How I Feel

I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
... John Newton (1725-1807)

Longing

A Few of My Favorite Things

The last two weeks have been stressful, tedious, and discouraging. So, instead of mulling over and rehashing past troubles, I decided to focus on a few things that make me happy. These are in no particular order:

1.Trees: Woods: Forests: I love trees in all their sizes, textures, and sounds. Virginia has magnificent trees that rustle musically in the summer. But California has trees that look as if they fell from a Crayon box: Pink Floss, Purple Jacaranda, Red Bottle Brush, Yellow Ones, and Orange Ones.

2."Taking the Piss" with my colleagues: I fortunately work with other managers /bosses who can laugh at themselves. We're all good at giving it out as well as taking it. I think our comraderie and good humor is rather rare for middle managment.

3.A full tank of gas: Gives me the feeling of freedom that if I wanted to I could sail by my work exit and keep driving and driving and driving until work was forgotten.

4.Tea, Scones, and Good Friends talking about great books is simply a taste of heaven.

5.Sleeping under a down comforter: The heft and cocoonability conspire to keep me abed all day.

6.Gulden Draak: A sweet Belgian beer that is good for digestion (or so the Belgium/French waiter assured us).

7.The color combination of Chartreuse and Red.

8.My Best Pal and Husband with whom I just celebrated seven years of marriage.

9. Damian Lewis: If you liked him in Band of Brothers (and we did, oh yes we did along with everyone else; though we were disappointed Simon Peg had such a minor role), you'll love him in The Forsyte Saga playing Soames Forsyte. He's in a new NBC drama "Life" on Wednesdays at 10pm. He plays a detective wrongly accused and imprisoned who's returning to the streets of LA.

10.Hollyhocks and Peonies: They're the "Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean" of the flower kingdom.

No, Really

I just received an email from my boss telling all the managers to congratulate "Roy" (a bearded 6'2" Eyeore kind of guy) on winning second place in the national competition for "small figurine painting." Are we in a Christopher Guest movie?

Haven't you always wanted to know.....

...the trial verdicts that caused riots?

On Sweden

You must read Anthony Esolen's elegiac hymn to Sweden. Really, you must. Do. it. now. But whatever you do, don't read the article he links to. Not if you want to remain in a happy bubble.

"The Unstilled World Still Whirled"

At our salon this past Sunday, my friend read part of Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot. The beginning haunted me:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

After hearing that stanza, I knew I must read the rest. These two stanzas that appear in Part V particularly arrested me:

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

I generally read like someone in great need of water-huge guzzling gulps with no breaks. But with poetry and this poem in particular I'm forced to read like a proper Victorian Lady-little sips with pauses in between to breathe. To my surprise, I enjoy the slow pace of reflecting between stanzas, between phrases on the imagery and possible meaning. Such activity will keep me from senility and it's far more enjoyable than bridge!

Makes Me Laugh

"Is that a little beard," the woman asked, pointing to the narrow fringe of hair under Steve's lower lip. "I don't like little beards."

Finally

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the pecuniary puerile perfidy of the penile hegemony in its decision to outlaw infanticide and violence against women.

Good Work Supremes!

Life as a Boss

Got a call from a woman I fired a month ago. After I fired her, she said "I've been waiting for this. Thank You." Today she said, "You were a great boss. I really liked working with you." Either she needs therapy or I'm damn good at my job. I prefer the latter.

Words for ME to live by

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."--Anthony Trollope

Here we go again...

My company has now acquired another competitor making it the third in three years. My life will cease to be my own as I get swept up into the tornado of meetings, conference calls, and planning sessions necessary to bring order out of the chaos. Corporate Management will urge all of us middle managers to be proactive in developing solutions to the emerging challenges. But we all know that we're just getting ready for another ring of hell where there will be much crying and gnashing of teeth. Oh How I Can't Wait.

My Nephew Dexter

Isnt' he the most squeezable, edible, adorable, cuddable, huggable, delectable tot you ever did see?

On Poetry

I don't like poetry. I'm a prose gal. Words in prose are less slippery, less opaque. I like that. I recognize that my apathy toward poetry is a personal failing and something to be rectified. I'm open to developing the capacity to have a capacity to appreciate poetry (to use a J.P. Morelandism).

Fred Sanders (one of my favorite professors from the Apologetics program at Biola) illuminates the point of poetry and in doing so sparks a desire within me to explore this foreign language. Here are some excerpts:

"Think of the world as divided between things easily labelled and things just barely describable. Civilians work with the easily labelled things, but when something just barely describable confronts us, we call in the language marines: poets."

AND

"What if something awful is rolling toward your generation and nobody knows what to call it? What if part of our desperate situation is our inability to name ourselves and our situation? What if we can’t appropriate the goodness available to us unless we can recognize it as what it is and tell ourselves and each other about it? What if the source of our life is a mystery that can’t be definitively spoken but must be acknowledged, praised, confessed? What if the region of the ineffable isn’t out at the boundaries of our lives but right at the center?"

The question now is, where to begin? Any suggestions?

Weird Science

I can't remember how long this bowl of strawberry puree has been in the fridge. But long enough to get a carpet of mold. Some little person would thrill to have such a perfect piece of felt for their miniature house! What did I do with it you ask? I stuck it back in the fridge for further development.

Good Friday

O God in heaven, have mercy on us! Lord Jesus Christ,
intercede for your people, deliver us at the opportune time,
preserve in us the true genuine Christian faith, collect your
scattered sheep with your voice, your divine Word as Holy Writ
calls it. Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be
allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall
away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ.
... Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

I'm St. Melito of Sardis!

"You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the
traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it
was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you
do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins."

Well how about that-this does sound like me. Check out which church father you are (if you're not shocked! shocked! at the patriarchical favoritism of it all.) As for me, I'm going to take it again until I recognize a name.

I AM...

...a pre-modern stuck in a post-modern world.

I THINK...

...pulchritude is the ugliest word for beauty.

I FEEL...

...like wallpaper. Expected to be there, but often overlooked and largely unnoticed.