A Single Layer

This is about the fourth time I've read The Greater Trumps, and I find it actually more confusing now than I did the first few times I read it. I think I'm just having trouble focusing, and it doesn't help that I'm supposed to be coming up with conversational prompts regarding the book. Sybil, what are you trying to say? What is your creed? Nancy, what is plaguing your wondering heart? Joanna, what's the deal with these Egyptian gods? Confusing or not, I still love Williams' words. Here are a few bits and pieces for your own love: '...more and more securely the working of that Fate which was Love possessed her. For it was fatal in its nature; rich and austere at once, giving death and life in the same moment, restoring beyond belief all the things it took away - except the individual will.' p. 144 (This one I have scribbled inside my Bible. It sort of sums up Sybil's place in the book, that strange power that only she possesses fully.) 'She never...

Amanda left last week. My book group moved on to the next novel. I got a cold. We moved from the house to the apartment so the termites could die for a few days. My tire blew (yes, that was a week ago), so I've been driving on a spare which is apparently also flat. Dad's fixing that now... while I'm sucking the hours away with Law and Order SVU for hours on end. I haven't watched TV in a few months (minus the obvious and usual NCIS every Tuesday night since the season started back up again), so it's been a little odd. Let me tell you, Mariska Hargitay is severely awesome. Rather a superhero, actually. Kind of not really human. Anyway, none of this is important - it's just what's been happening during the silence. Real life is in between, of course. Sweating up and down the apartment stairs, finding the necklaces Amanda left behind on a hook in the bathroom, staring down awkward situations in Portfolio, selecting only my favorite clothes for the three-day hia...

Something happens in the waters of baptism. Something happens when the Eucharist falls down our throats. We don't know what because we are Protestants, and the spirit of the age makes us slow. But the man who gives mercy avoids our ignorance. He doesn't wait for awareness to send Spirit. If we do not know in the halls of our churches, if we fail to approach the cup with care and with fear, still - he will deign to show us in the shades of a forest or between the bright folds of the ocean's surface. Because his delight is in our briefest moments, He will give up his own man for us. He will give a god in exchange for our lives.

A thoughtful article on blogging, inappropriately posted here on the blog. It begs the question: which am I - the bully, the sophist, or the clown?

I'm too tired to have any coherent thoughts, but it's been a few days since I've written anything, and even more since I've written anything about my day-to-day life. Today I went to a baptism after church with a few friends. It was a backyard affair. You know, the jacuzzi types where everyone standing in the crisp autumn air half-envies the baptizers for getting to lounge in the spa. Someone got stung by a bee. They were the words-of-wisdom types. I really love those people, though I know I'll never be one of them. I'm alright with that. Not that I don't understand them, and not that I've never felt led to share a word, picture, idea that God has given me with someone... but there's a kind of community in which it becomes the predominant practice of their gatherings of faith to interact in that way. And that just isn't gonna be me. At least, I highly doubt it. It's like driving past a familiar street knowing you'll never make it down tha...

Thinking about The Greater Trumps (which I'll be rereading in the next few weeks), The Place of the Lion, and That Hideous Strength (not by Williams, but written in his style for his honor) and the significance of the single house outside the city where everything comes to a head. It should have been obvious, I suppose, but I hadn't thought the phrase 'outside the city' until I came upon some old college notes remarking on the importance of the city as a place of interdependence and coinherence. Picturing Anthony riding through the city on his flaming horse, then the car carrying Lothair out of the city and his daughter's strange vision... to a house on a hill, or in a valley, or between the trees, where the Fool dances or the fire rages or the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air flock with graven insistence. It always comes to a head outside the city.

everyone has to live their own story. but oh, how i would like a scene or two in this one . even if i only sit in the background.

When Christianity first entered the world, there were no professors or assistant professors whatever--then it was a paradox for all. It can be assumed that in the present generation every tenth person is an assistant professor; consequently it is a paradox for only nine out of ten. And when the fullness of time finally comes, that matchless future, when a generation of assistant professors, male and female, will live on the earth--then Christianity will have ceased to be a paradox. - Kierkegaard, from Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

This is appalling . After all the acclaim Little Dorrit received?? Do they need a larger fanbase, 'cause I'll find them one!!! What on earth???!??!?!?! (breathe. just breathe..)

Yesterday I went with my sister to view an exhibit of sound sculptures in the art district of downtown Long Beach. If you read the phrase 'sound sculpture' and cock your head in confusion and misunderstanding, you've found the right response. Neither art nor reason had much to do with the display of noise along Broadway and Linden. I was reminded of the chapter in The Phantom Tollbooth entitled Dischord and Dynne. Dischord thinks he has a rather good business going selling bottles of cacophony. From what I could tell of the 'artists' downtown yesterday, he would have done good business indeed had he set up shop on the corner there, opening his doors and calling it art. In their defense, I'm sure many of them had reasons for their displays. But there's a difference between a display of intentional racket and Art. Now you will ask me what art is. You will expect me to offer a thorough and concise definition. Well, I can't do it. I can only offer that smal...

My Favorite Entrepreneur made it onto Etsy's autumnal blog post! Scroll down to see her beautiful orange swirl table linens , and visit her webpage for even more. I am very proud. Bursting and happy. Not that I had anything to do with it. Etsy is for people with real initiative. Which means Tara. In fact, Tara and Initiative might be rather synonymous. I like the word 'synonymous'.

finally just watched ncis from last tuesday!!! ahh!!! lovelovelove!!!!!!!

I have never heard of this brand of Pentecostalism . Scroll down for a fascinating step-by-step how-to hair video that, yes, I watched from beginning to end (though I made a phone call and petted the cat for part of it). Fascinating.

EmilyEmilyEmily!!!!!! I am so excited I could pee!!! I am so excited I could use the word 'pee' on my blog!!! Could you possibly ever in the world imagine a better choice for Mr Knightley?? EVER?????

At first I thought this was some kind of joke, but it seems to be legitimate. After all, this is September 21st, not April 1st. And it actually makes a strange sort of sense. And I'm actually really excited about it - and afraid at the same time. Like I thought I was living in today's world, and I suddenly realized I'm in the Future.

i don't think i've looked forward to anything this much in a very, very long time. See more Wild Things here and here .

As my last post may suggest, I reread Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South this week. I had other things to do(read), but couldn't help myself. It's been pounding through my head for weeks. It would have been faster to watch the film, but I've done that often enough - and where, oh where, is my second dvd? It is good to remember all the myriad ways the film falls short of the novel. The film is so clearly a contemporary production - it washes itself clean from all inter-class condescension that would offend our politically correct senses, and strips itself bare of any suggestions of moralization or religious conviction. We moderns just wouldn't relate. In the novel, the pivotal misunderstanding between Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton centers on a lie. That just won't do for a film. Anyone would lie given the circumstances! It must be more salacious than that. The material is there for a greater misunderstanding - it is suggested, but even Mr. Thornton cannot quit...

Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously - the the pharisee ostentatiously - the simple-hearted humbly - the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and the idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion - given an equally good digestion. - Elizabeth Gaskell North and South

I should not like to chide my heart in this manner, saying, 'Die of shame in your blind, insolent and treacherous disloyalty to your God,' and suchlike things; but I would wish to set it right be means of compassion, saying, 'Now then, my poor heart, here we are fallen into the pit which we had so determined to avoid. Ah! let us seek the light and leave this pit for ever; let us crave the mercy of God and hope that it will help us henceforth to be on our guard. God will help us! - St Francis de Sales from An Introduction to the Devout Life (1608)