The Friday Clive

What can you really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call "nature" or "the real world" fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?

 

Hugs all around...

Rex asked for a picture with me and the flowers he gave me....

which became a family picture....which always makes me get the giggles....

which caused Zack and Rex to look at each other and hatch a plan....

to squeeeeeeeeeze in.....

for a Happy Mother's Day hug.




I am so glad to be their mom.

One of my favorite parts of the Sunday morning liturgy

Almighty God, 

To You all hearts are open, 

all desires known, 

and from You no secrets are hid:  

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts 

by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, 

That we may perfectly love You, 

and worthily magnify Your Holy Name; 

Through Christ our Lord.   

Amen.

The Friday Clive

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Overwhelmed by love

I went for a long walk with a friend yesterday. When we got back to the parking lot, she handed me a gift.  It's not my birthday, so why a gift?!?  I opened it and a collection of cards poured out, one embossed with a friend's name...a far away friend this friend does not know. I was confused, and she was smiling wide. Two big envelopes were wrapped in tissue. I opened the first and saw these words:

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are the recipient of an almost all expense paid trip to Kentucky to participate in

the CiRCE INSTITUTE Conference

The Contemplation of Creation

July 18-21, 2012

CiRCE Conference 2012

I cried.  And cried.  And cried.

A group of friends have given me this gift...just because.  I am overwhelmed by their thoughfulness and their generosity.  OVERWHELMED.

I have been in a state of shock ever since.  I am going to CiRCE...I am going to hear Wendell Berry speak...I will meet the ClassEd ladies...I am going to CiRCE...I get to travel with my walking partner.  I AM GOING TO CiRCE.

I am walking around with a dazed look on my face.  If surprise was the goal, I could not be more shocked.  Thank you, dear friends.  I cannot wait for July!



** Added later:  Second envelope had confirmation of my flight to Kentucky.  Sorry to keep you hanging, Alison.

Star Scout

One of the traditions that Madelaine created for our family is the Advancement Cake for our scouts when they reach a new rank. Brennan reached Star Scout on Monday night and arrived home to this:

Claire has carried on the tradition and she made sure Brennan was fully celebrated last night.

Congratulations on your achievement, Brennan!!! Thanks for being such a sweet sister, Claire!!!

Bird ID'ing

Do you have a favorite online source for bird identification?  I would love to know it.  Also, while we are at it, do you know what kind of bird this is?  This picture was taken Saturday on my hillside in Northern California.  Would love to know its name.


**  Added later:  Thank you so much, Beth and Patricia.  A yellow-rumped warbler!  Love the name.

The 3rd Sunday of Easter

Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.

The LORD has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.

He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;

Make music to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing...

Psalm 98:1-5

The weeds have breached the fence....

and other random thoughts from my hilltop



* No kidding about the weeds; if you listen carefully, you can hear them grow.  The next week has "yard work" written all over it.

~ the weed breach ~

* Speaking of growing so fast you can hear the squeaks: Brennan has reached the eagerly anticipated 72 inches.  When will it stop?  Nobody knows, but a certain point guard is hoping that it won't stop anytime soon. 

* Food thoughts are swirling in different directions:

Planning for a rehearsal dinner meal in Idaho.  Especially considering all the details that will be necessary for taking my cooking skills on the road.  My current direction:  dreaming of cold food so we aren't in the kitchen cooking when we should be enjoying the celebration.

Food documentaries are becoming a regular thing around here.  It all began with Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead , and I've got a list of favorites now: Forks over Knives , Food Matters and Hungry for Change.  There are more, but those are my current favorites.  Lifestyle changes?  I am juicing and loving it (may actually have to change to decaf coffee, and I am waking up without an alarm.  These are modern day miracles, folks, believe me.)  I am planning our vegetable garden. 

I love Mark Bittman's approach to changing his diet:  Vegan Before Dinner.  If a food writer for the Times can do this, so can I.  Less meat, more vegies.  Keep it simple.  The Farmer's Market opens soon.  Can't wait. 

* Reading:

I figure if anyone can make me like science fiction, it is Clive.  So far, not really getting it, but I keep reading in hopes of a genre conversion.

This is the story of a young man who reached into Henri Nouwen's soul and taught him the glorious truth of the gospel.  His last book.

*  Praying

There are seasons in life that become layers and layers of hard times, some of it our own doing, some of it coming from out of the blue.  The last three years have had more sorrow and loss and worry than the rest of my life combined, and I am beginning to know a bit about what pain and darkness can do to a soul.  Now I am praying for others who are there, dear friends who are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  I don't want my friends to have to go it alone. We need each other, especially when we are surrounded with sadness or resignation or powerlessness.   And so today I pray...as I weed, as I wash, as I cook, as I write. 

I am also praying for myself, that these years of heartache would make me a better friend, one more prone to love and listen than to judge and pester with unwanted advice.  Oh, to be a friend who doesn't know it all, or who thinks that answers to prayer don't always mean that life becomes neat and tidy again.  Sometimes life is messy, and I want to be a friend who can sit and wait and LOVE. 

* Around the blogosphere

My friend Laura started blogging last November.  This post echoes my thoughts on how much we need each other.

Molly from Close to Home on courage:

This hope I’ll fight for till I’m scarred and bloodied isn’t soft and warm like a blanket but rather stubborn, fierce, relentless. And this hope will demand more from me than I think I have, will purge from me pettiness, pride and yes, fear. This hope will rage on in the midst of loss and disappointment, heartache and regret, humiliation and monotony because Love is, and ever shall be. Because Love’s irrational, eternal, invincible. Because Love is the Risen Christ is Love is All.  

(read the whole post:  Courage, courage, O People!)

Tonia's blog has long encouraged me, but there is something in the beauty of this year's posts...they elegantly show the purpose and bigger picture behind the circumstances that shout too loudly in my face.  Thank you, my friend.

The Friday Clive

We - or at least I - shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest. At best, our faith and reason will tell us that He is adorable, but we shall not have found Him so, not having "tasted and seen." Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are "patches of Godlight" in the woods of our experience.

Why speech/debate?

(Below you will find my semi-annual self-talk about why we do speech and debate.  It is here for you to read, but its main intention is to convince ME for another year.  I always get tired, but a little internal lecture quickly puts me on the right path again.)

It is that marvelous time of year when speech and debate tournaments are over, we are finally home, and the cost benefit analysis of this crazy activity is kicking in with a vengeance.  Our pockets are empty of cash, our bodies feel the effects of too many meals on the road, and I am left to analyze our lesson plans and figure out how many weeks into the summer we are going to have to do school.  With all of that, I think it is legitimate to ask:  why in the world do we do this?

I will know the answer more clearly in five or ten years, but I am confident enough to keep on jumping into the insanity.  Why?  Well, to begin with:  skill sets for students, social opportunities for parents and children, and a challenging competitive environment.  Add to it that it motivates the study of issues not normally of interest, forces students to work together toward a common goal and gives the chance to learn how to win and lose with grace, and I suddenly feel more willing to pinch pennies and do lesson plans.

I see very specfic skills in my older children that were birthed or strengthened within the speech and debate arena.  The experience of public speaking is a given, but it impacted my children in different ways.  For my introverted daughter, it was challenging, but it provided a chance to relate to groups of peers, to speak in front of judges, to write and to perfect memorization.  The teaching of impromptu speaking was a direct help in her SAT writing exam, even though she did not compete in that event.

But what about my more extroverted sons?  It was never a problem for them to talk to peers or to fill a five, eight or ten minute speech, but speech and debate has given them something to talk about.    They do not feel intimidated talking in front of people, and they can stand up, organize their thoughts, and give a speech with very little notice.  They are using these skills in service at church as a greeter and in youth leadership, in their sales jobs and in their conversation skills with friends, strangers, and family members.

Without the relationships made within the speech and debate community, though, we would probably not stick around.  We have a club of friends, the kids get input from other adults who care about them, and there is the chance to meet families from all around the state, and sometimes from around the country.  Homeschooling can be isolating, but we have found an antidote in speech and debate.  As a parent, I have made close friends, thanks to time at tournaments, and I know my children have as well. 

These friends become their worthy adversaries in competition.  There are very talented kids in this league, and it keeps everyone working hard and improving.  It isn't fun to lose, it can be hard to work with a partner to achieve success, but these are the sanctifying parts of tournaments.  Learning to be gracious, whether winning or losing, is hard work, and not just for students.  It has done good work in our souls.

And so we start cleaning up from this year.  They're already throwing away old ballots, dry cleaning the suit borrowed from a friend, thinking about speeches for next year, and wondering what case to run for next year's resolution.  We all need a break from the running around, but not for too long. We'll be ready to jump back in the race before you know it. 

If you are a homeschool family, interested in joining speech and debate, I highly recommend STOA (our speech and debate league) to you.  If you want to talk more about what it involves, feel free to email me (acircleofquietATyahoo.com) and I would be happy to talk to you.  If you ever hear of a tournament in your town, I encourage you to volunteer as a judge for speech and/or debate.  We always need judges, and I hear from volunteers how glad they were to have the experience.  Interesting kids and relevant topics can make it quite fun.

The Friday Clive

The allegorical sense of her (Mary Magdalene's) great action dawned on me the other day. The precious alabaster box which one must break over the Holy Feet is one's heart. Easier said than done. And the contents become perfume only when it is broken. While they are safe inside they are more like sewage. All very alarming.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

The Bishop sat drinking his coffee slowly out of the tin cup, keeping the pot near the embers. The sun had set now, the yellow rocks were turning grey, down in the pueblo the light of the cook fires made red patches of the glassless windows, and the smell of pinon smoke came softly through the still air. The whole western sky was the colour of golden ashes, with here and there a flush of red on the lip of a little cloud. High above the horizon the evening-star flickered like a lamp just lit, and close beside it was another star of constant light, much smaller. 

Jacinto threw away the end of his cornhust cigarette and again spoke without being addressed.  

"The ev-en-ing-star," he said in English, slowly and somewhat sententiously, then relapsed into Spanish. "You see the little star beside, Padre? Indians call him the guide."  

The two companions sat, each thinking his own thoughts as night closed in about them: a blue night set with stars, the bulk of the solitary mesas cutting into the firmament. The Bishop seldom questioned Jacinto about his thoughts or beliefs. He didn't think it polite, and he believed it to be useless. There was no way in which he could transfer his own memories of European civilization into the Indian mind, and he was quite willing to believe that behind Jacinto there was a long tradition, a story of experience, which no language could translate to him. A chill came with the darkness. Father Latour put on his old fur-lined cloak, and Jacinto, lossening the blanket tied about his loins, drew it up over his head and shoulders.

Death Comes for the Archbishop  has been on my shelf for a really long time.  I found it at the library book sale and put it out on the hallway stacks and forgot about it.  One of the benefits of having no money in the book budget is that I have started noticing all the stories on my shelves that are waiting to be read.  And this is a real gem.

From the book flap:  "There is something epic - and almost mythic - about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert." 

I've never been enamoured by the desert's beauty, but Cather's writing has changed that.  Her elegant sentences are saturated with details of the southwestern landscape.    She has you feeling the rain pelting down, smelling the warmth of a desert sunset, and seeing the vibrant reds and penetrating blues of the rocks and skies.  The quiet of the surroundings are matched by the quiet life of this faithful Padre.

And the daily steps of that man, his relationships and work and musings, are set to a gentle cadence with nothing hurried.

Death does come for the Archbishop, but not before you have a chance to love him and the desert vistas where he ministers, and to admire his steadfast work and his consistent faith. 

Highly recommended.

General update

Time is flying... I have been busy thorougly enjoying basketball games here, there and everywhere. The grand finale was a tournament in Southern California. Bren and I took a road trip, traveled via the coast, and had a blast.

We started by driving to Cambria, to the home of a long-time friend of mine. She was my youth group leader back in Los Altos, the one who loved and comforted me, the one who made me laugh during the rough patches of high school. We have stayed in touch, through much joy and sorrow. I loved seeing her again.

We also spent an evening with her daughter-in-law and four granddaughters. Delicious food, a home that radiates peace and purpose and beauty, a quiet hour by the fire trying to catch up on the last ten years...it was a slice of heaven. Bren was introduced to Phase 10 by the girls, and we must go get a pack of those cards soon. He is hooked.

We then made our way to San Luis Obispo, a quaint little town where we had lunch at The Kreuzberg*CA Cafe. You know you are in a college town when your lunch options include the Thomas Mann, Jane Austen or Aristotle sandwiches. We had a long-overdue visit with a young woman whose family we have known since before we got married. Done with college, getting married in July, learning and growing and radiating happiness, she was terrific company. It was a very quick hour but a highlight of the trip.

We headed south down the coast, waving to Gus and Shawn and Jules as we moved through Santa Barbara.  We passed green hills and crashing waves and felt the cool ocean breezes; I had that gut-wrenching feeling I had so many years ago when we decided to move from the coast and live in a more affordable part of California.  I love where I live (I DO!  I DO!)  Oh, but those ocean breezes get me every time (insert Pablo Cruise's Ocean Breeze for the full effect.)

We made our way down the Ventura Freeway, and just in the nick of time we turned east with the rest of the traffic and found ourselves stopped in a concrete jungle.  The L.A. traffic helped me remember(once agan) the empty lanes of Highway 50 near home and how moving to our little hill was  a brilliant idea. 

Naturally, I did spend some time dictating texts for Brennan to send to John.  It went something like this:

Di:  Ventura Highway...
John: in the sunshine...
Di:  Where the days are longer
John: the nights are stronger...

etc. etc.

(America, Ventura Highway, for those who don't know.)

If only I had known last Wednesday what I know now (after googling the lyrics): 

'Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair

And the days surround your daylight there

Seasons crying no despair

Alligator lizards in the air, in the air

Alligator lizards?  REALLY?  I triple checked, and it's true.  Turns out John knew...but he thought it was "Seasons crying notice there..."

We do love lyrics.  Sorry.

Marriage Handy Hint: the silliness factor can be greatly aided by a common jukebox .

And speaking of texting with John:  he and Claire had a very special trip of their own.  They were in Philadelphia, Gettysburg, and Washington, D.C. for six days.  After eighteen trips with his school's eighth graders, John was finally able to bring one of his own children with him.  They had a blast.  Fortunately for us, their connecting flight home was in San Diego, and they could leave their tour group and head  north to meet us in Riverside.  It was a weekend of basketball that John would have hated to miss.

 
The Norcal Bears played really well.  They had four games, won them all, and they came home with the championship for their age group!  They had to beat two fantastic teams that were undefeated to get there, and they did it!  Both games had opponents that Brennan knew through speech and debate, so there was added excitement for him.  His friends were fantastic players, and it was great to see the battle go strong for all four quarters.  Both games were nail biters, especially the final game; they won the championship game in the last few seconds...by one point!  Our hearts were pounding for hours afterwards.

Bren was honored with the MVP award.  He played so well...we are really proud of him.

After our last game, we sneaked in a quick visit with more friends. another couple who spent time with me as a single woman.  Dear people, one now experiencing early dimentia.  Not an easy calling, but he is deeply loved by a great wife, and he will be taken care of through it all.  God calls us to dark paths sometimes, and I was glad to have a few minutes of heart-to-heart with his wife. 

We had one last stop to see good friends in L.A.  Sipping coffee, feeling the warmth of the morning sunshine, sharing the realities of life...it was a great last stop before we made the long haul home.

By the time we pulled in the driveway, our basketball player had a 103 degree fever, and our car had been the perfect petri dish for those germs to multiply and spread.  We're still coughing, still aching, still exhausted and we have been home for a week.  It's a good thing John had an extra week off this year.  Holy Week has been spent horizontal, hoping for relief and finding it in restless sleep.  I think the worst is over, and I am grateful.

All the coughing and sleeping doesn't diminish the joy of a road trip.  Time alone with my youngest, basketball wins and awards, good friends, lovely destinations, no mishaps.  It was a great week.