A Single Layer

I've been called upon several times in last few weeks to defend my love for Advent. It seems people fall into two camps: those who relish the festivities (the warm fires, the Christmas music, the trees and lights), and those who are overwhelmed by the busyness—or worse, the memories of loss—that the season makes unavoidable. We're called to rejoice though we are sad, rest though we're busy, and step into the celebration of something very old with all the eagerness of children, for whom it is still very new. It's a hard season of contradictions. And those are the very reasons for which I love it. I love it the way I love inclement weather. Because it forces you to look up from what you're doing and take steps to meet it. I live most of my life in a contented little fog, almost absurdly present in this particular moment and no other. It's hard for me to step into the past or the future without some kind of catalyst. That's why I love stories—novels and

This morning I was trying to remember Thanksgivings past. It's a big day, and it only happens once a year, so you'd assume they'd stick in one's mind. But I remember very few of them. I remember last year and the year before, because we had special guests. And I remember the Thanksgiving I celebrated in Scotland, because it was the first time I ever cooked something for the holiday myself, and because we were expats in an island of selective American tradition, desperately trying to find cornmeal in a Tesco (FYI: can't be done). I remember the first Thanksgiving I spent at my sister's house—the other guest was vegan, and the pumpkin pie boiled when it should have baked, and I liked stuffing for the first time and drank a Blue Moon. But the Thanksgivings of my childhood, the ones I think of when I think about Thanksgiving, those I don't remember. They would have been at my Grandmother's house, and the extension would be in the table, and there would

When you open yourself up to inexplicable joy, you also open yourself up to deep sadness. It's a hard step to take, knowing the lows can get very, very low. But it is better than giving nothing its due. I would rather feel the hurt and the happiness as acutely as they deserve than be cold to everything. Because if you fail to feel what each situation calls for as fully as you can, you lose your capacity for sympathy. And that's a lonely way to live.

Go barefoot. Find all the heavy things. Press stuff. Move furniture... ...and listen to music at full volume.

Can't apologize for not posting much when I've been doing beautiful things. But I will share them with you.

Yesterday I started my morning off with a brief conversation with someone I don't particularly like. I've never had a good conversation with this person before, not once, and when I realized it would be necessary to strike up a conversation yesterday, I gritted my teeth about it. And then we talked, I got what I needed, the person was pleasant, I was pleasant, and not a minute of it was a burden. I walked away surprised by joy and playfully kicking myself for having such a bad attitude about it in the first place. This is a lesson I've been learning over and over again recently. It's been a circling theme, and just when I think I've learned it well, I step right into it again. I begin with a preconception, however justifiably formed, that something or someone is difficult, unpleasant, unjust, a threat to my security. And then I'm proven wrong. I was reminded this morning of the Proverb about "if your enemy is hungry." It can be hard, learning to b

This past week, I was struck several times by critical comments from people in my community spoken in such a way that insinuated they had a better notion of how things should be done than the way things were. Behind these comments was a layer of cynicism, or as one person put it, a sense of disillusionment. I am no stranger to cynicism. As a generally sarcastic person, I find my sense of humor often crosses over that invisible line between playful irony and biting criticism. It’s something I’m actively working on. One of the most basic ways I’m working on it is with the discipline of silence. Sometimes keeping silent about the way things are and the way things might be is a bad way of going about things. It can allow injustice to thrive. Or, less egregiously, it can allow inefficiency to run rampant. In such cases, so long as you’re speaking the truth in love, raise your voices to the roof! But sometimes we voice our opinions just because we think we know better, withou

I've been reading through old journals, which will always do it to you. Also, this morning I was reminded of a professor I hadn't thought of in years while moving some books from his class to the office. Found out a couple hours later that he's guest preaching at my church in August. Shortly after that, my roommate from senior year, whom I lost touch with soon after graduation (I graduated before Facebook, you see), found me on a social network I never use and was planning on dumping. It has served me well; I loved that woman, and am so happy to be back in touch. On top of these things, all day long I've been haunted by the smell of jasmine. As though my memories of college are actually messing with my sensory organs. Jasmine is the smell of Wheaton to me, because I wore copious amounts of jasmine oil back in those days. But it's not the memories that are making me smell jasmine again. The jasmine is blooming wildly, at home and at work and apparently everywhere

Thomas Merton writes the following in his book Love and Living (forgive all the elliptical breaks): The purpose of education is to show a person how to define himself authentically and spontaneously in relation to his world.... The function of a university is, then, first of all to help the student to discover himself: to recognize himself, and to identify who it is that chooses. ...This inner identity is not “found” as an object, but is the very self that finds. It is lost when it forgets to find, when it does not know how to seek, or when it seeks itself as an object....Hence the paradox that it finds best when it stops seeking: and the graduate level of learning is when one learns to sit still and be what one has become, which is what one does not know and does not need to know.... Education in this sense means more than learning; and for such education, one is awarded no degree. One graduates by rising from the dead. Thinking about this, I only know what he means b

Driving home from our Good Friday service this evening, I was reminded of the night years ago when I went with my college friends to see The Passion of the Christ in theaters. I was worried about seeing the movie with so many people, because each of us responds to gravity in different ways. I didn't want to be pulled out of the experience because someone couldn't handle grief or awe in silence, and yet I also wanted to experience those things in community. It was a risk worth taking. In the end I sat next to a good friend who understood more than most people how to serve and be served by others in the weighty moments. I don't think we said a word to each other during or after the film, but we certainly felt free to cry. Another friend drove me home, and we were mostly silent the entire way. I know that at some point we discussed it, but I can't remember when. Whenever it was, it was the right time. Knowing the time, and understanding the space surrounding grief is

Last fall I went to an open mic with my friend Carole Crocco. She sang some songs, they were beautiful. A while later there was another one - she sang, I read a poem, someone made me an origami crane. Last week, Carole opened an open mic downtown with half an hour of just her and her music. The place was packed because, fancy that, lots of people love her! I've had this song stuck in my head ever since. If you're gonna have a song replaying in your brain for a full week, you can't do any better than this.

I can't remember the first time I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time , though I have read it since at least half a dozen times. It feels new every time I pick it up, and for that reason alone it belongs in the category of Great Books. It is a great book for other reasons, though I'm not entirely convinced it's a good  book. I don't want to be confusing about this distinction. What I mean by this is that the book contains a lot of faults. There are awkward moments, hiccups in dialogue that should have been scribbled over by a good editor. And the very premise has a certain degree of obviousness to it that's only forgivable because of the book's age - and it's not really that old. But the book has magic. I suspect in part because the author believes in the world she creates - and we do too. Our vision of the universe expands even as we read it. At the moment, I've begun reading the book again along with my book group from Grace. It's th

It's an interesting thing to give an appraisal of a person based on their Twitter tagline, or the section on Facebook titled "About Me." I always feel a bit stumped by those requirements of a social networking profile. What do you need to know about me that can be summarized into a single sentence? My profession? My hobbies? My sense of self-deprecating humor? My cynicism toward the world at large and profile summaries in particular?  There's a similar section in the profile of a Pinterest user, and regular readers know well that I take my Pinterest account very seriously. So it was with much consideration that I decided to forgo the usual descriptors and opt, instead, for a quotation by George MacDonald.   The line is from the book Sir Gibbie , a novel set high in the Highlands, about a little boy whom no one thinks much of until it turns out that he's very important after all. That's about the vaguest summary of a novel I've ever come up with,

For those not paying very much attention, we are in the midst of Lent. Among other things, Lent is the season in which we observe a humility that remembers our shortfall, the great distance between what we are on our own and what Christ has called us toward, made us for, and redeemed us into. I've quoted Richard John Neuhaus before, a line that I remember particularly during Lent every year: "About chief of sinners I don't know, but what I know about sinners I know chiefly about me." This comes from his book Death on a Friday Afternoon , which I probably mention every year about the same time I'm reminded of this line. I was reminded of it again yesterday while reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together . He addresses the same question, Who among us is the chief of sinners? with the same answer. It brought me back to Neuhaus today, and I think rather than talking about it more, I'll just give you a small passage: "I may think it modesty when

Later this month, I'll be starting another ten-week book group in which we'll be reading through three Madeleine L'Engle novels along with Walking on Water . I've featured two of them in my "Book Therapy" box on the left, one of which is there now. Like any normal Madeleine L'Engle reader, we'll begin with A Wrinkle in Time . If you haven't read it since you were a kid, now's your chance. Read along with us and tell me what you think. I have very few expectations for the group, which is probably a good thing. (Few is not the same thing as low, by way of clarification.) Half the attendees have been with us before, and the other half are brand new. We'll see how it goes. 

Last Saturday I hosted an open mic night at the Seka Coffeehouse at my church. It was a perfect gathering of talent and appreciation, the ultimate expression of creative generosity, and I was honored to be a part of it. I read two poems myself, both of which have been on this blog before. I edited them for the event, and I'm proud of the changes. You can read earlier versions of " I Rode the Devil's Back " and " Glitz " through the links, and the edited version of the latter is below. It's a good example of how the revision of a single stanza can improve the whole. Watch me bust at the seams to offer you praise— and if my dance seems epileptic, know my heart is full of grace. My garb is gangly and gauche, cheap cheesy kitsch and unholy, but holy's your business— it's you drawing breath from my lungs. In this space particular, all I can give is a song that will break all your crystal— will rise to the rafters,  and ruffle the w

I'm guest posting today over at the remarkable blog of Kathryn Bronn . If you want to see my thoughts on Pinterest, well, that's where you should go.

A couple months ago when Instagram released their new terms of service and everyone got in a great huff over infringements to their privacy, a friend asked if I was going to close my account and quit using them to share pictures. I thought about it for a minute and realized that no, I wouldn't. By the time the new terms of service came into effect, either someone would discover that the hullaboo was over a misreading of the new terms, or Instagram would have fixed the problem to keep their good name. Within days, the latter happened. We're all still taking our pictures with Instagram, and nothing is amiss* - as far as we know. I'd like to say this is a sign of some divine presentiment within me, but it's not so complicated. We all find some lessons easier to learn than others, and this has been easy for me: to avoid panic based on supposition. It's one of the reasons I've never been particularly moved by end of the world theories, of either the evang

It was just after I finished my master's degree at the University of Edinburgh that I was introduced to  North and South , having raided the Rancho Mirage Public Library's impressive collection of BBC adaptations as thoroughly as possible. My flatmate Jess had burned me a copy of the DVD before I left Scotland, but there was something wrong with it, and it wouldn't play. Which was just as well, pirating being illegal and all. Elizabeth Gaskell's masterpiece, North and South , should never be read before Pride and Prejudice . I would like to get the comparison between these two novels out of the way as quickly as possible, because it's probably the first conversation anyone has about North and South . The premise of both is more or less the same - a man and a woman from two different walks of life meet; he finds himself unwillingly attracted to her and addresses a hasty proposal to her immediate and fiery rebuff; circumstances follow which make her regret her decisio

I had reason to walk down First Street this evening. The sun was just below the trees, the air cool enough for my ubiquitous purple coat, and everything quiet enough for reflection. Walks are good for the soul, but I don't take them very often because I'm lazy or careless or both. I've written plenty of poems out of good walks ("Crossing Main Street" and "Let Me Be Like a Leaf" come to mind), most of which rank among my personal favorites. I didn't write a poem this evening, but if I did, it would have something to do with the wilting camelias scattered in the driveway, or the lost four-square ball by the curb, or the burnt-out building abandoned these past four and a half years which someone has recently deigned to decorate with two potted plants. I'm not sure what the point of the poem would be, though if I'd let the walk be longer, or if I'd faithfully refused to pull out my phone during the last leg, I might have thought of somethi

If you intend to be fastidious about the records you keep for your literary children, there are a few things worth writing down as you read: 1. The Title : This is a bit obvious, but if you're keeping records in a journal or on a blog, it's considerably more necessary than if you're leaving your notes on the inside cover of the book itself. Recording the title can be useful in other ways, particularly if the book comes in multiple editions, or if you're reading a translation of some kind. Something is communicated to me, for example, when a reader claims to have read Demons  rather than The Possessed . 2. The Date : To know that my mother read a particular book while she was pregnant with me, or when we were on a summer vacation, or while she was between jobs, is interesting to me personally. Books then provide a kind of literary timeline to a life. For the rest of the world, this may have no significance at all, but your children will consider nothing more fascinating

I remember hearing a story once about a man who left his library to his children after he died. When they went through the books, they found he had inscribed a note to them about each book, explaining why it was important to him and why it might be important to them. Ever since I heard about this man and his library, I have wanted to keep a record of books for my own children. Since so many of us read books digitally, and so many of my own important reading experiences have been through the public library, recording my impressions on a blog seems more relevant and more helpful. This is different than reviewing books, of course. It's more a matter of recollection, since many of the books recorded here are very old, and their contents already approved by myriads of readers across history. Some are not so blessed. Some, in fact, might have been either forgotten or ignored by history. Some might be very new. Some might be epic novels, some picture books, and still others might be non-

One of the things I wanted to do more of this past year, and which I am even more resolved to do this year, is to write more letters. I used to write letters all the time. It was something I enjoyed, something others enjoyed receiving, and it gradually became both a part of who I was and a part of knowing me. I have gathered a good deal of stationery recently, as well as some postcards. I'm going to be writing many letters in the next few weeks, to people I know, and even to a few strangers. I don't know what the letters will say yet, or even who will receive them. But I have a few names in mind, and I'm willing to add to the list. If you'd like a letter from me, let me know. Not here on the blog, where information is unprotected and widely available (unless you feel very safe behind a PO Box or something). But contact me privately on Twitter or Facebook , if you have the means, and let me know where to send something. I can't guarantee anything, because r

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake. Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week. Overall Life Mission 1 1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever. 2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things. 3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come t