Impossible Dreams

1. to dance with Gene Kelly
2. to sing with Rich Mullins
3. to have all my children know my Grandma Wilcox

Famous People I Have Met

1. Michael Card, Christian singer/songwriter
2. Christopher Plummer, actor
3. Edward Villella, ballet dancer
4. Tosca Lee, novelist

Hands-Down Favorites

1.  actor:  Mel Gibson
2. actresses: Kyra Sedgwick and Jodie Foster
3. American poet: Robert Frost
4. English poet: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
5. American novelist: Madeleine L'Engle
6. English novelist: Charles Dickens
7. Russian novelist: Mikhail Bulgakov
8. dancer: Gene Kelly
9. French novelist: Alexandre Dumas
10. hymn: Amazing Grace
11. spiritual: "Tis the Gift to be Simple"
12. cookbook: Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook
13. magazine: Country Sampler
14. dog: rottweiler
15. flowers: lily of the valley/ roses/ pansies
16. garden style: English cottage garden
17. composers: Bach, Mozart, Dvorak, Tchaikowsky, Copeland
18. schoolteacher: Mary Elizabeth Macksey
19. college professor: Igor P. Zelljadt (Russian), Joachim Stieber (continental European history)

If I were living in a movie, it might be fun to be....

1. Millie in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"
2. Kathy in "Singing in the Rain"
3. Eowyn in "The Lord of the Rings"
4. Marian in "The Music Man"
5. Miss Lemon in any "Hercule Poirot" movie with David Suchet

Books I wish I'd never read

1. Johnny Got His Gun
2. I am the Cheese
3. The Grapes of Wrath
4. The Great Gatsby
5. Of Mice and Men

People I Can't Wait to Meet in Heaven

(After my Lord)
1. C.S. Lewis
2. Alfred the Great
3. Sir Isaac Newton
4. Job
5. Lady Jane Grey
6. Martin Luther
7. Eve
8. "Stonewall" Jackson
9. Peter, Paul, and John
10. Rich Mullins

Not Without My List!

I make lists.  'To Do' lists, and Christmas idea lists, yes, but really those are entry-level in the craft of listmaking.  I read mailorder catalogs, and make lists of all the items I would buy if  I but had the money.  Some might call this a 'wish list,' but I know that it is for me a psychological exercise, a way to exorcise the demon of greed.  I make lists of what to make for each holiday dinner, and tuck them away so I won't repeat a menu, at least not right away.  I have a list of all the beautiful plants I want for the 'English cottage'-style garden I hope to start next Spring.  Once, I made a list of people I needed to forgive.  It was awfully long, and after I was done making it, throwing it away was very cathartic.  I make the weekly grocery list, not entirely because I cannot think of what we need, but to give myself an anchor in the budgeting battle: if it's not on the list, don't buy it!  Some weeks, I am stronger in sticking to it, but regardless, the practise is an anchor in itself.   I make lists of all the sewing I need to do next time I get around to it, and lists of which vegetables to plant.  One of my strangest lists ever was one in jr. high, a list of titles that I thought sounded really intriguing.  If I could remember any of them now, I'd probably be embarrassed, given that what sounds sophisticated to a 13-year-old usually looks pretty dumb by the time you have a 13-year-old.  When I was in labor, I listed contraction start times.  I have six of these lists tucked away in my yearly calendars.  Making those lists gave me a reason to stay alive through heavier and harder contractions. 

I thought that in lieu of a traditional blog profile, I might put up a few lists.  What makes the list in any given category will tell you a snippet about me, but why each item makes a list may get you thinking...and maybe even exploring something new to yourself...which is the real adventure, anyway.  So here we go, with the lists.

Things I Would Never Intentionally Do
1. bungee jumping
2. hang-gliding
3. downhill skiing
4. skydiving
5. try frog legs
6. eat sushi
7. deep-sea diving
8. leave home without mascara
9.  use powdered creamer
10. put wallpaper up in my house
11. go back to short hair
12. send my children off to school

Things That Make Me Happy

1.  really GOOD tea (shameless plug: Republic of Tea. Do the 'dot com' thing, and become a tea citizen!)
2.  Caswell-Massey
3.  time to read
     3.a) Charles Dickens
        b) O. Henry (Sidney Porter)
        c) Roughing It by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
        d) Longfellow, sometimes
        e) Alfred, Lord Tennyson
        f) Robert Frost
        g) "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" novels by Alexander McCall Smith
        h) "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand, even though I always cry, because it always ends the same way
4.  time to sew: to enjoy the aspect of being 'made in the image of God' that is the urge to create
5.  time to knit
6.  Bible study with my children
7.  the way my children LIKE me, and the fact that my 13-year-old still knows that I know more
8.  the sound of my husband's voice
9.  living in the country
10. being free to decorate my big, old house as I like
11. saying my children's names
12. receiving letters via the U.S. postal service
13. cooking and baking
14. "Mama, you're the best!"
15. singing
16. hearing my children sing
17. coming back home, every time, even if it's just getting back from grocery shopping

You can bring the green bean casserole

At what point did we all decide to live these separate lives...how did we get to the present conditions, where "human interest" is relegated to being a newspaper column category?  I'll be the first to admit, I love to live out here in the countryside where I don't have the restrictions of a neighborhood, but, if and when I feel like being neighborly, it should always be this easy.......

My husband has been a member of our town council for several years now.  He has become a little acquainted with Wayne, our town supervisor.  Thinks him a capital sort of fellow. 
Well, along came a company from out of town, asking the town of Litchfield to consider having some of these huge windmills put up.  (Golly, why not, Litchfield's two main resources are rocks and wind!)  The town board realized that Litchfield does not even have a zoning law regarding windmills, and decided to begin researching so it could determine what guidelines to set in the event that such a project would be accepted.  They may as well have dropped an atom bomb.  For many months now, the monthly board meetings and several special ones have been filled with Litchfield residents (who normally ignore town meetings) and residents of neighboring townships who are more strident in their objection to windmills than they are to lying, cheating, stealing, roaming dogs, highway litter, and the end of Social Security all rolled together.  I am really not kidding.  If you stand up for keeping an open mind about the possibility of erecting windmills, citing Constitutionally-stipulated rights to life, liberty, and property, why then you must have already signed on with the windmills and are fair game for slander, threats, and intimidating letters from a New Jersey lawyer whose basis of interest here is unspecified.  The calm, composed people who come to present at informational meetings, get shouted down midsentence.  There have now been slanderous accusations of corruption levelled against our town supe, that he stands to benefit from windmills built in Litchfield, since it is assumed that the paving company he works for will inevitably land a contract to do work on such projects.  To date, there have been awful displays of ignorance about how to behave at town board meetings, with attendants calling out others in the audience, or directly challenging board members to change from "yes" to "no" on windmills.  There is a degree of meanness flavoring the whole pot.  We have seen letters circulated,  full of foul and insulting language against people who favor windmills, and also a demand for the resignation of our town supervisor. 

Less than two years ago, Wayne and Karen lost the younger of their two sons, at 24, to accidental death resulting from mixing OTC sleep aids.  It was probably something  he learned at pharmaceutical school, and the rumor mill blew it up into a possible suicide.  Time can heal wounds, but it also breaks down.  It occurred to me, hearing the reports of the meetings from my husband all this time, that Wayne and Karen are being unjustly villified by their community (which is wrong in itself) while they are still both a bit raw from their personal tragedy, and that makes it monstrous. 

So we decided to do what we could: be neighbors.  "Let's have them to dinner," I said, "show them that they have some friends."  People don't just do that, anymore.  I certainly haven't.  I clean my house a few times a year and cook extra big so that our extended family can come in from places hours away and go home believing that we always eat like that and keep the house that clean.  But I don't ask in my neighbors from fifty yards up the road.  Do you?

So Wayne and Karen came to our midday dinner.  I pulled out the next-to-last ham from the freezer.  I broke my usual rule and used the hand mixer on a whole stockpot of mashed potatoes.  We had a huge corn pudding, and a big, gooey loaf of banana bread, and Karen brought a green bean casserole.  This was by request of my daughters.  She also brought peanut blossoms, which was a bonus.  It amused her no end, to see how our sons all ate the chocolate kiss first, and then picked at the peanut butter cookie, while all the girls nibbled off the peanut butter cookie base, saving the kiss for last.  There were also pumpkin buckle and a plate of brownies to go with the after-dinner coffee. 
I had only seen Wayne when he was leaving paperwork for Jeffrey at the door, and I'd never seen Karen at all.  She turned out to be a high-energy lady.  She came in exclaiming over how beautiful everyone was and left gushing about how remarkable everyone is.  The mementoes pressed upon her were the placecards that Emma had made, a paper flower of Owen's crafting, a little drawing Landon did, and a braided friendship bracelet that Emma let her select from her store of them.  She watched Ella and Hannah work on their knitting, admired Hannah's growing yo-yo quilt, checked over Landon's math workbook, listened to Landon's piano composition, talked belted Galloway cattle with Owen, toured the chicken coop with us, and wanted to know all about our homeschooling adventures.  Everything that Jonathan did amazed her, from how a little tyke could eat that well to how he played his favorite game of "dog" (He brings the leash, and insists that we fasten it to his shirt, so he can crawl around as the dog, 'panting.')  Once while we were still sitting at the table, Karen remarked that this was definitely one of the best days the Caslers have had in a long time.  So, mission accomplished. 

Since today's company left I have been thinking this: I really ought not to wait until someone has their back to the wall to reach out.  Isn't an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?  What about 'paying it forward'?  How about spreading love and making peace?  Gloomy as it looks for our ship of state right now, while we're all in the boat, we can still hold on to each other.

...Far From the Tree

I will tell you a tale of the apple and its tree.

There was a tree, an apple tree, whose life had taken some turns. ( An apple tree such as we see in an orchard, is a much fussed-over thing,  subjected to seasonal prunings and inspections, cultivatings and fertilizings.  It needs the skill of the gardener to see that the tree is directed and trained, and then left in the intervals to do what it does best, produce fruit.  The cultivated tree is a tree in submission, and its fruit will be beautiful and luscious.  The wild apple tree, outside of the gardener's direction and training, strives to do what it does best, but on its own.  This untended tree grows and explores the upper reaches of sky, until it can look down on all the other, tame trees.  It can produce more fruit.  But the skins are more likely to be pitted and spotted, and without pruning of its branches, the tree's crop, though bountiful, is composed of smaller, harder, less attractive fruit.) 

The apple tree we are considering, had gone wild.  It stood on the outer edge of the orchard, which suited it fine.  In the early stages, this apple tree looked like its fellows.  But soon it began to show signs of unrest, and disdain of the gardener's care.  The tree was as unruly as it is possible for a tree to be, taking advantage of the breeze to toss branches rakingly across the gardener's face, snatching away the gardener's hat and raining apples well-aimed down upon his unprotected head.  The gardener, being wise in the ways of apple trees, understood the signs.  Here was a tree going wild: he had seen it before and could envision the end of it, but the only thing that was beyond the gardener to do, was to force the tree to his will.  With compassion and regret, the gardener decided to let the tree go wild. 

Now the apple tree grew.  How he grew!  Full of aspirations for the heights he could reach, the crop he would produce, the dreams he could realize, all unimpeded by the interfering gardener!  He sighed the sigh of apple trees, reaching eager limbs towards the sun, counting his load of blossom with satisfaction, confident his greater offering of nectar would attract the bees of good luck. 

Year by year, the wild apple tree grew in size and in the sense of itself.  There were trials: a season would be dry now and then, and the unpruned overgrowth sapped the apple tree's strength.  He stood taller and waved his limbs all the merrier to cover the discomfort.  The rest of the trees in the apple orchard, undergoing their yearly prunings and harvestings, looked up at the towering, wild, apple tree at first in amazement, then with a growing apprehension.  A season might see heavy rainfalls that shattered his blossoms, leaving him with a sparse crop that showed much leaf but branches almost bare of fruit.  As the years passed, much of the fruit on the tree's unreached top branches, already stunted, now rotted and refused to fall until the snows were too heavy for the dead stems to keep their hold.  The weight of the unruly branches, tangled and bent by seasons of sun and rain and wind, began to be a burden to the tree.  On an afternoon in late Autumn, with the sky overcast and the chilly breeze beginning to rise to an insistent wind, the wild apple tree felt a shiver run through his core.  He was suddenly aware of the weight of his overgrown and underproductive wood, of the uselessness of his shrunken and shriveled fruit, and the fact that it all tossed on the wind slightly out of his control, waving his disappointments like a flag over the rest of the tidy orchard of tame apple trees.  He gave a long, creaking sigh...and then he saw the gardener.  He had approached very quietly, undaunted by the wind that swept over the pruned, sleeping tame trees to make a wild stir in the creaking branches of the wild apple tree.  The gardener stood, gazing up at the tree, taking in the tree's swollen girth, unkempt branches and the crown of rotting fruit.  He just looked, and the same compassion and regret were in his eyes before he turned away.  The wild apple tree was filled with fury: how could the gardener pity him?!  The tree had never asked the gardener for anything, except to be left alone! 

With the last of his season's strength, the wild apple tree pushed his roots harder down into the earth, feeling the bite of rock and cutworm and pushing stubbornly deeper.  He would hold on.  He knew he had it in him to produce something good, a truly beautiful fruit to surpass anything the tame, submissive trees produced.  Through the Winter he brooded on the next season, dreaming in his tree's kind of sleep......

With Spring and the warming of his sap, the wild apple tree threw off his sleep and began to put forth his leaves.  The topmost branches he left bare, except for last year's few stubbornly-attached, winter-spoiled fruit.  What did he care for that:  all his attention was focussed on the growth of a certain bud on one sturdy branch.  He poured his Spring's sap into it, shaping the petals and scenting it so that when it burst into bloom, the blossom could not fail.  The bees came, and when the blossom's petals began to loosen and then to fall, the wild apple tree knew in his core that he had been right.  There would be fruit from this blossom, his most lovely fruit.  Through the Summer the wild apple tree watched over his developping fruit, careful to shade it from too much sun and to spread a protecting cloak of gnarled branches against the harder rains, lest the growing fruit should fall too soon and be lost.  The Autumn ripening surpassed the tree's wildest hopes.  The fruit swelled to a perfect shape, with skin smooth and unblemished.  He watched in awe as his fruit began to blush, and the air began to stiffen and chill.  The steady reddening of the fruit had held the tree so absorbed that he was unprepared for the day when the beautiful, red apple, first full-grown fruition of all his wild hopes and untamed dreams, suddenly let go of the branch and cast off towards earth.  In dismay, the tree watched his fruit fall, merrily bypassing the many tangles of twig and stunted fruit, to hit the ground with an emphatic bounce!  Then the fruit began to roll, and a shudder of dread spread rapidly through the tree, rising from his roots  to pass throughout his disfigured wood.  He saw the apple, rosy red and lovely, slow and come to rest...at the gardener's feet.

The fruit, his perfect, unblemished fruit, lay in all its shining glory for just a moment.  The gardener had seen the fruit coming, and he now bent down purposely and picked it up, cradling the lovely apple in his capable hand.  With the long practise of an orchardist, he weighed the fruit, inhaled its aroma, and knew what it could become.  The wild apple tree watched in fascinated horror, as the gardener raised the gorgeous apple to his lips and bit through the perfect skin, deep into the sound flesh.  In an agony that set his twisted boughs trembling, the wild apple tree saw his prize fruit consumed by the gardener.  Soon there was only a stem and naked core left, which the gardener split open to reveal the seeds within.  These the gardener bore away with him, leaving the wild apple tree to descend towards his Winter sleep amid the ruins of his deflated dream.

In the Spring, something happened that aroused the interest of the wild apple tree, even against his will.  The gardener was marking and plowing a plot of land for a new orchard, and it was so placed that it was in full view of the wild apple tree, standing as he did at an outer corner of the original orchard.  A single, straight seedling was set in the middle of the new plot, on a slight rise of ground.  The infant roots reached searchingly, testingly into the earth, sending thrills into the wild apple tree's root tips - here was a beautiful seedling, root of his root and twig of his branch.  She was his, this tree child!  And yet, she could not be.  The gardener would come, and cultivate around the tiny tree, caressing and admiring it.  And the seedling looked up at the gardener, and flourished under his hand. 

Through the years, the growth of the seedling drew the gaze of the wild apple tree.  He would look upon the  maiden tree with a mixture of anticipation and dread pounding in his tree's veins.  Perhaps something of himself still remained in her wood, and she would break free of the gardener's yoke.  He watched as the gardener began to tame and train her, and although he sometimes glimpsed a thought of rebellion budding, his hope would be dashed as the younger tree submitted to each new pruning.  A season came, in which the wild apple tree had lost much of his wood to age and bitterness.  He could no longer will his sap to rise high enough to sustain the tangle of wood, and so his branches were falling and his leaves were sparse.  The gardener set out more seedlings in the new orchard every year, even as the wild apple tree turned inward on himself.  His fruit was small, hard, and sour, but he bore it anyway, disdaining the maturing tree child as another tame producer of dependable fruit that bore no resemblance to his.  Her sighings came to him on the breezes, whispers of sweet saprisings, of buddings and blossomings and ripenings....of contentment. 

The wild apple tree was old.  He was tired.  And as his seasons of bud and ripening grew shorter and shorter, he brooded on his memories: of compassion and regret in the gardener's eyes, and on his most beautiful red apple...the one that had left him and fallen far from the tree. 

As Much Personality as a Wooden Spoon

My Amish friend has a wooden spoon at least 24 inches long.  The bowl of it is proportionately sized to the handle: you could eat a proper helping of Special K from it.  The first time I saw it in Dena's kitchen, I asked her, "What do you use a spoon that size for?!"  And she replied, "Oh, I use it for big batches of spaghetti sauce."  And I thought, my GOODness, you must need a stepladder to reach into a pot that matches that spoon!

I love kitchen stuff.  Certain kitchen stuff.  Not 'gadgets' but simple, effective, trusty things.  All of my utensils are separated into two containers: wooden spoons, ...and everything else. 

When I get to the Farmers Museum at Cooperstown, I go into the Todd's General Store and splurge on a $5 spoon carved from cherry.   (I also get a handful of old-fashioned peppermint sticks for the children.  These they eat in a moment, and forget all about the pleasure of it.)  I go home with my new wooden spoon and enjoy the prolonged pleasure of breaking it in.  At first, I'll sort of save the newest spoon for cleaner tasks, and keep it out of the tomato stuff, but eventually, the spoon honeymoon is over, and it's no more favoritism.  I have a collection of old friends now, and each tells something about my daily life.  Depending on the handle's length, each spoon is slightly bent towards the middle, a reflection of the nature of wood when submitted to routine pressure.  The spoon bowls are all wearing on the left side, from dragging around the pot as I stir right-handed.  Some are for 'sweet' and some are for 'savory' so that muffin batter never tastes of onion.  You have to think of these things, using wooden spoons.  One spoon is shorter, and I grab it for the bowl that fits biscuit dough.  Another with a very flat bowl is ideal for working muffin batter, almost like a paddle.   ("Use no more than 15 strokes," said my home ec teacher in 7th grade.)  I have a wooden spoon that beats eggs: they just sort of roll around and around the spoon like it was a whisk.  Then I have a wooden spoon whose wide bowl and longer handle give just the right leverage for getting a turkey out of the roaster. 

I don't buy a set of wooden spoons all at once - that's entirely the wrong way to go about things.  I hate prepared sets - of just about anything.  If it's pots and pans, what do I need with a 1-qt. saucepan...I have eight people to feed!  And if it's utensils, I never use a pasta spoon with the measuring hole in the center.  A spoon with a hole drilled in it is....irrational.  But a wooden spoon with a hole worn in it would be...romantic.  'Look what a long, useful life I've had.  I was the favorite, reached for every day and used for all kinds of tasting.'  To buy the set is to fall for the hook, line, and sinker.  You had to get the ones you didn't want in order to get what caught your eye.  It's related to making the purchase necessary to get the attached freebie.  No, choose the spoon.  Lift it and feel the heft of it, the balance, to make sure you are getting equal substance in the bowl and the handle.  Look for a beautiful grain, so you have something to admire while you stand at the stove for the ten minutes it takes to bring custard to the rolling bowl (close to 20 minutes for a double batch).  A kitchen is a necessary place to be, so everything about working in it should be as comfortable as possible: is the spoon handle too long?  This is not a standard thing, but the height of a counter and a stove usually is.  Think about which muscle groups are going to be overworked (or maybe you want to work them for the first time!) if you have a spoon that long or that short.  If you don't have short, shallower mixing bowls, you don't want that short-handled spoon; the worst thing is when a spoon handle falls down into the mix.  And so on...but see?  you choose the spoon.

The testimony of a favorite wooden spoon:  bent from the hand's pressure, warped from standing upright in the spoon crock,  nicked from the company of kitchen knives in the dish drain, bowls misshapen, edges frayed or softened with friction, stained, spotted, thinned out by their work in sustaining life.  Not worn out, but well-seasoned by all the wear.  By all the ministry.

Holding Jonathan

Oh Lord,
all the world is condensed for me,
all the things we fight for and against, distilled
in this newborn son,
who was forged in the very same fires
that teach us the fierceness and gentleness
of  love.

How we can rejoice,
to hold a newborn, and grieve,
to know that I must lose my children
to find them again
in a place where all things are new,
and a little child leads.

--January 2009

For Katherine, with my love

I love Robert Frost.  His poetry, I mean, and the way he could say just what I mean, if I had thought of it that way.  This is a gem called, "An Encounter."  It is sort of a riddle, too.  See if you can figure out what the poet encountered.

                 AN   ENCOUNTER

Once on the kind of day called "weather breeder,"
When the heat slowly hazes and the sun
by its own power seems to be undone,
I was half boring through, half climbing through
A swamp of cedar.  Choked with oil of cedar
And scurf of plants, and weary and overheated,
And sorry I ever left the road I knew,
I paused and rested on a sort of hook
That had me by the coat as good as seated,
And since there was no other way to look,
Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,
Stood over me a resurrected tree,
A tree that had been down and raised again--
A barkless specter.  He had halted too,
As if for fear of treading upon me.
I saw the strange position of his hands--
Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands
Of wire with something in it from men to men.
"You here?"  I said.  "Where aren't you nowadays?"
And what's the news you carry--if you know?
And tell me where you're off for--Montreal?
Me?  I'm not off for anywhere at all.
Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways
Half  looking for the orchid Calypso." 

To speak or not to be

I have been through this a few times, so I know that it will pass. 

Jonathan Daniel is learning to talk.  That is to say, he is following the pattern I have observed with his five older siblings, of learning to communicate before he really masters talking.  He has 'Mama,' 'Daddy', and 'Emma' on his short list of "who ya gonna call?"  (a little Ghostbusters lingo, there), and on the day when he cannot get one of these to answer his summons, we might hear him try a new name.  But we don't really care how he mangles our names. Because he still has that softness and roundness and dimpled cuteness that makes us all change direction to scoop him up or take a peck at him just for catching our eye. 
At first, it was really promising, this foray into the world of the spoken word:  "Whe(re) Da(dd)ee?"  "Da(dd)ee i(n) guck?"  ['guck' is truck/tractor]  "Da(dd)ee wi(th) moo?"  ["Daddy with the cows?]  "Whe doggee?"  "Shay doggee!"  [the dog's name is Seamus]  And there was more, and it all seemed to be expressed thoughtfully, and in the appropriate places.  But recently, he seems to have reached one of those temporary plateaux, and he just hashes it all together in one all-purpose conversational recipe (sorry, I do cook three times a day), so that you may be changing his diaper when he decides to comment, "Da ee i Shay moo guck?!" 
It occurred to me, the last time he did this, that this sounds just like my husband, drifting off to sleep, attempting to tell me something....

And as we all know, communication is a two-way street.  A meeting of the minds, a sharing of the souls, an exercise in mutual attentiveness.  As my son's mother, and prototype of his future wife (which should narrow the applicant field just a bit), I felt it my responsibility to rehearse/roleplay these communication skills early. 

Jonathan:  "Whe Emma Shay moo Da ee guck?"
Paige:  "Yes, dear."

Frost is to life what salt is to food

This is one of my favorites (for obvious reasons)

THE NEED OF BEING VERSED
       IN COUNTRY THINGS

The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.

ELLA (my rose)

God gave me a rose whose blossom I love:
Her ruffled golden petals invite my caress;
The grace that stems from  her, supple and strong;
A twinkle of secrets in the depth of her eye;
The freshness about her that revives me;
Her pose grave and thoughtful, or
Her dance with abandon on the breeze of innocence;
Fearless of time as she develops its fruits.

Sprung from a tiny seed

Sprinkled with thorns and clustered with buds;
To conquer and perfume and delight.

                          ---February 2008

My Ubiquitous Purple Sweater

Back in the college years, I set out to try knitting a cardigan sweater.  It was less ambitious than the argyle afghan I had completed, but a new exercise in shaping.  I walked down to the Woolworth's in the center of Northampton, Mass. and bought enough skeins of very cheap, lilac purple yarn, Caron brand, I think it was.  There was not enough of one dye lot, so portions of the sleeves and the lower part of the right front are of a greyer lilac hue.  I made the cardigan, from a pattern that was already vintage, featuring a 1960s model with a gorgeously-teased French twist and narrow hips.  My cardigan never did fit like hers, and the sleeves are widened now, even from what they once were, as a result of washings and wearings and being dragged by toddlers. 

I have knitted many cardigans since then, and am apt to choose only the projects that will coordinate with my wardrobe in all its phases of season, size, and colors.  This lilac did have a point, at the time of its choice.  I had sewn a dress from a print of tiny, pink and lavender flowers on a background of medium gray.  So, there was the dress, and now a cardigan sweater knitted with my own two hands, and then, to crown it all, I cut off my hair.  I had meant to give my waist-long hair some fashionable angles, and by mistake I ended up with a pageboy.  Oh, well.  Hair grows.  And it was cute!  And such a pleasant sort of a shock to give people when I next showed up at work and church.  I had saved up money to buy contact lenses for myself, and I felt myself very smartly turned out as I stepped off of the Trailways bus on a short weekend trip home.  "I like the hair," my mom said. 

My hair is again waist length, and I put away that dress long ago, hemmed up from mid-calf to just-below-the-knee length to accomodate an accidental rip in the skirt, and long sleeves shortened.  I have been through several sets of contact lenses, quit a job and married a husband, had six children and become something of an old hand at making bread (which is to say, I don't use the recipe anymore but look at the barometer instead). 
My shapeless, snagged, faded, multi-dyed-lilac cardigan goes with absolutely nothing in my present wardrobe.  The buttonholes are all slightly too large to hold on to the buttons.  The buttons are sewn rather too closely to the button band, anyway.  Altogether, the thing buttons just a little off of center.  But the neckband which is a little too high sits very cosily on my neck.  The stretched-out sleeves fit over my favorite, ample-sleeved, red flannel nightgown. 

I wear it with everything.

A Planetary Shift

I am on the computer first thing in the morning, which is significant in two aspects.  
1) I am on the computer first thing (technically, second thing; first thing was pouring cereal and milk for the little boys) in the morning.
2) I am here before either of my daughters.  I actually had to start up the computer!

This is a phenomenon.  'phenomenon' - from Gk. phainomenon, from the middle voice of phainein "to show." 
Perhaps a shift in the planet's orbit has occurred.  Perhaps I should check to see that my daughters are still here.............

The Things That Come Into My Head

Stephen Hawking has now said that God did not create the universe.  Well, the burden of proof is on Stephen Hawking.  According to a Reuters article, that I saw online, Mr. Hawking has argued in his latest book, The Grand Design, that [God did not create the universe and the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics.]  Theory noted.

Now, for 'proof' of this theory, he offers this:  "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.  Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." 

What?!

Gravity is the force exerted on objects by a larger object.  It is a physical law.  A physical law cannot, by definition, preexist matter, which is the stuff of things physical.  The notion of spontaneous creation, or creation creating itself, is an absurd one - which clue is in the very words themselves.  'Creation' is the doing or making of something.  It is unavoidable that Creation bespeaks a Creator, period. 

In this latest book, the article says, 'Mr. Hawking writes that "the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God."  '

It does?!  In what way?    Especially while that planet is set up in an orbital system, displaying gravity and the rest, it seems to be obeying the universal laws that we are familiar with...merely providing more evidence of God's consistency in His creation.  But,

"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditons - the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he goes on. 
Hmmmm...if we discover human beings dwelling on that other planet, building skyscrapers and transcontinental railroads and mining their planetary resources to fuel their economies and developing technologies that yield them free time for engaging in theoretical physics.....then that would make us a little less remarkable.  But it scores zero for evidence against the careful design of Earth.  My Goodness!  What if that other Sun and planet were some sort of false start?  Suppose (I am as free to suppose upon Ockham's Razor as is Mr. Hawking) that Almighty God flung out that first attempt, didn't like it, and subsequently decided to carefully design, over six deliberate days, the fair world that He then pronounced 'very good', into which He installed us, and over which he appointed us stewards?  (We aren't going into what has happened to it since then, that is for another time.  I am dealing with bad logic, here in the work of an eminent theoretical physicist.)

This is where Mr. Hawking has come to since he wrote in the 1988 A Brief History of Time, "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason--for then we should know the mind of God." 

Not even King David, called "a man after God's own heart," presumed such a thing.  On the contrary, he declared, "such knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot attain it."  (Psalm 139:6)  Paul demands, "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" (Romans 11:34)  These are the humble admissions of two men who were giants in the faith, capable and accomplished men in their respective fields of warfare and scholarship, and they came to this realization even while they were pressing in to learn more and more of Him in whom they lived and moved and had their being. 

Mr. Hawking, if your mission is truly to know the mind of God, the path is not through theory.  "[You] must first believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6)