot, appearing small and lost. These bitty crustaceans should in the dictionary under the word "scuttle."
6/4/09


A redneck habit?
I have discovered a new pastime--sunflower seed chewing. On a whim the other day I bought a bag of seeds in the shell at Market Basket and brought them home to the family as a low-fat snack. My first tries eating the seeds where disappointing and unsatisfying.
7/8/09


My home for now:
Last week I spent helping a family in New Jersey. Overall, the time went good, but when I returned home, I discovered how I tired I was--the kind of tired one gets from being in an unfamiliar and slightly stressful situation for a longish period of time. Then I returned to Fairwood. As I kicked up dust with my bare feet on the gravel road to Ruth's house, I realized how much this place is a cherished part of my life: a quiet, constant companion.

In the summer I like Fairwood best without my shoes. Padding around the empty campus on the warm pavement is what I do when I don't want to think about anything in particular. The school year requires me to be a good example to the students by wearing my shoes so they will all think that I am a responsible adult, but when the last pencil is flung to the wind, I roam the school shamelessly young.

When David wrote: "He leadeth me beside still waters, He restoreth my soul," I can relate. The greenness around me
8/17/09


I think about writing about a day in my life for YLCF:


I've decided to join YLCF's "A day in my life" carnival:

12:30 AM No sleep.

1:00ish Sleep!

7:45ish Normally, I run or bike earlier than this. However, I slept in this morning and lost my chance. No time to do much except catch a chapter from Jeremiah (where I'm currently at in my very slow consecutive walk through the Bible), and choose an outfit from the floor.

I work and live at a tiny Bible School in New England.
10/27/09


Too much thought-time on my hands at the restaurant:
Today in the middle of the time-consuming monotonous task of rolling and cutting homemade pasta at the restaurant where I work, I found Israel. It was a long, fragile strip realistically shaped like the Israeli border. I continued feeding new portions of dough through the rollers and catching the resulting sheets, smooth and gritty with flour all at the same time, and reflected. Seeing the country where my parents and youngest brother are living and praying made me miss them. Especially my parents. I don't know, maybe it's
11/5/09


Don't feel too sorry for me:
This Saturday I am alone in an apartment that is normally full with four busy girls (my sisters that is). So here I sit, alone, on the couch, while the fridge roars nearby. Have you ever noticed how loud a quiet house is? I mean, even if the fridge isn't running, sometimes the sound of quietness seems more noticeable to me than any noise is. Hm... the fridge just stopped, and now the laptop is a mini Niagara Falls. The wall just creaked. Oh, maybe that was the register: it's tapping. Maybe I should turn some music on.
1/23/10