The Last of the Betties

11/04/09 Don't Judge Me, Please

O.K., I admit it, it was me:

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. (AP) - An Albertville woman (yeah, we have a second home in Albertville: we like it for the easy access to Arab) pleaded guilty and will spend five days in jail after letting her daughter ride in a cardboard box on top of their van (hey, I'm about to explain). The judge ordered Jackie Knott (Betty Carter is just my pen name) to 90 days jail time, of which she will serve only five days. WAFF reports Tuesday that the 37-year-old (I lied about my age) Knott (Carter) admitted endangering the welfare of a child. The sentence began immediately and she also has to complete 40 hours of community service, attend a parenting class and driving school followed by two years probation. Albertville police arrested Knott (Carter) last month after concerned drivers called police when they saw the 13-year-old in the box (why can't people mind their own business?) Knott (Carter) reportedly told police the box wouldn’t fit inside the van so her daughter was sitting inside to weigh it down on the roof. The teen was not hurt."

You see, it's not what it looks like. There was this box. It was large. I think our mobile home came in it I used to park my car in the box, but then I accidentally ran the car into the sinkhole in the driveway and we didn't need the box, at least not until we could get the car out of the sinkhole, but that seemed like it might take a while. So one day I was in a fall cleaning mood, you know how we all get, and I decided to clean up the front yard. I took as much as I could, all the Christmas decorations and the skateboard ramp, over to the neighbor's yard and then I rolled the rest of it into the sinkhole. The one thing that wouldn't fit either place was the box.

So me and my thirteen year-old (she's really 11 but I lied about her age so she could get her driver's license) tried to get that box in our van and we couldn't fit it without moving the cats. Dang! So we worked a long time and we managed to get it on top of the van. "Let's not just dump this in somebody's yard," she said, "let's give it to charity, because there's so many folks that need this more than the people whose yard we might dump it in probably need it." And I said Amen, yes. I told her she'd better drive, though, because I couldn't find my right boot.

But when we started to drive away, the box kept flying off the top of the van, almost like it was possessed. And every time we stopped, it fell down right in front of the windshield, almost like it was possessed. So she said, "Mama, I'm a whole lot heavier than you are. I better climb up there and sit in the box to weigh it down. That way we'll keep it from flying off the top or sliding in front of the windshield every time we come to a stop." I said Amen, yes, and she climbed up there in the box and made herself comfortable. Off we drove, even though I only had one boot to wear, and we were set on giving that box to charity, or even for free to somebody who needed it.

That's when the busybodies come into this. Honking their horns, yelling at us the second we got on the interstate. I got so mad I threw on the brakes, and then everything went black, and the next thing I knew, my daughter was holding onto the windshield wipers and staring at me through the window. But worst of all, our box was mangled beyond recognition.

It's a cruel, cruel world.

11/02/09 Hollow, Even Part 3

So, as I was saying, a lot of people really resist the argument that the decadence of the media and the marketplace have made the culture worse. They'll point out that even in the most restrictive days of Hollywood censorship, when Rob and Laura slept in separate beds and Barbara Eden had to pull those silky pantaloons up to hide her navel, teenagers found ways to misbehave. Furthermore, they'll say, rates of murder and rape have actually declined in the last couple of decades, in spite of internet porn and all kinds of other degradations.

To these jaded souls--usually older people--who meet the most shocking tales of cultural rot with a yawn and a "Oh well, they were doing that in my day, too, and we turned out all right," my answer is that it seems to me that they didn't turn out all right--that they themselves have been violated in some way, at least if they're comfortable with the violent and perverse images and behaviors we all see around us, but mainly on television and the internet. It's not that harmful media images always cause other kinds of harm; they're harmful enough on their own, distorting human bodies and human interactions in various ways in order to create a feeling of pleasure or even pleasurable disgust in the viewer. They turn us into demi-vampires, willing to use our fellow human beings, whom we ought to love and respect, for our own pleasure. "Stop devouring each other," said Saint Paul, and though I don't think this is exactly what he meant, he may well have thought something like that when he was hiking around Corinth.

I read an article a few days ago where a guy was saying that pornography is a healthy and harmless habit because it isn't physically dangerous, and I realized that his definition of health is different from mine; it's something along the lines of Eating, Breathing, Copulating, Sleeping Comfortably--an enviable and natural state for most of the lower primates. That may be our natural state, too, but aren't we aiming for something a little higher? Did we stand up from the clay only to find ourselves waist-deep in it?

10/31/09 Hollow, Even Part 2

These days, many evangelicals (and other orthodox Christians) won't let their kids participate in Halloween. I understand why. When I was young, I was innocent about Halloween. I remember coming home from prayer meeting, pulling on a pointy black hat or a sheet with eye holes, and heading out in the dark to trick or treat. I didn't know then that the holiday has its roots in Celtic spiritualism, just as the words "Wednesday" and "Thursday" have their roots in worship of the Norse gods Woden and Thor. At some point, though, I was offered the fruit of the tree of knowledge; my eyes were opened, and I realized that the devil costume my Sunday School teacher wore to our annual church Halloween party really might have have something to do with the devil. I didn't give up trick or treating (duh!) but I did give up dressing as a witch or ghost. I also considered giving up Wednesday and Thursday, those being school days.

So I do understand the anxiety about Halloween, though I've always taken my kids trick or treating and I love to hand out candy. In an age and country where we're shy of strangers and don't fully trust our neighbors, trick or treating is one of the few really neighborly things we still do. Going from door to door, kids learn who their neighbors are. They learn what it means to be part of a community. Or, in our case, they learn what it means to have their mom drive them to wealthy neighborhoods where little old ladies shovel candy into their bags and say, "Well darling! I thought I wut'n going to get no trickortreatahs at all this year!"

The one thing I really despise is when Christians, especially of the Reformed persuasion, attempt to turn Halloween into a real religious holiday by observing an important but ultimately dull event of the 16th century: the nailing of Martin Luther's 95 theses to the Wittenburg Church Door. With all due respect to Martin Luther, making children observe Reformation Day instead of Halloween is like turning Valentine's Day into a celebration of the cure for syphillis.

It leaves the holiday a bit hollow. And yet...

I keep thinking of that crowd in the novelty store today. How is that the most decadent images have become so acceptable in the mainstream that people no longer see any need to keep their kids away from the stuff? Are they just inured to it all? In some cases, people are willing to dress their children in in sleazy and suggestive costumes for the sake of--well, who knows what? Shock value? Cuteness?

People will tell you how statistics show that violence is down, rape crime is down, etc etc etc. I read a guy's essay just yesterday saying that the decadence of our culture may be unsavory, but it isn't actually dangerous. For whatever reason, he said, violent and sexual images don't increase sexual violence.

Well, maybe not, unless you consider the images themselves acts of violence.

MORE SOON...got to get up early to sing in choir tomorrow

10/31/09 Hollow, Even

I spent some of yesterday in various novelty stores, helping a kid put together two costumes. One costume was an eighties flashdance look, with shiny pants and and a ripped sweatshirt. The kid in question scorned my idea of teasing her bangs into a feathered frenzy (WHO would DO that?? she asked), but loved the idea of a monogram. That led me to try and explain preppiness, something people don't talk about much anymore. When we think of the eighties, we usually laugh about big hair, shoulder pads, and parachute pants. But my world in the eighties (at a private Christian school) looked more like this:

The preppy look was undoubtedly one of the most ridulous ever: consider that, circa 1981, grown men could actually be found wearing pink shirts, plaid sports coats, and saddle shoes. But where can you find plaid pants nowadays? Where can you find chinos, pappagallo purses, add-a-beads, penny loafers, and plaid skirts with giant safety pins? I never see that stuff at thrift stores: maybe people my age are hanging on to it all, hoping they can rock the preppy look again in their golden years.

I myself was never too very preppy, though I tried to be. It was the preferred look at my school, and I wanted to be popular. On Valentine's Day in the ninth grade, I got a red rose from an anonymous donor; the preppiest girl at the school told me that she'd heard the rose came from a guy named Doug, a guy from a wealthy family, also a preppy. "You and Doug are definitely invited to my party," she said. And for a short while I was so very in, I was so very preppy, and I was wearing my button-down oxford shirts every day (they always rode back on my neck and choked me--cotton tends to get trapped under my shoulder blades) and I was also wearing my oversized penny loafers that I had scrounged from the missionary clothes closet my parents had in our basement, and I was waiting for popular Doug to ask me to the preppy party. But Doug never asked, and then I heard through "channels" that he'd given me the flower because I was just "a nice girl" (what a dork), and after that the preppy people didn't speak to me anymore. So, brimming with righteous anger, I abandoned the look.

But I didn't really intend to speak of preppiness today. I wanted to write about Halloween. While in these novelty stores yesterday, I was struck, as I am every year, by the unsavory Halloween intersection of sex, gore, and young children. At one store we stood in what you might call the Sado-Masochism section--racks of dominatrix costumes with handcuff and whip accessories--and watched some very young kids fiddling around with rubber knives and amputated limbs while Mama looked for queen-size fishnet tights. It's a strange world. I start to feel anxious, and then I comfort myself that a thousand years ago the same Anglo-Saxon children might have been playing with actual knives, torturing Gypsies or something. So it could be that this is just normal homo-sapiens behavior, and that the last one hundred and fifty years in America (while we were still under the sway of Puritan and then Victorian moral codes) were more the exception than the rule: what we're experiencing is a cultural dip rather than a decline into complete savagery.

But the question is, have things actually been better at some point than they are now? Is the culture really more polluted than it was, say, when I was a kid, or has decadence remained pretty much constant? I think that Halloween is a good reference point for examining cultural shifts, though I can really only write about it from my experience as an evangelical. However I must go eat lunch now and work on an essay, so...

MORE LATER: how evangelicals experience Halloween

this Reformation party is so boring, why can't we burn a witch or something?

10/27/09 Mayor Larry Langford, by the Numbers

$240,000 owed in personal credit car debt

$90,000 owed in personal car loans

$77,506 owed in taxes on unreported income

$236,000 in cash and gifts accepted from

banker Bill Blount, former chairman of the Alabama Democratic party

$7.1 million in bond business funneled to Blount's firm in Montgomery

$3.9 billion in sewer debt leading to the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history

2 hours of deliberation--twice the speed of light divided by the number of molecules in his Rolex multiplied by the square root of the total of seats in the domed stadium he'll never build--and the jury returns the verdict

60 counts of bribery, etc., guilty on all charges

90 days till sentencing

804 years possible sentence...go figure

2 years possible appeals...go figure

The defense argued that Langford had a shopping problem and couldn't keep himself out of debt; that because he was personally so naive and generous, he considered Blount's lavish gifts (given through a middle-man) simple tokens of affection from a friend.

I thought of a lot of funny ways to treat this story; I could draw a cartoon of the former mayor visiting PayDay Loans, trying to get a quick fix for the sewer debt, but being rejected because his credit rating was so low. Next he tries to flush some of the evidence--diamond jewelry provided by Blount--down a toilet at City Hall but realizes the irony of the gesture when he gets a sewer bill for $30,000. Next he calls Richard Scrushy and Don Siegelman and asks about prison life: do they let you pay on credit in the commissary? Richard tells him that he should stop thinking about prison and concentrate on what's important: starting his own Christian talk show.

But the truth is, I think it's all so sad. Birmingham--in fact, all of Jefferson County--is a place with great charm, great people, and great possibilities. We have a few very good high schools, several good colleges, and a world-class university. We're not Atlanta; we're more connected and more Southern than that. Everybody, white and black, is about one and a half steps removed from everybody else, and if you don't know Dwayne you probably know his cousin or his best friend from high school.

But somehow we trusted people who deceived us. They came from both parties and both of the majority racial communities (Birmingham is 24% white and 73% black). They talked in public about Christianity and progress and the legacy of the civil rights era and then they got together behind the scenes and traded money for favors.

Maybe we ought to do what some of the Italian city states did in the middle ages: invite leaders to come in from other states outside--just long enough to clean things up--and then require them by law to leave, and not come back. The thinking was that outside leaders would remain uncorrupted since they knew their actions couldn't reap them any personal benefit.

So where should we start looking? Chicago? Just kidding.

10/25/09 Hoover

My brother visited me yesterday with his three boys, and it was a real treat. Those unfortunate children are being raised in a quaint village in Germany by a pair of peace-loving lefties, so I took it upon myself to show them the sights of downtown Hoover, the inspiring vistas of car dealership parking lots and nail shops dumpsters, over which our historical marker proclaims, "Hoover Alabama, Incorporated 1967."

A very good year for sprawl.

You know, it's strange how you can look up a place like "Hoover Alabama" on Google Images and see mainly things like this:

and this

and this.

And those places are here. However, they're all spread apart and connected by miles of highway limbo, where people only stop to gas up or chow down. Life in a place like Hoover works because of the car (though try telling that to the Mexicans who walk down our six lane highways with baby strollers). And what does it matter, you say, when almost everybody in America has a car? Or two. Or five. Furthermore, you say, a lot of Americans APPRECIATE cities like this. Especially in the South. Because you just can't have you too many SuperTargets--and did I hear we're getting another Chic-Fil-A? And a Quik Trip with ninety pumps? Thank you Jesus!

I don't mean to be a curmudgeon. But I imagine archaeologists far in the future scratching their heads as they excavate this place. "It's a mystery," they'll say. "We followed a thirty-foot wide concrete trail for ten miles from a waterfall and found that it ended at a duck pond."

10/24/09 Warning:

Just how safety conscious are we these days? Apparently not as much as some Brits. Read this story by Elena Gorgan at Softpedia (she refers to the original story in the Telegraph):

They say you can never have too much of a good thing, but, when it comes to taking precautions and preventive actions, it seems some people truly go overboard, with the result of becoming the laughing stock of everybody else. Such is the case of over 5,000 council workers who fell for a spoof campaign pushed by biscuit maker Fox to raise awareness and test the safety of biscuit consumption at work, the Telegraph informs.

Fox came up with the idea for the campaign when brainstorming for the Rocky bar, a new product. It was, of course, not meant to be taken seriously, but the £3 million invested in the campaign was money put to very good use, as many fell for it. Fox set up a fictitious British Biscuit Advisory Board that made surveys and estimates of the risk council workers were exposed to in terms of biscuit consumption while at the office.

Surprisingly, many took the health precautions to heart and even started monitoring tea breaks to see whether employees were not putting themselves at risk with the biscuits. Billboards and television ads were introduced in a bid to "educate the public about responsible biscuit choices and promote safer biscuit eating practices." Moreover, the Biscuit Advisory Board passed out a "workplace biscuit risk assessment test" that people were asked to fill out. To Box's huge surprise, 5,849 workers across the UK actually went to great lengths to complete it, the aforementioned publication says.

According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, 400 people a year in Britain had to be treated in Accident and Emergency departments for biscuit-related accidents. These included 'somebody falling over while reaching for a biscuit,' someone slipping on a chocolate biscuit on their stairs and various people choking on biscuits. However, a spokesman urged councils not to panic about biscuit-related injuries and suggested people should just use common sense," the Telegraph writes.

Fox, on the other hand, is complete taken aback by people's response to the spoof marketing campaign, although it too does not fail to see just how far some would go to enforce stricter (and sometimes absurd) health regulations. "We developed the idea of the British Biscuit Advisory Board as a parody of the nation's obsession with Health and Safety - but we never thought it would be taken quite to serious," Marketing Director for Fox Mike Driver says for the same publication.

10/23/09 Babalu!

I'd love to sneak Desi Arnaz in as the Christian-influenced artist of the day, since he was a devout Catholic. The truth is, though, I'd want to watch this youtube video even if he had two horns and a forked tail:

10/22/09 Bodies

I realized today that my teaching techniques often involve violence and gore (not Al) and I wonder why that is. Does the presence of boys in the classroom bring out my latent aggressive instincts, or do I just enjoy shocking the girls? For instance, when I teach the third declension in Latin, I have to teach 7th graders how to find the stem of a word like rex, regis (king). The rule is that you take the second form of the word (the "genitive") and chop off the "is". The stem of rex, then, is "reg". A declension is the stem plus a constant set of endings. In this case, it goes

rex

regis

regi

regem

rege

etc.

Since most of you probably aren't Latin lovers (ah, humor a wonderful thing), I won't explain what all of those different forms are. I'll just say that, in order to teach the idea of chopping off an "is" to find a stem, I draw something like this on the board:

Concrete and picturesque, just like good writing! The method does have a few drawbacks. For one thing, some kids will remember the picture later, but won't have the slightest idea why I drew it. For another, some parents have a weird idea that violence is already too common in American culture and that we adults should model ideals of cooperation, respect, and teamwork--you know, like they do in the military.

Then too, I might get fired. That would be bad.

O.K., actually I didn't intend to write about Latin pedagogy today. I meant instead to ask the following important question: Why do some people feel comfortable describing their illnesses in great descriptive detail while others of us take pains to use a euphemism for everything?

A couple of years ago, for instance, I was in a Bible study with a woman who had a tumor. I was concerned for her and definitely wanted to know the general information--where it was in her body the prognosis, etc. However, this woman was of a poetic nature or a medical outlook or a little of both, and several times she waxed horrifyingly eloquent about her tumor, telling us its name (she called it "Arthur"), its hair color and skin color and personality type (A), sign (Leo), etc etc.

OK, not the personality type or the sign, but the rest she did tell us, plus more that I don't want to think about.

I won't say that she was wrong to speak in a detail--I think a lot of people found her spunky and brave, which she was, and also she did have a nursing background, so it was all in a day's work to her. I know that, if anything, I tend to the other extreme. I'm too squeamish. I do not like to think, much less hear about other people's bodily fluids, excretions, excrescences, fungi, carbuncles, pustules, sebaceous cysts (called by an unkind few "fatty tumors") inverted or ingrown or overgrown or regressed or retracted anything. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts, and in the most general and least concrete and picturesque way possible. Exactly UNLIKE good writing.

Tell me your foot hurts because of a wound caused by surgery. Don't tell me that the doctor removed the little toe and grafted your nose in its place while replacing the nose with a FLAP (I hate words like "flap") which he BUILT (ooooooooo) from TISSUE (ooooooooooooooooooooooooo) from some other area of your body.

I know, I have heretical tendencies--gnostic maybe (hey, look it up, I'm tired here). It's like I want to deny the existence of the body, or at least pretend we're all just stuffed with little styrofoam crystals like beanie babies. No blood or guts, no yucky stuff. Just sugar and spice, just puppy dogs tails, etc.

So how do I reconcile my squeamishness with my violent classroom techniques?

10/20/09 The Larry

I wish I could write the novel that Mayor Larry Langford (on trial for taking bribes) is busy writing about himself.

From the Birmingham News, Sunday,

October 18: Charles Dean J. Dean writes,

"Defiant. Angry. Hopeful. Despairing. Boastful. Humble. Proud.

Langford is all those things on the eve of a trial that could end his long political career at its pinnacle and hurl him back to the future he once feared as a poor kid growing up in Loveman Village.

'I was angry all the time as a kid. I was really a punk heading toward nothing but jail and an early grave,' Langford said.

Suddenly he paused, took another hit from his smoke and shook his head.

'Funny, after all I've tried to do for people and after all this,' Langford said, pointing toward his office and then waving a hand across the skyline, 'I could still end up in jail. Don't try to tell me life is fair.'

So, Lanford was asked, is he wondering: 'Why me?' 'Hell no. People tell me that all the time, that somehow everything that is happening is unfair,' Langford said. 'I look at it the other way. Why not me? I'm nobody special. God didn't promise me or anyone heaven on earth. He promised us everlasting life after this damn life.

'Everybody will tell you that God is love and Jesus saves,' said Langford, who describes himself as a Christian. 'But what people have forgotten today is fear of God. There is good in the world but there is also evil, and more of it than good. The Bible tells us that God is a vengeful God and I think too many have forgotten that. I fear no man but I do fear God because God's judgment is great and final.'

Asked if he was angry, Langford snapped back.

'What do you think? Look at the things I've done,' Langford said. 'Getting VisionLand started when nobody, and I mean nobody, thought we could build an amusement park and get support for it from black places and white places and we did it. And now, after years of no progress in Birmingham, I have done more in less than two years than the last mayor did in eight years and that includes, after years of talk...we're going to finally build the dome.

'Had it been anybody else, they would have built a statue to me by now but instead they want to throw me in jail...as hard and hateful as they were, I prefer the days of 40 or 50 years ago over today,' Langford said. 'Back in those days, racism was not practiced by everyone but you knew who the racists were. Today, racism is still alive but it's a lot harder to figure out who the racists are.'"

Is he a comic or tragic figure? A little of both.

10/18/09 Chilly Weather, Dumb Sports Talk, Mayor in the Doghouse

It was bone-chilling cold and rainy in the Deep South this weekend. I went to visit my folks in Georgia and everybody was groaning over rain on Saturday--way, way too much of a good thing after one of the wettest Octobers on record. I can do without the rain, but I love cold weather, so I tried to enjoy it. By the end of this week, we're supposed to be back up to the mid-70's here in Birmingham.

I dropped my daughter off at her instant toot of higher education this afternoon, and listened to sports radio on the way back to the house. A former NFL pro was commenting on a Vikings player who left the game today after an injury. "He left the field under his own possession--I mean, he left by his own validity." Take note students of English: this man has committed a classic error, grasping for a big word that he didn't actually know ("volition" is what he wanted to say, I think) where a few small, familiar words would have served him better. He might have said, "Adrian Peterson injured his ankle and decided to leave the game," or, since this is the NFL , how about "Adrian Peterson left one mangled leg and part of an arm lying under a pile of defenders; still, he pulled himself up and hobbled from the field without assistance, calling for a band-aid."

Always, always, always make your sentences as concrete and picturesque as possible.

Tomorrow I'm going to quote for you part of a Birmingham News article about our mayor, Larry Langford, whose bribery trial starts this week. The man is a study in tortured contradictions. For now, let me refer you again to the youtube video of Larry and Friends in Sackcloth

10/15/09 TV, Motherhood, Guilt

About an hour after I gave birth to my first child, I started planning the next twenty years of my life. Boy, were things going to be different. No more layabout life for me--always looking for the next ten minutes of happiness, channel-surfing on Sundays and shuttling dinners from the microwave while fresh vegetables died, unmourned, in the bottom of the refrigerator. The old, irresponsible life was over. Adulthood had arrived, screaming, in cloth diapers (which, by the way, should be soaked in pails in Borox before washing and then hung out to dry in the sun, and that's approximately how it feels to be a brand new mother).

So what would the new life look like?

There would be loaves of homemade bread every other day or so, fresh steamed vegetables at dinnertime, gleaming kitchen counters and floors (carpet clean enough for a baby to crawl on), afternoons of long walks and books while baby slept (because EVERY baby sleeps), and above all, there would be very, very little TV.

I can hear you guffawing. Stop it people! I'll have you know that as my kids got older, I did manage to stick to some of those first principles. I even learned to make bread--very flat, hard little loaves that looked like dwarf feet:

(The black spot is a raisin.)

As far as TV went, we watched none at first, because we moved from Univ. of Ga. housing and no longer had free cable. This TV blackout did nothing for our moral or metaphysical imagination, but it did enable me to become unbearably self-righteous towards other mothers who plopped their kids down in front of television all day.

No, we don't watch television. My daughter prefers inspiring stories about animals.

Well, time went on, we moved again to a place where we had some television reception--without cable--and so I hooked up the set again and the kids themselves (there were now two of them) began to campaign for more television time. Naps, which hadn't lasted long anyway, were a thing of the past, so I replaced sleeping hours with two hours of TV a day. This gave me a chance to work on my writing, and the kids were basically limited to public tv, meaning that they spent their two hours visiting water treatment plants and examining the ice cores of glaciers and dropping in on amputees in California communes.

Still, I was a homeschooler among homeschoolers. When I told one friend how much tv my kids were allowed, you'd have thought I'd said I was signing them up for a pole dancing class. "Two hours!" she said. " Oh my gosh!" I guess I deserved her reaction; I'd treated other people the same way, back when I was a TV-purist. Still, I felt that great, looming heaviness that most mothers feel at some point...mother guilt.

So now, it's years later and I have two teenagers. The eighteen year-old is on her own, more or less. I'm done raising her; the child who once played on my not-very-clean floors while I wrestled with ugly bread loaves now lives in a dorm room and makes her own decisions about how to spend her time. The fifteen year-old is another matter. I still feel some responsibility for the choices she makes, and yet I hate to see her spending hours at night (just like I once did) channel surfing. And yeah, I admit, we're no longer cable virgins--in fact we have a satellite dish on the roof.

So, the guilt goes on. I don't have any great insights, only the words of confession above, and a bitter lament that it's hard to be a mother. Even in a happy family, even when you're doing your best and everybody gets along reasonably well, you simply worry that you're falling short of some ideal. You picture a child saying to you one day, "Mom, why did you let me waste so much time?"

I won't really have an answer.

10/13/09 Disney's Magic Highway

I've been working on an essay about Jane Jacobs, the woman who stood up to the modernist urban planners who so scarred and disfigured American cities in the first half of the twentieth century. In my research, I came across hilariously awful vision of the future from none other than Walt Disney. Look at his vision for sprawling cities to come (somewhat realized in Atlanta and Dallas, among other places) and think of all the destruction and relocation that would have gone into creating those landscapes from New York or Chicago. Remember Alonzo Hawk, who planned to sell out Medfield College in The Absent-Minded Professor and demolish a historic San Francisco fire station in Herbie Rides Again? He would have loved the highwappys (highwappys? I meant to type highways but I love that word too much to delete it) stretching right over the Taj Majal and past the sphinx. But my favorite part is "Father" videoconferencing from the car while "Mother and Son" go shopping. What happened to "Daughter?" Is there a one-child policy in the future?

10/10/08/09 The Most Perfect Novel

We all have our favorite novels, but is there a particular one that you consider perfect, or at least nearly perfect?

One novel that comes close in my estimation is The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. The novel is set in New York in the 1870's, when the city is still flat, dull, and conventional by European standards: a landscape of brownstone houses in endless rows, punctuated by areas of green wilderness. The upper class of New York is a small, closed society of families all interrelated by business and marriage; they live by the simple principles that nothing unpleasant should ever be discussed except by hints and allusions, that husbands and wives remain together no matter what, and that nothing can shatter family loyalty except--no, not murder or rape--but financial dishonour.

Raised in this politely tribal society of New Yorkers, Newland Archer is a shade less conventional than most of his relatives: he loves novels, art, intellectual conversation. He even fritters time away thinking rather than occupying himself with endless sports and games (his eventual mother-in-law, Mrs. Welland, feels it her duty to make sure that everyone is constantly "provided for": Newland worries her). Still, at the beginning of the novel, Newland seems ready to embrace the dull life prescribed for him by his solicitous family. He's satisfied with his fiancee May, a radiant girl with the boylike beauty of a young goddess--a goddess of wholesome, unimaginative New York-ness.

So what spoils it all? A woman, as usual. May's cousin Ellen has just returned from Paris, leaving behind her cruel, debauched husband, Count Olenski. The family deploys Newland (who's a lawyer, sort of) to convince the Countess not to divorce her husband, no matter what awful things he's done (and we don't find out what those are--one of the symptoms of a good novel). There are rumors that the Countess herself may have lived with another man after leaving her husband.

Poor Newland. As a reader now I can see that Ellen Olenska is much more than just a beautiful, wounded woman--against a plain New York landscape she represents an older and more tolerant world, a European tradition of art and literature, a freer moral code, and simply (to Newland) the chance to live where family and society don't demand the immolation of an individual will. Edith Wharton, who grew up in that New York, married in it, and left it (along with her family) for Europe and a life of letters, was allowing her conscience to explore her life and choices from another point of view. How much weight do loyalty and family honor carry against love and desire?

More on that later. I'm just reading The Age of Innocence now for the fourth or fifth time, and each time I see something in it I never saw before. If you don't want to read the book, I also recommend the 1993 movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer: a good movie can't touch a great book, but if you haven't read the novel you'll probably like it.

10/07/09 Procrastinating

I should be blogging today, I know, but I've been so busy wasting time. Yesterday, for instance, instead of blogging, I watched a slide show all about the cast of Eight is Enough, Then and Now. Boy, did I learn some stuff, too. Such as that you'd have to be a crazy person to take your innocent child to a Hollywood audition. If he doesn't vanish into a fog of drugs, sex, and alcohol, like the formerly cute Adam Rich

who now sells tires (on good days)

he might become

Bible Man!

like Willie Ames

who used to be cute, but lately...well, what happened to the guy?

Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be actors.

10/03/09 Dirty Righteous Money, Cont'd

So as I was saying last night: with a little effort, I became used to the fact that money has its good side. I realized that when I make money by providing a service, I'm not simply taking it from others, I'm actually providing a conduit by which money can be spread from people who have it to people who need it. The more often such exchanges occur, the better for everyone.

Well, duh. You'd think I would have figured that out at an early age like most people. The thing is, my parents (and my husband's parents) were all in the ministry; the money they got came from people's tithes, was based on need, and had nothing to do with how hard they worked, though they did work extremely hard. It sounds funny, but in a sense, children of ministers and missionaries are basically raised in socialist economies.

All right. Having embraced capitalism, what should we do with the Biblical teachings that warn about the dangers of wealth? Personally I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the blithe statements I hear from Christian financial people. I read an article the other day in which the writer emphasized the fact that the Bible calls the LOVE of money the root of all kinds of evil (I Timothy 6:10); he went on to ask who has more love of money: broke people who think about it and worry about it all the time or rich people who have it?

Sounds like a reasonable idea, and I agree in theory that poor people can be dangerously obsessed with money; a poor man's obsession with money manifests itself initially as envy and covetousness and leads to, well, all kinds of evils...theft, murder, etc. etc. Yes, poverty has its own dangers.

But I think we shouldn't kid ourselves. The first part of Paul's admonition to Timothy says, "Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition."

You reading this--what are your thoughts? It seems to me that Paul is saying that contentment lies in accepting what God gives you, and that as long as you're not starving and naked, you're doing well. Some people might think of this as harsh, but there's a certain relief in it...

10/02/09 Dirty Righteous Money

Early this evening, my domestic partner and I were taking a spin around Homewood, Alabama, an old Birmingham suburb known for having the atmosphere of a small town. As we gazed longingly at charming cottages nestled among ivy and magnolias, we thought about the fact that the average price of a dinky house in Homewood is twice what it is in our own suburb, a stone's throw away. We sighed then in unison and acknowledged the universal truth that teachers, though they work as hard as most middle-class professionals, struggle just to stay in the middle class.

Once upon a time, we would have been depressed by those thoughts, but now our attitudes have changed. Why they've changed isn't all that important to what I'm about to say, but I'll summarize the reasons in three paragraphs, just in case anybody else is in the place where we found ourselves about five years ago, and can benefit.

MOVING ON UP: THE HEARTWARMING STORY OF HOW WE CLIMBED OUT OF PICTURESQUE POVERTY AND BECAME BORING MIDDLE CLASS

WORKAHOLIC TIGHT-WADS

Until about five years ago, neither of us had any interest in or knowledge of money, and prided ourselves on that fact. In some ways, this was a good thing--we didn't care about acquiring lots of stuff, and we devoted most of our extra time to our young children and (in my case) to overcoming a boatload of emotional problems, which are all detailed in my tell-all memoir, which is not about money. The picturesque struggles of those years include our living a whole summer in Alabama without air-conditioning. How did we make it? Well, my husband stood outside in his t-shirt sweating and yelling while I fanned myself and said "I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers."

Five years ago, we realized that we were sinking in debt, that we were working hard but still had no savings or money for extravagant items like shoes and underwear. Now feeling emotionally stable, I was ready to conquer the budget troubles.

We started following the advice of a crazy radio guru named Dave Ramsey, who advocated a simple, practical plan that boiled down to saving $1000, then paying off debts one by one (smallest to largest), then building an emergency fund and saving for for the rest of the life. It wasn't just a matter of clever budgeting; I also took on a part-time job and a lot of Latin tutoring and guitar lessons and acting lessons and art lessons and even piano lessons--anything I could do for cash. In the meantime, we took almost no vacations and spent no money on ourselves. My fortieth birthday present was a stainless steel sink--found in somebody's yard! But it didn't matter because the plan worked. Five years later we have no debt, a few months' worth of income in the bank in case of an emergencies, and a daughter starting college.

Now, I don't generally recommend Christian gurus or fad-drivers of any kind, but I liked (and like) Dave Ramsey, because his plan is so simple. In order to really give myself to it, though, I had to get over my lifelong sense that it's wrong to want to have more money. I had always felt that hard work ought to be its own reward, which is very Kantian, but not actually very Christian. So, I clenched my jaw and tried hard, very hard, to get used to people giving me cash in exchange for services I provided. And I did. And I discovered something; when people gave me money, I was actually...able...to...pay other people money! To do things like fix my washing money, for instance! Then the guy who fixed my washing machine was able to take my money and buy his kids food and also pay somebody else to cut his hair, which really needed it...

All of that was good stuff. NOW, however, comes the problem, as I was reminded yesterday, when I read a certain article online...

However it's 11:00 p.m., so I'll have to finish in the morning. Good night everybody.

09/29/09

O.K., so more about a particularly heinous distortion of Christianity, and then maybe the artist of the day...

A recent article in the liberal journal The Nation appeared under the provocative title The Nightmare of Christianity. In the piece, Max Blumenthal "investigates" the troubled life of Matthew Murray, the young man who opened fire two years ago at a Colorado Springs church, killing five people. Blumenthal does uncover a lot of interesting connections that you would never know about if you'd only read network reports, which mainly treat Murray as a guy with serious psychological problems and a world-class grudge against his parents. The Murray family, according to Blumenthal, was Charismatic and ultra-rigid; they were big fans of Bill Gothard (perhaps because it might upset a stereotype, you wouldn't know from the article that Matthew Murray's father was a prominent neurologist--they come across as rednecks). Blumenthal describes Gothard as a cult leader who belongs to the Rushdoony/theocratic/Dominionist camp; Mike Huckabee, according to Blumenthal, is a Gothardite, too, and therefore--are you paying attention? do you have a sharpened pencil?--we can now fill out a few more spaces in our chart of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

Well, if you're an evangelical of long-standing, you already know all about Gothard, because you had to listen to your folks read from that yawningly dull Character Sketches book at family devotions each night. Plus you got his disappointing birthday card every year--what! no cash??? You know that Gothard has a weird authoritarian streak and a few bent screws in his toolbox; also his most devoted followers tend to be the kind of people who drive their friends and family to drink. However, Gothard is not a cult leader, unless evangelicalism itself is a cult. Even if he wanted to have a cult, he lacks the personality and charm (try picturing his face--see, you can't). If he has strong connections with Rushdoony and the crazy Dominionists, I'd be really surprised, since most people connected to those guys end up in splinter organizations. That's the comforting thing, actually, about Christian theocratic groups--they're like amoebas, naturally schismatic. They couldn't organize a frenzied massacre, let alone a revolution; it would mean telling each other where they kept the weapons.

So, having followed his conspiracy theory as far as it can take him, Blumenthal tries to paint a picture of this Murray guy as somebody so abused, dominated, and controlled by his homeschooling parents and their church (and the blame all goes to the church, since the parents are merely doing as they're told--thus joining Matthew in that blessed spot outside the circle of responsibility), that the poor guy turned to the occult, including some of its most grotesque sexual and ritualistic practices, as a weapon to get back at the people who had hurt and controlled him.

Oh yeah, first he joined YWAM, which dismissed him; after that humiliation, and specifically after Ted Haggard's fault from grace at New Life Church, he ran straight into the arms of Alistair Crowley, whom Blumenthal misidentifies as a Satanist, though I don't know why I should care. As good as, if you ask me.

Now, I've reported all of this in a breezy and sarcastic tone because I so dislike Blumenthal's article. There's the awful title, but beyond that, he heaps guilt upon the whole evangelical community, drawing connections between groups and individuals that are certainly connected, because everything in the evangelical world is connected somehow (did I tell you that my good friend from Wheaton married Billy Graham's pastor's son from North Carolina, whose brother now goes to my church in Birmingham, where our kids are super-good friends?). But just because people are connected, that doesn't mean they're indistinguishable or even friendly.

Still....I think that evangelicals, like all Christians, have to admit that legalism and authoritarianism are big temptations for us. This is a little tricky, because we don't want to see it. We point our fingers at excesses in the Catholic church: "Behold the dangers of hierarchy!" But where can a power-hungry person cause more trouble, in a universal church with an acknowledged structure of power, or at the food court of a bowling alley in a small town, where he tells a small group of followers that only he knows how to interpret the eleventh chapter of Daniel?

I'm not sure of the answer to that last question, but I know that danger often lies where a group of people is willing to believe that one man or Inner Ring of men (to quote C.S. Lewis) holds the keys to certain sacred mysteries unavailable to ordinary people (who don't have diplomas from The Online Conservative Seminary of the Americas). Longing for access to the inner circle, they yield control of their lives, livelihoods, and even their families to leaders whose power comes not from humility and service (the qualities demonstrated by Christ, who "being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men") but from the constant, unrepentant exercise of domination and manipulation--qualities long associated with Satan.

In the case of Matthew Murray, I have no idea what really happened; in the Nation article, it's impossible to see the facts unobscured by the deep prejudice of the writer. But I've watched plenty of nice people get caught up in abusive churches; and more worrisome, I've seen families where domineering and legalistic parents (especially fathers) essentially condition their children to see love as a game of domination and power. In rebelling against one tyrant (abusive Christianity), the children may eventually devote themselves to another. But it's all the same thing in the end. Evil in God's name is still evil.

And with that thought, I leave you with a rare color photo of the artist of the day, the man who crafted the character of Jadis, Queen of Charn, who used magic to destroy an entire world: C.S. Lewis

09/28/09 Friends, and I Call You My Friends Because You are My Friends...

I don't have time for a long blog tonight since I've got mucho trabajo to do before tomorrow's Latin and Spanish classes. I'll put off writing about a homeschooler who rebelled against his Bill Gothard-fanatic parents and became a devotee of Alistair Crowley and the Golden Dawn, except to say that my first thought when I heard about it was, "Gee, couldn't he have just asked to have his name removed from the annual birthday card list? " What I've been thinking about, though (as I started to discuss yesterday) is that Christian authority figures, if they use religion primarily as a means to control and dominate others, will either end up practicing the occult themselves (in the name of faith), or else drive some of their followers and/or children into it. That's because the enemy of true religion isn't atheism, but the will to power, which wears many disguises, including large toupees and promise rings.

There's so much to say on this, so many C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien quotations to look up, and so little time left in the evening (after a weekend wasted watching football). I hope to prove my point tomorrow. In the meantime, Galadriel's heart longs for the power to conquer the Dark Lord, but she passes the test...

09/27/09 Power-Mongering in the Pulpit

Wow, what a week of shameless trekking through media gossip. First there was the salacious awfulness of Mackenzie Phillip's confessions, then the revelation that her sister Chynna who used to be part of the trio Wilson Phillips is now a Christian and part of a CCM duet called Phillips and Vaughan. "Tell her to get the Lord on board," Chynna told Oprah, putting to rest our fears that Mackenzie Phillips will go through recovery without someone to provide the necessary evangelical catch-phrases. But actually, Chynna sounds like a cool person. The funny thing is that, like so many other people, she's married to a Baldwin brother. Not the famously Christian one, Stephen, though her husband Billy may be a Christian too. The thing is I had to put aside my research into the Phillips-Baldwin connection in order to think about...

...an old pastor of ours, from many years ago, who once sat across his desk from us and listened to the reasons why we were leaving his church. My husband, who had been attending there before we were married, explained to him that we wanted to spend Sundays with his parents (my in-laws), who were on furlough from their Baptist mission in Japan and didn't feel comfortable in such an extremely Reformed church. Jon might have added that we didn't feel comfortable either; that it concerned us how so much in that tiny congregation seemed to revolve around the will and personality of one man (the guy across from us at the desk) who preached sermons of an hour and a half or more some weeks on very small units of text in the Bible, such as each word of John 3:16. Occasionally there would be an emotional meeting in which the pastor would tell the congregation how disappointed he was with us and how tempted to leave the church and find another pulpit to occupy, but (as we held our breath and prayed Lord let it be so), "NO!" he would say to us in the voice of the martyrs, "I've decided I'm called to be here, and I'm STAYING!"

So what was this man's response to our decision to leave? Just the usual. Blame the wife. Honestly, usually I do deserve a lot of blame; I've got a big mouth and a naturally cynical natural and even when I try to be nice people think I'm joking. But in this case I really hadn't done anything to deserve blame; the man had been potently unfriendly to me the one time I'd spoken to him, and at that point he hadn't even learned my name. I didn't like the church, but I was a newlywed and eager to please my husband and in-laws, whom I was just getting to know; so basically I was willing to be miserable at any church they picked for me. When this man suggested that I was squeaky wheel...well we didn't exactly wipe the dust off our Converse hightops as we walked out, but we did feel vindicated.

I hadn't thought about that man in quite a while, but his name came up in conversation with someone the other day, and I looked him up on the internets. He's still out there writing and speaking, though not pastoring, so maybe he wised up to his own short-comings. The fact is that some controlling personalities--usually detail and data people who are harmless if put in charge of a library bookshelf or a lab or a corner office at the I.R.S., become corrupt and even wicked when put in charge of human beings. You find these people in all walks of life, but religion is an especiall dangerous occupation because it involves interpretations of mysteries (analogous to the Dewey Decimal System) and exploitation of hierarchies. Controlling people live for the kind of power and mystique that the priesthood or pastorate offers. And they dream of coming up with that one "new idea," that mystical or Biblical observation that other scholars have missed, that only they see, that only they can teach to the Christian masses (preferably charging lots and lots of money to people willing to come to seminars), and that promises to change every life. ..

Tomorrow: Dangerous Preachers/Dangerous Parents, Homeschoolers gone bad, etc.

09/26/09 More Artists and Observations

And so, the Christian-influenced artist of the day is...

(I know, this is an oddly grainy image--like Jesus' face on an icy windowpane)

Leif Enger, author of the wonderful novel Peace Like a River, and the less wonderful but still good So Brave, Young, and Handsome. He grew up in a Pentecostalish or Charismaticish family somewhere in the brutal Northwest--Minnesota, maybe--and later went on to become a journalist on public radio. Intellectual though he is, he still believes in miracles (Peace Like a River is full of them), but unlike most novelists from devout families he was never held underwater by a crazy grandparent or seduced by a preacher's daughter (so far as I know). Poor guy, such a dull life. But he managed to become a great writer anyway.

Later: thoughts on religion and manipulation

09/25/09 Artists and Observations

I know, I know, I let time pass and never posted the list of artists/musicians/

writers/actors who got their start in Christian communities. Today I want to give a snapshot of Southern culture in Leeds, Alabama, but first I'll name the Christian-influenced artist of the day. And before I do that, let me lay down the qualifications said artist must meet:

--he or she must be at least a part-time resident of the twentieth and/or twenty-first century

--though all art is somewhat derivative, he or she must be someone who shows inspiration and ingenuity--in other words, Christian knock-offs of popular secular artists, no matter how talented the knock-off artist may be, don't count

--the artist can be either high or low, popular or unpopular, and does not need to be a lifetime Christian

So the Christian-influenced artist of the day is...

My favorite and I hope yours! Mother Maybelle Carter, mother of June Carter Cash and mother-in-law of Johnny Cash; Maybelle was a devout and outspoken Christian, known for her kindness to younger performances, including Elvis, who was just like a son. She invented the guitar technique that became standard for folk and rockabilly. She taught herself to play as a teenager, developing a way to use the six strings both for a rythmic bass and melodic accompaniment. She and her brother-in-law A.P. and his wife Sara formed the hugely influential "Carter Family." Here's Johnny Cash in a really happening tie introducing her:

And here she is jamming on the autoharp:

But I was going to speak of my anthropological research in Leeds, U.S.A. (as the sign says) which until three years ago was my hometown. Last Saturday they had their annual folk festival downtown, celebrating Alabama culture in the birthplace of John Henry and Charles Barkeley, the first of which is possibly only a mythical figure and the second of which wants to be our governor one day. Don't know how that would work out. Why do athletes and actors always want to go into politics? Why don't they teach elementary school or join a fire department? At least Harrison Ford flew a search and rescue helicopter, if I remember right.

Well anyway, I spent some of last Saturday downtown in Leeds with my daughter, sitting on a bench in front of the library. This gave me a unique opportunity to observe the portion of America which is so much commented upon and speculated about by people who would never waste a Saturday on a bench in front of a library anywhere. Here are two anthropological observations which I think are significant:

Best representative of the good side of Southern culture:

Young man coming out of right-hand door while middle-aged woman pulls open door on other side says, "Ma'am, I was going to hold that door open for you..."

(The sad thing is, his polite comment probably just made her feel old.)

Best representative of the bad side of Southern culture:

Two teenage boys shaped like bowling pins walk past library window and see magazine on display with picture of Barack Obama over the headline: "First African-American President." One boy reads the words aloud in a snide voice and the other says "Screw him!"

The first anecdote shows that chivalry is not dead, and demonstrates why the South is still such a pleasant place to live. Many, many people value politeness and good manners. I've taught some wild children, nearly impossible to control in a classroom, who would answer "Yes Ma'am," and "No Ma'am" to everything you asked them--and never say a word of backtalk. You felt sure that just before they set your trailer on fire they'd stop to say, "May I help you out the door, Ma'am?"

And the second anecdote demonstrates that, whatever conservatives might want to believe, there still is open and unabashed racism in pockets of the country. I just think it's much less common and pervasive than it used to be, even here in the South. In fact, there's been so much intermarriage and intermixing in the rural South, especially among the working classes, that people just can't hold onto the old attitudes--they'd have to turn against their own grandchildren, which Southerners won't do. We put family above everything; well, everything except football.

09/21/09

Below are a few pictures from our dress rehearsal for Anne of Green Gables last month. I hope that the pictures make it look fun, because it really was. I can't wait to decide what play we'll do next summer. Did anybody say it's not great to be a Reformed Presbyterian? Just try finding an enthusiastic group of people willing to rent you a stage and buy professional lighting to support your dream of being a director.

Seriously, I think a lot about the role the church has played for so many of us as a source of artistic inspiration and support. I know, I know, a lot of tacky stuff comes from the conservative Christian community. Talk about "evangelical" art, for instance, and people start snickering because they imagine--well, stuff like this...

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww

And this from Thomas Kincaide:

(Death by shades of pink and blue)

It's ridiculous, though, to judge Christian art by mass-produced kitsch, which is fun in its own way but...well, not exactly the flame that rises from the friction of deep feeling and imagination, as someone once said (well, I did say it once). If you think it's possible that something called Christian art still exists (that it didn't die with the seventeenth-century metaphysical poets), look for musicians and singers and songwriters who started singing as children in church; look for writers and actors, especially in the South and among African-Americans, who wanted to become storytellers because they watched gifted preachers in the pulpit. Often their own fathers were preachers, missionaries, church musicians. Tomorrow I'll post a list here of artists who got their start in church. In the meantime, I'll post these pictures of budding actors.

Matthew, Rachel, and Marilla contemplate Anne, who's hiding her green hair

Alas poor Matthew; doomed to die at the end of the second act, he's also plagued by a scratchy moustache

Diana tells Anne she passed the Queen's entrance examinations; Marilla celebrates by painting her fingernails white

Could I borrow that red wig? My hair seems to be thinning

09/20/09 Joanna Trollope

Like a lot of people who love Anthony Trollope, author of The Warden, Barchester Towers and many other churchy novels of the nineteenth-century, I've decided to try the novels of Joanna Trollope (note to self: great advertising slogan that might have been, "Give Trollopes a Try"). Joanna Trollope is a distant relation of Anthony T's, but more to the point, she has at least one novel about churchy Brits that has been reincarnated as a Masterpiece Theater special; and since his Barchester Towers is about my all-time favorite MT production--well, is more explanation needed? Yeah, probably, but you ain't getting it.

I tried Joanna Trollope first when I was in my twenties and found her depressing. Not surprisingly, since her novels all are about people in their thirties and forties who bicker about their children and careers and marriages until they wake up to the fact that other people are selfish and inconsiderate...and then realize it's time to move on. Ta dum! When characters in their twenties do drift through the plot, they seem oddly hopeful about life, which makes them both refreshing and tragic. And now that I'm in my forties, I feel able to look at both sets--the young characters sighing over life's possibilities and the middle-aged characters moping about life's disappointments--with sympathy and some detachment.

So here are the results of my second try. Trollope's novel The Choir is very good and I can definitely recommend it. It's about the fate of a boys' choir at a cathedral school, where resources are limited and various church officials feel compelled to take sides over whether to save it. Trollope's best characters, interestingly enough, are children, especially the talented choirboy here whose name I can't remember at the moment but whose family splits over whether to support the organization which he loves (his grandfather is a socialist and feels the choir is only accessible to the privileged). One interesting question it raises is how far a contemporary British society should go to preserve the unique and wonderful institutions bequeathed by history--choirs, cathedrals, etc. What happens when the needs of living human beings in the present conflict with the need of a nation to honor its past?

Another good Trollope novel is Other People's Children, an interesting and alarming story of three families split apart and reconnected and even split again by divorce and remarriage. With some kindness on the part of the families, the children do survive and in a few cases even thrive, and yet you can't read this book without thinking how vulnerable children are to the emotional whims of their parents. Maybe I shouldn't really use the word "whim." Even in novels, people don't usually divorce on a whim, but they do frequently marry and have children with less forethought than they might give to, say, switching to Geico. And the end result is

pain for everyone (note to self: interesting booktitle, Bartender, Pain for Everyone!)

Finally, the only J. Trollope book I've read recently that I don't recommend is the very one they turned into a Masterpiece Theater production: The Rector's Wife. In fairness to her, I think it's one of her earlier efforts, and her recent work is much better. Since my feeling about commenting on books is that you should talk about the ones you like and ignore the ones you don't...well, this is a good place to stop. Perhaps I'll blog tomorrow (note to self...)

Update on Post Below: I just got a message when I tried to save: The page encountered a problem while saving, some material may have been lost.

Oh great, thanks Microsoft...Note wolf howl below

09/19/09 Blog, Where Art Thou?

Why has the bottom half of this page disappeared? It was here yesterday. I did nothing to it in the meantime. Missing is the second half of my blog entry about David Brooks's op-ed, as well as the entry from a few days ago about why I continue to write fiction.

I don't have time to get to the bottom of it this morning, but here's how I feel about Microsoft Office Live at the moment...

09/18/09 Stuck in the Middle with...David Brooks

I spend a good part of my life sitting on the fence between extremely conservative friends and friends who are moderately to extremely liberal. I'm not trying to suggest that I've found perfect moderation; I haven't discovered the golden middle. It's just that I tend to come to conclusions about politics the same way I shop, which means that I inevitably get excited by an argument on the first look, grab it off the shelf and head for the door. As soon as it's time to commit, though, I feel disenchanted. I've left a lot of desk lamps, pillows, closet organizers, and political convictions at the cash register.

David Brooks is someone I usually agree with, and seldom have buyer's remorse after taking his side. He's always too liberal for half of my friends and for the other half he's just an unusually wonkish conservative. But I like him. In an Op-Ed column published yesterday in the New York Times, Brooks makes a great case that race, even if it's an issue for some individuals, has little to do with the larger opposition to some of Obama's plans. He sees that opposition springing from a well of populism that's been around since the Hamilton-Jefferson debates in the early days of the country. To illustrate his point, he talks about seeing demonstrators at the Washington tea party this past weekend mixing amicably with an African-American crowd there for a reunion. Follow this link to read his whole column, which is well worth a look.

9/07/09 Because I'm Expecting Better

Here's the text of the President's upcoming speech to American school kids. I know that some conservatives will parse it for dark subtexts and play it backwards and sideways to catch Obama saying "Submit to your President," "Submit to your President." For the most part, though, it's just a nice speech reminding kids that success takes hard work, that they're probably not going to get rich and famous by rapping or landing a reality show--they've got to hit the books. And I can't imagine a teacher who won't appreciate his comment that good teaching and good schools can only take kids so far--kids have got to put in the effort. He talks about his mother waking him up at 4:30 a.m. in Indonesia to give him some of the education the wealthier kids received in expensive American schools; my husband learned that way in Japan--doing English spelling and grammar with his mom after spending all day in Japanese school. It takes incredible dedication on the part of the parent; Obama says that his mother would give him a look and say "It's no picnic for me, either, buster."

So why are people so outraged about this speech (especially in the South)? Why are some schools boycotting the address?

Well, there is a lot of personal bad will floating around--from loons who pray that God will bash in Obama's teeth to perfectly reasonable people who simply don't like much government and now see the man, Barack Obama, as both a product and facilitator of what they might call the "nanny state."

I disagree with Obama on many things, but I still like and respect him as a person. At the same time, I see that he does have an irritatingly paternal, or even "big brotherish" tone--I don't mean in the Orwellian sense, just in the "All right everybody, we ought to do what mom says and clean up this room" sense. He'd do well to avoid patronizing phrases like, "I'm expecting," or "I'm counting," not because those are bad phrases to use with kids (teachers say them every day), but because they sound co ndescending to adults (also listening) who find so much dignity in their individual freedom that they're willing to fail rather than give another inch. The Queen can get away with a maternal tone because what is she if not the symbolic mother of her subjects? But the president is not America's father, and he should avoid phrases that sound anything like "My beloved people..."

On the other hand, conservatives have made way, way, way too big a deal about this speech. It's fine to oppose a politician based on policies and ideas you disagree with, but at least be reasonable in your disagreement; at this point,, smart conservatives should leave the small stuff alone and concentrate their energies on a truly grand problem--excessive government spending. Now there's a scandal, buster.

09/06/09 Roll, Tithe

I saw that on a sign out in front of a church yesterday in West Birmingham. It was a timely reminder that football isn't everything, or even the main thing, though sometimes it feels like that around here. Nearly half the state got up yesterday, stuck their crimson flags on their Ford pickups (if they were from Saint Clair County or points east and south), SUVs (if they were from North Shelby or Vestavia), and Mercedes Benz-es (if they were from Crestline or Mountain Brook), and headed east to the Georgia Dome to see the Crimson Tide roll all over the Virginia Tech Hokies. The only people left in Alabama were the Auburn fans and anybody wearing a sombrero or head scarf. Oh yeah, and me. It was very quiet around here...until the fireworks started going off around midnight, part of an orgiastic victory celebration . I heard on TV that Tide fans were scouring the country to find unwilling victims for their thanksgiving offering, but everybody they talked to actually wanted to be thrown on the pyre. I stayed inside.

Sigh. My beloved Georgia Bulldogs lost. More later on what keeps us loyal to a team over a lifetime...why I care so much about those darned helmets with the big G painted on them, whoever's wearing the shoulder pads.

CORRECTION: Levi Johnston's statements (below) come from a tell-all that he's worked on with Vanity Fair--not from an interview with Charles Gibson. Gibson was only mentioned in the original story because of his interview with Sarah Palin.

09/03/09 Say No and Go

Here he is, girls, a walking, talking poster for abstinence education in America--the number one reason why chastity really is your friend:

Levi Johnston, Worst

Baby-Daddy since Annakin Skywalker

Isn't it funny that Charles Gibson--the smug, soon-to-be-retired anchorman who shamed Sarah Palin into revealing that she didn't know what he meant by The Bush Doctrine apparently has no shame at all when it comes to interviewing this lunkhead about nothing of any public significance? (*Sorry, not true, see above) Not that Levi isn't entertaining to watch. In his newest interview, the Alaskan Moose Skat reveals that the Palins rarely slept in the same room, that Sarah doesn't really like fishing or camping, and that she once asked him to show her how to shoot a gun. I wonder which side of the gun he was on when she asked him that question. Amazingly, what passes for his brains are are still intact, because he's now interested in showing them off for Playgirl. Run, girls, run.......

09/01/09

It's the mid-1950's and a middle-aged Julia Child is living in Paris with her husband Paul, who works for the U.S. government. She adores France, but wishes she had an occupation of

Gag me with a quill. Anne Frank would have been a great writer even if her friend hadn't discovered those diary pages on the attic floor in Amsterdam and her father hadn't made sure they were published. The publishing business and the public are valuable accessories--no more than that--to the art that people create because they simply can't help it.

Do I sound like I have a chip on my shoulder? It's une pomme frite, actually.

her own.

"What is it you like to do?" says Paul.

"Eat!" she says, with a hearty laugh. But she doesn't stop at the joke. Feeling that food is somehow her calling, she enrolls in a posh cooking school ("Le Cordon Bleu," a place straight of situation comedy), where she wins over her skeptical classmates and becomes the woman we all know as the French Chef, the ambassador of haute cuisine for servantless American housewives.

Meryl Streep is thrilling in the part of Julia; she comes so close to caricature again and again, but each time turns a corner and shows us something real. I think that life is like this; actual people are sillier than anything you could get away with onstage, except that they also have unpredictable emotions and moments of unexpected genius or bravery. Anyway, if you didn't already think that Meryl Streep was one of if not the greatest actress of our time, watch last year's Doubt and then watch this.

People have criticized the parallel story in the movie--the Julie story, with Amy Adams playing a young woman in a boring job who really wants to write but can't seem to finish anything. On her husband's suggestion, she starts a blog about her attempt to cook all of the recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year; in the process she turns her marriage upside-down, but manages to putter on to a happy ending, even scoring a book deal, the raison d'etre, as Julia Child might say (in fruity French) for any serious writer. See below.

I liked the Julie story, whatever the critics think. So she's not Julia Child--well duh. Her husband accuses her of being self-absorbed; that's an understatement, but it's true of so many artistic people who become devoted to a cause. Artists are notoriously hard to live with. Child herself was apparently that rare media personality who stayed humble while being famous, but then she was fifty years-old before she hit the airwaves, and her joy seemed to be more in the cooking itself than the getting of fame. She never sanded down her rough edges for the camera; her lank goofiness was part of her charm. You won't catch Martha Stewart attacking a joint of meat the size of her own torso.

One thing that disgusted me was the scene near the end of the movie when Julie's book offers come pouring in. We're forced to listen to one voicemail after another, letting us know that the world recognizes Julie for the talent she is. Thank God that Amherst education wasn't all for naught. She's a real writer, able to hold her head high.

08/30/09 The Secular Sacred

Well, I must say that I made it through the parent drop-off rituals yesterday relatively unscathed. The college where my daughter will attend is private, earnest, and nominally religious but not evangelical, and that fact so interested and distracted me yesterday that I forgot to boohoo. One example: the honor code of the college requires that the students never lie, cheat, or steal. To cheat, particularly, brings heavy academic penalties. On the other hand, sex and alcohol (and probably both at the same time because I've been told that's how it goes) are fine as long as all parties are satisfied and everybody remembers to tip their drunken roommates on their sides lest they choke on their vomit (that piece of advice comes directly from the alcohol education course my daughter had to take online prior to orientation). I've heard John McCain say that he told his son, upon sending him off to the Naval Academy, that he should never lie, cheat, or steal, but everything else was up for grabs. So maybe, in place of the old Jewish-Christian Decalogue (Ten Commandments) modern civic society has consciously decided to impose a trialogue (?). Why, though? Why make a big deal about lying, cheating, or stealing as opposed to public drunkenness? Is it because lying, cheating, and stealing are most likely to interrupt the civic religion of the United States--i.e business and commerce? Or am I being too cynical?

I did think how nice it must be to go to a school that you can criticize without feeling spiritual guilt about it. At Wheaton, when a chapel speaker said something really silly (and that happened quite often), I couldn't feel critical without thinking of myself as wretched, blasphemous, and anathematic (I hope I made that word up). We were always being told that

we were the cream of the Christian crop. What a burden that was--I suspect that nobody since the age of Dr. Livingstone and Florence Nightingale has labored more under the burden of Christian conscience than students at evangelical colleges, at least during the Cold War.

But yesterday, my husband and I listened to some very silly speeches at various college meetings, and I felt no guilt at all when my thoughts strayed to the ironic. I also realized that some of the things I blamed on the evangelicalism at Wheaton (I'll be charitable here and not mention them) were probably just a part of ordinary college life.

And what did I miss about Wheaton? Well, how about 2000 people singing a hymn together--in beautiful harmony--that most of them really believe in? My daughter won't know some of the beauty of being part of an intellectual Christian community like that, with much of the student population coming from abroad (children of missionaries) and really, honestly thinking, "Am I called to be a missionary?" At a place like that, the whole world seems charged with ultimate meaning, all the time. Often it's too much for an ordinary person to take, but I still loved it, at least by the end.

Tomorrow (I hope): What I think about Meryl Streep playing Julia Child (hint: WONDERFUL!)

08/28/09 Here Come the Tears

Tomorrow is it, the feast of St. Mawkish, when mothers like me weep buckets (or at least thimbles) of hot tears as we drop our new freshmen off at college for the first time. My daughter's excited, and also afraid (of course). It all takes me back to my first awful days at Wheaton, when we freshmen were subjected to something called "the electric extravaganza." If those words makes you think of secret CIA prisons, well that was exactly how I felt about the event. To me it was like evangelical boot camp. Smile, soldier, or you'll sing another twenty choruses of Pass it On! See if we can't make you! However, my husband loved his orientation, so go figure. Guess some people liked the square dancing and three-legged races and all that awful stuff. My idea of fun was to sit in a dark room listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue and moaning "why bother?" Is it any wonder that my roommate left after one year? She had her own issues, but I didn't help matters. I still remember one thing we really agreed on: an aggressive girl elsewhere on the hall who often yelled at Kay not to play theFrench horn because it interrupted her studies. That girl is probably a living saint by now, because that's how it goes at Wheaton. Studious and high-minded people (Elizabeth Elliot, for instance) end up taking care of the poor and dying in the third world while sensible people like me end up writing blogs in which we examine our middle-class angst. Knowing this has kept me humble, but ANYWAY, one day Kay and her French horn had had it with irritable Paula and her chemistry homework. Kay, with unsuspected gusto, suddenly hurled open a window, leaned out of it into the parking lot AVEC horn, and blew with all her might toward Paula's corner of the building. The walls of Jericho tumbled down, at least between me and Kay. Too bad that she fell upon her French horn a few weeks later, so that (in her words) "it crumpled up like tin foil." Heaven must have been on Paula's side.

08/26/09 Death Panels, Continued

Sorry, I'm back now. The reason why so many conservative Americans are willing to believe that the government might write a healthcare bill that includes mandatory end-of-life counseling (mandatory for patients in their understanding rather than mandatory for doctors) is that liberal progressivism, by definition, never sits still. What seemed unthinkable yesterday becomes the status quo tomorrow. Where will it all end? To conservative minds, progress may be progress (no conservative I know believes now that segregation was just), but it could as easily be social disaster sold as a benefit (e.g., urban renewal helped destroy American cities). The government has the ability to tax you, draft you, put you in jail, and now potentially mandate that you pay a fee for health insurance. Is it such an unreasonable leap to think that once the government has a financial stake in your health it might try to have a say in your health decisions?

Government says it wants to get involved in healthcare... well, who is the government? I think of my public high school teachers, who were both liberal and misanthropic, and would gladly have euthanized the eighth grade. I think of the I.R.S., who never answer their phones and then send me the wrong forms and then direct me to the wrong offices to correct the wrong forms sent from the wrong people to address the mistakes of the right people who never answered the phones. Maybe bureaucrats in Denmark and Iceland are intelligent, officious, and sweet-natured, but American bureaucrats tend to be irritable, offensive, and sullen (and why? answer that and you might solve a lot of problems). The saltpeter of the earth. t's just difficult to have faith in them.

Still, I'm of two minds (or more) about this. I was talking to my friend who's the administrator of a charity hospital here; his job is to work with people who've been denied healthcare by insurance companies, or else can't get it. He feels that Medicare does work well (contrary to the opinions of some), and he really wants to see the government offer a public option so that healthy people as well as sick people will join an insurance pool, thus keeping the costs down for the very ill. This guy defies stereotypes because he's an evangelical but also a political moderate. What he dislikes more than anything else is seeing the misinformation and even lies tossed around by evangelicals. Yep, even as I defend them I cringe. I know that they sincerely believe what they say, but sincerity isn't enough.

And speaking of fundamentalists behaving badly, check this out. There's real persecution in this world, but if somebody persecutes you in Gainesville, it might just be because you're acting obnoxious.

08/25/09 Why Any Sane Person Would Believe the Death Panels Story

When Barack O'Bama talks about it, you wonder what you could possibly have been thinking...death panels! He gives you an insider's smile...you know this is funny. Death panels! The idea is revolting to him.

I have to admit, when I heard Sarah Palin talk about how she didn't want the fate of her Down's Syndrome son being decided by Obama's death panels, I laughed out loud. There are ways of talking that divide people not so much along left/right lines as along lines of earnest and cool. Earnest people of various political persuasions love to throw around phrases that call up iconic and emotion-drenched images from history: "death panels," "jack-booted thugs," "axis of evil," "swastika-waving Nazis," "hooded Klansmen," etc. These are natural romantics; they appeal to the heart and assume that every heart wants essentially the same things. On the other other hand, the cool people (and I mean cool in the Obama way), essentially argue by saying, "Calm down, how could you use such language, it's irresponsible. Nobody in their right mind could suggest that." It's interesting to me that Obama's sister says he was maddening to argue with in his younger days because he always kept his cool. I've known a lot of cool arguers, and most of them were older brothers.

But anyway, here's one answer to why the suggestion of government-organized Death Panels seemed conceivable, at least for a little while, when Palin first brought it up.

Sorry you'll have to wait for it...child needs picking up :) Back soon.9

08/23/09 My Soap Runneth Over

Home sick from church this morning with a mild stomach flu. I need to be better by this afternoon, when the REALLY BIG SHOE takes place at church. Yesterday's parent performance went well, except for a few bumpy spots. The scary thing about working with junior high kids on a small stage covered with electrical cords and sound equipment is that their feet and hands are SO BIG compared to their BRAINS. Imagine leading a a flock of slightly intoxicated geese through a field of landmines...that's about it. A seventh grade actress throws out just one bony arm and down come three paper mache tree branches, a 12 by 8 section of curtain, the fuzzy tip of a microphone, and (best case scenario) her costar's fake moustache. It's a dangerous world up there.

Right now I feel like Bobby Brady. I went into the kitchen to check on the washing machine and there were suds pouring out of it.

I'm not quite sure what happened. Did I put soap in twice by accident? Did the machine skip the rinse cycle? Anyway, at least I wasn't wearing tighty whities at the time.

08/21/09

I haven't been able to blog much because this is play weekend and we're busy getting ready. In case you haven't heard, I'm directing Anne of Green Gables with the junior high kids at my church. Will it go well? Don't know. We haven't yet had a rehearsal with the whole cast. This is as much a reflection of my inability to throw a really great hissy fit as a testimony to the busy-ness of the American child. Who knew that in a recession everybody would spend the summer running back and forth to the beach, etc. Anyway, all I really I care about is the kids themselves. It's my job to see that they come away with great memories.

I'm still absorbed in the shock of my friend's death. It's just so terrible. I keep imagining what she must have been thinking, feeling at the end. But I know that it's foolish to concentrate my imagination on the way she died, no matter how awful....death is a moment, I want her to be remembered for herself and not for how she died.

08/19/09 Sherry Allen Schweder, 1943-2009

I started to write this an hour ago without really understanding what I was talking about, but the truth is beginning to set in. A good friend called this morning to tell me that someone I was once very close to--in fact she was my closest friend for about two years in the late 1980's--was killed with her husband in a tragic animal attack this past Friday in Northeast Georgia. You can read about it here if you're interested, but I don't want to write about Sherry's actual death, because it's horrible but it's also over.

I do want to say a few words about Sherry, though. We worked together in the History and Humanities Department at the University of Georgia Main Library. I was in my early twenties, a lowly typist hired for my knowledge of French and Latin. She was in her late forties and the official bibliographer for Germanic and Slavic languages. She never treated me as anything less than an equal: she was very shy, a little crazy (her office looked like someone had taken the library mailroom and shaken it upside down into a closet), probably brilliant, and completely unconscious of university hierarchies or status. She took in every stray, living in a trailer (at that time) with many animals, all of which she loved and care for. We shared a love of languages and an interest in the Catholic Church. On our breaks we walked around the beautiful University of Georgia campus (she loved to walk), and I sometimes went to mass with her after work: there would be about ten people in a little room with a priest, and one of the people was Barbara Dooley, wife of Vince Dooley, who wore furs and talked about burying a St. Joseph statue upside-down in the yard for some purpose--maybe to help sell her house? It was something funny to laugh about later.

I think Sherry left the church a few years after that. I don't know what her beliefs were, but for a while I considered becoming Catholic because of her. We fell out of touch, partly because of my emotional struggles at the time. It doesn't matter, but for some reason it helps me at the moment to admit that I wasn't a very good friend in the end. I tried to find a picture of her just now at the library website (couldn't find one--typical, since she avoided cameras), and the main thing that overwhelmed me was seeing her name still up on a library directory page. It's just impossible to believe that Sherry's not around anymore.

I never knew her husband. They were divorced during the time we were close, but later he won her back, according to her son Mark. What a wonderful story. Apparently, he died trying to help save her. May they both rest in peace.

08/16/09 Et tu, Miley?

I've read a number of people's thoughts on the recent pop tart gossip: at the Teen Choice awards, Miley Cyrus performed a somewhat "skanky" number with a pole, on top of an ice cream cone. A lot of people have their dander up about this, including folks who don't usually stand up for innocence, self-control, or even ordinary good taste. One point of view is that the people who influence this girl see her as a commodity, and it's in their interest to merge (wreck) her Disney gravy train into the bigger, nastier pop culture bandwagon before opportunity passes her by. Though the child has some talent, talent won't carry her to the end of the line as reliably as scandal, so her handlers have manufactured one. Presumably, that includes her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, but he just seems to me like one of those can't-say-no fun fathers, and Lord knows there are plenty of them. Now that Miley Cyrus is almost an adult and earnest about being a really big star--and it must be said that her show has given the world plenty of warning, with storyline after storyline about Miley competing with Madonna, fretting about being a world class pop star but still having boy trouble etc. etc.--I doubt whether anyone can say no to her.

Well, the whole thing makes me sad rather than judgmental. As part of my parental duty-package, I've had to sit through many hours of Hannah Montana. Many hundreds of hours, resulting in the loss of many hundreds of billions of brain cells. True, there are fun moments--I like the episodes where Vicki Lawrence (from the Carol Burnett Show) shows up to play a memaw--and she's finally the right age to act like a grandmother! And I like Jackson, the slacker brother, who's actually about 29 (and oh my gosh can you imagine doing that with your life?). And I love Rico, the merciless mini-mogul who once pretended to be a cruel mannequin. That actor has a future, if you ask me. But basically, this is a show (like a lot of kids' shows on cable) in which pop culture is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The message to kids who watch it is, "Here's happiness and success--being on T.V. and in movies, recording songs, being famous." And it might be o.k. if that idea held up at all--but it doesn't. With rare exceptions, celebrity feeds on its young victims like a vampire, sucking them dry, transforming them into Vanity Fair-cover zombies, or worse.

I never let my kids watch silly pop culture television when they were little. Back then we followed Mr. Rogers to a crayon factory and watched Wishbone play Faust and sympathized with D.W. on Arthur (Arthur is still one of my favorite shows). If my children were eight or nine years old now, I think I'd be red with rage over the turn in Miley Cyrus's career. But I just feel sorry for her at this point. Poor girl. I can't think of her without remembering Shirley Temple (robbed by her own father), Buffy from Family Affair (unhappy, dead of an overdose), Patty Duke (sexually abused), Michael Jackson (you know all about him), Tatum O'Neal (neglected), and of course Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan more recently. Who would want a child to have any of those people's lives? Miley's not different from a lot of kids whose parents have enabled the wrong dreams (did it start with Mozart, or much earlier?). I'll never understand; why do people sacrifice their children to the blood-sucking monster of early fame?

08/14/09

No time to blog today, really, but I thought this was worth a mention. While on wikipedia just now, I typed in my own name, "Betty Smartt Carter." I know what you're thinking, but you don't have to say it. I got my just deserts. The search came up empty, asking, "Did you mean beauty smart career?" God hath spoken.

Tomorrow, thoughts on Miley Cyrus.

08/13/09 This Just In

"But the suit was my great-grandmother's--I wanted to wear it for sentimental reasons," said Elise Trebouchet, 33, as she was escorted in handcuffs from a luxury resort on the south coast of France yesterday after being spotted on the beach wearing a Victorian bathing suit.

"We don't know what she was thinking," said her friends Noelle and Fleure Blancmange, who rushed to distance themselves from Trebouchet after her arrest. "That bathing suit is no different from a burkini!" The Blancmanges insisted that they did not report Mlle Trebouchet, but were considering doing so when the gendarmes arrived on the beach.

There's been a small epidemic of Edwardian and Victorian bathing suit-wearing recently on French beaches--particularly nude beaches, where mobs of antique suit-wearers have

taunted naked tourists with cries of "Is that an old suit you're wearing, ma chere? It seems a bit wrinkled," and "It's early for the harvest moon, isn't it?"

Notice to public: please report anyone wearing garments such as those pictured below. France is a free and open country and will take legal action against women who insist on covering their ankles.

08/11/09 Churches Part IV

Today will be my last look at church architecture. Once again, let me say that if I criticize the design of a church building, it's only because I wish that architects always designed churches that either a) reflect the nature of God, b) look REAL--in other words, as if they arise naturally out of the beliefs and character of the people who use them, or c) provide a homey and cozy place for Christians to be together in community. If a church building could have some of all three qualities, that might be best, but I don't know if it's even possible. Congregations are like individual Christians in that they all have their own gifts and callings.

The church below houses a Vineyard congregation, part of a charismatic movement that began in Southern California (one of the early meetings was at the Beverly Hills Women's Club), and spread all over the country.

Obviously, the priority here is NOT church architecture (though they may be planning a more permanent building). My old church in rural Alabama met in just such a steel building for about two years, so I know what it's like. You feel all the more certain that the strength of your church flows from the relationship between God and the people; you're not tempted to idolize your temporary church-building in any sense; everybody feels casual and the atmosphere is familial. In short, an ugly building can house an excellent and strong church. The real danger is what happens when the church makes its inevitable transition to a permanent place. Some people, when the bricks and mortar appear, start "playing church." The casual and familial feeling dissipates.

Here's an altogether different sort of place, just down the road from the Vineyard. It's yet another Presbyterian church (P.C.A.), but its Tudor architecture evokes the golden age of Reformed theology, with John Knox flourishing under the influence of John Calvin and later helping to found the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. I give this building high marks for reflecting the Reformed spirit of the congregation. Nobody told them to build a place like this--a church that makes me think both of Shakespeare (put a grass roof on the top and you'd have an overgrown cottage for Anne Hathaway) and of seminaries. My only criticism is that they need larger trees around it to break the flatness of the front.

Finally, here are a few photographs of my own church below (minus the main building with steeple). Not surprisingly, it's my favorite of the bunch, but I can say very truthfully that I've attended many ugly churches in my life and would again. A building means very little, and in fact a beautiful building can become an idol for a congregation.

What makes this church so nice is not the fact that it's traditional, though I do think that the leaders have been wise not to modernize in any significant way (the congregation has been in this spot for about a century, though the present building went up in the eighties, I think, and more or less replicated the old one). The qualities that make it exceptional are 1) a refusal to give in to the impulse to lay waste to every tree and blade of grass in order to create more parking space--the parking problem is annoying but completely worth it!, 2) the cemetery in back of the church--a reminder of mortality more valuable to the Christian life than any numer of sermons, and 3) pointless bits and pieces of beauty on a human scale. For instance, notice the archway in the last picture, which looks out on the cemetery. This archway connects to nothing and serves no purpose. It wouldn't win any awards, and in fact I bet some people have considered taking it down (it seems a little crumbly to me and it may actually be left over from an older church building, for all I know). But this useless archway, to me, is the single best feature of the church. It's an archetypal image from so many old stories--a door leading into another world (represented here by the graves behind it!).

A tree grows out of a parking lot in the picture above. A little more grass right around the building might have been nice, but there's an "unplanned-ness" about this side of the church that really appeals to me.

Above: layers of bushes, trees, brick, and walkway create a depth of perspective that evokes mystery. Below: a wonderfully pointless archway leads out to the cemetery.

08/09/09 Churches, Part III

Since I last wrote, I've been to the Atlanta airport and back, and the experience has only deepened my conviction that architects are basically misanthropists, and that they frequently design spaces to be both physically uncomfortable and emotionally inaccessible for the species that has to live in them. It's as if you commissioned somebody to build a bird's nest and he presented you with an angular object constructed completely from thorns. "Ah," he said, "but look at the interesting patterns made by the light streaming through my razor-sharp briars!"

The problem with the airport is this: if you have to wait for somebody who's been held up for three hours in customs (as I did), you'll find no place to sit down while waiting, and no one to explain to you what's taking so long or why the name of the flight you're waiting on has now DISAPPEARED from the schedule screens above the luggage racks. But who cares, right? What does it matter when the bathrooms are so wonderfully automatic. The soap dispenser, for instance, requires no manual operations at all. It has no buttons or levers, no pumps or wheels or anything. In fact, I never did figure out how to get soap out of that dadblamed spigot, but I still think it's marvellous for the airport to make handsoap available to people without hands.

Well, that's another story. Back to churches.

Here below is a United Methodist church in the area. This is another fairly large suburban church, comparatively conservative among U.M. congregations. A couple of years ago they hosted a C.S. Lewis conference, led by Professor Louis Marcos from Houston Baptist University.

I wish I'd found the time to go inside and photograph the sanctuary and interior hallways. The exterior architecture makes the cross central through the addition of the design element at the left. I appreciate the effort--the desire to do something purely for the sake of worship and art rather than utility; however, the overall design leaves me pretty cold. Once again, the effect is sterile and eerily reminiscent of hospital architecture and even (using a little imagination) an old-fashioned nurse's cap. Consider all the white light, the smooth walls and undivided window panes, the lack of anything to please the eye on a small scale (apart from the crepe myrtle, which I naturally want to go and stand next to). I imagine that there are very strong things about this church, since I've heard several good reports; in the end, of course, church architecture is nothing next to the spirit of a congregation. I will say that the grounds are quite pretty--and maybe there's lots to love on the inside of the church. It's just that when people come to Jesus' words about the hearts of pharisees being like "white-washed tombs," you don't want them to picture the building on the front of their bulletins!

Later: a church or Anne Hathaway's cottage (on a massive scale)?

08/06/09 Churches, Continued

This is a picture of another suburban Birmingham Church--Southern Baptist, this time. It has a growing and lively congregation, and--seriously--one of the most intense follow-up programs I've ever seen. We visited it two years ago, and for about a year afterwards, people were still calling asking us to join Sunday School classes, choir, etc.

Such friendly and busy-beaver Baptists deserve a better building. The inside has some charm (I think it would be fun to be a kid in this church--the Sunday School halls are very cheerful), but the outside is a weird hybrid of a suburban office building and a Howard Johnson's. (Don't believe me, see below). What was the architect thinking? Was he thinking?

Ho Jo

Remember seeing one of these on the highway? "Stop at the Howard Johnson's dad! We want hamburgers!"

"Be quiet and eat your egg salad sandwiches before the wax paper melts."

After leaving the vast campus of Briarwood Presbyteriann yesterday (and taking a picture of the Baptist church above), I drove on over to the church where I've taught acting classes this summer: Oak Mountain Presbyterian. This church is a sister church of Briarwood and located in a similarly affluent area. It houses a classical school and provides space for lots of great programs. Built in the last three or four years, the main church building aims to be traditional in design while allowing for contemporary worship styles. The sanctuary, for instance, has fold-up theater seats instead of pews, and the seating surrounds a theater-style stage. Here's the outside:

Fairly attractive, I think--especially by contemporary standards, however a bit monolithic. The steeple aims at this sort of look,

however it doesn't quite hit the mark. It looks just a little too much like a hat, I think--always a danger for short steeples. As for the interior, whoever designed it did manage to improve on the Briarwood model, at least in places. There's a definite texture to some of the hallways, with chairs and sofas here and there for people to rest on. It's possible to get far away from other people now and then, which I think is important in a large, conservative church where you're going to be called to repentance at least once a month--you shouldn't have to run home to contemplate your sin, or find an empty stall in a bathroom. You should be able to "seek the secret place" in the house of worship. That's part of building a church that actually suits the religious life, and that serves the needs of human. Hobbits need holes, dwarves need their caves, and Christians need places to sit and pray in silence.

08/05/09 I'm Not Dead, Just Shopping

To all of you who sent sympathy cards to my family this week, I'm not dead. Who has time to be dead? I just haven't had a chance to blog. Most of my writing time has been devoted to a review of Anne Rice's upcoming novel, and the rest of the time has been devoted to getting us ready for the school year, which starts for us on AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Monday.

Even while running hither thither and YAWN however, I have been thinking of my faithful readers. Rod Dreher had a post yesterday morning about some new architecture in Dallas, which is apparently awful: more of the usual shiny, expensive, and utterly unlovable stuff that appears in new Southern cities already bristling with concrete, glass, and steel. Blazing hot cities that nobody would actually want to walk around in...

It's nice to hear other people complaining about this, because I've wondered for a long time why so many new buildings, often prize-winning buildings, are places that seem alien to human habits and needs, as if they're built for other life forms. When I was at the University of North Carolina in the '80s, everybody was going crazy over the new and prize-winning Davis library, which was an enormous red cube, basically, with interior spaces that seemed like hospital corridors. When studying there (something I avoided when I could--I preferred the more old-fashioned Wilson Library), I always expected to see Woody Allen, in his Sleeper jumpsuit, come loping through the shelves, wondering where to find the Orgasmitron.

Anyway, thinking about that made me want to write about the public architecture that most impinges on my life--church architecture. I want to study what makes it good or bad or neutral. It occurs to me that there are three qualities that create a wonderful church space, and that most well-designed churches have at least one of them. The first is an aesthetic grandeur that gives us a longing for the transcendent--idealized in Salisbury Cathedral, for instance. The second quality is organic simplicity, best typified in some of the early European churches and also in Puritan houses of worship. These places look like they sprang directly out of the ideas and convictions of their congregations. The third is homeyness, a quality you find in small, close churches with with plenty of comfortable hidden spots for children, especially, to disappear in. These "hidden" places could just be shade trees in a courtyard. The church of my childhood, West End Presbyterian, was full of nooks and crannies to explore.

Yesterday, I took my camera with me and got some pictures of churches around suburban Birmingham where I now live. Here, first of all, is the "school" wing of mighty Briarwood Presbyterian, where my husband is an employee:

Briarwood was built in the '80's, but it's exceptionally pretty. It has some modern exterior features--the windows especially--however it's meant to look back to an earlier era. The courtyards are beautiful, though children are discouraged from playing in them, sadly. Briarwood's main weakness is its internal spaces. The sanctuary is lovely (and has hidden doors in the choirloft!), but the corridors are sterile and there aren't many comfortable places to sit. It's definitely a come-as-you-are-but-please-remain-standing sort of a place. My suggestion to improve it: Build some recessed areas into the halls and add couches and chairs.

One of many courtyards:

Inner hall: sorry for the fuzz, but I'm using an old camera. If I were going to redesign interior spaces in the church, I'd put barrel vaults in the ceilings and create alcoves in the walls (see below).

Below is a thumbnail of Salisbury Cathedral, which aims to reflect the glory of God in the same way that a modern building like Briarwood does--through massive size, beautiful design, etc. The shape of the ceiling and the texture of the broken interior walls creates a more open feeling. It's not built on a "human" scale; in fact, human beings will always feel dwarfed by a large place like this, but the "dwarfing" isn't unpleasant--it's a sense of awe and mystery rather than pointlessness.

O.K., got to go for the moment, but I'll be back later with a Baptist church, a Vineyard, and others...

8/01/09 Alarming Tales

Thank you, everybody, for making July one of my biggest months in terms of readers!

This has been a crazy two weeks, with my husband out of the country and my play in its final stages. I spent a lot of yesterday morning dyeing a red wig green for the famous scene where Anne (of Green Gables) hopes to change the color of her much-abused hair. It reminded me that this actually happened to my mother once, around 1976. She wanted to cover up the grey sneaking into her eternally curly perm, but something went amiss on a molecular level, and she ended up looking like an Irish barmaid on St. Patrick's Day.

After dyeing the wig and making four thin plaster of paris slates that could break over Gilbert Blythe's head without making his brain actually swell, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Oh yeah, and did I mention I'd put a blueberry pie in the oven? My older daughter had the car I usually drive, so I took my husband's little red Escort to the grocery store to get the day's supply of Things I Forgot to Buy on Saturday (this is a special category: it usually includes extra cookies, extra juice, and extra microwave meals that I'd rather cook instead of anything in the freezer).

Just as I made it back out to the car, I remembered the pie. No problem. I'd call my younger daughter (at home) and tell her to turn the oven off. I started to punch the number into my cellphone, but accidentally hit the horn on the car as I put the phone up to my ear. First there was a short beep, and then a loud and merciless

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

I know, I know, a banshee-like scream from the hood of a car not only continues the Irish theme here but also (usually) signals something happening with a car alarm. In this case, we have no car alarm. I didn't know what to do. Meanwhile I hear,

"Hello?"

"Hi Emma! My car horn won't stop blaring. Is the timer going off on the oven?"

"Yes, it's been going off for five minutes."

"O.K., just turn off the oven?"

"How do I do that?"

"Uh--" Man, I should have started cooking lessons with her this summer. Too late now. "I'll be home in a minute! Just leave it."

I hung up the phone and stuck my finger under the part of the steering wheel that's normally depressed in order to produce a short, friendly "beep." The noise stopped! I let it go. The noise starts again! People were starting to stare. Thinking like McGyver--and I always think like McGyver anyway--I grabbed a small, green plastic object in the passenger seat. It was a pencil sharpener, and seemed...yes...just about the right size. I jammed it into the slot on the front of the wheel. Yes! Success! The beeping stopped.

Well that wasn't so bad, I thought. I can live with a pencil sharpener stuck in my steering wheel. I can--

CRACK! You saw it coming, didn't you? The plastic broke and hundreds of pencil shavings exploded into the air like brown confetti, all over my arms and legs, all over the floor of the car.

I considered saying a very bad word. The word was "Escort." I resisted temptation, though, and raced home to save the pie, half of which was by then on the oven floor.

Later, a neighbor helped me remove the fuse that cuts off the horn. And do you know what? When I turned on the car, for the first time in a year, the radio worked.

Go figure.

07/28/09 A Richard Dawkins Bonfire Song (for atheist campers)

(to the tune of "It only takes a spark")

It only takes a spark

to get a fire started,

and when we see one start,

we grab a flame retardant.

If you feel on fire with God's love,

Hey! We're materialists!

Your brain's just sick,

so call on Dick,

we'll come and stamp you out...

07/28/09 Father Hominid

I read yesterday at Rod Dreher's site that Richard Dawkins supports summer camps for atheist kids. That got me thinking about the various Christian camps I attended as a kid, and the songs we used to sing to get us up and moving in the morning and then later to bring us all together around the evening bonfire. What kinds of songs do they sing at atheist camp? Here's one I think would do really well for a morning pick-me-up. It's sung to the tune of "Father Abraham."

Father Hominid

had many sons

Many sons had Fa-ther Hominid,

and I am one of them

and so are you

so let's just eat the runt!

Right hand, right foot

left hand, left foot

stand up

turn around

sit down

Father Hominid

had many sons

Many sons had Fa-ther Hominid,

and I am one of them

and so are you

so let's just eat the runt!

Right arm, right leg

left arm, left leg

take an ear

I've got one here

He's much too small

to feed us all!

Wish we had a

Neanderthal!

Later: Bonfire Song for atheists

07/27/09 Practical Spanish

All summer I've been working my way through a Spanish 1 book. This is part of the project known as is "If They Pay Me, I Will Teach It." Yes, you guessed right, Yo gonno teachar el espanol this year at our coop. It was the best way of teaching in all six available periods (4 Latin classes plus 2 Spanish), and thus putting our daughter through college without borrowing money or hiring ourselves out as indentured servants.

Now, those of you who know me may be wondering, "When did she learn Spanish?" Uh, well, I picked it up here and there, mostly there, when teaching ESL classes. Back when we lived in Leeds, I started an ESL program at our iglesia. We spoke mainly English, of course, but I signed up a couple of Spanish speaking helpers who came along to make people comfortable and say necessary things like "El bano is that way," and "Por favor, el nino has spit up on my tie." But for one reason and another, all my helpers quit, and for several weeks it was just me there on Wednesday nights, all by myself, teaching a handful of people who probably thought I was really, really into charades. I did learn to speak emergency Spanish pretty quickly. I distinctly remember saying to the two guys who showed up one night (sans wives) "The class she is cancelled, go have a cervesa!"

But this year more will be required of me. If I forget my words, or don't come prepared, I obviously can't send ninth grade homeschoolers out for beer. So I must estudio, estudio, estudio every dias. And how I have been studying! I got my first chance to try out my new language skills yesterday, when the apartment of la madre de mi esposo was flooded by the bathroom in the apartment directly upstairs. Forunately, I didn't have to stomp up there and bang on the door. My mother and law and I ran into her upstairs neighbor, Maria, out by the public mailboxes. Maria smiled, giving me courage, so I sallied up to her and the following exchange occurred:

Me: Hola. Me llamo Betty (so far so good). Hablo un pocito (making hand gesture to indicate very very very tiny amount of Spanish, so she'll think I'm actually a genius once I get this next sentence out)

Maria: Oh si!

Me: Si. Si. Por favor, no...(Now desperately trying to think of the word "toilet" or "flush," but realizing that the Bob Jones homeschool curriculum I've been given is rather limited in potty language--though I have learned the words for "witness in the park," "gospel quartet," and "I too know the Lord") ...no pueden (you are not able) usar (to use) el bano (the bathroom).

Maria: O.K.

Me: (Grinning like an idiot, thinking " What did I just tell her? 'You are not able to use the bathroom?' That could mean so many things. Hope she gets it. Oh well") O.K., adios.

As far as I know, Maria got the message. The repairmen haven't arrived, but I don't think any more disasters have occurred. Still, one thing I'm going to do this year is give those students of mine a unit in potty talk. It may not be pleasant, but then neither are potties--and nosotros definitely need them.

She, at least, knows less than I do!

07/25/09 Last Chance Harvey

I'm back (that lunch sure took a long time to pack).

Anyway, as I was saying, these two characters in Last Chance Harvey decide to meet the following day in London. But it's not just any old meeting, of course, for which you might agree to exchange CELL PHONE numbers (the very idea) in case something goes wrong. This being Hollywood, the characters--who speak on their mobiles constantly to mothers and business associates--somehow forget to do the practical thing, which is to agree to call if something changes. They drift away, both dreaming of the next day, when the meeting of greatest emotional significance but least practical planning is to take place.

You know what's coming. You remember it from An Affair to Remember. Only this time it's not a car accident that pre-empts the rendez-vous, it's a heart palpitation; yes, a simple episode of arrhythmia (simple to say, impossible to spell)lands Harvey in the hospital, where the underpaid U.K. doctor insists on running more tests. Harvey protests, but to no avail. "You're not leaving this gurney," says the underpaid doctor, "until you've queued for the requisite six months and donated a kidney for our black market medical trade." O.K., he didn't say that.

Anyway, Kate shows up at the meeting point alone, gets disappointed once again (she's more comfortable with disappointment, she says later), and for the next couple of days refuses to take Harvey's calls OR allow him to explain when he shows up in person Do people ever act this way in real life? I don't know, but they sure do it in the movies. The missing lover/misinterpreted intentions/crossed purposes plot is one of the most popular in literature and in theater. It's also one of the most annoying. Think of Scarlet calling out for Rhett in her delirium--didn't you just want to tie him to a chair and make him listen to a tape recording of her whimpering "Rhett, Rhett, I want Rhett."

"Listen, you big-eared idiot, she DID call for you; that whole drunk in the middle of the night crush your head like an acorn thing actually WORKED for you."

The advent of cell phones, though, has made some of these plots simply obsolete. Don't know that a mobile would have helped Scarlet much, or Deborah Kerr (you can't phone if you're in a coma), but Odysseus could have rung up Penelope: "Sorry honey, I'm running about ten years behind. Don't let the guys in the neighborhood drink all my mead, all right?" Liv Walton wouldn't have needed to send John Boy out in a blizzard to get (only potentially) all liquored up with the Baldwin sisters. She could have called John: "Listen, honey lamb, I know you're doing your best to get home in this awful weather, but could you please stop at Ike Godsey's store and pick up another

Christmas present for little Elizabeth because those rotten missionaries have traumatized the poor thing again, giving her a banged up doll even though the children all memorized "Jesus wept" and those nice verses from the Song of Solomon...oh, which puts me in mind to say hurry home, darling, hurry home, I'm not the Baldwin sisters, but there's a glass of warm egg nog waiting for you in my kitchen...

07/24/09 The Lazy Days of Slumber

This has been an unusual July for me. My husband is in Japan, and my children are at camp all day every day; I think I've spent more time alone this week than in the last eighteen years put together.

So what did I do with all the time? Well, not what I thought I would, unfortunately. I didn't master the Spanish language or write four chapters of a novel; I didn't scrub the house from floor to ceiling, dig up the garden beds for the fall, or post 9 months of lesson plans on the web.

I did nap a lot. What is it about having nothing important to do that makes you do nothing important? I also caught up on some movies that I've been wanting to see. One was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I unfortunately keep calling The Tale of Benjamin Button, because it reminds me of the title of a certain Beatrix Potter story about a BUNNY. This is the kind of thing you do when your kids become teenagers. The senility virus lying dormant in your forty-four year old brain suddenly switches on. You say things like "That Demi Legato is a great little actress!"

"It's LOVATO, Mom!" Eyes rolling back in head; your cluelessness is, like, triggering a seizure.

Anyway, I liked The Curious Case of Benjamin ~~Bunny~~ (!), but it's always hard to listen to fake Southern accents, even when they're very well done. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are both great actors, (especially Cate Blanchett, who could play a pineapple with pathos), but I never believed for a minute that they were from Lousiana;. The New Orleans accent is crazy--an aristocratic, Mississippi-ish drawl punctuated by syllables that sound like they migrated down from Brooklyn. It's hard to imitate it without thinking hard about what you're doing. It's hard to listen to famous actors imitate it without thinking hard about what THEY'RE doing. The problem, in a nutshell, is that you know Pitt and Blanchett don't actually speak like that. It would have been a better movie with a couple of unknowns.

Yesterday, I watched Last Chance Harvey, starting another pair of great actors, Dustin Hoffman and (my all-time favorite) Emma Thompson. I liked this one, too, but it made me think about the fact that a classic plotline has been ruined by the advent of cell phones.

Harvey is a guy who's had terrible luck with love and family (strangely enough, since he seems charming, intelligent, and generally nice--this is not Jack Nicholson with a compulsive need to insult people). He decides to give it another go, however, convincing lonely Kate (whom he's known for less than twenty-four hours) not to say goodbye to him forever, but to meet him the next day in London at twelve noon.

MORE LATER...I'M BEING PAGED TO PACK A LUNCH FOR BALLERINA CAMPER

07/21/09 Oh My Gosh There's a BLACK MAN at My Door!!!

I know that a lot of white people have been reading about the arrest of Harvard black history scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. (for mouthing off to a police officer who asked to see his ID when he was opening the door of his own house) and rolling their eyes, thinking, "There they go again, seeing racism everywhere. Can't Dr. Gates realize that this was just an innocent mistake--can't he be grateful that a diligent neighbor and an officious police officer were trying to protect his property against possible burglary--lest he have to run around yelling, "Help I've been burgled!?"

Well, me, I can't allow myself such thoughts. I forfeited that right one morning sixteen years ago, when I was waddling around our tiny apartment in my size extra large Braves Baseball pajamas, making breakfast for my two year old daughter (I was pregnant too, though it won't excuse what happened next).

(switching to present tense for dramatic effect)

There I am, pouring milk into a sippy cup. Suddenly, I hear a loud bang somewhere outside. Must be a car backfiring on the highway. I put a couple of waffles in the toaster as Mr. Roger says, "Will you be my neighbor?" And then...a loud rap rap rap on the front door. Two year-old runs to the corner. Carefully (because I'm in pajamas) I sneak over to the window and look out to see who it is. Maybe the manager, coming over to check on the washer? Yesterday I called him because I thought the machine was on fire (turned out to be steam).

I put my face to the window. And I see...pant pant pant gulp...a BLACK man. My mind starts working. Maybe that noise wasn't a car backfiring after all. Maybe it was GUNSHOTS! GANGS! OH MY LORD THIS MAN IS ON THE LAMB AND NEEDS HOSTAGES!!

I grab up my daughter and race out the back door, down to one of the tiny houses in the neighborhood behind us. A woman in shorts is watering her garden. I can't really see her because did I mention I'm not wearing my glasses and I'm blind as a bat? She looks at my bare feet and pajamas and doesn't say a word.

"Can I use your phone?" I say. And then I actually do mumble something along the lines of, "A black man with a gun is at my door."

Oh the shame, the shame, the shame, the shame. But it gets worse. When I finally collect my wits (if you can dignify my meager brain activity by that word), I walk back around the apartments, thinking the man has probably gone after another victim by this time, so we might be safe. As I approach my door, I see something yellow hanging on the knob. I yank it off and hold it up to my nose so it's close enough to read.

"Hannah Home/Kings Ranch Collections for Battered and Abused Women and Children. Sorry we missed you. We'll call again."

Then I remember that I called them--the Christian Service Council (which sponsors America's Thrift Stores)-- to come pick up some old clothes that day. I had to step over the same bag of clothes to peer out at the ersatz gangster on the porch.

So what's the point of all this besides the fact that I'm an idiot when I'm pregnant, that I tend to overreact, and that (unbeknownst to me until that moment) I harbor some shameful and foolish prejudices towards people who are different from myself?

O.K., I'm not sure there is any other point. But understand that I'm definitely not your typical racist--I hate racism, bigotry, unfairness, and meanness of any kind--and yet I've proved it's in me. So if I'm capable of such idiotic behavior, then I suspect that some of the citizens and policemen of Cambridge, Massachusetts are as well. I can't help but feel that Professor Gates has a point; would the neighbors have called the police if they saw a portly 58 year-old white guy in a polo shirt trying to force his way into a house?

"Oh my gosh there's an OLD WHITE GUY AT THE DOOR!"

Doubtful. Possible, but doubtful. *

*Update: It sounds now as if that is what happened--the neighbors didn't know the race of the man when they made the phone call. Good for them for being diligent about protecting somebody else's property. We often hear that people won't step forward to help a neighbor these days, but I've seen myself that this is an unnecessarily pessimistic viewpoint.

7/20/09 Inappropriate?

Hillary Clinton this morning, speaking about the American soldier kidnapped by the Taliban and forced to appear on tape saying that the United States ought to leave Afghanistan:

"It's a real sign of desperation and inappropriate criminal behavior on the parts of these terrorists groups..."

(She probably forgot to have a good breakfast.)

07/19/09 Help, I've been Thieved!

Earlier this week I attended a meeting at the Police Operations Center here in my area of Birmingham, which shares its name with a popular vacuum cleaner (neither Oreck nor Eureka). We were there to set up a Neighborhood Watch, and I had contributed to the effort by distributing flyers at houses around the block. That's a subject for another blog--what it was like to go from door to door on a blazing hot afternoon with the katydids singing and the dogs barking. It brought back childhood memories of handing out tracks: "If you died and stood before the judgment throne of God today and He was to ask you why He should let you into heaven, what would you say...?"

The catalyst for the meeting was the theft I reported here a month or two ago; it happened two houses down, and the culprits turned out to be other neighbors, who are now in jail. Our neighborhood, by the way, is low-income, lower middle class, mixed race, and ethnically diverse, with a heavy immigrant population, including a lot of transient workers--probably illegal aliens, though I couldn't say for sure. When we first moved here, I was sad to leave our lovely, rural, eccentric town. I thought this placed looked like the end of the earth, with abandoned stores and pawn shops and ugly sprawl. Now that I'm used to it, though, I see it differently. It's still ugly, but it has character. I like the Asian groceries and the Tiendas Mexicanas. I like the dark-eyed women walking along the street, some in black robes and headscarves, pushing baby strollers. The other day I almost ran into one of the robed women coming through the door of (?someplace), and we both laughed. It was strangely exhilerating.

Anyway, at this meeting, I learned a few interesting things. I learned that a burglary is different from a robbery, which is different from a theft. "People confuse those all the time," said the officer who was educating us. "It's our job to straighten them out. See, a burglary is where somebody breaks into a house or property. Robbery is where there's violence involved. Theft is where somebody takes something of yours--it could just be a book you left lying on a bench. On TV, though, they always say 'Help, I've been robbed!' no matter what, so people get them confused."

For the rest of the evening, I couldn't stop thinking about that. It's clear to me that the reason people always say "I've been robbed!" is that it's the only possible thing they can say. Can you imagine, for instance, running up and down your street yelling "Help! I've been thieved!" Or maybe "Help, I've been thefted!" Either of those sounds better than "Help! I've been burgled!"

While my mind was roving over that, I heard the police explain that we should keep our cars clean and locked, because most thefts both of automobiles and things in automobiles happen when said vehicles are left unlocked. All I could think was, "You mean, if I leave my cars unlocked somebody might take them off my hands for me? What a way to save on towing costs!"

My neighbors asked intelligent questions of the policemen--mostly. One gentleman was exceedingly upset about THOSE MEXICAN PEOPLE NEXT DOOR TO HIM who played their music so blankety blank loud and only made cruel fun of him when he suggested that they turn it down.

I shouldn't doubt his sincerity, I guess. He may be an innocent victim--however, he didn't strike me that way. He struck me as a racist, of which there are still quite a few in our fair state (though most of them have the sense to keep quiet in a public meeting.) One of these days I may see him limping down the street hollering, "Help, help, I've been salsa-ed!" I'll let you know.

07/17/09 Evil Doctor Rennenwebber

I can't really remember if I blogged yesterday. In fact, I think I've been moderately confunded ever since Harry Potter. What day is it?

I remember that this morning I got up early, thought guiltily about how I needed to work on my Spanish and read some of the Anne Rice novel I'm supposed to review (but didn't), made Emma scrambled eggs, threw on grubby clothes, went over to church, laid down dropcloths, spent a few hours painting flats to look like the kitchen of Green Gables, and then ran home, stopping by the grocery store first and eating cookies out of the package on the way home. Back at home, I did laundry, ate cookies, cleaned up the kitchen, comforted an upset teenager, ate cookies, and then settled down (boy do I use that term loosely) at the computer screen to upload a syllabus for each of the 6 classes I'll be teaching this fall--four Latin and two Spanish. Did I mention that I brought a handful of cookies with me to my desk?

This uploading thing was a job I had put off for several days out of primitive, instinctual, and completely justified fear of our school web program, which I shall not name, lest I get sued by its author, the mysterious and diabolically evil Dr. Rennenwebber.

At first glance, Dr. Rennenwebber's Insidious Program seems almost user-friendly, even simple: what, after all, is so difficult about clicking the enter button a few times and typing "Spanish 1 Syllabus" into the requisite blank? These simple actions take neither intellectual skill (which, har har, we know I've got plenty of), nor physica l prowess (have I told you I can still jump up and touch my toes, in spite of the cookies?).

But the program is actually a maddening mix of visual simplicity, logical ambiguity, and almost obscene arrogance. On the one hand, it rarely tells you when to click, what or where to type, or how to tell if you've done it all right. Most of the screens are filled with empty lines boxes punctuated by an occasional ambiguous word or phrase such as "Global, "Title," or "Configuration."

For example:

Global__ Title______________________

File

Configuration _______________________

Huh? What the--huh?

It's like getting a nearly empty form from the I.R.S. with instructions to print all of your financial information in the appropriate blanks. Not even the I.R.S., though, would pop up every few minutes and yell "YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED FOR THIS OPERATION!"

By late this afternoon, Dr. Rennenwebber had nearly driven me over the edge of madness. Then my teenager reminded me she had a party to go to. I needed to drive her. Naturally it was taking place at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday, somewhere down I-459, halfway to Tuscaloosa. I mapquested the directions, we headed off, and...I ask you...can it just be coincidence that the Mapquest directions were unclear, self-contradictory, and wrong--and that somewhere along our twisting and convulted path, a rough voice suddenly echoed from the hollow of a cave at the end of a dark, dead-end street,

TURN AROUND! YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED FOR THIS OPERATION!

07/15/09 9:40 am, Harry Potter Hangover

Well, I did it. I spent the first three hours of July 15 high in the back row of a theater crowded with hardcore Harry Potter fans. The most pre-movie excitement came from three teenage boys running up and down the steps shouting "Expelliarmus!" "Protego!" and "Silencio Por Favor!" (Ah, wit.)

The movie itself (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) was really, really good. Nowhere nearly as good as the book, of course--they cut the story everywhere, and then added scenes of their own in order to shore up the Harry-Ginny relationship and create more terror around the Death Eaters (by the time I came out of the theater I actually looked a lot like Bellatrix Lestrange). But most of their choices were brilliant, I thought. The two best storylines of the novel are 1) the romantic tension between Ron and Hermione and 2) Dumbledore's relentless quest for a means to destroy Voldemort. The film puts nearly everything else aside in order to tell both stories with patience, humor, visual splendor and (what we all want in a Harry Potter movie) plenty of adrenaline. Michael Gambon as Dumbledore was incredible--I mean incredible--in the cave scene. It was hard to watch. Jim Broadbent was perfect for Slughorn (but that guy could play any character, provided the part calls for a beer belly and a nose built for skateboarding). All the kids have grown as actors, but I thought that Emma Watson really found her character in this movie. Often, in the last two, I felt I was watching a girl pretend to be upset in front of a camera. I liked the girl, but I never believed in her as Hermione. This time I almost forgot about the actress.

I won't see the movie again till it hits the dollar theaters, but I really can't wait.

07/13/09 Baron Cohen and the Triumph of Mischief, Cont'd

To pick up where I left off yesterday...

I absolutely don't plan to see Bruno--I hope it fades away as quickly as possible--but I found a good review of it here, in Newsweek of all places. The writer makes the point that the movie is depressing because it reinforces scary stereotypes of gay people, while pretending to blast homophobia. Universal pictures is advertising the movie as an anti-homophobia statement, because Baron Cohen is so effective at getting ordinary people (mostly conservatives, Southerners, and African-Americans, naturally) to throw chairs at him and call him a f--. I don't like that word either, but wouldn't we all feel threatened by a guy who suddenly takes his clothes off in the middle of an interview (poor Ron Paul)? And that's one of the least offensive things Bruno does in this movie.

To criticize Sacha Baron Cohen absolutely won't work. He's a classic mischief maker--a Puck, a Wamba, a Br'er Rabbit, a Joker, the kind of comedian who draws his energy from the mix of earnestness and confusion around him. The more earnest the victim, the more effective the joke. This kind of comedy has always been popular (that's obvious from the list above), but in the last two centuries, with the rise of democracy and the fight for individual autonomy over totalitarianism,

it's taken on a new cultural power. The clown is no longer a foil to the hero--he is the hero, using the weapon of comic non-chalance against whatever or whomever he perceives as injust or ridiculous. Charlie Chaplin made a fool of Hitler, Hawkeye and Trapper John made comedy of patriotism, and Tina Fey turned Sarah Palin into a bumpkin with a beehive. A serious discussion about which of these things were genuinely bad, which were neutral, and which might even be defensible would take most of us a very long time and contain a lot of nuance. But all the comic has to do is prance around in the background with his finger in his nose, and we've suddenly forgotten the point. The punchline could be Hitler, it could be Darfur, or it could be any Mother Teresa. This is comedy, somebody says--it's just a JOKE--so the moral filter is off. We laugh.

I wish comedy had better judgment, I wish it considered some things sacred, but it rarely does (though even Baron Cohen cut out scenes that made fun of Michael Jackson--what, did he suddenly get a conscience?) For all the good comedians can do, they're mischief makers by nature: inside those bumbling clown shoes are cloven hooves, and you'll never teach a devil to have good taste. The best thing you can do is wait for him to grow old, proud, sentimental, and at last (yes at last) lampoonable--it happens to all of us, eventually.

07/12/09 Baron Cohen and the Triumph of Mischief

A couple of days ago, before leaving town, I stopped at a neighborhood theater to buy advance tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Yes, you read correctly. I'm that crazy. The last midnight movie I went to was a Mad Max double feature back in 1982, when Mel Gibson was still Australian. Even then, I couldn't stay awake. But now my teenagers are begging, and I'm up once again for Mom of the Year, so...what can I say?

The theater hadn't opened when I got there (it was 9:30 a.m.), but I noticed big signs tacked up out front. WARNING: Bruno contains EXTREMELY offensive material, including EXTREME nudity and EXTREMELY graphic sexual content. We recommend that you DO NOT allow any children under 17 to see this movie!!

I'm not surprised. Everybody heard about Sacha Baron Cohen's stunt at the MTV music awards--him diving from the ceiling into Eminem's lap wearing nothing but a jock strap, wings, and lace-up boots. Did anyone care? Was anyone really shocked? Only enough to look at the scene again and again on youtube. The public reaction to that incident reminded me of watching embarrassing love scenes with my parents: "Oh my! Look at that! Would you look at that! That's shocking! Just look!"

I don't think Americans actually shock anymore--not even us evangelicals, not even in the old "Let's Have Us a Boycott!" sense. Boycotts for evangelicals used to be like barn-raisings for the Amish--something to draw the whole community together. How well I remember our church march at the x rated theater in my hometown, circa 1975. It was a blazing success . That theater (slap in the middle of our historic district) agreed to stop showing porn. Dirty old men went home and waited for the birth of cable. We congratulated ourselves. But what would happen if my church in 2009 tried to march around the Rave Theater here in Vestavia, Alabama--the one where they're showing Bruno, and where some idiots are almost certainly bringing their 6 year olds along, declaring, "Sex is a natural part of life! They need to see this! And also I don't want to pay no stinking babysitter."

We'd get laughed out of town. Not just because no one's shockable anymore, but because Bruno's a comedy, and in our era you can't win against a comedian. The only thing you can do is wait for him to get sentimental.

More later. This one's complicated...

07/10/09 Tripping the Fat Fantastic

I just read a story about why Southerners are so fat. It sizes up (so to speak) the reasons for our behemothitude as 1) poverty (fattening food costs less) 2) lack of grocery stores in rural areas--convenience stores don't usually stock up on fresh vegetables 3) lack of good roads and sidewalks for walking and 4) the humidity which keeps us indoors (as in, it ain't the heat, it's the...).

I concur wholeheartedly with much of that, and I appreciate that they realize we don't eat fried food everyday down here, in spite of the stereotypes. I know for a fact, though, that there are things they aren't seeing. For instance. When I go out to the semi-country (away from Birmingham) to attend meetings of my homeschool cover group, I set myself down in a gym full of white, Protestant, Christian conservative women who are, in many cases, literally hanging over the sides of their stools and chairs. Back I come to Birmingham, where I attend the meeting of my homeschool CO-OP, a group unassociated with my "cover" (don't ask, your eyes will cross before I reach the halfway point of my explanation). The women there are white, Protestant, Christian conservative women who also happen to have bony little butts. They could probably sit three to a chair. In other words, the second group is identical in race, religion, and politics to the first group. In many cases, however, these women are thin--even skeletally thin.

What's the difference? Does the second group really place a higher value on health: do they eat less and exercise oftener? Well, maybe. Do they drive less and walk more? Uh--no. These women spend all their time carting kids around between sports and coops and ballet, giving rise to the term "Road Scholars." They're born with a gas pedal attached to the right foot.

I'm not sure why some Southerners are fat and others aren't, but I will say that one thing distinct to the first group (the country homeschoolers) is the presence of very good food--a lot of it--at anything that even remotely suggets a social occasion. What? Little Waylon spent his first day in training pants? Let's make a taco salad casserole that feeds 22 and eat all of it. What? The U.P.S. man's at the door? Tell him to hold on for monkey bread! (I've got a special recipe that adds creamed cheese.)

When I do plays with kids in Birmingham, I expect that 1) the sets will look great 2) the talent level of the kids will be amazing to everybody and 3) there will probably be a very nice reception following.

When I do the same plays with kids out of the city, I expect that no matter how the sets look or how talented the kids are (and I'm not taking away from those things by any means), the most astounding things about the production will be 1) the beautifully hand-sown costumes, requiring art and skill that nobody even vaguely remembers in the suburbs

and 2) the almost scandalously delicious homecooked food at the reception (as well as at the rehearsals, etc.). People eat till they can't stand up. Is pornocopia a word?

Lots more to say and think about all this, but I may not blog again till Monday, as I'm headed out to...THE COUNTRY (to gain 10 pounds)

07/09/09 Geritol

Sorry I haven't blogged in a few days. I've had a million little jobs to do getting ready for our junior high play, Anne of Green Gables, as well as keeping up with Latin tutoring and acting classes. It's just fortunate that I have a friend to help me get through these stressful days of summer. Yes,

Some of you remember. Your family would be sitting around the black and white television in the family room, circa 1969, and the Geritol commercial would come on.

"My my," your mother would say, "that stuff is nothing but alcohol. Just alcohol. It's a crime they're allowed to advertise."

"No different from whiskey," your grandma would say.

"No different at all," your mother would say.

And then one of you, probably your big brother, would pipe up and say, "I want some of that Geritol. It sounds great!"

Sadly, I could only find a couple of good commercials for the wondertonic on youtube. Here's one:

07/07/09

I watched Michael Jackson's funeral today. It's a strange experience to partipate (by airwaves, cable, or satellite) in the mourning of a celebrity. Like many of you, probably, I watched Princess Diana's funeral years ago and cried buckets of tears, especially when the young princes came walking along, following the coffin. Later I wondered why I had been so sad; had I been feeling empathy for the people who really knew her (especially the children), or had I felt a personal loss--fooling myself that I had really known that woman in some way, because I'd watched her life unfold on television?

I haven't been a fan of Michael Jackson in years, so I know that my sadness today was not about any sense of personal loss. It was all about empathy. Again, like many of you, probably, at the moment his young daughter got up and said what a wonderful father he'd been, I felt the floodgates open. It wasn't a good moment for tears; my fourteen year-old was saying, "Can't I please watch Drake and Josh?" "No! I'm watching something!" Really I was imagining my own children and how they'd cope if they lost either me or their dad. It's a terrible thing for a parent to contemplate, and it serves as some kind of a marker of your progress in releasing them; the day you can imagine them being o.k. without you is the day you've really given them freedom.

Many of the things said at the funeral were over the top, but it doesn't really matter, because the things we say at funerals are always an expression of our love for a person, a way of saying goodbye. I felt that in watching the memorial service of Michael Jackson, after days of thinking about his strange side, his unexplainable private life and apparently compulsive surgeries, I remembered something very important. Nobody from the outside really knows a person...they knows his life, maybe, and his accomplishments, but the people he belongs to are the ones he calls his family and close friends. It may sound obvious, but the job of the other mourners is to support those people, to cry with them and comfort them even though we don't understand their loss. To pretend to understand is as silly as...well, as yelling at your acual child because you're busy feeling sympathy for a kid on T.V.

The phrase "He belongs to the ages" is an illusion. The art and the music belong to the ages. A human being belongs to those knew him in the flesh, his friends and family.

07/06/09 Updike, the Poet

I followed a link to Ross Douthat's Atlantic blog today, and found this poem by John Updike. I have to admit, the orthodoxy of it suprises me; I knew that Updike was religious, but he also attended Harvard, for goodness sake. In my pantheon of literary Christians I'd placed him a little farther from the center than Garrison Keillor. Guess I'm going to have to reorganize the pantheon a bit.

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

- the late John Updike, "Seven Stanzas at Easter"

07/04/09 Happy 4th, Sort Of

Well here we are again, and I wish I felt more excited: holidays are difficult for obsessive-compulsive people, who find peace in doing certain things over and over and over again. We don't like special days; we want all days to be the same. Most of my summer happiness, for instance, comes from trips to the public library, which is closed today to celebrate the birth of a nation where people like me are free to lie around and eat cookies and complain. I'm sorry, America. I've become one of those annoying lazybones who forget that truly hard-working people need holidays. I remember an afternoon long ago when I was working at the UGA library reference desk; it was just before Christmas, and a (probably obsessive compuslive) professor came storming up to us to complain that the library would be closed for an entire week at Christmas. From underneath my elf hat, I said, "Someday you'll be dead and you won't be care."

Well, everything that goes around comes around.

And speaking of the cyclical nature of reality (ooh, segue), my daughter, who is about to be a freshman in college, has to read a book this summer--really a text for a discussion course--called Menu for the Future. The subtitle is a quotation from Francis Moore Lappe: The act of putting into your mouth what the Earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the Earth. Anytime you see the word "earth" capitalized you should cover your head; however the book has some merits. It's a collection of essays from people like Michael Pollan ("the Anxiety of Food") and Wendell Berry ("The Pleasures of Eating") on the relationship between eating and ecology--really the relationship between human communities, individuals, and the natural world that feeds us. To put it in a locally-produced, composted nutshell, the essay writers celebrate the joy of eating good food, but do a lot of fretting about how far it travels (down the street or from South Africa), how it's grown (whether it's factory-produced or coaxed from the earth by poet-farmers) and what the average person is supposed to do about any of it.

I guess I don't need to explain why the book is assigned freshman reading; the relationship of eating and ecology is a huge topic right now, with Pollan's books (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food) on bestseller lists and the White House producing its own honey. And before going any further, I'd like to stop and brag that I've been against agri-business since I was sixteen years old, when I stopped eating veal because I found out about the cruel methods used to produce it; I also accused my father of taking blood money (around the same time) when he accepted a gift of land from the owner of a poultry factory. They laughed at me then--hah hah! They said I was weird, but now--well, most of my conservative friends still think I'm a little weird. It just seems so clear to me, though, that factory farming is a bad idea, if for no other reason than the casual mistreatment of animals. It's not that I'm a vegetarian: I feel instinctively that it's o.k. to hunt and herd and eat animals, but at the same time I think it's very wrong to confine them in small spaces and treat them as nothing but food; that's one reason why small farms are better. Assuming that the small farmer himself is a moral and sane person, the health and happiness of his creatures is going to matter to him. He simply has more of his own time and resources invested in them. The average small farmer or gardener is going to have more appreciation for the health of one squash plant than a farm corporation owner will have for a breathing, thinking animal.

There are many other reasons to be for local food and against agribusiness, including the environmental effects of all the pesticides, herbicides and fuel used to produce and transport tomatoes halfway around the world when you could have grown them yourself or bought them from the guy on the corner. However, I'd like to point out something that I haven't heard anyone else saying. Way before people like Michael Pollan started thinking, writing, and talking constantly about food, we were all thinking, writing, and talking constantly about food. We aren't just interested in food, we're obsessed with it, and that goes for people who love twinkies and people who grow their own saffron, people who eat pork rinds and people who people who munch on tofu burgers.

I live in a house where some of us (I won't go into detail) already struggle with thinking about eating as a moral activity--feeling guilty about eating too much or at the wrong time. It's a common and growing problem, I've heard, among very competitive and high achieving females. While one section of America tips the scales toward obesity, another section heads toward radical and dangerous thinness. The common thread running between the obese and the thin is the use of food to make ourselves feel better--whether to quell anxiety, to take control of life, or to starve our bodies into some distorted image of perfection.

So while I agree with certain principles of the people who have become known as "Foodies," I can't help but think that they contribute to a problem more fundamental than the sources of our food, which is our American obsession with the needs, desires, and appearance of our own bodies--and that maybe a discussion course on the morality of eating isn't such a great idea for, uh, let's see...college freshmen? A group of people already at high risk for eating disorders, depression, self-loathing, and suicide?

Just an opinion. I'm sure I'll have more to say later. In the meantime, I think that the best way to help out the earth, put more vegetables in the refrigerator, and also enjoy nature is to grow a garden of your own...I'm headed out to check those tomato plants now!

07/02/09 In Other News

Once again, our lead story this morning is the missing 4th page of Michael Jackson's will. Lawyers going over the will this morning noticed that the last page, the page originally considered to be page 5, had the numeral 6 clearly printed in the top right corner. This led of course to a reconsideration of page 4, which appeared to have a--not a 4-- but a 5 in the top left corner. Since pages 1, 2, and 3 are unambiguously marked "1, 2, 3" respectively, the existence and whereabouts of page 4 remain a mystery. Adding to the enigma is the fact that the last sentence on page 3 reads, "I have intentionally left all of my Donald Duck DVDs..." and the top of page 5 reads, "...to my former wife Deborah Rowe."

"We just think it's a little suspicious," said a lawyer for Deborah Rowe, "how those two phrases fit together so beautifully. Ms. Rowe plans to argue in court that she is indeed the intended recipient of the DVDs, many of which she purchased for Mr. Jackson out of her own savings."

"The DVDs stay with the family," said an emotional Germaine Jackson. "End of story."

The controversy isn't expected to end any time soon. In other news this morning, Kim Jong Il launched a nuclear missile at Hawaii, and National Tire and Battery announced that it would give customers one free tire for every three hours spent waiting in line at any of its convenient locations.

07/01/09 Site Too Brite?

I know, I know, I've got the colors turned up a little high. By the time your migraine's wearing off, I'll have them fixed. Enjoy the Steve Martin parody to the left--I have to admit, I've been obsessed with Michael Jackson this week.

06/30/09 Why Mark Sanford is Qualified to be Governor of Both Carolinas

Today, Mark Sanford told the AP that, while his mistress in Argentina is his soul mate (excuse those wretching and choking sounds; they're coming from my esophagus), he plans to try to fall back in love with his wife. What a guy. As anybody knows who's read an interview with the frighteningly intelligent and self-possessed Jenny Sanford, the governor must have the courage of Virgil's Aeneas to make such a statement. Remember Aeneas? The hero who was much buffeted about on land sea because of the wrath and memory of fierce Juno, whose precious Greeks had been so offended by the hapless Trojans?

All I can say is, hope the Argentinian mistress doesn't have the suicidal personality of Dido on top of it all! Poor stupid Aeneas fled from one trouble to another; as he sailed away from his Carthaginian lover he turned and saw the smoke rising from her funeral pyre. Ugh.

But none of that matters. My brilliant thought for the day is that Mark Sanford--a politician mostly distinguished for the bags under his eyes and his husbandly services to two intelligent, willowy, dark-eyed Southern beauties--would be the perfect--just the perfect!--governor to reunite the Carolinas! Here's a guy who could satisfy both constituencies, shuttling between governors' mansions, keeping in regular contact by email and occasional face to face rendez-vous.

For some guys, one Carolina's simply not enough. I just hope he'll have the class not to use the word "soulmate." That's a short hike up the Appalachian trail to impeachment.

06/29/09 Happy PayDay Eve

It's payday eve, it's payday eve! Tonight, all the good little mommies and daddies drop their tired heads on their pillows, close their puffy un-botoxed eyelids, and try, try to sleep (a difficult task, considering the twelve cups of coffee consumed since breakfast). When sleep does finally come, so will the payday fairy, winging through the skies with automatic deposits in her tiny green sparkling fingers. Then, at about 6:30 a.m., all over the Central Time Zone, puffy eyelids will creak open, bedsprings will shriek, and mommies and daddies will stumble to the laptop screens to see what the fairy has left. ChaChing!

Across the land, the cry will echo. "Hey kids, there's money in the bank! Who wants to go to IHOP?"

06/28/09 So Bored That...

O.k. everybody, it's 11:00 a.m. on a summer morning. You're 14 years old. Everybody else is at camp or at the beach or asleep. You're so bored...

How bored are you?

Soooooo bored that you're playing a game at Disney online called Jonas: Stellavator Stylin', the point of which is to DRESS the Jonas brothers for...I forget what. A date? A concert? Traffic court? It doesn't really matter. The game is just a little stupider than the brothers' television show, meaning that it's so stupid as to be addictive. I have to admit that I like Nick, the youngest of the three singing Jonases. He seems talented, so you can't help but wonder what's ahead for him, whether he'll

a) convert to Islam

b) get plastic surgery

3) get plastic surgery and convert to Islam

d) come out of some closet or other

4) convert to Islam, get plastic surgery, and come out of some closet or other

5) remain an evangelical Christian and take over as BibleMan from Willie Aames

VI) run for mayor of a small town in California

h) load up on Oxycontin and run over the mayor of a small town in California

12) run over Willie Aames

Anyway, here's the game in case you're as bored as people around here:

http://disney.go.com/games/#/games/

play3/&content=248615

06/26/09 Michael Jackson

My daughter and I had an interesting conversation about Michael Jackson this morning while we watched forty years of his life on film flash across the T.V. screen. "He was so cute!" she said, watching him sing "Oh baby, give me one more chance"-- a precocious ten (twelve?) year-old upstaging his good-looking brothers. "Why," she asked, "would he change anything?"

I guess that's how everybody felt who grew up watching him and wishing to be him, or somebody like him. If you were that talented, that famous, that rich, and apparently that happy (the cartoon Michael sure seemed happy on Saturday mornings, in psychedelic striped bell-bottoms), why would you transform yourself into someone or something else--essentially retreating behind a mime's mask? (And he was a terrific mime.)

The news people will turn M.J. inside out over the next few days, the same way they did Princess Diana in the late nineties and Elvis in the late seventies. We'll hear suggestions and rumors of every bizarre thing done to him or by him. We'll hear interview after interview with doctors, lawyers, actors, agents, psychics, psychiatrists, cousins, Kim Jung Il...everybody wanting five minutes to talk about how he saw it all coming (or didn't), about what it was like to be as close as a brother (or sister) to the king of Pop even though yes they'd actually been estranged for ten years. But what occurs to me is that Michael Jackson wasn't really that different from a lot of us; many people have odd obsessions and phobias and misplaced affections. We freak out about weird things and follow unsavory compulsions that we're glad the world doesn't know about it. The difference is that our compulsions have natural limits; we don't have millions upon millions of (mostly borrowed) dollars, as well as a world of enablers and sycophants--including one aging Hollywood beauty, one sheik, and the entire nation of Japan--happy to support our weirdness.

In fact, the money and fame that so many people crave is exactly what turned an ordinary, talented, reportedly sweet and funny, but also eccentric guy into...what? Someone who can't stop himself from carving away at his own humanity. Be careful what you wish for.

But at least, thanks to television and film, we have the earlier Michael Jackson to make us happy over and over again...and, whatever his faults, he can still do that:

06/26/09 As Promised

A sample from Molly Keane's Queen Lear,

Mrs. Kelleher put poor little Willie off her lap and took her instrument down from its high shelf (roses and blonde ladies were intertwined on its end-boards), spread her knees apart as though to nestle Willie again, then, stretching out the pleats of her concertina, sent it screeching into a wild tune for dancing. Sillie-Willie danced to his mother's playing, his feet flashing and tapping and glancing, his ugly body quiet and still above them as a little gravestone.

Nicandra watched, moved, almost frightened, as the music entered her. Then she got up, took off her hat and danced too, her dancing awkward as a buffoon's compared to Silly-Willie's complicated steps. His silly face, so meaningless and without awareness of danger seemed translated into sense through his return to music, and his entire concentration on the rhythms of the jig--Nicandra felt exhausted and exasperated by the realization that it was not in her power to be either kind or cruel to Silly-Willie. Fool that he was, he escaped her--his dancing was so much superior to her own that she could not even praise it. She only wanted him to go on dancing till he dropped.

Mrs. Kelleher looked up to the yellow face of the kitchen clock. She knew the timetable of the Big House. "Lunch time, Miss Nicandra," she said, shutting her still breathing concertina decisively. "Say 'Goodbye' nicely to Miss Nicandra and thank her for coming to pay you a little visit."

Silly Willie mouthed some sort of goodbye. Nicandra responded in a stately manner, at variance with the wild exuberance of the dance, the rude faces, and the exchange of dirty talk [earlier]: "Very nice, little boy," she intoned, "very good indeed. You'll be a great dancer some day if you practice." She was back in the proper life. Magic had fallen from the air.

06/24/09 Oh My It's Hot

Sorry ah haven't blawged much thisuh week. Ah have been wilting, simply wilting in this dreadful humIDity. Why, every half hour or so ah have to get up and wring the sweat out of my corset(and where'd ah put my dress shields? haven't seen them in thirty years).

By the way, have y'all ever noticed how in the old sitcoms (the Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy, especially), the actors sometimes have huge sweat stains in their armpits? The worst offenders are Dick V.D. himself (boy that didn't sound good) and Bill Ferrell, who played Fred on Lucy. Sometimes Lucy's got them, too. It must have been hot under those lights!

But I have loftier matters to speak of. Let us turn to the subject of litritoor (literature). I have found a new writer to recommend, someone who's almost forgotten, if I may judge by the number of copies of her books available in the entire Jefferson County Library System. Her name is Molly Keane. She was an Anglo-Irish writer who put out some very well-received novels in the 1930's, then took half a century off to do one thing and another, and came back to writing in her eighties (our '80s). Someone else who enjoys Barbara Pym recommended her, but actually she's nothing like Barbara Pym, except that both women have sharp insight into human character and a great ear for comedy. Keane's two novels that I've read so far (Good Behavior and Queen Lear) are about very wealthy country people living a sort of embalmed 19th century existence in the first half of the twentieth--Hunts, Balls, Fetes, Horses, Governesses, etc. The thing I like about the books, though, is that they're not really about society (they don't even mention Anglo-Irish politics, for instance), though the dying class structure underpins everything in them, like a crumbling bulwark. The novels are much more about the inner lives of troubled characters, who (in spite of being wealthier than most of us), live close to nature in a way that even middle class people no longer do. Rather than ramble on and on with generalizations, I'm going to post a little from Queen Lear here, in order to give you a sample of the writing.

I'll post later today--at the moment I must go change my clothes for the fifth time and pour myself another tall glass of sweet tea. Here's how hot I feel: I could eat fifty eggs:

06/21/09 Sunday School: It's Not for Cowards

A clone of my 5th grade self showed up today in the Sunday School class I assist with. Though she was blonde and precocious (instead of brunette and airheaded), she reminded me of some great S.S. moments back in my childhood--for instance the time I tried to enlighten the other third graders about Sodom and Gomorrah and ended up out in the hall with Mrs. Nickels. Anyway, here's how it went today:

Us Teachers: (enthusiastically) Girls, who can tell us how David showed faith in the Lord?

Clone-Me: Well, there was the story of Uriah the Hittite...

Us Teachers: Why don't you tell us about that!

Clone-Me: Well, David saw this woman and she was married but he wanted her for his own. So he had her husband killed so he could have her, and then she had a baby and it died, and--

Us Teachers: (Grateful not to have to explain about bathing on the roof in Old Testament times.) Great example of one of the really bad things David did! Now who remembers about Goliath...

Innocent 4th Grader: I don't get it. What was she talking about?

Clone-Me: I wonder how much Goliath actually weighed.

(Moments later)

Us Teachers: What about somebody else who showed faith?

Clone-Me: There was Jephthah.

Us Teachers: Jephthah! Tell us about Jephthah.

Clone-Me: Well, he promised God that if he won this certain battle, he would sacrifice the first thing that he saw coming out to meet him from his house when he got home, and the first thing he saw was his daughter, so he had to sacrifice her...

Us Teachers: (trying to rescue the moment) See, he thought it would probably be a sheep or something.

Innocent 4th Grader: I don't get it. They kept sheep in their houses back then?

Us Teachers: (cheerily) Yes, they did! Now who has a prayer request!

06/20/09 OOO Bama!

I neither love President Obama (except in the Christian sense), nor hate him. I think some of his ideas may turn out to be the nails in the national coffin, but he's only finishing a job that his predecessor started. Our tombstone will tell its own story:

Eleven score and some years ago, our fathers brought forth a nation conceived in debt, delivered from insolvency by the genius of Alexander Hamilton, and then (after years of treading water) drowned in deficits by the combined spending of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Questions of blame aside, though, I just can't believe the ridiculously fawning coverage of this presidency by the U.S. news media. Consider this evening's top 6 headlines at the www.cnn.com:

Iraq truck bomb kills more than seventy

British hostages' bodies recovered in Iraq

(file folder for both of the

above: Iraq, insurgency)

Hawaiians eye North Korea missile plans

(file folder: Kim Jung Il, apocalypse)

New York Times reporter escapes from Taliban captivity

(file folder: Afghanistan, daring escapes)

Red panda has rare set of triplets

(file folder: endangered animals, environment)

Obama, daughters snack on frozen custard

(file folder: press corps, unable to remove nasal organs from the rear quarters of the White House)

I don't want them to turn into attack dogs--not that there's any chance of the press roasting Obama over trivial shortcomings, the way they did Bush (why is it so much worse to stumble over your words than to pause for two seconds between all of your phrases?) I just want them to keep their distance. I don't want the White House to be Camelot or Disneyland or Hollywood; I don't want politicians to be judged on social grace or sense of humor or a great smile, and I don't want anyone who opposes a popular president to be doomed by a lack of style or fluency. Hey, George Washington had wooden dentures; Abraham Lincoln had ring-around-the collar (or was that a tie?). Most people worth listening to don't have T.V. faces, or T.V. manners.

06/19/09 Parenthood Guilt Syndrome

Did you know that it's the number one killer of joy for people (especially women) between the ages of 30 and 50? Parents of teenagers are particularly at risk--in fact, if you're in that category, chances are that you either have PGS, or know someone who does. Learn to know your triggers and respond in a healthy way! Here's a sampling:

Teenager (frantically, angrily): "There is NOTHING to eat in this house."

Typical PGS response: "I'm SO sorry, honey. I forgot you were tired of Toaster Streudels; let me run over to Publix, stand in line behind three elderly people with carts full of Soy Milk and bird seed--all of them paying with nickels--and get you your special Pepperidge Farm White Chocolate Coconut Walnut Gourmet Delight Cookies.

Healthy response: What do you mean? There was a whole jar of peanut butter in the frig this morning, and I'm sure I saw both heels left in the bread package.

Teenager (practically in tears)

"I'm the only person I know who doesn't have texting--it's like we're living in the Stone Age!"

Typical PGS response: I've been looking online at prices for unlimited texting, and it's only $30 a month for the whole family--I'm pretty sure we can manage that if I stop taking my blood pressure medication--I've heard you can control it just as well by staring at goldfish for an hour a day (gee, I need to clean that aquarium).

Healthy response: Hand me my clay tablet and my stylus. I need to carve a father's day message for your dad.

06/16/09 Polyanna meet Polyamory

I know, I know, New York's a wonderful, exciting city, and it's become so much more family friendly than it was twenty years ago that people are actually pushing baby strollers around places like Soho. In one way, that's good news, but in other ways not so much. The suburbs may seem sterile to many, but they do create a natural green buffer between some people's exercise of freedom (I'm coming to that) and other people's children.

Recently, according to a story at abcnews.com, those philanthropic execs at Calvin Klein jeans decided to go with a billboard campaign that depicts four jean models (one woman, shirtless of course, and three partially-clothed men) lying around in some kind of loose menage . I won't post the picture here because I don't want to add to cultural de-Klein, and anyway it's not very interesting as a photograph--I've seen portraits of George Washington that look less posed. Families and family groups have decried the billboards on behalf of their vulnerable children, and the predictable response has been along the lines of, "What's wrong with children seeing people enjoy themselves--sex is natural and fun--you're a puritan--everybody does this now."

The comment in the story that made my jaw drop was a young woman's remark that "polyamory" was actually a gender choice; she didn't give her name because she hadn't "come out" yet to her parents. Now THAT's going to be some conversation....

"Mom, Dad, I've got something to tell you...about me."

"If you're trying to tell us you're gay, honey, that's all right. We love you. And we'll love anyone you love."

"Uh...is there a cap on that?"

In reading this story, I have my usual (faithless) reaction of mixed fear, disgust, worry, outrage. I say "faithless" because I jump to the frightened conclusion that none of this has ever happened before, and that the worst will come of it; "polyamory" seems to me to belong to an Aldous Huxley-world, where sex is both ubiquitous and bland--a meaningless game for twelve year-olds in adult bodies. Don't get me wrong. I think people should be legally free to do what they like (as long as they don't hurt anyone), but the world that thrives and profits on this kind of orgiastic lifestyle and advertising (whether corporate

executives or lay people, so to speak) is crowded with vampires--and I don't mean in the Edward Cullen sense. Yesterday's polyamorous campaign will be boring tomorrow; they'll need to consume someone else--body, soul, and wallet. Who will be the victims: the viewers or the participants (or both)? Will it be a model who looks like an eleven year-old (you may have seen an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog)? Will it be a religious minority--undressed Amish! See what's under all those hooks and eyes!

I comfort my anxious self by remembering that all of this was around long before the internet or even billboards. St. Paul most likely preached around the corner from LIVE CORINTHIAN HIJINKS! Those naked statues had paint on them in ancient times. St. Augustine said that he came to Carthage and all around him was the sizzling and frying of unholy loves." So I guess we'll be in good company when things start to bubble in our own backyards, far from Soho, even down here in the Bible Belt. We find ourselves wondering where it will all end, but that's not really the question...the question is where we'll put our faith as the world changes, and whether we'll meet the victims of the Brave New Sexuality (which is certainly coming) with anything better than a slammed door and a shriek of outrage...

06/15/09 Ya Know What I Can't Staaaaand...? (Edited version! I corrected earlier gaffes)

That, I know, could be the theme of this blog some weeks, especially when the moon is full and I'm feeling whiny and ridiculous--that is, full of ridicule. But actually today I'm fairly cheerful considering that living through June in Alabama is like camping in a dishwasher set on "economy dry" (permadamp).

No, I've just been thinking about the way so many of us (me included) fall back on arrogance when we argue. When faced with someone from an extremely different point of view--sometimes a friend but usually someone who doesn't belong to our religious or political tribe--we resort to the argument from he-must-be-mental-because how-could-any sane-person-think-that-way. It's not even an argument, really, more a posture meant to communicate confidence to the rest of our "people." There's the dramatic sigh, the superior smile, the patient lift of the eyebrows that says "This is so silly, I shouldn't let myself be drawn in."

Arrogance is nothing new, but I started noticing it last year when reading an interview with the atheist writer Sam Harris. After a lot of anti-religious arguments, he said he thought that the best hope for the end of religious belief is for enough comedians to ridicule it, enough people to laugh at it, so that God becomes an embarrassing joke...people won't even consider being religious then because it'll be too embarrassing to admit publicly--sort of on the order of admitting you stick pins in voodoo dolls or something (isn't that fashionable again in Hollywood?). To some extent, Harris was probably basing his theory on social trends in the U.K., where nominal Christian belief has nearly disappeared, though a very sincere, resilient, and ethnically diverse Christian community thrives (see New Testament)...and, of course, the Muslem community is thriving too, but that's another story. (My friend, a Christian missionary in Birmingham, says she feels sometimes like she has more in common with Muslems there, because they're serious about spiritual things.)

Anyway, Harris made me angry when I first read that interview, partly because I know he's probably right; people are influenced by social pressure and the possibility of ridicule--possibly more than by any other motivation. Let's face it: hunger, love, sex, money, intellectual curiosity, and religious passion are all tremendous human motivators, but the fear of other human beings is so strong in us that those who can live without the approval of at least a small group (for more than a day or two) usually end up becoming world-class saints, cat ladies, or death-row inmates. Is it possible that what's happened in the U.K. will happen here--that Christianity won't die a violent death, but a quiet one, mainly at the hands of writers, movie-makers, and comedians? How sad , if so, because that will means that most of do fear nothing...worse...than...

Bill Maher.

Anyway, after I threw a hissy fit over Sam Harris (and Bill Maher, avatar), I saw the same thing happening in myself and other people in my community. It's just so tempting to be snide or dismissive, especially,when you're backed up by people who agree with you. After all, why go through the hard work of thinking and arguing through those basics, those divergent presuppoisitions, again and again? My own arrogance has come through in the past, for instance, when I've discussed Calvinism (I'm sort of an oddball as a non-Calvinist in a Reformed denomination). I've been dismissive of other ideas; I've held my anger in while other people let it fly (knowing that the last one smirking usually wins) and tried to carry the arguments by being witty and self-confident. Ugh. On more than a couple of occasions I've had to go to people and apologize for being such a _____. You fill in the word: the worse the better.

I've seen a lot of other evangelicals do the same in controversial public arguments over evolution, the legalization of same-sex marriage, capital punishment, and so on. We all have to take a stand somewhere on these things, even though they have little to do with private faith. In a real sense, though, the way we treat people on the other side matters more than our particular opinion about the issues, which are controversial even among people who believe that Jesus Christ is the source of all truth. Why do we often resort to the smirk and the sneer? Isn't it a mix of tribalism (say "evil-lution" real big hon' and wave to the folks back of home!) and a lack of faith ?

More on this later...

06/13/09 Why You Should Consider Having a Garden

Well, to start with, it's not in case of the apocalypse. I'm always amused to hear people talk about the necessity of growing one's own food. In fact, even with a reasonably large backyard garden, even assuming that you have good soil and decent weather and that you pass a year without caterpillars and aphids and birds and rabbits and bacterial wilt, you'll probably grow just about enough to keep your family from starving for one month during the summer and one month during the fall.

I know, I know, some of you do a lot better than that with your gardens, but you probably spend some money on them, too; I'm talking about what can be done with some seeds and just the dirt you have around the house. (If you really want to learn to live off the land, consider starting a large neighborhood garden--a farm coop, basically, with everybody sharing the work.)

So anyway, if your motivation isn't End of Times Hysteria, why bother?

Well, first of all, you CAN save some money by growing a little of your own food. But even better, gardening is a wonderful thing for its own sake. A vegetable garden is a natural remedy for all kinds of human worries. When you stand or bend over among the beans (not too far!) you'll begin to see the blossoms on those green shoots as living machines, coiling and uncoiling, beautiful and bizarre. The bees hug them like little lovers. Didn't you see all this once in a Moody Science Film with Dr. Irwin Moon?

Even the tomato plants leave spicy sharp scents on your fingers, like mint and lemon. The cat will be sniffing you all day. When you eat your first tomato (biting into it, like an apple, with dirt still on your feet), you'll feel as if you caught a ray of sunlight between your teeth.

Stop worrying about life! Just think of the taste of it! There are more on the vine!

06/11/09 Girl Fights

Did a little fight choreography with the kids in my acting class today. The most fun was the unchoreographed "girl fight" I performed with my fourteen year-old daughter. Lots of hand and face-slapping and hair-pulling--all in slow motion, of course, and with a lot of laughter (we did it to a cool soundtrack). I'm sure it was satisfying to her in an Oedipal sort of way, if it's even possible for a girl to have Oedipal rage.

Naming contest: What do you call the need of a teenage girl to struggle against her own mom? Email me your best ideas.

06/10/09 All in Our Heads Part 2

I broke off yesterday in the middle of a thought about the unlikely similarity of theme between Flannery O'Connor's stories and J.K. Rowling's novels. There are differences, of course, but both writers are interested in the point where mortality and immortality meet--in discovering what happens when a selfish woman knows she's about to be gored by a bull, or when three brothers meet death on a lonely road.

This makes them both unusual among modern secular writers, who've given up thinking about immortality and the fate of souls. O'Connor got away with it because she was such an odd, funny genius. Rowling gets away with it because she writes in the tradition of fantasy, which was abandoned in the early twentieth century and then revived and popularized (and best of all made profitable!) by orthodox Christians. She can talk about immortality without anyone sneering too much--not even Philip Pullman (author of His Dark Materials) who loathes C.S. Lewis for his Christianity as well as his old-fashioned Tory attitudes, but smiles upon the Christ-haunted Rowling (or at least resists the temptation to shove her head in a punch bowl whenever they share a literary stage).

So it's interesting to me when Rowling weighs in a little, only in the sneakiest way, on the question of the soul and the existence of worlds we cannot perceive through instruments of sense and perception (including mathematics, which may take us to alternate universes, even to the thoughts and language of the creator, but never to the source himself). Yes, she says, everything we know in this world we know in our heads, in the place of dreams, in an analog of reality. Yet the reality is still there, since the source of it is not only outside our minds but outside what our minds can reach.

This faith can comfort us as we move forward into the age of artificial intelligence and mind/machine community. Scientists already say that they can stimulate a part of a human mind and produce a religious experience, or even the sensation that a being (good or evil) is present in the room with us--therefore (some say), such beings don't exist except in the mind. If it's all in your head, it can't be real.

But actually, the mind is just like King's Cross Station in Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows. It's a place of connection, a staging room, in which some things live and through which other things pass: God, love, dreams, poems, nosy-parker scientists, even the soul itself--things which most of us recognize but nobody living understands.

Well, I'm off for the Inferno...have a nice day.

06/09/10 All in Our Heads

I haven't blogged over the last few days because my brain has been caught in a kind of limbo state between the literary and the practical. On the literary side, I've been absorbed in Dante's Inferno, which is the new potty book around here. Meaning that if you bang on the bathroom door I'm likely to shout, "Not now! I've reached the 3rd circle of hell!" I've also been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the 2nd time. Back to that in a minute. On the practical side, I've been gearing up to fix the dryer myself, and meanwhile trying to live without it. Do you know how hard this is in Alabama, also known as the Mildew State, where nothing ever really dries out? In the room where I sit typing this, damp clothes drape limply over every surface, from the ironing board to the bed to the dresser mirror to the printer to the vacuum cleaner to the teenager in the corner.

Incidentally, "Drape Limply" sounds like a character in a romance novel--the one who almost gets the girl, but only by blackmail.

"I'll never love you, Drape Limply!"

Well, regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There's so much to say about the whole series, of course, which is wonderful and satisfying without ever becoming pretentious. I guess that's my first piece praise for it: the way that J.K. Rowling patiently keeps her eye fixed on her goal from beginning to end, ignoring criticism from the literary community (which is pretty hard on anyone who's a traditional storyteller), and staying true to her idea her over the hundreds and hundreds of pages it takes to reach the surprise point of it all and the happy ending. Did she ever think, "What if I get killed in a car accident next week and don't finish it?" Did she make provisions--did she tell anyone how the story would end?

Like most of stories people love, Harry Potter isn't new, it's only a new telling of the old truths. There is one place, though, where Rowling directly addresses a very modern idea. In the chapter where Harry is supposed to have died but hasn't, he meets a resurrected Dumbledore in an empty King's Cross Station. They have a conversation, and then Harry asks Dumbledore if what he's seen is real, or if it's all been happening in his head. Dumbledore replies that of course it's all been happening in Harry's head, but why should that make it less real?

I've thought about this a lot in relation to some of the recent advances in mind-computer interface. Scientists have been able to show that human thought is a biochemical process, and some futurists have a vision of a world where a person's mind can be enhanced by and eventually even "uploaded" into machines, ensuring the immortality of consciousness. The assumption in this (incredibly terrifying and bizarre) scenario is that a human mind is only chemical--what we usually call "material," since it's reducible to things we can handle, quantify, and measure. Transhumanists move forward on the assumption that human beings control their own destiny, which lies only in the perceivable universe--there's no reality beyond the material and no heavenly kingdom guarding a world of souls.

J.K. Rowling's stories are all about the fate of souls, and the dangers of seeking immortality in the present world. The evil Voldemort is so terrified of death that he splits his soul into seven parts in order to ensure he'll last forever (is this so different from "uploading consciousness?"). Dumbledore, who's learned better from his own mistakes, says that there are some things in the world far worse than death. Death, he says, is the "next great adventure." To split the soul is to maim it almost irreparably--though even Voldemort does have a chance at redemption at the end, when Harry tells him to try for a little remorse.

Rowling herself has said that her books are about the way different people approach death. This is essentially the same theme that Flannery O'Connor chose to pursue in almost unrecognizably different ways, with her Southern characters meeting violent redemption in the second to last paragraphs (give or take a few) of her stories.

Continued tomorrow...

06/06/09 Untitled

Tonight, for the first time in my adult life, I went to a neighborhood cookout. The ostensible reason was the recent theft a couple of doors down from us, but of course in the end we hardly talked about that--the shock of the crime had faded away, and now the pressing matters at hand were the difficulty of getting decent Alabama football tickets, the cheapest place to buy milk, the impossibility of turning left anywhere in Hoover, and the rude manners of male cats, who (like some male humans) have a strange urge to pee on walls. Why DO men do that--especially in 3rd world countries (no, that doesn't include Alabama).

I know people say this all the time, but it's shocking how little we really know the people around us. Out of the twenty-some people at the cookout, all of whom live within 100 yards of me in both directions, I only recognized three: the two single men on either side of me and the middle-aged couple directly across the street. Some of the problem is modern life, with most of us living like troglodytes, only leaving the house for work and Alabama games and cheap milk--oh yeah, and church (you know you're in the Deep South when you're in a group of 20 strangers of different races and completely unknown religious backgrounds, and someone casually says, "Who's going to bless the food?" and nobody blinks. Of course, as a not-so faithful evangelical, my knee-jerk thought was, "Oh good, maybe they're all Christians and I won't have to witness to them.")

Anyway, it was all very peaceful and pleasant; there's something so relaxing about walking across the street--not driving across town or typing an email--to have a meaningful conversation with somebody who shares many of the same everyday concerns and everyday joys. Why, when this community togetherness feels so natural and so reassuring, have we mostly given up it up in modern life? It's not just that we HAVE to leave our communities (for work for instance), it's that we often CHOOSE to leave, usually in order to attend a particular church or school or to play a particular sport. The world beckons with so many great opportunities that used to be available only to the rich (ice skating! ballet! acting lessons! art lessons! private school! synchronized swimming!); at the same time, middle class people--with two or three or four cars per family and easy credit to keep the whole thing running smoothly--now consider those opportunities not only normal but even necessary for a happy childhood and family life. In 1975, when I was ten, my mother wouldn't have considered for one second driving me to Richmond (just thirty minutes away) for anything less than open heart surgery. Sure, I'm exaggerating, but an average day in my childhood was walking out the back door after breakfast and appearing again (on foot) around 3:00 in the afternoon, then supper and homework and/or church. Neighborhood friends, though I didn't have a lot of them (odd child that I was) made such freedom and independence possible.

I'm practical enough to think that the old world won't come back--at least in the suburbs, we're doomed to be prisoners of our own technology and wealth, living comfortable lives on the thin highways that carry us from one exciting bubble to another.

However, it's nice every once in a while to bend the line and make it shorter, to climb out of the cave and spend some time in the open air, chatting up the neighborhood. (We didn't, by the way, invite the perps.)

06/04/09 God, Guns, and Guts

Happy "Bring Your Gun to Church Month." In anticipation of the 4th of July, and in celebration of the 2nd amendment, a Kentucky pastor has invited parishioners to bring guns to worship this week. Well why not? If you can bring poisonous snakes to the Lord's house, you ought to be able to tote a rifle. In any case, you have to admit that the preacher here is one courageous individual. Just think what might happen if his sermon goes long this Sunday...or if he announces his new series on tithing. H'e'll have one of these on his head:

Actually, what I wanted to complain about today is not guns in church, but classless birthday cards. I went over to Publix tonight to choose a card for my best friend, and had a hard time finding one that was not

hardy har har har about old ladies and male strippers

chortle chuckle hee hee about birthdays and sex toys

guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw gabout Gramps and viagra

about Mickey Mouse

about the warm glow I get whenever I think of my friend, who's such an inspiration that I don't need any of the above, not even Mickey Mouse

The only non-sexual, non-inspiring, and non-Mickey cards on the rack were the ones "from Grandpa to Grandson." But I'm thinking even Gramp's gotta show his true colors soon. Only a matter of time till we see something like this:

To a Great Young Whipper Snapper...Why Not Snap That Whip for Some Randy Old Gals in a Nursing Home??

I'm not saying that the world has become evil, only that it's become stupid...Sigh. No complaints tomorrow. I promise to deliver only a warm and inspiring glow.

06/03/09 Psalm for Pop Culture

Whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I lie down in hell, thou art there!

If I roll out of bed and put on a blue bathrobe and open the door...

Thou art there!

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there you'll find me and stick a microphone in my face and ask me what I think about Sasha Baron Cohen's prank.

There is no escape from thee. If I say, "Let only darkness cover me and the light about me be night, and the cable be unplugged and the cell phone signal mute...

You'll find me somewhere. Your lighted screens will beckon from a restaurant or a hospital or even from the van driving next to me on the interstate...

06/02/09 Lightening Could Not Of Been Invloved

Not that it matters, considering the seriousness of the issue at hand, and not that I have any business criticizing somebody else's spelling, but this paragraph from today's edition at abcnews.com appears to have been prepared by a pair of monkeys trying to type the works of Shakespeare.

"Meanwhile, France's Environment Minister Jean Louis Borloo said he did not think bad weather alone could of brought the plane down. Officials "do not believe a simple bolt of lightening, something relatively classic in aviation could of caused the loss of the craft,' Borloo said according to The Associated Press. He also brushed off the idea that terrrorism or a hijacking could be invloved.

Borloo also told France's RTV radio that "there realy had to be a succession of extraodinary events to be able to explain this situation."

Former pilot and ABC News consultant John Nance agreed "You never say never," he told ABC News' "Good Morning America," about the chance of lightening triggering a crash, but it would be almost unheard of for a plane to be downed by lightening alone.

[emphasis mine]

06/01/09 Neurotic

Brief post tonight, just to show I care. Tomorrow, I'm sending my fourteen year-old off to Atlanta (3 hours east) for a White Water and Braves Game marathon with our church youth group. That sounds soooo inocuous. Then how come I feel anxious? Why does my pulse race, why do I want to hit the prozac bottle one more time before bed--as if I could even think of sleeping at a time like this?

It's because I have Atlanta Anxiety Syndrome, a rare and barely tolerable disorder that I probably picked up in high school, around the time I learned to drive in that lovely metropolis, where the drivers are...

INSAAAAAAAAAAANNNNE!

I'm thinking of the 18 wheelers skating down those 2 foot-wide lanes on the stretch of I-20 known as the Martin Abernathy Expressway (the road to hell is narrow, and paved with Rancheros), and the occasional elderly Hall County resident going 60 (that's you, Daddy), and the fact that most of the other cars on the road are stunt drivers doing their synchronized lane change exercises.

Naturally, nobody else involved in this trip is the least bit concerned. One sympathetic friend at church said that yes she did get a little nervous driving through Atlanta recently...with her fifteen year-old at the wheel.

05/29/09 What Would Jesus Spell

Raise your hands, evangelicals! Stand up, sword drillers! How many of you are basically mediocre spellers, but could have spelled the winning word in the National Spelling Bee--Laodicean--correctly simply because you knew which of the seven churches in Revelation was wishy washy and apathetic. In fact, you've been probably been told in two or three sermons over the course of your lifetime that YOUR church was lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, out-of-the-mouth spittable, in short...

Laodicean.

(Hey, at least you didn't hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans...sheesh)

5/28/09 - 05/29/09 Disappointed

Hah! I just looked over yesterday's post, in which I said that I was drifting "in and out of consequence." That's what happens when you load up on cold medicines and Girl Scout cookies. I'm all of out of both today, and feeling more consequential, thanks.

Today's blog is about scoundrels, one of my favorite topics. It will probably take me a while to write this. I'll have to check back in throughout the day and even tomorrow as my thoughts coalesce. Let me begin, however, in the blessed manner of 9th grade English students, by quoting the Merriam Webster dictionary (online version):

scoundrel

noun

etymology unknown

def. a disreputable person

Now if that's not a definition written by a scoundrel, I don't know what is. Origins obscure, meaning vague and euphemistic--after all, if you don't know the noun "scoundrel" you probably don't know the fancier adjective "disreputable," which sounds like a term your great-grandmother might have used to describe your great-uncle, who ran off to an island with five French dancing girls.

Anyway. I've been thinking about scoundrels because I picked up Paul Johnson's interesting, gossipy book Intellectuals from the library yesterday. The title makes the book sound virtuous, but it's really a guilty pleasure, a mirror image of Strachey's wicked, damning Eminent Victorians from a century ago. Johnson's thesis is that, beginning with the Enlightenment, a handful of intellectuals assumed the right to reform society and tell other people how to live purely on the basis of their own genius--in other words, not because of their role as priests or holy men in any religious sense, though they did in some cases claim to be more moral and virtuous than ordinary mortals. Because they claimed this role for their works--as morally prescriptive for society--we have the right to judge their personal lives and behavior, even if it means dragging them over the coals with pretty much the same schadenfreude that Strachey applied to Florence Nightingale and Cardinal Manning.

Johnson's book is organized as a series of biographical sketches; so far, I've read his chapters on Rousseau (a madman who said he was the most virtuous of human beings and loved all with a burning zeal and passion, yet packed his own infants off to a foundling orphanage); Shelley (I'm getting to him); and Marx (who never ever ever bathed, but more sordidly, twisted facts, dates, and details in his study of Capital so that the miserable conditions he described in the factories and workshops of his day were actually pre-capitalistic).

Even if only half of Johnson's gossip is true, all three of these modern giants qualify as scoundrels, a word I define as

noun

etymology--derived from a combination of the terms "scrounging" (pillaging the pockets of parents, wives, and friends with no intention of repayment) and

"wastrel" (one who spends every penny he's scrounged from his loved ones on Lotto tickets and suchlike)

def.--a wily and scheming charmer; a thief who has the illusionist's trick of turning his victims into accomplices

For in fact, one thing Rousseau, Marx, and Shelley all shared--aside from wild idealism--was the ability to cast aside loyalties, financial and otherwise,

without feeling much guilt about it. Or if they did feel guilty, they expressed it as rage at the very people they had victimized. In my experience, this is a pretty typical reaction. When people feel guilty about the harm they've done to you--no matter how legitimate the guilt might be--they don't often feel sorry (as I used to think), nor indebted to you for your saintlike patience; no, they just want to throw you in a bag with a couple of rocks and push you off a pier.

Liking Percy Shelley's poetry (I'm no scholar of poetry, but I think that Ozymandius is one of the greatest things ever written), I was a little surprised to read about the extent of his scoundreliness, especially to his first wife, Harriet, who had eloped with him at sixteen and endured three years of house-hopping and instability, only to learn (when she was pregnant with her second child) that he had decided to leave her in order to pursue a Bohemian arrangement with Mary Wollstonecraft and her sister Claire. Shelley had the gall to suggest that Harriet come stay with them--heck, we're all friends here!--and naturally he hoped to get custody of their children together. Harriet wouldn't have it, and put them under the protection of guardians; she herself was ruined and eventually died in poverty and prostitution, probably by suicide. Though a little research has taught me not to trust Johnson (more on that in a moment), his quotation from one of Shelley's letters speaks for itself:

"I deem myself far worthier and better than any of your nominal friends...my chief study has been to overwhelm you with benefits. Even now, when a violent and lasting passion for another leads me to prefer her society to yorus, I am perpetually employed in devising how I can be permanently and truly useful to you...in return for this it is is not well that I should be wounded with reproach blame--so unexampled and singular an attachment demands a return far different."

(If you think that letter sounds generous, you should probably check your tires to see if you've run over any wheelchairs lately.)

The quality that really makes a person a scoundrel isn't ordinary human wickedness; aside from a few saintly individuals, we're all capable of that. We all pursue our own interests to the detriment of others: we run up debts, betray those love us, show ingratitude to the benefactors who help us, and end by hurting the ones we most desperately want to protect--our own children.

A scoundrel is a person who does all of these things and then lies about the essence of his actions, not only to the world but to himself. His lies are decorative and sincere; in a real sense, he's an artist. When he lays his hands on his heart and says, "The world has disappointed me," his tears are real, and yet his other hand is pushing the play button for the soundtrack of his life. The music will be soaring and tragic.

Having described a little of Paul Johnson's book Intellectuals, I'll end by mentioning what's only fair; that Johnson, a famous conservative Catholic historian, ironically confirmed the thesis of his book (that it's justifiable to examine the personal life of a social critic) when he was revealed by his own mistress as an adulterer and sado-masochist. She said she couldn't take reading some of his moralistic comments and had to come clean...yup, can't blame her for that. Christopher Hitchens had a lot of fun writing about Johnson's weakness for spanking, and put the historian straight over his journalistic knee for being such a naughty hypocrite.

Or if you prefer a different picture, there's this one...

(lights go up on stage; Johnson is revealed in silhouette, hand on his heart)

Johnson: Hypocrite? Hypocrite? No, Mr. Hitchens, I'm not a hypocrite, I'm simply...simply...

(sighs)

...simply disappointed by the world...

(cue theme, stage goes dark)

05/27/09 Cravings

I went to bed with a wicked, mean cold last night. So I've been lying around today, listening to Harry Potter on tape, drifting in and out of consequence, occasionally dragging my twisted, aching body into the kitchen to fetch another Girl Scout Cookie. Why is that your body craves junk when you're sick? Is it because you revert to childhood, when your mom said things like, "Just because you're sick, sweety, you can have spaghettios for lunch, and extra red food coloring for dessert!!" Something about feeling terrible just makes me long for hot dogs and twinkies.

I think I might have the Swine Flu. For one thing, my nose is getting so large and pink and round. For another, I'm growing a corkscrew tail. It's really kind of cute with a bow on it.

05/25/09

I just read this paragraph in an online article from MSNBC.COM about common household hazards:

" When was the last time you water-proofed your deck?

If you don't do this every 2 to 3 years, moisture can seep in and warp the wood, upping your risk of falls. [emphases mine]

Easy fix: Inspect your deck every spring, paying extra attention to the ledger board, the place where the deck attaches to the house — it's the most vulnerable to water damage. Keep your eyes peeled for splits and cracks— signs that moisture has gotten in. If you can easily penetrate 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the wood with a screwdriver or ice pick, the wood should be replaced. .."

So I'm picturing myself, back when I was living the American dream and had a two storey house with a deck, climbing into a safety harness and crawling out onto the creaking, rotting planks with an ice pick in my hand. Do I have my safety helmet on in case of a fall? You betcha. Goggles too. Easing my way inch by inch around the hibachi grill (which, I read in the same article, needs to be placed 10 feet from anything flammable), I gently prod the suspect boards with my pick. Is it penetrating by 1/8 of an inch or 1/4? Our very lives hang in the balance!

But suddenly, oh no! I drop my ice pick! It slips between the ledger board and the house and falls like a North Korean rocket straight toward the ground below, picking up speed until "pssst!" it penetrates the hard plastic of a gas can lying on the ground below. Gas spurts into the air, rising in a slim arc toward the rear wall of the house just as...just as a live electric wire springs loose from the outdoor meter... where a nest of, yeah, baby racoons have been teething!!! Ah, me! I see it all converge in horrible slow motion...the stream of gas, the bristling wire, the furry, nibbling raccoonlings! As my mouth forms a scream, a wave of energy blows me back against the wall of the house..deafened, I dangle helplessly from from my harness (warm blood spurting from my ears, ahuh). And then kaboom! The deck explodes beneath my feet into splinters of (rotting, warped) wood.! An ice pick shoots past my head, nearly impaling me against the ledger board. But do you know what I say?

I say, "Thank God I didn't FALL!!"

05/21/09 Cowardly New World

O.K., it's termagant, not termigant. And I meant to say "bike" yesterday, and not "book." I try to come across as very literary, but I never once rode a book to school.

Hey, Shakespeare couldn't spell, either. And Albert Einstein got C's in school. And Abe Lincoln never could split his rails straight.

Do you know how you can recognize a pretentious writer? She refers to her own works as often as possible, and she usually finds a way to throw in the phrase, "As I have said elsewhere..." Well, as I have said elsewhere, summer for me means listening to books on tape. Earlier this week, I finished listening to Brave New World, which I'd read last in the ninth grade. That fact stuns me in itself, because the primary medium of experience in the novel is sex--a subject an evangelical fourteen year-old isn't supposed to know very much about. The thing was, I had become an expert on sex at at an early age by reading the book of Leviticus repeatedly during Sunday evening sermons. I could have given lectures on the bizarre things that Old Testament Jews weren't supposed to do.

So as I began to listen to BNW, I remembered being interested, though not shocked by, the sexual content of the book. The thing most people remark on when they read the book here at the beginning of the 21st century is how prophetic it is or isn't, especially as compared to Orwell's 1984. BNW imagines a hedonistic, caste-driven world where nobody (not even a member of the lowest caste) has to defer any pleasure; where human beings are all grown outside the womb, and there are therefore no families or kinship loyalties to cause pain ("mother" is the ultimate obscenity); where all knowledge of the past is forbidden except to an elite few; where promiscuity is a social virtue in the way that chastity used to be, because "every one belongs to everyone else;" and when things don't work out for any reasons, there's always "soma," that great all-purpose mood stabilizer and hallucinagen that can pick you up or (at higher doses) sweep you away on a long vacation.

Obviously, this picture has some resonance with the world evolving before our eyes. Christopher Hitchens, in an article called "Why Americans Are Not Taught History" says,

We dwell in a present-tense culture that somehow, significantly, decided to employ the telling expression "You're history" as a choice reprobation or insult, and thus elected to speak forgotten volumes about itself. By that standard, the forbidding dystopia of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four already belongs, both as a text and as a date, with Ur and Mycenae, while the hedonist nihilism of Huxley still beckons toward a painless, amusement-sodden, and stress-free consensus. Orwell's was a house of horrors. He seemed to strain credulity because he posited a regime that would go to any lengths to own and possess history, to rewrite and construct it, and to inculcate it by means of coercion. Whereas Huxley ... rightly foresaw that any such regime could break but could not bend. In 1988, four years after 1984, the Soviet Union scrapped its official history curriculum and announced that a newly authorized version was somewhere in the works. This was the precise moment when the regime conceded its own extinction. For true blissed-out and vacant servitude, though, you need an otherwise sophisticated society where no serious history is taught.

Hitchens is right that the new world has a disdainful view of the old world; it isn't true that we don't pay any attention to history--we're obsessed with the parts of it that appeal to our animal feelings: villains, heroes, monsters, gore, feats of daring, shocking acts of cruelty perpetrated upon helpless innocents, etc. But as we approach history, we mostly expect entertainment, and so the people who control the stories of our past don't need to coerce us into accepting their version of those stories, they only need to lull us out of considering any other possibilities.

That idea is at the core of the society in Brave New World, where human beings accept a lack of ultimate freedom in return for a life of maximum pleasure and no pain. From birth ("decanting") on, the citizens of the world state are conditioned (by "sleep-learning" or "hypno-pedia") to believe that they're only cells in the human organism, and that death (which is mandated at 60) is no tragedy, since the organism goes on long after one cell dies. The only characters in the book who question this idea (a little) are Bernard and Helmholtz, a couple of misfits: one, unusually small for his alpha caste, the other unusually brilliant and creative, with a gift for poetry--though the gift is only put to use in the propaganda department, where he writes pointless slogans. He wishes he had something meaningful to write about, but has no idea what that might be. Neither man knows how to name what he wants, since he has no knowledge of the forgotten culture of the past: of history, art, literature, or religion (outside the state religion, which is just an orgastic worship of the father of mass production, Our Ford. The Archbishop of Canterbury has become, prophetically enough, the Arch-Community Songster).

Then comes a "savage," John, a man actually born of a woman (guess where we're going here) who has lived all of his life in a zoo-like reservation set aside for primitive people who still follow some of the old religions, including elements of Christianity, though not in a particularly doctrine-heavy way (there are no Calvinists on the reservation). The savage has managed to memorize Shakespeare in the wilderness (long story), and he responds to all of the situations that the Brave New World presents him with anguished quotations from Romeo and Juliet, Othello, etc. Bernard and Helmholtz befriend John, and they respond to the beauty of his words, but even they simply can't understand his horror at the new world--at his distress over the clone-like products of the state Hatchery, at his insistence that sexual love should be worth fighting for (when the girl he loves casually offers herself, he goes berzerk and calls her a whore), that we should be free to suffer and struggle, that death isn't a happy thing, that natural things are beautiful for their own sake (not just landscapes for "obstacle golf" and "centrifugal bumblepuppy"), that there actually is sin that needs to be atoned for, and that there is a God.

John eventually has his Pilate-Jesus meeting with a powerful leader in London; their "Quid est veritas" conversation leaves him in despair because (unlike Jesus) he won't be martyred; he'll simply be laughed at and set free to do what he wants. He tries to go off and live the life of a hermit, but such is not possible in a world of cameras and mass communication...weekend tourists soon make the daytrip out to watch him meditate and flagellate himself with a whip, not because they want to learn truth from him, but because they find his behavior so amusing and titillating that soon, with a little soma thrown in, they're enjoying an orgy. John's life ends in lonely despair. Meanwhile, Bernard and Helmholtz sail away to a happy island to be with other smart people just like themselves. You can fight tyranny and oppression, but you simply can't fight a world that wants to replace your freedom with endless bliss.

There are so many parallels in this book to our world, or at least the world we're becoming. Sex really has been mostly divorced from procreation, and pregnancy often starts in a testube. Promiscuity has become, at least on college campuses, a social duty. The news now is presented as entertainment, and the more salacious or gory the story the better--think about the never-ending Casey Anthony story, or Natalie Holloway, or Amanda Knox. On the other hand, it's an underlying premise of most news stories--really of the whole contemporary discourse-- that any rational person will do everything possible to avoid risk, danger, and death. When all else fails, there's Prozac (could Huxley have invented a better name for it?). Oh, and mind those pre-natal genetic screenings; don't let any unhappy embryos through, because an unhappy life just isn't worth living.

The truth in Brave New World that strikes me the most sharply, though, is the idea that part of human freedom is the freedom to suffer for what you love, and that this suffering is what creates beauty and also leads us to truth (which, for a religious person, means God). We don't live under tyranny in the English-speaking world of 2009, but we do live with politicians who talk to us as if we're children; who appeal to us to give up our adult responsibilites and freedoms out of fear of suffering. The more we accept the contemporary presupposition that risk, danger, and death are to be avoided at all costs, the more power we cede to government, and the less free we become. This theme has been the dominant discourse in Americans politics since at least 2001, first with Bush/Cheney's insistence that the American people deserve security at all costs (think the Patriot Act), and now with Obama's proposal to expand the reach of the federal government in order to redress social inequities.

In exchange for Obama's expansion of government , what do we get? The third of Roosevelt's four freedoms-- freedom from want. Just as, in exchange for Bush/Cheney, we got the fourth--the freedom from fear, which in Roosevelt's mind chiefly meant the freedom from fear of tyrants. Roosevelt was thinking of Hitler and Stalin, while Bush was thinking of Islamic fundamentalists. You have to wonder, though, how it will all look one hundred years from now, whether the the last eight year followed by the next four (or double that) will have put us on course toward a benevolent tyranny, one where there's little fear, but also little of the individual freedom that America was established in order to protect--the risky, troubled freedom that gives human life its dignity.

I don't know. In BNW, the benevolent tyranny doesn't appear until after a horrible 9 years war with anthrax bombs, etc.; people are tired of suffering and willing to submit to the conditioning necessary to make the world state work. Apparently (and this is the least believable part to me), they're even willing to give up fundamental adult relationships in order to live without pain (since love creates suffering). A disaster now might very well affect our willingness to defend our own freedoms--say if we were to have a nuclear war, or a devastating series of terrorist attacks--but it's much easier to believe that society will simply continue to take the path of least resistance toward benevolent tyranny; that while we won't give up our fundamental loyalties and relationships (for instance, motherhood, romantic love), those very loyalties will be the reason why we're willing to sacrifice freedom in exchange for greater security. The campaign cry will be, "It's worth ______ to keep our kids safe!"

05/20/09 Hey Nonny Nonny, it's the Mer of Sums

Summer's here! Well, for us, Alabamians anyway--we got to go a-maying and then get the crops in before the babies appear in the cabbage patch. For me, summer means lots of Latin tutoring, teaching acting classes (want to sign up?), directing another play for junior high kids (Anne of Green Gables, if I can stand that little termigant for two and a half months), painting scenic backdrops for ballet camp while listening to book after book on tape. Last summer I listened to all of Rebecca (by Daphne DuMaurier)and The Illiad (by Homer DeBlindPoet). And yesterday morning, walking out of the library with a stack of books and tapes and CDs in my arms, I had that wonderful sense of summer freedom that I used to get in childhood. The smell of warm paper and thick green grass bring it back.

Speaking of which, have you tried googling your childhood home? I googled mine, picked street view, and found I could "walk" all the way to school/church, retracing the same route I used to take every morning on my bike or on foot. The feeling was a little spooky, since so much had changed. My old house is now a plumber's office; there's an asphalt parking lot where our honeysuckle bushes sat, and in the parking lot is a boat. Gone is the brick wall my brother knocked out of the old carport, attempting to park the car before he even had his learner's permit (if they had such things in 1971). It was just fortunate that the car didn't keep going through the wall and land in the backyard, about twelve feet down. I can still remember sitting straight up between my mother and father in the front seat of the (other) car, peering over the dashboard. We'd just driven all the way back home from Toccoa Falls, Georgia.

"Mary," said my father, "Danny's got a surprise to show you when we get home."

5/18/09 What Can a Book?

A book can...

...make a baby scream, make ninth graders groan, make your grandpa say, "I always liked Edgar Guest myself," make a dying woman say, "read this to me I need comfort"

...turn you into a princess, turn you into a frog, turn you into an actor, turn you into a (self-proclaimed) expert on string theory, turn you into a vegan, turn you into a libertarian, turn you into a librarian, turn you into a Liberian, turn you to God, turn you to golf, turn you inside out, turn you upside down, turn you loose

...give you courage, give you hope, give you a headache, give you a paper cut, give you eye strain, give you hints for the garden, give you some good jokes for your speech tonight, give you an unaccountable sense of unease, give you a shiver up your spine, give you the feeling that you could write something like this if you just had the time

...put a toddler to sleep, put you to sleep, put your significant other to sleep waiting on you to finish the chapter and put out the light, put you onto a great new novelist, put your religion down, put your political party down, put your racial heritage down, put so and so on a pedestal, put you off crime thrillers for a while since they all start to run together

...open a window, open a door, open a chasm, open up and swallow your world, open your mind, open your wallet, open a conversation with the person next to you on the airplane, oppenheimer, open sesame

...do magic, do you good, do for the moment, due tomorrow at the library--wait no, what day is it?--due yesterday!

05/17/09 Night of the Living Broccoli

This afternoon, I picked the first two heads of broccoli from my garden. I was bursting with pride, and I thought, "Wow, I wonder if this is how Cain felt?" Poor guy, swollen with hubris as he brought his fresh rutabagas before the Lord. What the Lord wanted was meat, and though I've never fully understood the significance of that passage in Genesis, I get the idea that Cain's initial problem wasn't so much his inferior offering--he didn't get in trouble for being a vegetarian--as his jealousy of Abel, the sense that more appreciation was due him. This reminds me all too much of how I feel when I see other writers' names on published articles, or on the covers of acclaimed books. Especially if I know the writers personally--I always think, "Why not me? I write as well as he does, I'm as smart as he is, etc. etc."

But back to the broccoli. Because I never use pesticides of any kind (not even dish soap, except in emergencies), I felt safe simply steaming it without washing it. Joanna and I sat down to eat supper. I was listening to "Brave New World" on headphones while I ate and thinking how wonderfully old-fashioned and natural we are around here, living off the fruit of the land like our forefathers, keeping the apocalyptic future at bay.

"Mom," said Joanna mournfully, "there's a...worm...on my broccoli!!"

Worms in the broccoli, jealousy in the soul. There's surely a sermon there, though if you consider that we almost consumed an animal offering, the metaphor becomes hopelessly complicated.

05/15/09 A Wider Shade of Pale

Why, oh why is it that the light in changing rooms always comes from above? You'd think that Wal-Mart, for instance (I use them as an example because I currently have a gift card, and came home today without using it), would not want its customers to look at this view in a changing room mirror:

If the light were to come from behind the customer, she might see something more like this,

which is almost exactly the same picture (yes, it is a self-portrait, and yes, one leg is smaller than the other-- that's because I always water ski on one leg) only with the light from behind--a more lemony light as opposed to that Vitamin D-sucking grey/white of department stores--and shadows adjusted accordingly.

So why not install backlighting opposite the mirror? Wouldn't a happy customer be be more inclined to buy those skimpy shorts?

Don't worry, world, I wouldn't buy skimpy shorts, not even if you gave me a gift card. This is all artistic musing.

05/14/09 Nancy, Nancy

So what's the best sound track to listen to while keeping up with Nancy Pelosi's meandering testimony about waterboarding (you know, which she didn't realize was actually in use during the time she was being briefed about it by the CIA--no doubt, because realizing it then might have made her look like a self-preserving hypocrite now, and it's always better in politics to look like an idiot than a self-preserving hypocrite, which is why politicans never claim to have realized anything much, at least after the fact).

No contest for the best sound track! It's Barbra Streisand-- actually being waterboarded! (no, those aren't tears)

Though I can't stand Nancy Pelosi (raise your hand if you can--anyone?), I do agree with her that waterboarding is torture; but then so is the line, "Told me love was too plebian, told me you were through with me and..."

05/12/09 Ding Dong, the Dopes are in Jail!

There is great rejoicing tonight in my shady little corner of Birmingham. By the way, when I say "shady" I'm not talking about pleasant shadows cast in the heat of the day by well-appointed suburban vegetation. I'm talking rather about a pall cast by some low-life criminals who lived a couple of doors down. I became aware of them (the Shady Creeps) a few months ago, when one of them actually came over to our house and told us that his safe had been stolen from his bedroom. Had we seen anybody funny hanging around?

"Funny people?" we innocently cried, our trembling hands to our mouths. "Oh dear! We've seen no funny people hanging around. Who could have done this thing? Could it be...a thief? A stranger?"

Not wanting to alarm my children, I called up the Hoover police and had a tete a tete with an officer away from my house, in a parking lot located across from the Krispy Kreme. He was an amply-girthed, double-dimple-chinned gentleman with very large shoes, and I think that the proximity of a donut establishment presented something of a stumbling block; nevertheless, he managed to be helpful. He called in to headquarters to check on the robbery and see if the crooks had been apprehended, and a few seconds later, he was laughing.

"Oh him, yeah, that guy," he said to the person on the other side of the phone. "Yeah, he's under house arrest. Yeah, picked him up three times last week. Probably one of his buddies did it."

I never did understand all of what the officer said, but I got the idea that my neighbor (the one who'd come to ask us about the safe) had a criminal record, was under some kind of probation, and was possessed of a Shady Creepy friend or two who had decided to lift his safe from his bedroom--more amazingly, that friend might actually be one of the guys living at his house, of which there were many. Shady creeps swarmed around there night and day like ants in a mound, and all of the other neighbors worried about them.

In fact, you can imagine how I've felt for the last few months about leaving the kids home alone during the day, even with the cat to protect them. Nothing bad has happened to us, and I'm not afraid of people, particularly--not the way I am of the weather or traffic. But in this situation I've been cautious. I don't leave for long.

Well, last night, yet another neighbor came by to say she was signing people up for a community watch, because somebody had robbed the house two doors down from us (about three houses over and across the street from the Creeps). "Oh great," I thought, "we're living in a hotbed of crime, criminality, and criminalishness." Immediately, irrationally, knee-jerkedly, and unabashedly racistly, I blamed the Mexican workmen who've been doing repairs nearby. Mexican gangs! Drug violence! War lords! Crystal meth! The next thing you know, they'll be slitting our throats and throwing our corpses into the Krispy Kreme parking lot as a warnings to the Hoover police!

But tonight, ding dong and praise the Lord, our next-door neighboor on the right came by to deliver the blessed news. This afternoon (while I was home with my daughters, incidentally), this guy's labrador began barking strangely (how does a dog bark strangely?). Another neighbor called the police, who quickly arrived, just in time to catch four guys running from the same house they'd robbed two days ago.

And who were these criminals? Were they the industrious Mexican roofers? No, they were the All-American Shady Creeps. Locked up to (I hope) steal no more. In fact, I hope we'll never see them again, though you don't know what might happen on the way to American justice. I'm naturally a merciful person, but I think these

people have used up their chances for a while. I want them gone.

I wonder--do you think that while the four dopes are sitting there in that jail cell tonight, one of them will finally admit that he took the other guy's safe?

05/10/09 Day of Mothers

It's Mother's Day. I mailed my mother a card on Friday, but I don't think it will get there tomorrow--which makes me sad, because I'd determined not to be a disappointing daughter this year. As if my mother would be disappointed in anything I did! Like me with my kids, she's incapable of sustaining a critical attitude:

"Now let me get this straight. You've left your family to join a polygamous rocker cult in Oregon, and you've shaved your head and changed your name to 'Bahalahana?' Well Betty...I hope you'll wear a hat or a scarf or something up there, because it gets cold, and you lose a lot of heat through your scalp..."

I can't imagine what it would be like to have a critical mother, whose love was tied either to some ability of mine or to some dream of her own. When you spend time around ballerinas, you run into a lot of parents who love their daughters to the point of idolatry: they're not aware of it (sadly), but they worship their children with religious passion Some become crusaders, ready to shed the blood of infidels if another girl gets the role of the Snowy Forest Star Princess; some become evangelists, blathering on about the glories of their tragically neurotic offspring; some become priestesses, shuffling silently after their daughters to auditions and performances, always ready with the sacred bobby pins and the blessed ice packs, and so often abused and belittled in return: "Mommmmmm! Go awayyyyy!"

Actually, I have my own motherhood struggles, so it's ridiculous for me to judge anybody else (let's talk about car safety, shall we honey? car safety means that you won't drive more than five minutes from our home until I have full-blown Alzheimers and can't remember who you are, let alone where you've gone). Here's what I learned from my own mother, though. You should be an admirer of their dreams, but not a participant. Have your own joys and passions. Let them see you enjoying yourself in ways that have nothing to do with them. Love them no matter what...

Hi there, I'll be your Prop Mistress Today...

05/08/09 Sorry, Peeps

No blogging yesterday or today because I'm up to my neck in scenery, props, and paint. Backstage is always a magical place, and I love it, however I think I could happily live the rest of my life without stapling three hundred silk flowers to an artificial wall. I'll be back tomorrow morning with all of my usual complaints.

05/06/09 Sniffle, Snuff, Snort...Ahum

Our oldest daughter is about to finish high school. I don't believe in inflicting maudlin private emotions on my readers, so I'll let three pictures speak for themselves. Many of you know what it feels like...

05/05/09 Slouching Toward Graduation

I've been getting photographs ready for a senior slide show at my daughter's graduation reception. Tell me how to do this without melting into a blubbering maniac...I'm going to put some of these pictures up here by tomorrow so the world can SHARE my MOMMY ANGST

05/03/09 What Would Ricky Bobby Do?

So, HAVE you seen the new Pew Research Council study showing that white Southern evangelicals believe that torture is often (20%) or sometimes (37%) justified in order to gain important information? About half of the general public supports the same idea.

When I first saw the study, I wanted to explain it away. Who, I wondered, counts as a "Southern evangelical?" Nearly everybody in Alabama who's not named "Abe" or "Muhammed" has been immersed in a Baptist Church at some point; in a few cases, our baptizing pastors held us under the water too long. Generally speaking, we are not an intellectual crowd. Imagine Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights answering the question, "Do you believe that torture is sometimes justified to gain important information?"

"I believe it if little eight pound Baby Jesus said so."

But I don't want to hide behind the dumb-redneck stereotype, or chalk up an embarrassing statistic to simple-mindedness. I know that many of my fellow Southerners have well oxygenated brains, and yet believe that the world has gone soft, and that the golden age of civilization and Christendom occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries, when princes and rulers were also defenders of the faith, and arguments over truth seemed worth breaking bones and scalding flesh. Southerners are natural conservatives; we always keep an eye on some point in the past, though that point is ever shifting. In peacetime, we look to Thomas Jefferson to defend our individual freedom against the power of the federal government. In wartime, we pull George III out of a drawer, dust him off, and say, "Keep us safe." We like a monarchical president--one who won't shed a tear for the well-deserved tribulations of evil-doers.

So, given that Southerners in general haven't discarded the past, it doesn't surprise me that many Southern Christians support the use of torture against America's enemies. But is there a difference in point of view between the generic Southern Christian--whose favorite verse is Hezekiah 53:12, "The Lord helps those who help themselves--and Christians who know the Bible well and try to live by the teachings of the faith? Between George W. Bush, for instance and a man like my dad, who's similarly brave, patriotic, and non-nuanced, but also a long-time student of Scripture?

Here's where the Pew study gets very interesting. Out of the self-identified "evangelical" respondents who say they rely mainly on intuition and life-experience in making decisions (e.g. George W. Bush), only 31% opposed torture. Among those who relied mainly on Christian teachings, 52% opposed torture. Knowing what I know about Southerners, this is exactly what I would expect. We're a military culture--that's at the heart of our conservatism, I think--and our instinctive response to provocation is force rather than appeasement. "An eye for an eye." "Make 'em sorry they ever came." "Teach 'em what happens to terrorists who try to attack America."

There are plenty of faithful Christians in the South who impulsively agree with those statements, but upon further consideration submit the human instincts for revenge and retaliation to the call to follow Jesus. This mercy doesn't come cheap--it's source is Christ's own sacrifice and example. The wages of sin is death--people who kill innocents do deserve what they get; but on the other hand, "There but for the grace of God go I." "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you."

And anyway, 52% is still too high.

05/02/09 Torture

Sorry no blog on torture today. I've spent five hours cutting out gold lame adhesive-backed leaves and ironing them onto an eight foot-long red tablecloth. This can only mean one thing. It's dress rehearsal week for the ballet, and I'm working on props.

Aaaaaah! My hands! My hands! Please, no more!! I beg you!!

05/01/09 Happy May Day, Comrades

I celebrated May Day Eve at school yesterday by playing Latin Gulag. I know, I know, the two things don't seem to have anything to do with each other. So YOU try coming up with an entertaining way of reviewing noun-adjective agreement with 6th graders two weeks before the end of the term. Here's how the game goes:

1) The teacher appoints an Inspector General of Nouns, an Inspector General of Adjectives, and an Inspector General of Verbs. All the students are then required to translate a sentence of great literary import (such as "My noses are all large") into Latin. The teacher, who now declares herself Beloved Mother (or Glorious Dictator, or something) orders one of the students to the board to write his Latin sentence. After the student has finished writing, the Inspectors General come to the board and one by one declare the sentence adequate or inadequate. Then the entire class votes on whether to send the student to the Gulag, and no matter what the vote actually IS, the Beloved Mother sends him off to a barren corner of the room to dig for roots in the mud and snow with his bare hands.

One by one, the students end up in the Gulag; the teacher needs to keep things interesting by occasionally banishing an Inspector General to the Gulag, as well. All the better if she's the sweetest, brightest, most cooperative student in the class (I have to admit, I take wicked pleasure in this part). What have the kids learned? That it's dangerous to shine too brightly in a totalitarian society! That the tallest blade of grass gets cuts down first! That Latin teachers really ARE sadists! (Hey, fetch my toga and my fasces, would you?)

Tomorrow's blog: my thoughts on the new Faith in Public Life poll

showing that a majority of Southern white evangelicals approve of torture.

04/29/09 OH NO! SWINE FLU CLAIMS TWO NEW VICTIMS!!

There's Mel--ultra-conservative Catholic not-quite divorced swinger

and there's Arlen--"determined survivor, pragmatic politician, and loyal friend," not to mention a real high flyer

I used to like these guys. Heck, I still like Mel Gibson, but you have to wonder if alcohol really DOES kill a billion brain cells a second like we heard in that high school film strip. When The Passion of the Christ came out, I tended to take his word for it that he wasn't an anti-Semite, that he didn't have some bizarre gore-fetish going on, and that he was generally a family guy, though he drank too much (after all, everybody's got stuff). Looking back on it now, remembering how he filmed his own hands driving the nails into Christ's palms (such a powerful idea, though it's become a cliche), I wonder why some Christian artists, especially addicts, get so caught up in the violence of the crucifixion. I'm thinking of Gibson, of Johnny Cash, of various revival preachers, of a singer friend of mine who sang about the cross and then ditched his family. . . were they driven to punish themselves psychologically and wallow in gore because they really felt guilty or because it gave them some relief--like they'd performed their own atonement?

04/28/09 A Maid of One's Own

Once I met an old lady, an old Southern lady, who knew how to make me feel good. She said, "Betty, I don't know how you do all you do--educating those children and writing all those books--without any servants."

It sounds funny now, of course, but it made perfect sense to her. Just a couple of generations ago, middle/upper-middle class women enjoyed the benefits of cheap--scandalously cheap--household help. A woman didn't expect to run a house a household, oversee the education of children, serve on church committees, earn a second income, and be a faithful daughter/friend/wife without the aid of household staff. You know what I'm talking about if you're over 35 and wasted your adolescence watching thousands of episodes of Hazel. Even if you were born after the Feminist Revolution, you were conditioned by Turner Network Television (the TVLand of the 1970's and 80's) to expect a life just like Mrs. B's, with a maid cracking nuts and stuffing turkeys in the kitchen. Hazel watched out for the kid, too, and didn't even screw up his grammar. At least, I can't recall Harold using Hazel-grammar. Where Hazel learned her grammar, I never learned, since she didn't have no house of her own.

Well, it's not just TV that messed with my brain, either. When I was a kid, we had a woman come in to help my mother iron our pillow cases, handkerchiefs, and other cotton and linen fabrics that had trouble lying flat on their own. She was an African-American woman, and I don't know but I'm just guessing that to her we seemed like spoiled, rich white people. We thought of ourselves as being a step away from the poorhouse, but--like most middle-class people--we were self-deluded. I doubt we paid that woman much. I can still see her at the ironing board in her tidy uniform, ironing, ironing, ironing, ironing.

Things have changed a lot, and I hope that if she's still alive somewhere, she's having the last laugh. The President of the United States is African-American, but--even better--polyester is widespread. The age of handkerchiefs has passed, and nobody irons pillow cases. We women are free to tell our men what we will and will not do around the house. And we can even say it in Hazel grammar: "I don't do no ironing. Press your own shirt."

I have to admit. There are days when I miss the delusion. I'd like to think there's a maid out there for me somewhere, ready to clean my kitchen for a pittance, ready to sleep in the shed if necessary ("Oh this is like a castle to me, Mrs. C., I ain't used to a room of my own.") When she gets here, I think, I might start writing again, I mean seriously. (Not this blogging stuff.) Maybe I'll buy a little handbell, too, so I can summon her without raising my voice.

(Who am I kidding? Times have changed; the house-cleaners I know live in $250,000 houses of their own and have butlers...wonder if any of them would pay me to do their ironing?)

04/26/09 Public Minutes of the National Committee for the Promotion of Spring Stress

President: Are we all here? Let's begin with the Sub-Committee for Teenage and Parent Angst. What have you got for us?

Educ: Well, we've set the usual early deadlines for college applications and AP tests. Summer jobs are incredibly hard to get this year. Scholarships are scarce, accidents are up...

President: But all that's just the usual stuff!

Educ: Hold on, you'll love this. Just in time for the Recession, we're spreading graduation gift anxiety. This year's theme is "If You Love Your Child, You Won't Send Her to College Without a MacBook!"

President: Fine, fine. I would have preferred something more expensive, but Hummers are passe. How about you guys in financial?

Finan: Well, thanks to some great prep earlier in the year, the stress level is very high this spring, but obviously we can't rest on our laurels. We're putting Geithner out there as much as possible...

President: I'm concerned he's not sounding as dour as he was a month ago.

Finan: Well, actually, we've found that intermittent dourness creates more stress than constant, unremitting dourness.

President: So if Geithner smiles for a week or so and then suddenly starts looking confused and troubled again, the effect is...

Finan: Exponentially more stress-inducing, yes sir. A slight uptick in the market does the same thing. That's why we've pulled the Dow up above 8000, but I think you'll be pleased later in the week when the bank stress test reports come out.

President: Good, good. Now how about environmental? Prove to me that all this expensive coverage is worth it. IS Venice sinking or isn't it? I mean, they've been saying for years that it's going under, and those gondolas just keep floating around and around and everybody's all Italian and relaxed about it...

Enviro: Venice? Who cares about Venice? Have you seen what we're doing in Greenland?

President: No, and neither has anybody else! I need a visible catastrophe. It's been how long since you people brought us Katrina?

Enviro: (Pause) We did produce a blizzard in Denver this April sir.

President: A blizzard? This is my point! What, are you idiots? (Sigh) Technology, how's the solar storm coming along for 2012?

Technology: It's a little early to say. But we still have the Conflickr Worm out there.

President: A bust, a total bust. Conflickr worm...hah. Can no one...can no one offer us anything new? Anything truly, actually stressful? Really frightening? Maybe that Susan Boyle woman could come down with, I don't know, vocal nodes...

Pan: Excuse me, sir. I am a representative of the Pandemic Sub-Committee.

President: Ah, we haven't heard from you since last year. Ten weeks of non-stop fearmongering about avian flu and then what?

Pan: I have just come from Mexico City and the scene there I think you would find very gratifying. Thousands of people shut up in their houses, kissing each other only through surgical masks. Schools and businesses closed, many refusing to eat pork, although we know that the swine flu cannot be caught that way. Everyone trying to buy Tamiflu, wasting money. All in all, a lot of sound and fury and very little helpful information.

President: Ah, now this is good. This is very good. Do you think the flu could spread around North America just in time for high school graduation?

Pan: I'd say it is definitely going to happen, no matter what anyone does.

President: Well. At least we can rest easy about one thing.

04/24/09 Backyard with Homeschoolers

So what do you all think? Do I have the worst backyard in America or one of the best? All I know is that every spring it bursts forth in a sparkling yellow weed that looks like something Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty would run through in slow motion. If I were an evil earth-hating fascist pig, I'd call True-Green ChemLawn right now and get them to come give me the SILENT SPRING treatment--I mean, kill every living thing out back, especially the ants.

But no, I am a homeschooler. I love baby slings, denim jumpers, and weeds, which--like homeschoolers--blossom best in some of the poorest soil.

The heat began in Alabama today, after weeks of punishingly beautiful weather. We don't know what to do with ourselves down here when it's not humid and nasty. Sixty degree temperatures make us nervous in mid-April. We burrow under blankets on the couch and sip hot cocoa and say, "Gee, that air conditioner is a up a little high."

Meanwhile, a couple of nice little earthquakes occurred right in the center of the state. One woman was so rattled that she appeared on the 5:00 news to declare, "It's a sign of the end times!" Possibly she's right, but it's hard to be certain since people claim to see signoftheendtimes's so frequently in Alabama. Next to Jerusalem, we're the apocalypse capital of the world. Naturally this has made even the most religious of us immune to declarations that the end is near or that the Anti-Christ is right around the corner. At any time you might hear a conversation like this occuring among two Alabamians:

Wife: "Earthquakes! Financial Collapse! World government! The End Times are here!"

Husband: "Well, I don't know, but we better stock up on bread and milk, just in case."

04/22/09 Don't Cry For Me, I'm Italian

Happy Earth Day! If you're old like me, the Earth is important to you, because you'll soon become a part of it. Whether you're young or old, I'm happy to remind you of the most powerful commercial from the 1970's, the one with the weeping Indian:

Pretty moving, huh? Though as somebody asks in the youtube comments, why would an Indian be walking along beside an interstate? Of course the answer is that people used to walk along interstates all the time (usually hitchhiking). I don't know why they stopped, unless it was because they got tired of stepping over mangled deer. The Indian is Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian-American actor (born Espera DiCorti) who decided at some point that he was a Creek-Indian...and never looked back. Now that's the American way!

Once I discovered that the weeping Indian was just an actor, I found it robbed this ad of some of its apocalyptic power--which was a good thing in my case. I was and am one of those people that don't need to be shocked out of complacency. It doesn't take visions of catastrophe to get me worried--suggestions are enough. When this commercial came out, for instance, I had nightmares for weeks. It was the golden age of liberal activism, and I was in the time-consuming process of growing up in a manufacturing town, overshadowed by smokestacks and factory

chimneys. My town was a beautiful place in many ways, but very polluted (the James River is much cleaner today than it was then). With the environmental movement just gearing up its Abject Terror Division, a sensitive kid could live in nearly constant fear--of nuclear war, ozone depletion, and air pollution. I had the idea that we'd all be wearing gas masks by the year 2000.

Well, some people wear them.

I still worry today (about global warming, for instance), but it's helped me to realize one essential fact that will not change, no matter how sanguine or how melancholy I feel about the state of the world. It's an oft-overlooked truth, but the acceptance of it changes everything about the way you look at, well, everything. And here it is.

we all...die

04/20/09 Opposite Marriage

I'm proud to be an American, you know why? Because in America, we don't solve our conflicts with guns or bombs or knives, we solve them by putting a bunch of blondes in a room and giving them an open mike.

At the Miss America Pageant this weekend, the news highlight was not the crowning of Miss North Carolina, but the reaction to Miss California's answer to a question about gay marriage (from the AP):

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," Prejean said. "And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Some in the audience cheered, others booed. The answer sparked a shouting match in the lobby after the show.

"It's ugly," said Scott Ihrig, a gay man, who attended the pageant with his partner. "I think it's ridiculous that she got first runner-up. That is not the value of 95 percent of the people in this audience. Look around this audience and tell me how many gay men there are."

Charmaine Koonce, the mother of Miss New Mexico USA Bianca Carla, argued back.

"In the Bible it says marriage is between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

Go Charmaine! Way to take the argument to a higher level! Sigh.

I was already thinking about this one because of Megan McCain's comments last week to the Log Cabin Republicans, where she suggested that the next generation of the Party will be more gay-friendly and less socially conservative. I think she's probably right; most people base their beliefs less on reason than on broadly held social opinions, and the broadly held social opinion right now is that only a caveman or a beauty contest runner-up would have a problem with gay marriage (that's true even though both presidential candidates opposed it--just another sign of how rapidly social opinion evolves in the 21st century).

As an orthodox Christian, I can't accept gay marriage as a valid sacrament of the church, but I also don't see any good secular argument against letting the state recognize it. The most common one--that gay marriage will somehow destroy traditional marriage--is laughable, given the social

realities of modern America. Look around, people! Take a survey of couples under 35! Watch some television! Marriage is moribund already. For better or worse, nearly the only people who still value marriage --besides orthodox Christians and gay people--are thirty year-old heterosexuals who want to cap off several years of shacking up with a $50,000 wedding at the family's expense. It's kind of like not finishing high school but asking for a big graduation party in exchange for vandalizing the principal's office. Not so concerned about the symbolism, but love the wet bar.

So what did kill (or mortally wound) the secular institution of marriage? A variety of things, including easy access to birth control, abortion-on-demand, the welfare state, the lifting of social stigmas regarding female promiscuity, the postponing of the marriage age until well after puberty, the male sexual appetite (easily gratified by hordes of liberated females)...and, of course, a great dearth of daddies with shotguns. When even the old folks wink and nod at the young folks moving in together (minus that once-sacred marriage license), then TRADITIONAL SOCIETY is DOOMED, THE NATION IS GOING TO HAYULL IN A HANDCART, ETC ETC ETC

Anyway, however you feel about gay marriage, don't blame the demise of the traditional institution on the one group of people who had the least to do with it.

04/17/09 Getting in Touch With My Inner Dictator

Alas, what's a good-natured, kind, and generally humble sort of person--in other words, a SPINELESS PUSHOVER--supposed to do with high school students? For here's the kind of teacher I'd like to be:

And here's the kind I so often am.

This is a serious problem. It wouldn't matter so much in an elementary school classroom--the elementary teacher, I think (especially for first through fifth grades), needs to mix a little sugar into the bitter-tasting medicine that is modern education. Young children need a lot of mercy, a lot of encouragement. But in a high school classroom, presiding over packs of young males who are never more than a text message away from a violent coup, a good teacher should have the personality of Mussolini. She should rule her classroom with an iron fist...never admitting fault, even when she's just administered a test with the answers accidentally left on the board (of course this was a planned exercise; are you questioning me, Sir? Do you want to rephrase that question, as a statement of obsequious admiration?) A student who can't submit to the will of SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) should just...vanish, in the middle of the night, or at least in the middle of class. If it can be arranged without tiresome negotations, the Teacher-Dictator might even

requisition the student's tank-sized automobile for the delivery of fresh manure to her garden...

Looking back on my high school career, I realize that I had two really oustanding teachers, and they were both Dictator Material. One ruled her classrooms by the force of her personality, which was loud, funny, bold, and very Southern. She taught Bible and Latin, and I still know things about both (especially the Gospels, which she made very real from her own experience) that I never learned from anybody else except her, even at Wheaton and the University of North Carolina. Some of the boys at the school (friends of mine) loathed that woman passionately. I can understand this, because I had some run-ins with her, too. She made things very personal; one time she told me that, because of my bad behavior, she knew I hated her Latin class--I didn't at all (I'm a Latin teacher today because of her), but I did want to impress my friends more than I wanted to please her. Anyhow, in spite of her faults (and mine), she gave me something that has lasted much longer than any of those high school friendships--the joy of learning.

The other great teacher was quiet, sharp-eyed, and as warm as a metal folding chair on a December morning. She cared not one whit if anyone liked her. She was there to teach (her history lectures were as good as the ones I got in college), and since teaching was the main thing, she had no time for complicated disciplinary negotiations. Her system was Draconian in its simplicity: if you made a noise--for instance, if you told her that there was a man with an automatic rifle standing just outside the classroom door, and you did this without raising your hand to be called upon--you went to Detention Hall. No arguing, no tears.

And I do feel sure that she could have handled the man with the automatic rifle just fine.

So from this day forward I'm going to work on growing a spine, getting in touch with my inner Dictator, etc. etc. But first I've got to send an email to a poor girl whose paper is a week late because her father only bought a color ink cartridge for her printer, and also she hasn't found the tab button yet. I wonder...could she actually be depressed or something? Would another week help?

04/15/09 Tough Times in the Western Hemisphere

The term "red-letter" doesn't come from the red-letter version of the King James New Testament. Nor, apparently, does it relate to the accounting practice of marking deficits in "red" and credits in "black." Performing a quick online search, I discover that it comes from the practice of marking feast days in red in the Christian calendar. A "red-letter" day, etymologically-speaking, is a good day, a day set apart for Christian thankfulness.

Well, the last few days haven't exactly been red-letter days for Christianity itself, at least here in the good ol' Western Hemisphere. News reports are full of the "local Sunday School teacher" who allegedly raped and murdered an eight year-old neighbor in California. What exactly "Sunday School teacher" means, I don't know. Was she currently teaching? What kind of church was it? And why identify her first and foremost as a "Sunday School teacher" except to play up the most ironic and distressing elements of the story (why not call her a "convicted thief," for instance--since she apparently was)? On the other hand, you can't quibble about the fact that her grandfather was pastor of the church where she taught. We're told that she had "problems" and has been jailed at least once. Would any healthy organization let somebody with a criminal record have direct influence over kids--at least without serious and long-term counseling and rehabilitating? Why should a church be different? Raise your hand if you've ever worried about the kind of people who get recruited to teach Sunday School, work with youth, or keep nurseries--sometimes there's an element of common-sense lacking in the people who make decisions. Of course, this is even truer if one family runs the whole show.

Arrgh.

And here's this story from Britain, where thousands of people baptized into the Church of England are so disgusted with the religion of their fathers and mothers that they're writing off for Certificates of De-Baptism. Stupid, yes, but there's something frightening about all that anger. Where is it directed? The focus of some of it appears to be the Roman Catholic Church, which only a handful of them ever belonged to, anyhow. When they're through yelling at the pope and the De-Baptism Certificates haven't satisfied their anti-religious hankerings, what will the DeBaptized do next? Smash church windows? Pass laws limiting free exercise of religion? Get a life? Go to China as Missionaries of De-Baptism? Hard to say.

04/14/09 Good Christian Underwear

You don't HAVE to be a Southern evangelical to find this funny, but it doesn't hurt! Or rather it does--because you might laugh so hard you bust a rib.

04/13/09 About Pirates

On another website, where Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians mix it up with Agnostics, Atheists and Neo-Pagans, I've been listening to some of the stuff people say about the now stone cold dead Somali pirates. Most commenters (and I can't tell if the reactions cut along any religious fault lines) seem to fall either into the "Glad those suckers got what they deserve!!" camp or the "Thou shalt not kill never ever" camp. I weighed in that I was glad to see justice done, but I felt sorry for ordinary Somali farmers who get caught up in piracy because they have no other source of income. For some of the respondents, even this small admission of pity puts me in the bleeding heart liberal pacifist category.

So I thought about it some more and decided that I'd like to tell the world (are you listening world?) that I ain't no durned pacifist. I do believe that the most merciful thing to do for some people is to take their lives away--though only when human justice allows it, either after due process of law, or in a just war, or when it's necesssary to save innocent life from immediate and mortal danger. The fact is that the threat of imminent death is sometimes the last, terrible chance for the redemption of a human soul. The movie Dead Man Walking is great not because it depicts the tragedy of capital punishment, but because it depicts the redemptive power of looming death.

All that being said, however, the pirate who's still in U.S. custody is SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. From what I've heard, he was the captain of his ship. The others are young, too, and yes probably calloused already and wicked, but good grief. Have some imagination! Have some humility! We live like kings compared to those boys, and we have no idea how we'd behave if we'd grown up in hunger and war. The vengeful people who want to call down military firepower and aerial brimstone on these unlucky Somalians remind me of the prophet Jonah--you wonder if they care more about their own shady vines (401Ks) than all the human souls (not to mention cattle) on the coast of Africa.

God doesn't see it that way.

04/12/09 Mexican Passion

I love this story about the Passion re-enactment in Mexico City, especially the part about the guy in a robe and flip-flops, carrying the cross. Makes you want to spit on an Easter bunny. Just kidding--you can't blame an innocent rabbit for our impoverished American holy day.

04/11/09 EASTER (I)

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise

Without delays,

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

With him mayst rise:

That, as his death calcined thee to dust

His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part

With all thy art.

The cross taught all wood to resound his name

Who bore the same.

His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key

Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song

Pleasant and long:

Or since all music is but three parts vied

And multiplied;

Oh let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,

And make up our defects with his sweet art.

(EASTER II)

I got me flowers to straw thy way

I got me boughs off many a tree:

But thou wast up by break of day,

And brought'st thy sweets along with thee.

The sun arising in the East,

Though he give light, and th'East perfume;

If they should offer to contest

With thy arising, they presume.

Can there by any day but this,

Though many suns to shine endeavor?

We count three hundred, but we miss:

There is but one, and that one ever.

--George Herbert

04/09/09 Birthday Eve

I've had a rough day, and I'm tired, but tomorrow is my birthday and that means

ALL CARBOHYDRATES

ARE GOOD

CARBOHYDRATES

I got a special dispensation (or something) from the Pope to prove it.

Speaking of Catholics, I'm ready to say more about Brad Gooch's Flannery O'Connor biography, if my family will just keep quiet for a while (the cat is practicing for a featherweight title on her litterbox door as I type this: kabam!). I think that what Gooch accomplishes is to make O'Connor flesh and blood. Of course, she would have questioned the need for that; the attempt to find meaning in a text by looking at an author's life is what the New Critics called the "personal heresy," and Flannery O'Connor was heavily influenced by the New Critics (including T.S. Eliot, no featherweight). But I think it's natural for a reader to want to make a connection with another mind behind a story--it's as natural as the religious impulse that sends a reader looking for God in the text of the Scripture (so put that in your New Critic pipe and smoke it).

And incidentally, I don't know if she would enjoy Gooch's picture of her, because it's a softened one, without the irony and comedy that she mixed into everything. He tries to see her as her best friends saw her, unwilling to judge even when she's at her worst--and O'Connor, like a lot of prophetic types, when she was bad was horrid. Other reviewers have already called attention to some of her now-unprintable racial comments (she was an integrationist by conviction, but utterly capable of rude and insulting humor about anybody, including herself, good friends, other authors, and close relatives).

Anyway, the search for O'Connor in her fiction is a lot, lot, lot harder that the search for Dickens in Oliver Twist or even (to use a Southerner she didn't approve of) Carson McCullers in Member of the Wedding. O'Connor wanted to be a cartoonist before she wanted to be a writer, and her stories have all the virtues of the greatest cartoons--they are bold in action, economic in language, utterly un-sentimental, and as hilarious as anything you'll ever read. O'Connor doesn't seem to worry whether her audience will sympathize with the motivations or feelings of the characters. The characters just ARE. And as often as not, they ARE inscrutable. At the same time, the meaning of her stories is a lot easier to determine than the meaning of much modern fiction, simply because she unselfishly gave us the key to it--UNLIKE T.S. Eliot, but LIKE Evelyn Waugh, who freely gave out that Brideshead Revisited was about "the operation of grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters," In various lectures O'Connor explained again and again that her writing was about the work of grace on unwilling souls, in territory usually held by the devil. Nearly every story builds to a revelation--often in the face of death--with the possibility of redemption arriving on the heels of truth. She was as serious about her fiction as the Prophet Ezekiel, who was commanded to lie on his side for one year (then the other side for 40 days, I think) to picture God's judgment on Israel and Judah. O'Connor lived with the crippling misery of lupus (she died young) but believed that she had a calling to follow, and that God's deprivations were blessings.

BUT, the natural question when you read her tough, funny stories is one that a lot of people have about Ezekiel...was this person human? Did she have the same feelings as the rest of us? How can we help but wonder? Even her letters, though funny and frequently affectionate (toward friends--she never had a real lover and never married), show a woman who guarded herself against hurt, or at least didn't reveal her feelings. She rarely mentions her father's death, for instance, though, as Gooch shows, she was very close to him as a child. Sometimes, she gives hints of more, for instance when her good friend Betty Hester says that her stories scream that she's never allowed herself to fall in love. She answers that the stories must be screaming a historical inaccuracy, and adds, "God help me."

Whatever the shortcomings of Gooch's Flannery: a Life, he has taken us about as far as we'll ever go, I think, in reconstructing O'Connor's life and making her less of a human mystery. Beyond these details, we're left to our imaginations to reconstruct her inner life...knowing all the time that she would resent the personal interest. Oh well, a person who wants a truly private life ought not to go flying around winning a lot of awards...

Which is why I don't.

04/06/09 A Partial Apology for the Evil in the Universe

Yesterday evening, a Birmingham woman stumbled around in the pitch dark of a suburban backyard, frantically trying to protect her tender vegetables from an April cold snap. Passing through a row of bean poles, toting a large tarp and an armful of bricks, she noticed a crumpled form lying in the path. Strange. She bent down for a closer look; it was a head of young lettuce, torn from the loving arms of mother earth.

"No!" the woman cried, and shook her fists at the pitiless cold (first she dropped the bricks). Until this moment, she'd been a believer, but the loss of a beloved lettuce was...unbearable. "No, this cannot be! In a world of death and pointless waste, how can I continue to believe in goodness? How can I have hope?"

The wind roared, and spoke no words. She sighed and looked at the lettuce corpse again, and then at her tennis shoe, which appeared to have a scrap of leaf caught in the tread.

"I have become death," she said, "the destroyer of worlds." In a strange way, she felt better.

04/04/09 The Voice of Flannery O'Connor

Today I sat around reading Brad Gooch's new biography of Flannery O'Connor. As with other biographies, I started at the beginning and then began to skip forth and back and back to front to middle, in a futile effort to swallow it all at once. I'm going to do a full review of it here soon, but these are my initial thoughts.

If you're not an O'Connor fan already, this book is unlikely to turn you into one, since, as she said herself, she lived in her stories. However, if, like me, you reread her stories every couple of years and return to The Habit of Being (her letters) to revive your spirits whenever you start to feel the world bearing down too hard--then Gooch has done a wonderful favor for you. The biography puts the letters, especially, in context. Nobody who reads O'Connor fails to notice that her vision tends to the comic and tough--good grief, T.S. Eliot said that her stories were too much for him to take. We've also heard plenty of anecdotes to the effect that the moral and spiritual vision in stories like Revelation and Everything That Rises Must Converge was belied by her personal relations with the black people who lived in Milledgeville and worked on her mother's farm: essentially, she was a woman of her time in Georgia, but to some that seems unforgivable in light of her intelligence, her talent. Not that you'd know it from some of the condescending reviews, but Gooch allows her to be a complicated and developing human being, who believed that a person's perception of mystery (rather than certainty) grew with time. Some reviewers seem to think that her theological orthodoxy was almost a birth defect, something impossible to overcome as long as it remained with her. This is...well, I can't say what it is exactly, but it's wrong.

On a slightly different note, I'm going to post a recording here of O'Connor reading at Notre Dame.* A French writer said she talked like Donald Duck, and plenty of Northerners said they couldn't understand her accent (I give no credence to the report that Walker Percy found her drawl especially thick--if he said that, he was being polite to somebody of lesser Southern-ness). To me, O'Connor sounds like older ladies at church, and EXACTLY like my neighbor Lucretia Bailey who told me one day on the road, "Betty, when you're old they're going to euthanize you..."

04/2/09 Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

So to continue on the theme I started two days ago, when I was suddenly interrupted by a teenager saying, "Mom I NEED to get on facebook to check my homework" (something sounded fishy about that), let me speak to you of today's Great Gatsby discussion with a roomful of innocent 9th-grade homeschoolers.

And of course, when I say "innocent," I don't mean that they're sinless. Not even homeschoolers make it to the age of fifteen without sins of omission and comission. But most of them have grown up in conservative churches in conservative neighborhoods in the middle of conservative Albama, smack dab on the buckle of the Bible belt. They're aware of a more liberal society beyond their own, and some are tempted by it, but we parents have dealt with this by convincing them that the outlying world--the one they see on T.V. and the internet--is an illusion created by an alien life form that wants to lure homeschoolers away from Christian safe zones and transport them to a slave planet where they'll be forced to wed androids.

We don't know know how long this strategy will work.

Anyway, my goal today was to talk to them about chasing after the wind--why the very things that we desire so intensely bring us no pleasure at all. I started by having them pick a passage from Ecclesiastes that would serve as a good epigraph for The Great Gatsby. Most of them did really well with this, maybe because it's hard to find even one unquotable verse in the book of Ecclesiastes. No one in the class, to their credit, went with the predictable "Vanity of vanities..." One of my favorites was "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

But why? Why should we mourn? Why is it wiser sometimes to be unhappy?

On the board, I wrote "alcohol, money, drugs, other debaucheries," which are central to the plot of The Great Gatsby because the characters use them to feel happy and escape pain; then I drew a bottle of Jack Daniels, and in it I put some of the things I use to feel good about myself and avoid feeling sad, bored, restless, overwhelmed, or out of control. Most of these are socially acceptable, even for evangelicals: TV, food, coffee, food, books, food, family, food, good works (how'd THAT get on the list!). And food. For other people (somebody with an eating disorder, for instance), the list could include exercise--also good in itself--and self-discipline, which is generally considered a Christian virtue. Other "virtuous" drugs might include patriotism, hard work, self-reliance, and even good parenting...does anybody think you can love your kids too much?

But one problem with any drug, whether it's a chemical substance that destroys your life quickly or just a good habit that you abuse, is that it keeps you from facing difficult and dark things...it keeps you from mourning. Examples of "dark things" might be your own failings as a human being (why do I lack compassion?); your sadness over something hard happening to your kids (the people they marry may indeed be androids); your disappointment in somebody you love (why don't my friends all read my blog?), and even the ultimate thing that everybody has to face sooner or later. One of Flannery O'Connor's characters said (about another) that "she would have been a good woman if it had been somebody to shoot her every day of her life," and it's true for all of us. When we sober up and imagine the possibility of our own death, we dwell in the house of the wise, but when we reach for a drug, we remain in the house of mirth.

And on that note, I'm hungry. Think I'll go make a 9:07 p.m. snack.

03/31/09 The Great Scrushby

Sorry, but I didn't pay enough attention to the world today to have anything profound to say about it at 9:33 p.m. The day was a whirlwind--rushing from class to class, trying to cram Latin vocabulary into kids' heads and then racing to Chick-Fil-A (fine dining for evangelicals) at lunch because I'd found the fridge empty this morning except for a week-old tuna casserole, a couple of mushy tomatoes, and a box of sugar-free pudding which will probably be sitting there next year. Right after lunch I conducted a Great Gatsby discussion with 9th graders, which I tried to make relevant by comparing Gatsby to this man, Richard Scrushy.

Scrushy came from a modest background, attended junior college, went on to become a physical therapist and businessman, and eventually founded HealthSouth, which he turned into a multi-billion dollar hospital network specializing in sports medicine. His mansion sits behind wrought-iron gates and magnolia trees, just around the corner from the church where my daughters take ballet. I went for a walk by there yesterday at sunset--it was a beautiful spring evening, with azaleas glowing on the lawns--and I thought about how Mr. Scrushy was once the hero of the Christian community in Birmingham; my husband taught some of his children, a friend of ours flew to the Bahamas with his wife and kids on their private jet, and Scrushy money paid for all kinds of philanthropic projects around the city. Then, about two years ago, he was convicted of paying bribes to Governor Don Siegelman. The governor and the billionaire both went to jail. People who once fawned over Richard Scrushy and were happy to brag that they once met him, or sat by him at a school football game, or attended a dinner at his headquarters are now happy to give out that they once knew a scoundrel, someone almost as bad as Bernard Madoff. It didn't help that Scrushy and his wife started a Christian cable TV show approaching the time of his trial. That made the whole thing too ironic to be tragic.

But it really isn't so different from the story of Jay Gatsby, who went from rags to riches (NOT by being a hard-working, honest American), and put on lavish parties at his house in West Egg, and invited hoards of strangers to drink his liquor night after night after night. All for the sake of Daisy. Rumors circulated about who Mr. Gatsby really was (some said he was a bootlegger) and how he got his money (some said murder or gambling), but nobody knew the truth about him. They abandoned him at the end. It's the prodigal son story, only without a happy ending.

03/29/09 The Joy of Mediocrity

People think it's hard to plant a garden, but it's really not. It doesn't have to look beautiful and it doesn't have to be large. I took some pictures of mine this afternoon as proof of both points:

Last fall, I borrowed a tiller from a friend and dug up two sections, leaving a little grass between. Here's the section where I've planted a few heads of lettuce and broccoli (as you can see, some of the lettuce died in an early March heat wave) and four rows of beans. The first row of beans is already popping up. I planted the other bean rows in successive weeks so that they'll keep bearing for two months or so more this summer.

Here you can see both halves. In the right section I have squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Each section is approximately 13' by 13'.

And this right here is my composte pile, made entirely of kitchen scraps. As you can see, it's not pretty to look at and it's not complicated to maintain. Every time I throw something on it, I turn the dirt over to make sure the rotting stuff is covered up. Nature does the rest, as long as it gets enough sun and water.

So don't let a silly perfectionism keep you from enjoying the worldwide economic slowdown! Practice a little mediocrity today and grow a messy but happy backyard garden!

03/28/09 A Miracle?

According to my old Taxonomy of Christians, I don't rate all that well. Here, in brief, is Carter's Taxonomy:

Really good Christian: Mother Teresa

Good Christian: My mom

So so Christian: George Bush

Fairly bad Christian: Mel Gibson

Really bad Christian: Jimmy Swaggart

One foot in hell and the other on a banana peel: Renaissance popes

I usually put myself in the middle categories. Sure, I do a lot of Christian stuff--I'm always at church, especially if there's free pizza, but that's a social habit as much as anything else, since I grew up in church and Sunday services seem like natural bookends to the week. I have a knee-jerk faith, but it's very tenuous. People who see a miracle in every coincidence confound and amuse me. I just can't think like that; my immediate reaction is cynicism, as for instance when my high school play director (it was a Christian school), said, "Y'all let's just pray that God would send us the right potted plant for the Emperor's Palace scene." Somebody piped up and said, "I've got a ficus you could borrow," to which the teacher responded, "Thank you Lord! Answer to prayer!" I about lost it.

The point is that I'm a practical person, much too tied to logic (which is to faith as Newton is to physics--it takes you so far and then lets you down) and a sense of the ridiculous, and those personality traits keep me from seeing anything as miraculous--or to put it another way, from seeing anything as a gift for which I might be grateful. This is a huge loss to me, I know, because gratitude is not only a fundamental part of faith, but a real joy to the person who has it. I've watched grateful people and admired them. They have a way of seeing the world as a constant stream of miracles, rather than one long, dull passage with points of beauty here and there.

I thought about this a lot over the last two days. Something happened which I want to see as a miracle, though (like I said), I'm wired to see it as a coincidence, even though it's a direct answer to an earnest prayer I made a week and a half ago. That was when a letter came telling us how much scholarship aid we'd get for our daughter's college next year. We'd been hoping for more, and suddenly we realized that the only way we could pay for college without taking loans (which we don't want to do, given the recession and the five years we spent climbing OUT of debt) was to cut into our tithe money. Oh well, I thought, maybe I can do some extra work this summer and earn the tithe money back. But it seemed very clear to me that college would have to come first. Giving second.

A couple of days later, though, I went over to Georgia and talked to my dad, a man who has an easy and unflagging faith, and who also eats seventy-five cent pot pies about four times a week so that he can give a quarter of his pension/social security to church causes and missionaries. Because he's such a gracious and forgiving person, I didn't mind confessing to him that we'd decided to pay college first and try to make up our giving another way. "After all," I said logically, "we wouldn't want to take LOANS to tithe? What sense would that make?"

"I understand how you feel," he said simply, "but the tithe really has to come first." Because of his graciousness, because he hardly ever gave us kids a direct rule about anything, his words meant more to me than if they'd come from anybody else on the planet. I drove home from my visit to my parents thinking about the fact that, while we've happily given all these years, I was ready to stop the first time my child's happiness was at stake. I realized once again (it hits home every now and then) that my kids are essentially the only thing I'm truly religious about. Which is pretty sick, not just for me, but for them.

So, my husband and I talked and we decided that, psychologically at least, the tithe would come first. By the end of the year, we would pay the usual portion of our income to church and charity, and we would ask God to provide the rest of the college money--almost certainly through extra summer work.

The end of this story is what now seems to me like a coincidence, but is it? Yesterday, we got a letter from the college offering us another $5000 in scholarship aid, on top of the generous help they've already given. When I told my husband that, he said, "This is just one of those days, I guess. I found out today that I'll get a really good stipend next year for being department coordinator."

I'll leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide if a miracle happened. As I said, I'm a weak Christian. My first thought on hearing about the extra money was guilt rather than gratitude--a feeling that we'd gotten too lucky, that these are hard economic times and that it would be wrong to accept a scholarship and maybe we should give it back. It took me way too long to remember my prayer--that I had actually asked God to help us, and also to increase my faith. Once again, I had to say, "I believe, help thou my unbelief," and pray for more gratitude.

That's pretty much the story, and you can make of it what you will. In the meantime, I think I'd like to add a new category to Carter's taxonomy:

Inordinately blessed Christians: us

03/26/09 Depressed? Don't Be

Peter Sagal, the host of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me said the other day that this recession/depression has been disappointing in so many ways. Where, he asked, are the charming hobos? The memorable songs? He could have added (maybe he did and I forgot) the lavish, leggy stage shows, the penny candy, and--above all--Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant chasing a friendly leopard around a country estate.

Seriously. I know that many people have lost their jobs, and I feel very sorry about it. Homelessness is up in a lot of cities, and many old people are seeing a big loss in retirement savings. Heck, my own parents have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and let's just say it's a good thing they like frozen pot pies. But does this deep recession begin to compare yet to the Great Depression of the thirties?

Well, you'd think so, given the indignation level of people like Jay Leno, who wonders if the AIG villains should go to jail, or Matt Lauer, who crows hysterically about the economy, and who recently injured himself by running into a deer while riding a bicycle (and with so many T.V. hosts unable to afford cars these days, it's no surprise that T.V. host/deer accidents are up, up, up). But sometimes the irony is nearly unbearable. Looking for examples of ordinary people suffering from the financial downturn, media reports show that Netflix subscriptions are (like bicycle/deer accidents) up, up, up. Oh my gosh, you mean the average middle class American can't afford twenty bucks for a movie at a multiplex every Saturday night? The pain! And worse...this is the part that breaks your heart...it turns out that many people are turning to PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

And naturally, we never hear the salaries of people in the media. ..because they're so much like us, I guess. But my guess is that they don't go to the library much.

Meanwhile, among the upper middle class children that I teach, the suffering is palpable. One girl, when she heard that a lot of people were struggling in the down economy said, sadly, "I know. It's terrible. My dad had to lay off five people." Her friends gathered around and held her, tenderly. Other kids told moving stories of only going to the beach over spring break, rather than Colorado. Though come to think of it, a few did go to Colorado, and one went to Paris.

For every person that loses a job, of course, the recession is a depression. The very poor (and their children) are the most vulnerable,. The sad thing is that they're already pressed so hard when the economy is humming along, but when storm clouds gather for the working classes, the charity dollars don't flow so freely, programs get cut, and people at the bottom of the economic ladder suffer.

But don't boo hoo about the rest of us, about people subscribing to Netflix, or keeping our cars for an average of three whole long years instead of just two (the old average--my gosh!), or even moving in with relatives (an age-old solution to economic troubles). This is just prudent behavior, and it hardly compares with shantytowns, or "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? "

03/25/09 Selling Out,or Trying To

People often ask me for book recommendations. The first thing I do upon being asked for reading suggestions is determine whether I can make a buck by selling one of my own books. This is harder than it sounds, because the endorsement on the back of my first published novel says something like, "This book proves among other things that it doesn't take a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll to make a good story." When the endorser, Madison Smartt Bell (my 35th cousin twice and a half removed), provided that comment, I was ecstatic; after all, 35th Cousin Madison is a National Book Award Finalist and a darling of critics. What I hadn't anticipated was how damning those words "doesn't take a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll" would be for the average reader walking through a bookstore, turning over novels, hoping to see words like, "A randy yarn from a writer whose pen literally hisses with raw sensuality."

Of course, that book was being marketed first to the evangelical audience (not my idea--I never wanted to be a Christian novelist; I just wanted to see my name on the shelves of the Decatur, Georgia Public Library, where I used to go as a kid). But even evangelicals want their books to hiss with sensuality; only they advertise it differently, with jacket copy that says something like, "Thrown together among hostile natives, missionary Doctor Don Bell and his assistant Willow Jordan battle loneliness and temptation as they resist the demonic forces that threaten to destroy their jungle ministry."

(Actually, I know perfectly well that evangelicals don't write books like that nowadays, but I kind of wish they still did.)

One day years ago, as I sat signing copies of that book at Barnes and Noble--or rather not signing them--I promised myself that before the day was over I would sell three novels. No matter what. Time passed, the end of my signing drew near, and I'd only sold two. But just then, a guy walked by, picked up my novel and looked interested for a moment.

"Want a copy?" I said eagerly.

He wasn't buying. "No sex, drugs, or rock and roll? Not for me, then. Sorry."

"Stop! Wait!" I said. "Find me a blank sheet of paper! I'll write some for you!"

I can't remember if he bought a novel or not, but in any case I ended the day without any great sense of success.

03/23/09 Pain, the Organic Way

Man, don't you just hate it when you've got ants in your young garden, but you don't want to use dangeous pesticides near those tender green bean babies (or disturb the nascent plants with a shovel), so you go inside the house and cook up a lovely hot mash of red pepper, chili pepper, and black pepper, then go out and pour it gleefully on the anthills, knowing the little buggers (sorry British friends, but that's not a bad word here because we all think it refers to nasal excretions) will flee in panic like Trojans from the flaming towers of Ilium, except that you ACCIDENTALLY get some of the scalding pepper mash in your NOSE (what a segue back to nasal excretions, huh?) and for the next hour you have something that looks and feels like a chunk of boiling magma caught between your eyes and your mouth. . . yeah, golly, I just hate it when that happens.

Help me, Lord. I don't know what I done wrong, but I apologize.

03/21/09 Just Never Learn Anything Bigger Than Your Head

All right, I managed to get over yesterday's sneezes, but now I've got a generic Benadryl hangover (dude, I got some bad drugs at Fred's). If my thoughts aren't lucid, I hope you'll blame it on that. To continue my disjointed ramblings on education, though, I quote from an undisjointed post from my friend Lisa Cadora's at ChildlightUSA, a blog dedicated to the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason (more on C.M. in a future post). Lisa writes about Wendell Berry, who, as she explains,

"is a Kentucky farmer dedicated to stewardship of his land, his time, his community and life on this earth. He is also a writer, and has enjoyed the publication of numerous essays, works of fiction, and chapbooks of poetry. Reading his work, one feels the relief of permission to return to and delight in the original work of The Garden, and sees at last that our part in the work of Redemption begins around our own tables. His 1989 essay “The Pleasures of Eating”, Berry states that when we take pleasure in eating—responsible pleasure, not pleasure based on ignorance—“we experience and celebrate our dependence and gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. He observes that eating has the potential to be “the profoundest enactment of our connection in this world”. If learning is analogous to eating, we can say that when we learn with responsible-not-ignorant pleasure, we “celebrate our dependence and gratitude” as well. When we learn out of interest and curiosity rather than desire for marks and status, we “acknowledge the mystery” in which we live. In truly pleasurable learning, we “enact our connection to this world” most profoundly (emphasis mine).

In this case, I like Lisa's analogy better than W.B.'s original point. Honestly, I don't want to think any more about eating than I already do, since I probably think of it, oh, 57 seconds out of every 60. At least as often as teenage boys think about, you know. (And yeah, yeah, I'm not approaching eating in the profound and grateful way that I imagine the very best eaters do, and yet there is a certain mystery in the animal magnificence I bring to the consumption of mashed potatoes, roast beef, and gravy with asparagus and incidentally are we having desert?)

My love of food is profound, and yet I'm a self-taught prodigy, a kind of savant: I never memorized a list of carbohydrates, and nobody catechized me on the virtues of cream cheese. I did balk early on at green vegetables (and I still loathe peas) but even broccoli and asparagus grew on me with time--not literally, but almost.

Obviously, eating isn't a perfect analogy for learning, since the hunger to learn isn't as powerful as the hunger to eat (or else I'd be so smart), but it does seem to me that the thing a high school teacher has the best chance of passing on to his/her students is the appetite, the desire to learn based on natural human curiosity. Or maybe it's more a matter of keeping their natural

appetites alive in the middle of the also natural (natural? is the universe that cruel?) state of adolescence...

... which is about as easy as cooking Thanksgiving dinner in a trench in the middle of mortar fire. So many distractions, so many threats, and yet the need is probably greater than at any other time in a person's life.

Did someone say dinner?

03/20/09 Good Weather, Deep Thoughts, Sneezes

This is the most beautiful afternoon I've seen in Birmingham in a long time. The cherry trees are suddenly heavy with blossoms, the green lawns creased with long shadows from a golden sun. Perfect weather, and best of all no mosquitoes. I am a hater of picnics, but we had one today with the grandparents at Aldridge Gardens (the garden spot of not-very-garden-like Hoover) and I got through it without committing any of the seven deadly sins. Usually after picnics I have to call up several people and apologize: "I'm sorry that I laughed when you said what a good time we were having;" "I'm sorry I threw an olive at your husband;" "I'm sorry that I left you alone with the kids and your aunt and walked eight miles home from the nature preserve without mentioning I was leaving." Today, husbands and children and elderly people mostly escaped unscathed.

BUT, school starts again on Monday, and that brings new challenges. On Tuesday, I'm set to begin teaching The Great Gatsby to my 9th grade English class, which won't be an easy task. It's a great book in many ways, and has a youthful narrator, but it doesn't lend itself all that easily to youthful interpretation. I know that they'll find some value in struggling with it, experiencing it as a text, but I'm not sure they'll like it. When I write a book review, I always hope to make the reader want to read the book, and (if possible, depending on taste) enjoy it. If I don't think anybody would like a certain book (apart from the writer's mother), I don't review it, since to say only unkind things seems cruel.

As a teacher, I can't seem to shake the feeling that it's my job to make all the kids enjoy the novels we study. But is this possible? Maybe I'm only discovering the limits of my POWER. (Wish I had a creepy font to put that in.) I've been thinking about education in general and what's really possible in the high school years: if it's not my job to make the students like English, can I at least give them something good that will last--besides a bunch of data, a bunch of facts? What can a high school teacher hope to give her students that will mean anything for the rest of their lives? And what do I still have from my own high school experience, even though much of the core information--the fact base--is gone?

More on this tomorrow. Right now the silver and green-cloaked arboreal

captains are making me sneeze all over the keyboard. Must go get a kleenex, which is our fancy word for toilet paper.

03/18/09 Just Don't Get Caught

I walked through the public library the other day with a stack of promising books and tapes in my arms: Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (very good), The Afterlife (great collections of book reviews and essays by my new favorite Penelope Fitzgerald), and History of the English Language (a tape series guaranteed to keep me from getting Alzheimers while driving). But I can never seem to make it past the new books shelf without being sucked into a trash-warp. Ten minutes after I checked out my egghead collection, I was absorbed in a racy biography of Amy Winehouse. And of course THAT was the moment when a friend strolled up and looked over my shoulder. "What you reading?" She didn’t actually ask, but that probably meant she’d seen the cover and didn’t WANT to ask.

So it got me thinking about another possible Facebook lists. Top ten books a good evangelical might read but would hate to be CAUGHT reading by a friend, family member, or church acquaintance. Due to audience considerations I need to keep this all PG, but anyway here’s my quick list:

1) The Joy of Sex

2) Bill Clinton: My Life

3) The Origin of the Species

4) Caligula: a Biography

5) Codependent No More

6) The Feminine Mystique

7) The Power of Positive Thinking

8) The Total Woman (the saran wrap book)

9) Talk Your Way Out of Debt! Phone Calls to Banks that Saved More than 43,000 in Interest Charges and Fees!

and of course

10) Screamfree Parenting

03/16/09 Gongs and Cymbals

So I've been giving some thought to the common criticism of popular American Christianity that it trivializes worship, that it has no sense of history, and that it leaves honest seekers with the sense that the Christian faith is as ephemeral and inconsequential as...well, Paris Hilton's jail time.

For the most part, I agree. A couple of years ago, when we moved to Birmingham and started looking for an intown church, we visited one that came highly recommended. The people were friendly, the sermon was intelligent, and yet it was one of those churches where the lyrics to the contemporary praise songs flash on a screen in front of the audience (uh...congregation). When it came time for a young guy to be baptized, we watched a slick, professionally-filmed biopic of the (rather dull) man, his gigantic head bobbing in front of us on that vast screen like a pharaoh carved into a mountain. I felt slightly sick, thinking how the Ephesians would probably have offered him bulls.

I'm always attracted to the oldest forms of Christianity I can find, preferably a group of slaves meeting in a catacomb, though I'll settle for a Catholic or Orthodox or even Anglican service. I was a history major. Ancient is always better. Greek beats Latin. Latin beats English. English beats whatever it is they're speaking in the megachurches where (I've heard) Starbucks is now open for business and people watch movies instead of listening to sermons. O.K., that last part isn't so bad, but...no, St. Paul wouldn't like it, and he's definitely old.

Yet, backing away from the situation a little, I have to admit that there's something that beats both new and old. And if you often find wicked glee (as I do) in looking down on other people for the way they worship God, then you probably don't have it. And if you don't have it (or at least long for it), then your own worship stinks in any form and in any language, with any amount of tasteful music and liturgical form or (to peek on the other side of the Christian blanket for a moment) any number of miracles and prophecies, tongues and healings, megascreens and pop stars.

And we all know what that is.

03/15/09 Over the Next Hill, Another Valley

Oh the joy of being a being an evangelical during the season of Lent! My liturgical friends have sworn off their addictions for another few weeks; thus, the lines are shorter at Starbucks and the Facebook chatter has slowed to a manageable stream. It’s like being in Athens, Georgia, on the day the Dawgs play the Gators in Jacksonville--peaceful, but lonely. So I wonder. Is there still time for me? Shall I join the church eternal, swearing off a beloved vice, a dear foe?

Yes! I WILL give up my diet!

But I have other things to speak of now. At the Crunchy Con site last week, a poster named "Meg" talked at length about the reasons for her disconnection from the evangelical Christianity she grew up with (in a United Methodist Church, which elicited some snickers from a few posters, but there are actual evangelicals left in that denomination--they're the ones whose pastors quote from Max Lucado instead of Wilfred Owen).

Here’s a portion of Meg’s analysis of what’s wrong with the Christianity in which she was raised:

"One of the biggest mistakes I think churches are making today is to try to market their faith the way cereal and iPods and rock stars market themselves. Because it's long been a fact of our culture that anything that appears on the TV is, by its nature, short lived. Celebrities are hot one moment, and completely forgotten by next year. More than that, nothing on TV is or seems quite real. I had Youth Ministers who tried to teach Christian lessons using popular movies (as though, somehow, we could eke out the meaning of life and God by watching scenes from Titanic) who tried to turn hymns into pop music. As you can see by my introduction, I was less than persuaded, and I wager most of my fellow church going youth of the same age were not persuaded.

"Marketing Christianity the way you market reality TV just teaches people that the Christian faith is disposable, that it’s not really real at all. You’ve already taught an entire generation that Christian is just a show, just smoke and mirrors, just old guys on the TV who say one thing and do anything.

I also agree with various assertions that associating conservative evangelism with the Republican party is a big mistake. The fact is, Christianity is a faith which prospers best when most divorced from secular and political authority. The religion itself sprung out of a handful of rebellious men, one of whom got executed just for his views and teachings (I hear he's important to this story!). It then grew into the religion of the underground, the underdog, the underprivileged. It was the religion of slaves, of those disenfranchised by the Roman Empire. Not only that, but Christianity was, spiritually, vibrant enough to compete within the crowded marketplace of gods and goddesses at that time..."

She goes on to talk about the conflict between evangelicals and the GLBT community, noting the plentiful hypocrisy involved when evangelicals (who have a high divorce rate) try to pass legislation against gay marriage, and then says,

"What if all this money and time were spent doing constructive things? What if these rich megachurches who have holdings and wealth in the millions sold their properties and gave that money to helping people who have lost their jobs and have no health insurance, to people who are sick and may die but can't go to a doctor, to the homeless, to those in prison who believe no one cares, to the victims of genocide and war in Darfur. It is my belief that no church needs anything more than some fold out chairs and a tent to keep the rain off their heads. Anything else is window dressing and vanity. Could you imagine how many blankets and meals you could buy for people who are cold and hungry with just the money spent on ads for prop 8 alone? How many people could have eaten, been fed, been told that they matter, been given some comfort that there is good in the world? But that wasn't done.

"I wish sometimes there was a church I could go to, because I feel such a longing for fellowship and faith, but I know that Christianity is an illusion now. You can't go and get that from a church anymore. They don't sing real songs anymore, they sing 7-11 hymns (as my grandfather calls them) where they repeat the same bland seven word sentence eleven times and call it praise."

You can go here to read the rest, if you want. Whatever you think about the strength of her argument, the woman is obviously bright and thoughtful. Her comments elicited a blizzard of responses (160), many of the posters from the older Christian traditions (esp. Catholic and orthodox) saying that pop Christianity bothers them at least as much as it bothers her. Some people urged her not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, while others (more unkindly but not innacurately) pointed out her immaturity (she’s 24) and her ignorance of the many, many things

that Christians are doing for the poor and needy all over the world--99% of which, of course, are never covered by the media.

I joined in the conversation and said,

"I used to be very cynical about the evangelicalism I grew up with, because (as you point out) there is so, so much wrong with it. Then, in the middle of suicidal depression, I prayed to Jesus for help, and he healed me. It was pretty much that simple--I didn't start liking Christianity or evangelicalism, I just started being grateful to God because I became a whole person again. Nowadays, I still have many doubts, questions, criticisms, and (sadly) I'm no longer as nice as I was in those early days right after I 'got better.' I was humble then. Nowadays,I sometimes struggle with the kind of judgmentalism and hypocrisy that used to drive me crazy in other people. This seems to be part of the arc of the spiritual life. I want to thank you your post, because it's helped remind me of how it was to see Christianity from the other side of the glass--it's so easy to forget about Jesus and become 'religious' in the worst sense."

Another poster then wrote back to me sympathizing with my former depression (which is all in the past now, truly) but saying that he doesn’t think judgmentalism and hypocrisy have anyting to do with the spiritual life. How I wish that were true! Instead of the "arc" of the spiritual life, I guess I ought to have said the "wave pattern of the Christian life," which I hope is part of a much larger arc, an upward one, than I can't yet see. Like country singers and inchworms, Christians rise slowly from trough to crest only to tumble again into the next trough and wonder (as we lie there kicking on our backs) how it can be that we've overcome our petty sensual addictions only to discover the really

wicked addictions of legalism and self-righteousness. And up we go again, uncertain of what lies over the next hill, or whether the general direction of this journey is downhill or up.

There's a lot more I have to say about this; I especially want to do some thinking about whether it's possible for human beings to worship the ineffable God--whether we're chanting in Latin or watching clips from the Shawshank Redemption-- without looking ridiculous to other people. But maybe we ought to respect a few limits on our own silliness while giving other people plenty of latitude. I'll try to get back to blogging tomorrow and say more.

In the meantime, my Lenten casserole awaits...

03/13/09 You're the Reason for the Tears on My Video Cam

Last Sunday, my daughter's ballet troupe gave their final performance of the year. At the end of the program, all the girls' dads went up on stage with them for a special father-daughter piece. I hadn't seen it ahead of time, didn't know what music they were dancing to, and was mainly concerned about pointing the video camera at the right side of the stage, since I couldn't see through the camera lens. I had it all figured out: I'd look up just long enough to plot where my tall dark husband and short blond daughter were headed, and then look down long enough to aim the camera at that corner of the stage, and then look up long enough to check again and plan for the next trajectory, and so forth. Very much the way a quarterback must think while in the pocket, except without the 300 lb. linemen obscuring the target.

Well anyway, the song the father-daughter pairs danced to turned out to be "Butterfly Kisses." Surely one of the most shamelessly maudlin songs of all time, surely produced by the most cynical marketing minds Nashville Tennessee (or wherever) has spawned. As the couples tiptoed through the sticky sap on the stage, I said to myself, "This is indeed without excuse, and I shall concentrate on the camera, and I shall focus on focusing; in short, I'll not be moved." And then that line came, oh that predictable line about a father tucking in his little girl in at night. I couldn't help myself. I began to boo and even hoo. The camera dropped onto my lap. Nor did it matter, really, because as it turned out I'd pushed "Stop" instead of "Record." When you watch the tape, the next thing you see (after a short dark patch) is the wattles under my chin.

The kids laughed at me later when I told them what had happened. "Mom, that song is so sentimental. How could you cry at that?" I've been thinking about it. As your kids grow up and get ready to go away, you grieve because you'll miss them, but you also know that they'll always love you and belong to you, and so that tempers the grief, usually. A deeper sadness comes, though, when a song or a picture reminds you of the children they used to be. In a real sense, those children--those babies you devoted thousands of hours of your life to--have vanished from the world. They've gone through a metamorphosis, quick to your perception, slow to theirs. You remember every step of the way--every conversation in the car on the way to kindergarten, every afternoon snack, every pointless book (Raggedy Dog's Bone! Horrors!) read a thousand times on demand. Now you realize that you might as well have dropped them off at the neighbors' and taken an eight year tour of Europe, for all they remember of it. And there they sit, laughing at you for being such a sentimental idiot. Ah well, that's parenthood.

03/12/09 It Was All of Us, Stupid

If, like me, you listen to a broad range of opinions on the economy, you may wonder who really IS to blame. You've heard from conservatives that fault lies with Barney Frank and the liberal Democrats, who wanted to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a very long leash where low-income borrowers were concerned. You've heard from Nancy Pelosi, a woman mostly distinguished by her inability to keep her hands off of her face and out of her hair while Obama's speaking, that it's all the fault of that blithe-spirited, trouble-making Puck, George W. Bush.

Well, being the skeptical sort, I looked it all up at FactCheck.org, and though I'm not sure why I ought to trust them more than anybody else (why can't God have a website--omniscient.org?), I think I'll paste a bit of their equal opportunity explanation here. It makes me feel pretty good to read this, because, when you think about it, blaming people is almost always a waste of time. Better that we all say, "Oh well, who knew?" and just go on.

The Real Deal

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

–by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson

03/11/09 Down the Stony End

Everybody knows that Amy Winehouse is completely off her nut, and it's too bad, because she's a really gifted musician. The saddest thing about this youtube clip, though, is what's happened to Charlotte Church, the girl who used to have "the voice of an angel." I never thought she actually was an angel, but I suppose I've clung to the fuzzy romantic liberal semi-humanist public radio-listening chai-drinking hope that just singing a lot of wonderful classical music can uplift the human soul and keep the wayward heart on the straight and narrow. Nope. Apparently, art by itself cannot redeem humankind, or at least it hasn't worked its magic here. The lure of flashing lights and tight pants was too much for a little Welsh kid...Handel couldn't hold a candle.

(I assume that sensitive souls know not to read the potty-mouthed comments on youtube)

03/10/09 I Never Lie, Honest

I just read this story from CNN online about an inscription left in Lincoln's watch by the man who repaired it in 1861, immediately following the rebel attack at Fort Sumter. Years after inscribing the message, the watchmaker told the New York Times that he remembered recording words to the effect that slavery was dead. But the real message, as we've only just now learned, says nothing about slavery at all. It merely records the attack on Fort Sumter and the words, "Thank God we have a goverment."

Did the watchmaker lie? I think that by the time he told the story to the newspaper (and by then he must have memorized every word) he had truly come to believe his dressed-up version. Maybe he was a timid man of deep conviction; maybe he really had considered inscribing a bold statement of his ideals into the watch of the President of the United States, but lacked the courage, or writing space, at that particular moment. Later, after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, he gradually convinced himself that he wrote those prescient words, "slavery is dead" in Lincoln's own watch. He may even have told himself that Lincoln got the idea of emancipation from him. Such is the human capacity for self-deception.

It's interesting how some people (I'm one of them) can dress up a story in so many ways that they eventually forget the original version. I had a Sunday School teacher when I was young who first made me aware of my own capacity for self-deceit. He told us how, as a young man, he'd embellished a story about his own baseball glory days to the point where he was actually bragging to friends that he'd once been signed (nearly) to a major league baseball team. At some point along the way, he'd even come to believe the story himself. And then one day, the fog of fantasy lifted, and he managed to say the words, "It's not true, it didn't happen."

The imagination is a wonderful thing, but it's fatal to get it mixed up with memory--which is a constant danger for storytellers, lawyers, politicians, and salesmen. So someday, when you come across a really good liar--the kind who can look you straight in the eye, without blinking, and say, "I swear I didn't cheat" or "I wasn't there, it wasn't me"--it may help to keep in mind that the liar probably believes every word of it. That's what makes the words sound so sincere.

So come to think of it, did I have a Sunday School teacher once...?

03/09/09 The Carter Family Ministry

Dear Potential Supporters in Prayer and More Substantial Ways,

Do you get tired of sending all your charity money to places like Africa, Ethiopia, and Uganda, and never seeing any results? In these tough economic times, wouldn’t you rather keep those dollars right in the good old U.S.A., where they might actually do some good?

Allow me to tell you about Carter Family Ministries. We're not like other charitable organizations that help out the undeserving poor. Our goal is to minister to the everyday, hard-working, blue collar Americans who come into our lives: electricians, plumbers, bank employees, car mechanics, and plumbers. And also plumbers. Working men and women who live from day to day without a sense of purpose or hope.

Consider Dan, who crossed paths with me (Betty) just this morning. On the ouside, Dan seemed competent, cool, capable; standing there on top of the house, a cigar between his teeth, a root-cutting cable in his hands, he looked every bit the master plumber--the king of the two-way clean-out. Yet underneath that cool exterior was a glimmer of vulnerability. In fact, as he uttered the words, "Mrs. Carter, the basic unclog will be $379, the jet pump will be $480, and the full backyard dig-up and installation could run you as high as $11,000"--well, I thought I heard a cry for help. True, it was coming from my own lips, but I think it echoed in his soul. He dropped his cigar and shuddered.

I don't know what's going to happen with Dan. Lacking the funds to truly meet his need, I could only say, "Dan, I’m going with the basic unclog." A half an hour later, he was gone, vanished like smoke, and like the money in my short-term savings account. Think how it could be if, next time we meet Dan, we can spend quality time with him, listening to him share his heart and unburden his soul as he tears up our organic garden with his backhoe. And there will be other Dans, Lord willing, perhaps very soon. There will be a Dan who tells us we need a new timing belt for $85, or new tires for $90 each, or a new heating element in the water heater for $150. What will we tell all of them? Will we send them away without hope?

It’s up to you. Will you support Carter Family Ministries? Will you give us the funds to minister to all the Dans out there? Please consider making a gift today. We're waiting.

In expectant thankfulness,

Betty Carter (for all the Carters)

Please check one of the items below:

__Yes, Betty, I will give $100 to reach people like Dan

__Yes Betty, I will give $__00.00 to help reach people like Dan

__No, Betty, I only love myself and my precious money. I don’t care about Dan.

03/06/09 But Would the Bear Like It?

Today was field trip day, and you know what that means for homeschoolers. I made the kids go out back to the pump and scrub their ears and necks. Meanwhile, I took off my big mama pajamas and put on a denim jumper, milk-stained blouse, and high top tennis shoes. I tied my hair in a knot on top of my head and grabbed my King James Bible in case I met up with any Evilutionists. Then off we went to Tuscaloosa to visit the Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art.

For those of you whose path meanders down to the banks of the Warrior River occasionally, let's face it--you're probably not thinking about art while you're in Crimson Tide country. Unless you're a student, you're in Tuscaloosa to see a football game, or maybe play golf. However, you really ought to make time for the Westervelt-Warner museum. I won't give you a synopsis of the whole thing here, but let me just mention that there are drawings by Mary Cassat hanging in the ladies' restroom. That's my kind of place. As a connoisseur of ladies' restrooms around the world, I now rank the Westervelt-Warner alongside my previous top two plumbing establishments: the vast subterranean ladies' room at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the majestic facility at the Seibu Department Store in Tokyo (partly wonderful, at least when I was there 17 years ago, because the Japanese people didn't like using Western toilets in a public place--the commodes were so clean that they glistened).

Come to think of it, I don't know what kind of art they had in the men's room at the Westervelt-Warner. George Washington and the Marquis de LaFayette were well represented throughout the rest of the museum: maybe they showed up in the W.C., too.

While there, I saw two paintings by one of my favorite American artists, Thomas Hart Benton. The best was a study for a painting of the first European (Father Hennepin) to see Niagara Falls. The painting shows Hennepin glorying in the majesty of the scene while a group of Indian guides looks on. I love Benton for the way he puts the feeling of American-ness (with its tangle of African, Indian, and European roots; its wild energy; its dramatic landscapes) into color. The painting below, "The Balladof the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley," was not one of the ones I saw in Tuscaloosa, but I'm putting it here to illustrate Benton's unmistakable style. His paintings always look to me like they were done in cake icing on a warm afternoon. They look like dream images, but also like something you could happily lick out of the bottom of a bowl. (Sorry about the big space right under the pic, before the next post--I can't seem to fix it! Keep paging down till you get to the next entry)

03/04/09 Separated at Birth

Most people don’t like to say what they really think--and it’s a good thing, because human kind (as T.S. Eliot said) cannot bear too much reality. Even if we accept that we’re not worthy, it’s galling to hear that truth on another unworthy mortal’s lips. I have a friend whose elderly mother curses in her sleep. She hollers and tells everybody to go straight to hell. In her waking hours, though, she’s the picture of sweetness and southern gentility. Some rock-hard barrier of politeness keeps all those down and dirty feelings from rising to the surface--oh, but it’s hard to look at her and not think about the wicked little thoughts stirring underneath.

I guess it’s a good thing that most people have inhibitions, but the world would be a dull place if some people didn’t. Just as King Lear needed his honest fool, every society needs a few honest knaves--people who get a kick out of stirring up trouble, who’d rather make people mad than happy, and who occasionally say the important things that nobody else is willing to say. American Idol, for instance, would be no good without Simon Cowell. It's not that he's always the best judge--he's not. But after yet another lame performance of an Elton John standard, and after Randy has said, "I don’t know Dog, it didn’t work for me," and Paula and the new judge have said, "You had some moments honey, but you're just not the Brandi Sue Shiftlett we fell in love with in Hollywood," then we all breathe a sigh of relief because it’s Simon’s turn. As if on cue, he flutters his eyes shut, says something predictably snotty, and then pops those eyes open again with a look of complete, passive-aggressive shock, as if he’s the one who’s just been insulted and needs to be reassured. His self-importance is sadly refreshing. (And incidentally, almost every 6th grade boy that I teach can do a pretty good impersonation of him, which means that he’s either truly immature or else that it doesn’t take a lot of acting skill to pretend you’re a jerk.)

Rush Limbaugh shares something with Simon Cowell. Where Rush sees shaky ground, he always takes the heaviest steps possible. Where most people will bend over backwards to make peace and keep the other side listening, spewing out patently self-contradictory twaddle such as, "Nooo oofcoursewedon’twantthisgreat nationfoundedonthe-principlesoflibertyand individualfreedomtoturnintoawelfarestaterunbybiggovernmentliberals

but yes of course we all pray for Mr. Obama’s success because it’s so important

to come together in this hour of crisis". . . Rush Limbaugh just says, "No I don’t

want Obama to succeed! Of course I want him to fail!" And he means exactly

the same thing by it. Unlike Simon Cowell, he isn't passive aggressive, he's just aggressive.

The thing is, I love to hate Simon Cowell, but I hate to love Rush Limbaugh. Even when he’s right about something, he undermines his message and undercuts the people who agree with him by the classless way he puts it across--scrawling it like grafitti on somebody's newly painted wall instead of just pointing out simply and humbly that the wall is crooked. And please don't repeat his mantra that the message is everything and the delivery is nothing; if you're a Christian, you know that the conduct of the messenger always matters.

03/02/09 Frustration for Dummies

Like a lot of you, I’m sure, I want to understand what’s going on with the economy. So for the last few days I’ve been reading up on economics. Today I trotted over to the library to do a little research. I think it’s a sign of the times that all five copies of The Economy for Dummies were checked out. I looked at the massive volumes remaining on the shelf (the ones not meant for dummies) and drew a swift conclusion. Economists should not put their photographs on dust jackets. They may be classical economists or they may be Keynesians, but they all look like Edward Scissorhands.

Well, after glancing glumly at the shelf, I did what I usually do when faced with a colossal subject and a need for quick understanding. I said, "Ahh, what the heck, I’ll go to Wikipedia." Then I proceeded to the brand new library coffee bar (yes, you heard that right) where I noticed three copies of The Economy for Dummies lying around on tables where people were sipping lattes and reading Entertainment Weekly.

After spending five dollars at the coffee bar (The Library for Dummies?), I went home and googled John Maynard Keynes. This is the early 20th century economist that we public radio listeners/geeks have been hearing a lot about while you people have been fixated on your rampaging chimp and Chandra Levy stories (tisk tisk). Bet you don't even know who Keynes is! Well, just so you know that I’m really smart, and not a faker who only googles, I’ll casually mention that I’ve already read two books this year in which Keynes (pronounced "Canes") came up. One of the books was Paul Johnson’s Modern Times, a conservative re-evaluation of everything we thought we knew about the 20th century (and what I remember of it is shorter than the length of this sentence). The other book was a biography of Virginia Wolfe, who, like Keynes, was a member of the Bloomsbury Circle, which was not a garden club as the name suggests, but rather a group of people known for being Virginia Wolfe and John Maynard Keynes (as well as a few others), and thus the circularity.

Anyway, I read these books and enjoyed parts of them very much and found out, among other things, that it was Keynes who came up with the idea of governments injecting large amounts of cash into an ailing economy to help maintain stability. Sound familiar? When recessions start, consumers stop spending and then start saving. This creates a vicious cycle, with companies laying off workers because they can’t make a profit because the workers aren’t buying any of their goods because they’re saving all of their money in case they get laid off. (And just think: Keynes never got to observe 24 hour cable news people shouting, "STOP SPENDING AMERICA, THE ECONOMY’S IN THE TOILET!" ) In any case, when consumers can’t spend, government must step in and spend for them, even if it means borrowing trillions from future generations. For how else will the workers support themselves while they keep making the T.V.s on which the newspeople keep shouting "Don’t buy T.V.s!" That, in about a quarter of a nutshell, is Keynes.

When I googled him, I didn’t find a lot of new information about Keynes's ideas, or a definitive critical analysis. This frustrated me, since what I wanted was an absolute answer, supported by ranks of super-geniuses as well as super-computers manufacted by aliens from the future. The answer would be, "Yes! It is a good idea to pile up trillions of dollars in debt in order to stimulate the economy! It won’t lead to hyper-inflation (after all, Keynes himself warned against it!)! Everything will turn out o.k.!"

OR, conversely,

"No! Keynes was wrong. History shows it! Rush Limbaugh conga line forming now on the upper deck!"

But what I got was people of average to above-average smartness all looking at the same sets of facts and numbers and drawing various conclusions. One guy loves Keynes and says that it’s because of Keynesian economics that we haven’t had a depression since the thirties. What about the post-Carter presidents--fiscal conservatives all? Well, Reagan (he says), was really a Keynsian with a conservative facade, since Reagan spent tons of money, as did the other Republicans after him. O.K., I can’t exactly disagree about the Republican spendthrifts! In fact, with war debt piling up, as well as a huge chunk of the economy dedicated to social entitlements that we borrow to afford, you could make a case that we haven’t seen small (non-Keynsian) economics in this country for a long, long, long time. But with a depression now looming, does that prove Keynes was wrong? This guy doesn’t think so; he blames the Republicans for their Keynsian policies masquerading as conservatism, which he hates and wants to abolish. Go figure.

Yeah, yeah, I read lots more than that, including stuff from the brilliant Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, who judged that Keynes was a genius but that he failed to see how powerful the state must become in taking such a huge vested interest in the private economy. It would lead, said Hayek, to socialism. Keynes did think Hayek had a point. Yes, he said, as a matter of fact his ideas would work a little better in a totalitarian situation...but, being a proper Englishman, Keynes thought Marxism would be bad form.

So, apparently a few afternoons of googling economics isn’t enough to help me understand if Keynes was right or wrong or if the nation is headed to paradise or to hell in a handbasket. Not that it matters. The situation being what it is, Keynes is the go-to man right now, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. I only wish that when so much is at stake, we weren’t at the mercy of clever people who see the same dire circumstances and come to such vastly different conclusions.

03/01/09 My World

Just had to put this up here, even though it wreaks havoc on my banner. It's a corner of my backyard (near the house) about an hour ago. We're having our first big snow in Alabama in around nine years, on the heels of yesterday's flash flooding. Tomorrow (or the day after), it's supposed to be 60 degrees. The only thing you can count on in Alabama weather is surprise!

I'm sure glad I covered up the lettuce and the broccoli I planted at the beginning of the week.

02/28/09 While Buy Our Flocks

This week, for the first time in my life, I've been besieged by lawyers. Nearly every day, a letter has arrived in my mailbox asking me whether I want to sue Investment Firm X, which, over two decades, led a large group of people (including me) to risk thousands of dollars in tortuously-complicated, mind-bogglingly labyrinthine real estate investments that are now worth

~~$0.00~~

about $4.38

Isn't it interesting that the Latin word for "money" is related to the word for "flock?" In rural societies, cattle are still a form of currency, but here in the United States, the easiest thing to buy and sell may just be flocks of Presbyterians. I only say that because Investment Firm X was once upon a time known as "The Presbyterian Investors Fund," and its motto was "doing well while doing good." The money originally went to build churches, retirement communities, and daycare for low income people. At some point, though, when the flock wasn't paying close attention, our money started to flow into upscale real-estate developments that would guarantee the high returns we were used to--at least as long as housing values stayed high. I don't think I ever heard that the people in charge of the former P.I.F. (now operating under a less denominational name) had a personal stake of almost 20% each in the developer that our money was supporting. That only became clear after the real estate crash of 2008.

To judge from the letters in my mailbox, a lot of people are hurting and bitter about all of this. It's not unlike the fallout from the Bernard Madoff scandal. Most of the victims are religious people, and many are elderly. There are seventy year-olds who have lost their retirements, and eighty year-olds in nursing homes who can't pay their bills. If they want to sue the individuals involved, I can understand. For them, it's a matter of need (for just compensation) rather than retribution.

As for me, I'm not going to sue anyone. First, suing is a pain in the rear. Second, I can't get over the fact that the New Testament discourages it. Third, the money was really just our college savings--not retirement--and we've got a smart kid who qualifies for scholarships on her own. Fourth, even if we had lost everything--well, we're reasonably young, and we've been poor before, and not that long ago. It's easier to lose money, I think, if you never got used to having much of it.

So you P.I.F. people out there, as well as your lawyers, know that you have our forgiveness and good wishes. We won't be chasing you down for cash, nor will we suggest that you sit somewhere in a cell for five years and look at our pictures. That would be too much punishment for anyone.

Finally, and maybe it is slightly vindictive of me, I want to end with an a propos quotation from one of your last fund-raising letters, way back in 2003:

"...an 'old' friend asked me why we continued to pay 9% for five-year certificates when obviously we could pay less. It showed he had not the foggiest idea of our basic philosophy of business. Every company connected to us has the exact same plan and vision. That is, 'how do we improve the lives of all the people connected to us?' That means: our investors, our staff and various company co-laborers, our seniors, our children, our families, our single mothers in particular and singles in general. Of course, we could pay 5% and still be a wonderful investment, but a significant number of you would move from economy class to poverty class. Many of you invest for your grandchildren. If we cut to 5% some of them might not get the education you want them to have. The list is endless of stories which explain why we must pay 9%, or more if I can find a way to do so.

I am sorry my friend could not understand. I know why he could not understand, but his belief system is so corrupted by the current economic models of business he simply could not see it. (quotes mine) Many people have this problem. Some do not invest because they fear the rate is a 'come on'. If it is, it is the best 'come on' I know and we have been doing it for 18 years with audited statements from accountants who do not have to try to become big and important and lose their integrity in the process. At least one person a month asks me if we are a 'Ponzi scheme'. That is a scheme where you pay huge returns to investors from new investments but never make a profit. No one ever gets away with this scheme because it is impossible to sustain-particularly for 18 years. I usually bite my tongue and do not reply as I feel, which is:

1. Read the Prospectus ('dummy'). We are 18 years old and SEC-registered and have always made a profit.

2. What company would admit it even if they were a Ponzi scheme, so why ask.""

Ah, irony. It doesn't keep the lights on, but it sure is fun.

02/26/09 Best Books You've Read Twice

Those of you who have surrendered your lives to Facebook (submit to Facebook submit to Facebook submit to Facebook) know what it means to get tagged for a "25 Things Nobody Knows About Me" list or a "BBC 100 Classic Books List." You're supposed to read your friend's list and then make one of your own (or, in the case of the BBC list, check off which books you've read). Some people are apparently annoyed by these: I read a column in a major news source by somebody who hates getting tagged for "25 Things Nobody Knows..." In fact, the woman went to the trouble of writing her very own "worst of" list, compiled from all of the unbearably pointless and silly things her friends had revealed about themselves. I can't actually remember any of the things she mentioned, but I know that the list had me in hysterics. I would have liked her friends: I would have wanted to know MORE. Ah, well. Guess I have a low-brow sense of humor.

Well, it all got me thinking. I've read many books once; in fact, I've usually got two or three going at the same time, and sometimes I'll stand for a whole hour at the library, skimming a book for the most exciting parts (but only if it's something of real literary value such as the recent autobiography of Maureen McCormick/Marcia Brady, which had a lot of great verbs like "stoked" and "yearning," sometimes in the same paragraph as "Greg").

Most of what I read doesn't stick with me that long, even if I love it at the time. There are a few books, though, that I go to again and again and again, whether for amusement or stimulation or comfort. Below are the ones I wouldn't want to live without. Looking my list over, I think it pretty well gives me away as a crypto-Catholic female who basically lives by the rules but likes to yuck it up occasionally. Yep, that's me. It would interest me to hear what your favorites are (I know, I need to get that comments page up and running...soon, I swear).

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Howard's End by E.M. Forster

The Lord of the Rings by Gaylord Flute

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

The Habit of Being by Flannery O'Connor

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

02/25/09 Crunchy Dreams

I'm a regular reader of Rod Dreher's Crunchy Con blog on Beliefnet. Some of you may be Crunchy Cons yourself (I hope you are), whether or not you know what the word signifies. Basically, a Crunchy Con is a conservative who wants to conserve the best things about American life--rural living, homegrown food, the arts, neighborliness, good books, good eating--on a local scale. Because Crunchy Cons think locally, they tend to agree with Republicans and libertarians on limiting the power of the Federal Government. But their localism makes them distrust big-scale capitalism, too. The recent bank debacles have them shaking their heads and saying, "See, I told you so." Some of them think that the end of America-as-we-know-it is just around the corner, and gosh darn it we all better learn how to grow our own food NOW.

I'm an optimist by force of experience--in other words, I used to be a pessimist until I finally noticed that the bad things people predict (Y2K) almost NEVER happen, while all sorts of unpredictable things (Katrina) inevitably occur, and what's a person supposed to do about it anyway, so why not just be happy? I'm not inclined to get caught up in large protest movements or think the End is Near. I'll never be like my homeschooling friends who take a week out of the year to attend (what I call) chicken-killing camp, where they learn to dress fowl and do other bloody disgusting needs (I only homeschool so I don't have to get dressed in the morning). However, I do sympathize with all of the essential points of Crunchy Conservatism. I believe in smaller worlds; I hate the way we're all starting to talk the same, no matter where we live. I hate the fact that my groceries come from other states. And I hate the fact that when I tried to grow beans last summer, they came up as Morning Glories. I don't know how that's related, but I think it must be.

So I'm thinking of joining an Alabama-grown food co-op (growAlabama.com). I need to mull on that one a bit, and compare costs. Supporting local farmers is great, but a person needs to think about how she's going to put her kid through college next year. Meanwhile, today I performed one small act of Crunchy Con-ness. No, I didn't castrate a pig (stop asking that). I planted twelve little broccolis and ten little Romaines. It was wonderfully satisfying, and I can't tell you how pretty those little lettuces looked, perched at the top of the hill like bright green canaries. It made my heart sing.

I just hope they really are lettuce--not flowers or something. Though come to think of it, you can eat nasturtiums.

02/24/09 Vanity, Thy Name is Man

First thoughts on watching Barack Obama's speech tonight:

Why do men in our society wear dark suits at formal occasions while women (like Hillary Clinton, in pink) wear brilliant colors? It's not natural, after all. Think mallards and cardinals. In nature, males strut their colors while the females stay fat and dowdy (and what a good idea, I say). Just imagine all the men in the House Chambers tonight clad in silver, gold, gleaming red, sky-blue, eye-popping purple; imagine the women in black, brown, and grey. It's an interesting picture.

And speaking of the women. Wow, Nancy Pelosi (in green) messes with her face a lot. Does she itch, or what? Why is she always smoothing her eyebrows and touching her hair? What can we infer from her body language? Is she sending secret signals out to Harry Reid?

cheek rub: na na na na boo boo, we're in power

eye wipe: what, is John McCain still here?

lip daub: can't wait to transfer all that wealth from those evil Wall Street fat cats to my husband's consulting firm...let the good times roll, baby!

Enough about that! Politics depress me. Yet the idea of men in bright colors reminds me of a show I was forced to watch the other day while sitting in the oral surgeon's office. It ought to be enough punishment for anyone to have to sit in an oral surgeon's office (hot, smelling of blood and nervous people). But this o.s.'s office had a big-screen T.V. positioned about a foot from my head. It was tuned to the Rachel Ray show, and the theme of the day was how many men, just like women, feel tormented and disempowered because of their bad body images. Unlike women, though, who usually worry about having flat chests and large bottoms, these poor souls worry about things like "man boobs" and "white man tiny butt syndrome."

(At this point I'm sinking deep into my chair.)

And the solution? The solution? Well, it's what we "girls" have known about all along: shaping underwear. Yes, tiny-butted men can now purchase a special man-girdle. It looks just like bicycle shorts, except that bicycle shorts don't usually come with a man-butt attached (the makers of bicycle shorts mistakenly assume that the wearer already has one). The man girdle has padding. If you wear it around town, people are guaranteed to mistake you for...uh...Reggie Bush (had to look that one up).

And to think a guy used to get along with a toupee and elevator heels!

02/22/09 The Agony of Loss

I intended to blog yesterday. Honestly, I always intend to blog. However, I was distracted by an ongoing situation in our homeschooling community. Some of the students from our co-op went to Memphis this past week for a speech tournament. Unlike regular school field trips, these tend to be whole-family events, with little children tagging along. While there, the four year-old daughter of one family suddenly had severe stomach pains. They rushed her to the emergency room, where she went into full cardiac arrest. All family and friends in Memphis and here in Birmingham were urged to pray, and yet the little girl never revived. She passed away yesterday afternoon in the arms of her family.

I didn't know the child, and I barely know the parents, so I don't want to pretend I'm more than a sideline observer at this tragedy. However, it has affected me (and everyone else involved at all, I imagine). From outside, it's easy to take comfort from the things you know about death, as well as the things you hope.

I know

that everyone dies eventually

that to live at all is a blessing and a miracle: the odds against one sperm hooking up with one egg to make one particular person are incredible--it's like winning two lotteries on the same day

that this particular little girl (who was adopted from China last year) was very special to a lot of people

At the same time, I hope (based on faith)

that death is a door into God's country, where (as C.S. Lewis said) we begin to feel the weight of glory

that death itself can be not just part of our redemption but even redemptive for others

that something as heart-breaking as the death of a child doesn't mean that God was absent or that people failed. God will be with us even through our suffering

These are the things I tell myself. The difficulty from an outside point of view isn't so much dealing with the fact of death as with the bald agony and doubt it creates. Think of the symbolism last night at the Academy Awards. When Heath Ledger was announced as winner of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, his mother and sister got up to eulogize him, but over their heads floated an enormous, macabre clown face--Ledger the Joker overshadowing Ledger the man. The Joker (for plot reasons) never dies, and therefore represents not just arbitrary death, but unconquerable death. This is what we all fear: that death will make fools of us. Death is inevitable, but it's also a mocker and a thief. We worry at the idea of being caught unaware, being robbed of faith even as we're robbed of life (or the life of a loved-one). We fear being carried away in one last humiliating struggle and then abandoned alone.

I've seen one family lose a daughter in the most arbitrary, shouldn't-have-happened-but-it-did way, and then get up and keep walking forward in faith while friends watched in awe: "How can they be so strong? I want what they have!" And I've seen another family, stable and rational people who seemed ready to deal with anything, torn to shreds by the death of their son. Friends watched them with sympathy and also with horror, saying to themselves, "Would I be like that? Would I survive it?"

I fear it all as much as anyone, and I don't see any simple answer to the problem of death, really, apart from the words of a Jewish philosopher a couple of millenia ago: "...when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."

"O Death, where is your sting?"

"O Hades, where is your victory?"

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

02/21/09 Axe Me Baby One More Time

No day would be complete without an interesting etymology to mull over, especially if it's a day mostly spent in a recliner with a cold in the the head and a t.v. remote in the hand.

My interesting etymology for a dull Saturday is the Southern word "axe," or "aks," as in

"He aksed me where the grape nuts was and I told him to look in produce."

The mispronunciation of the word "ask" is something that educated Southerners like to tease about, imitate, make fun of. Some people might accuse you of racism if you imitate a Southerner saying "aks," because it is fairly common down here among African-Americans, and maybe elsewhere, too, I don't know. However, the word isn't limited to them; no, indeed. On any day of the week you might hear an older white Southerner say "Axe so and so," and they do not mean for you to pick up a sharp blade and start lopping off limbs.

People of the New South--in other words, people of any race who want to talk like Californians--may feel superior to those older Southerners who "aks" rather than "ask." Doubtless, they think those people just can't pronounce a simple word right. What they should know, however, is that the aksers/axers are really using an older variant of the word. And as we all know, older is better when it comes to wine and when it comes to English.

In fact, the word comes from the Old English "ascian," related to the Latin "aeruscare." But according to Barnhart's Dictionary of Etymology, an Old English variant, acsian, "became 'axen' in Middle English and later 'ax', which was an accepted literary form of the verb until about 1600 and survives to this day in dialectal speech."

So there it is, proof that these old Southerners are closer to Shakespeare than you are. While on the same word hunt, I also learned that the word "silly" comes from the Old English "seely," meaning happy or blessed. Back then the word had a religious context, as well it should today.

And on that note,

a very silly Sunday to all.

02/20/09 Self-Righteous Rage

A couple of days ago, I opened up a magazine (of a religious bent) and saw a picture of an old singer friend who’s enjoying some public success now after years of obscurity. I was all ready to be happy about his success, until I read one particular comment in the article, and then I felt a convulsion coming on. The writer said that the last decade had brought my old friend a lot of struggles, including a divorce...but, oh yeah, now he’s married, things are going great, etc. etc.

Sure enough, a minute later I was writhing around under the table in the library, even as I managed to copy down the telephone number of the editor at the magazine. As soon as I stopped foaming at the mouth, I got up and marched off to find my cell phone. Gosh darn it, I was going to call those people! I was going to say, "The decade brought him a divorce? How about he cheated multiple times on his long-suffering wife and then finally made up his mind to divorce her and marry the woman he was obsessed with...not that his old wife isn’t better off without him. She’s doing pretty well, thank you very much."

I probably wouldn’t have lost my head, if it hadn’t been a religious magazine congratulating him on his success. Well, that and the fact that I like and sympathize with his first wife, who really did put up with a lot from him. I don’t even have any hard feelings toward the guy--if anybody understands about obsessiveness, it’s me (see memoir). It’s not that I want to have him put in stocks or stoned (he's very capable of getting stoned on his own). I want to forgive him, and I already think well enough of him to believe that he knows he’s been a total jerk, which he has.

But when anybody, man or woman, abandons a faithful partner, isn’t it generally good to stand up for the one who’s been most victimized? The standard answer is, "Yes, but there are always two sides. No one’s blameless." Obviously not, but there is usually a leaver and the one who’s left. And as Dolly Parton sang in one of my favorite songs, "There’s nothing quite as sad as a one-sided love, when one doesn’t love at all and the other loves too much...what do you do, what do you say, when someone wants to leave as bad as you want them to stay?"

Well, once I got over my convulsion, I threw the phone number of the magazine away. I’ve been trying to learn lately to keep my big pink nose out of things that have nothing to do with me; it’s not up to me to be the defender of all the downtrodden in the world--especially an uninvited defender. But it is hard--especially when you have an alter ego like this. Not even my husband knows I speak Portuguese.

02/18/09 Signs

I like weird signs. I made a list today of some of my favorites from over the years; it includes a few headlines, too.

1 Most practical advice in Latin:

Semper ubi sub ubi

(Always where under where)

2 Best 17-word summary of Alabama:

Ink House Tattoo Parlor, if you cannot control your WILD children, you will be asked to leave

3 Best question for the seamstress in your life:

On the journey into eternity, will you be seated smocking or non-smocking?

4 Weirdest unintended meaning:

Please do not flush feminine products

5 Least shocking headline from today's news:

Adolph Hitler had bad table manners

6 Stupidest quote from a celebrity

Smoking kills, and when you're killed, you lose a very important part of your life--Brooke Shields

7 Strangest juxtaposition of Birmingham cultures

Billy Bob’s Bamboo House

8 Least effective advertisement for kids' soccer team

Every Child a Winer!

9 Best indication that you need Compound-W

We now have St. John’s Wart

10 2nd strangest juxtaposition

Mike's Gas and Oil Change, We sell sheet music

11 Most unfortunate letter misplacement on moveable type sign

The Kid sEx change -- A Great Place to Learn

12 And finally, though maybe it's only funny to other people on the South Beach diet phase 1 who have eaten almost nothing but poultry and tuna for two weeks:

Hi South Beach Dieters! Are YOU craving CHICKEN?

02/17/09 A Walk in the Park

I went for my Surgeon General-Recommended "Brisk 30 minute walk" on Sunday at a nearby park. I don't know how brisk it was, but I dragged it out to 30 minutes. On my way around the duck pond, I ran into a student of mine from the E.S.L. (English as a Second Language) class I helped with last year. She's an immigrant from Mexico and I have no idea whether she's legal or not and where she lives. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Hi! How are you doing?

Her: Fiiiiiine.

Me: Do you still go to class?

Her: (Looking pained, confused) Nooooo. (Pointing to young, very cute daughter) Noooo.... (Sighing, shaking head).

Me: Oh. That's too bad. O.K.

Her: (Smiling painfully, no comment)

Me: (Cheerily, with great energy) Well! It's great to see you! I have to walk around this pond, now!

Exit, Me

For the rest of the walk, I felt foolish and guilty. First, she clearly learned almost no English from us, so I think it's safe to say that WE FAILED HER! Secondly, what was she trying to tell me about her little girl? Is her husband still with her? Do they have income? How's the recession affecting them? I know that they're poor, because she once told me she needed food for her baby, and I tried to help her get in touch with W.I.C. (and let me tell you, that was not easy to accomplish in sign language).

I'm really not sure what else I could have done, since we couldn't communicate. The fact is that there are many Latino people in our area, and my tendency is to assume that they help each other out with practical needs. I enjoy helping with the language, but beyond that I assume that they're not my problem.

But is that right? In the Christian community, the conversation often revolves around the question, "Should we help illegal aliens?" My answer to that question is that the command to feed the hungry has no exceptions; God's law takes precedence over human law. I'm pretty sure I'm correct about this (and I'm not the only one--nearly every church around here offers English classes and other help without asking for I.D.), but I struggle with much more fundamental questions. Which hungry am I supposed to feed? How will I recognize them? How far should I go?

Somehow I think that my friendship with that woman wasn't only supposed to happen in the safety of a church classroom. I feel that I failed on Sunday afternoon to go the extra step with her, and probably disappointed her. I should have stopped and tried harder to communicate--I'm incredibly good at really bad Spanish. Hope I'll do better next time.

02/15/09 A Moody Potluck

Last night we went out to our old church in Moody, Alabama for our 25th anniversary celebration. I really miss Leeds (where we actually lived) and also Moody; those towns are located in the real South as opposed to the pretend South. The pretend South is a bizarre phenomenon of nature: it happens in places like Birmingham and Atlanta, where clusters of well-to-do white-collar professionals huddle together with transplanted Yankees and other foreigners and build gated communities to hold back the real South, which is always nipping at their heels and peeing on their fire hydrants. The gated communities have names like "Thornhammer" and "Chipping Mews," and "Manner Born." The Southerners who live in them, even if they grew up in doublewides and their own names are Harold and Haroldene (I actually know such a couple) give their offspring names like "Winthrop," "Billings" and "Bratley."

Nope, Moody ain't like that. Moody people are some of the nicest in the world; nobody's pretentious, and more than a few people are related to each other, fulfilling at least one of those wonderful Alabama stereotypes (two of my good friends are both aunt/niece and sisters in-law, yet their children are all extremely intelligent and only slightly wall-eyed--hah hah, Angie and Kristi). Things might change, of course: Moody and Leeds have recently seen an influx of Birmingham bedroomers, the kind of people whose kids play soccer instead of softball. As for Leeds (my hometown, but also hometown of the semi-mythical steel-driving John Henry as well as the all-too-real and not really all there Charles Barkley), Leeds now has herself a Bass Pro-Shop, which in Alabama is the equivalent of the Guggenheim, the Pentagon, the National Aquarium, and the Montgomery Flea Market rolled into one.

Anyhow, about the food. The dinner at our church feast was a feast of carbohydrates--just what you want to see at a real church potluck. No Stouffer's in sight, no Sister Schubert's. Every homemade tomato and cheese and corn casserole conceivable, along with fried chicken and ham and yeast bread and variations on themes of squash and baked beans and roast beef. Sadly, I had started the South Beach diet a week earlier, so it was more like being in Purgatory than in church. As I passed the dessert tables--not table but tables--I negotiated and bargained and then finally pleaded with my creator for help. Oh miserable woman that I am, who shall deliver me from these carbohydrates of death?

Can't wait for the 30th anniversary.

02/14/09 Poets Behaving Badly

A thousand apologies for my several typos yesterday (and other days). My computer is in my bedroom, which also functions as laundry room, ballet rehearsal room, cat hotel, homeschool library, polka hall, and food court. We have a small house, and the only way to be truly alone is to be in the bathroom, and even then the cat might suddenly appear from around the shower curtain. My husband accuses me of being excessively independent--you know, because I'm always so gleeful when they leave--but it's just that I need a little space to concentrate, or else what comes out of my brain via my mouth (or typing fingers) is *&*&^(*))_&*^^^&^*&(*)IOIUIJJNKIY^^&%G)()(.

For the moment, they are all gone. Ahh, how I love them and miss them. But may the peace last for a few more minutes...

My husband (you remember, the one I love and miss, who gave me beautiful tulips this morning for Valentine's Day) came home last night with an interesting story. He had taken several students from the Christian high school where he teaches to a writing/journalism camp at a certain university not too far from us. In a poetry workshop, the kids were asked to write poems based on sensational headlines from tabloids. Not a bad idea so far. A guy from another high school, though, got up and said, "Uh, before I read this, I better warn anyone here who's religious that they might be offended by this."

Bless his heart, I guess he thought it was fine as long as he gave fair warning. But the class leader made it worse by saying that religious people should feel free to get up and leave the room for a few minutes!

Now, I know that the man had good intentions here, but what he suggested was ridiculous and patronizing. Imagine if the original student had said, "I'm going to read a racist poem and I hope it won't offend anybody here." Would the leader have told the non-white members of the audience that they were free to leave the room? Obviously not. The burden should be on the one who offends, not the one who might take offense.

The students from the Christian high school stayed, listened to the offensive poem (not like it was anything they hadn't heard before), and felt more irritated than anything else. What's the big deal about hearing some words you don't agree with? We live in a pluralistic society; we're used to it.

Guess you can't count on those sensitive poetic types to be sensitive.

02/13/09 Luther's Anti-Semitism

I come from a group of Protestants (conservative Presbyterians) who elevate the leaders of the Reformation to near-Apostolic status. John Calvin and John Knox are the local favorites, but we do make a lot of Zwingli, and also Martin Luther. When everybody else in America is celebrating Halloween, some of us have "Reformation Day" parties to mark the day when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenburg Door. No, we don't sing "95 theses upon the church wall, 95 theses appeared, if one of those theses had happened to fall..." (never mind) but we do other festive things, such as dressing in long robes and reciting the Heidelburg Catechism. As you may well guess, these parties are attended mainly by homeschoolers. I went to one once, dressed up as Pope Leo, Luther's nemesis. I was outdone, though, by the kid who came as a ghost. He must have been a Southern Baptist.

Anyway, of the Protestant Reformers, I've always liked Martin Luther the best. He's the easiest to relate to, because as a person he was so un-exemplary. If he had been an apostle, Luther would have been Peter, the courageous blockhead. He had a hot temper, and an impetuous tongue that served him well against his enemies, but frustrated his friends. "Husband, you are rude," said his wife Katherine, who gave up being a nun and bore him six children (before he married her, he rarely changed his sheets).

I read a long time ago about some of Luther's anti-Semitic writings, but didn't look very far into them. Today, doing a little research in Luther's last days, I felt sad to read that his final sermon was a vitriolic denouncement of the Jews in Germany. By then he was sick, maybe a little crazy (let's give him the benefit of the doubt), but it's still hard to see how a man who loved Christ so fiercely could write calls for the expulsion and forced labor (even execution) of Jews who would not convert to Christianity. His chief emotion seems to have been resentment that they wouldn't embrace Christ. He had all the anger and vindictiveness of a spurned lover.

Seeing Luther in a post-Nazi world, his attitudes are beyond horrifying to me. I've always been a philo-Semite, both by instinct and training; I've never understood European anti-Semitism, or the strains of it that still pop up in certain communities in the United States. Though it's anachronistic to put too much blame on Luther for the German Holocaust that came later, I think he gave ordinary German Christians some cover for their anti-Semitism. That had effects he couldn't have foreseen in the 1500's; I like to think that if he could have looked forward and seen his terrible words realized in the terrible policies of Adolf Hitler, he would have repented.

The one thing I do recognize in Luther's story is the human tendency to feel rage when somebody won't do what we expect--especially when they don't appreciate our gifts. We feel insulted; our pride is wounded. Frequently, when we think we're standing up for God, we're actually standing up for our own self-righteousness. It's good, then, to remember that the essence of following Christ is the willingness to be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and humble when we're mistaken--which happens more frequently than we like to admit.

02/12/09 Where the Boys Are (It's Loud)

Are men naturally louder than women? I suspect that the answer is yes, and so I refuse to google it, lest I find out I'm wrong (oh go ahead, smarty, if you must). My anecdotal evidence comes first from my experience of the men I know, who crunch and slam and whistle and stomp and bang on things and shout into the telephone. There's no teaching them to turn a knob before closing the door on a sleeping baby's room (to avoid making a loud "clack!"). You have to love them as they are, and remember that you too have annoying habits, such as putting the milk back in the refrigerator when they've turned away for one second to find a spoon (like that's a bad thing).

My second source of evidence is my students. I have two classes of seventh graders. The classes aren't that different in size, however one is composed completely of girls and the other completely of boys. When I walk into the girls' class, I hear a moderate amount of talking, mostly between girls at the same tables. The tone is steady, but quiet. The girls have their feet on the floor. The feet of the chairs are also on the floor. The feet of the tables are on the floor.

I walk into a parallel classroom of 12 and 13 year-old boys. Four of them are at the front of the room, jumping up and down, trying to touch a ceiling tile that's about three feet out of range (better luck next year, gentlemen). One stands upon a chair, for no apparent reason. One drums madly on his table with a couple of pencils. Two sing a song off key. One, seated at his desk and unaccountably wearing a large pair of sunglasses, has his hand in the air (also unaccountably) and says, "Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Carter, do we have to do any work today?" Another two or three at the same time shout, "Can I go to the bathroom?" (I don't know, can you? Hardy har har.) Another, who is leaning far far far back in his chair (as they all do, constantly), suddenly crashes over with his feet in the air and does a backwards somersault. I know that, at any moment, something even worse might happen: a table might collapse, somebody might throw a door open and knock a hole in the wall (and then complain that we have "cheap, worthless doorstoppers"--oh and it's so true, our doorstoppers just aren't high end), or, worst of all, a group of full-grown but still unbearably loud males will turn on the leaf blowers right outside my window.

The other day I was musing to myself about why boys aren't wild about horses the way so many girls are. I've heard all kinds of crazy psycho-sexual explanations for this, and I say blech to most of it. My theory is that girls love horses because they really are beautiful animals, but boys gave them up a little over a hundred years ago when something much faster and louder came along: cars, of course, and motorcycles. Now if they made a My Little Exploding Pony...

02/11/09 More Weird T.V.

No bad weather today. I could tell it wasn't going to be bad because the WeatherPerson seemed so downcast. She had a look in her eyes as I turned the T.V. off--"You're leaving me?" I felt like a foul weather friend.

The weirdest thing in the news today was the story about a famous woman (can't remember her name) who breastfeed the baby of a poor woman while on a goodwill trip. What was so weird about it was that anybody would think it was weird. A few hundred years ago, it was normal to farm your baby out for wet-nursing--that was a sign of wealth and prestige, mostly because the wet nurse would end up with the saggy breasts while you (with the aid of sustaining undergarments like whalebone or hippotamus ribs or something) hung on to your figure. Now, everything's reversed. You only give your baby to a wet nurse if you're poor and a wealthy lactating celebrity drops by. She'll have plastic surgery to correct any damage.

It's a strange world.

02/10/09 Meteorophobia*

*This post was inspired by tomorrow's severe weather predictions. Check the skies to see if I'm flying by on a bicycle (or broom)

Hi, I'm Betty, and I'm afraid of weather.

(Hi Betty)

It all started when I was a kid in Virginia. Weathermen hadn't been invented yet. All we had was a few men and women with shiny teeth who stood in front of cardboard maps of the United States and took wild guesses about what might happen. They were fairly reliable on whatever was happening at that moment: "It's partly cloudy out there!" But their reliability ebbed as they forecasted farther out: "We're waiting for the rain to begin--oops, make that sleet..." The best thing about them was that you could turn the brightness down on your set (back then you had a dial for that) and still see their teeth moving next to the cardboard map.

Every now and then we had a horrific, ear-splitting, nerve-melting thunderstorm that sent me flying to my parents' bedroom. You can smirk at this if you want, but I'm telling you that they don't make thunderstorms like that anymore. The windowpanes would clatter, the bricks would rattle, the roof would be sucked up for a moment and then land back on the rafters with a swoosh and a thunk.

The standard middle-of-the-night parental response to all of that sky-violence and thunderation was a simple, oft-repeated phrase: "Hah hah, you know it's just those angels up there bowling." I had to admit, that's exactly what it sounded like. I imagined a heavenly being in striped bowling shoes and a shirt with a tag that said "Gabriel" on the pocket. He had an enormous silver ball in his hand, and just as he let it go, Michael let a black and orange ball fly in the lane next to him, and the two balls jumped the gutters and crashed together and broke in pieces, which fell to the ground as hail and blessed the good people who most needed big checks from their insurance companies.

In those days, we didn't worry too much about tornadoes. Yes, we knew they could happen; I think we even had "watches" then. Still, if a siren went off, my immediate worry was global thermonuclear war, which seemed a lot more probable. Nobody even thought of getting in a closet. There wouldn't have been room between the gas masks.

So what changed all this? What's made me (and a lot of other people) tornado-conscious meteorophobes? Hmmm. I know there's probably some official, technical explanation. For instance, with computer forecasting and Doppler radar, we certainly have better cyclonic detection; and for all I know, tornadoes themselves may have become more common.

But I disregard all of that. What I choose to blame my phobia on is the coming of the WeatherPeople, the all-knowing ones who replaced the old smile-and-flip-a-coiners from my childhood. Today's WeatherPeople (for instance, James Spann here in Birmingham) can tell you what mailbox not to lean against if you don't want to get hit by lighting. James can tell you which mile marker will be slightly bent the next day due to storm damage. He can tell you what time choir practice gets out at Hunter Street Baptist, and the best route to take out of the parking lot to avoid a twister. Also, few know this, but James even has the ability to watch you through your screen and SEE if you hunkered down in your safe place (as he instructed) thirty minutes before a tornado passed a razor thin ten miles north of you, nearly touching down in the middle of a herd of emu.

In fact, my theory is that today's omniscient WeatherPeople are really angels in disguise. Could it be? I don't know. Maybe they ran out of bowling balls. Sounds crazy, but notice how the camera never pans down to their shoes...

02/08/09 God and the Dawk

This month is the two hundredth birthday of Charles Darwin, and the proper e.c. (evangelically correct) attitude to take is a mixture of horror, revulsion, and shock. Those emotions seem pretty rife on the other side of the debate, as well. A moment ago, I looked up Darwin on youtube to see what's floating around out there. I found the Rev. D. James Kennedy talking about the evil legacy of Darwinism, Richard Dawkins talking about the evil legacy of religion, other people talking about the evil legacy of Richard Dawkins, and a fundamentalist guy at Florida State disrupting a Darwin Day event, though it's actually hard to hear what he's saying with all those poor disrupted Seminoles

either laughing at him or shouting him down.

I'm not going to try to explain my own view of evolution, because it would be dangerous, and also pointless. Like most people, I understand as much about molecular biology as a parrot does about Polly (who wants a cracker--but why??). I've never been able to do more than parrot whatever expert seemed the most reliable. And whether I listen to Richard Dawkins or to some intelligent design guy, I can only judge his ideas by his presentation and communication skills. Dawkins, with a British accent and an aquiline profile, beats the ID people hands down on presentation. But he sounds like a jerk, and he can't talk about religion without getting an evil gleam in his eye. With Christianity half-dead in England, anyway, he reminds me of those people who dug up John Wycliffe's body and scattered his ashes on the water--you could almost call his atheism necrophilia.

I do know a little more than a thimbleful about the creation accounts in Genesis. The early chapters in our Jewish/Christian book of beginnings paint a picture of a world that begins without death. Death is an unnatural state, entering the world through the sin of the first man...Paul makes that clear in the book of Romans, contrasting the first Adam with the new Adam, Jesus Christ. (It's all right there in Handel's Messiah; you may have found yourself whistling it without knowing what it was about.) For those Christians who admire Darwin's theory, who see a certain beauty and simplicity in it, and who've always wondered where they got that compulsion to climb a tree and hurl a coconut at somebody (perhaps Richard Dawkins), there remains a possibly insuperable theological problem: reconciling Darwin's world, in which death is essential to the appearance of variety and beauty, with Paul's world, in which death is corruption and perversion--a stain on creation that can only be removed with Christ's resurrection.

I think that evangelicals and other orthodox Christians have an enormous challenge in the coming years. The decoding of the human genome has already led to practical advances in science and medicine--all based in the theory of evolution. It becomes harder and harder to reject Darwin (the director of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, is a "Darwinist evangelical"--I wonder if his fish decal and his lizard decal are friends?). Yet to give in to Darwin, even a little bit, feels like giving in to Richard Dawkins: it feels like a rejection of Jesus as redeemer and savior.

Isn't it childish to be afraid, though? Isn't it foolish to get ourselves twisted up with all of these worries, whether theological or scientific or both? If God is not God, then it won't matter what we do, or who's right, or whether Richard Dawkins is a hero or a jerk, or whether anybody ever tells the truth about anything--for, as Pilate said and we Latin teachers love to quote, "Quid est veritas?"

On the other hand, if God is there, the only thing to do is to keep asking questions and keep revising the answers, without prejudice and without hatred for those who disagree. It's not up to us to determine what the truth is or save Christianity from a brutal end at the hands of Richard Dawkins: he won't kill God while our backs are turned. And though the trail of knowledge may wander for awhile in an unfamiliar direction, we can trust in its ultimate destination.

02/06/09 For Shame, For Shame

Do men ever find themselves in all-male groups where they’re called upon to tell their "most embarrassing moments?" It’s hard to imagine, though it happens all the time in women's meetings. I led a junior high group one time where the kids were supposed to share their greatest fears. Without exception, the boys all said, "I ain’t afraid of nothing." Which only proved that they were all deathly afraid of each other.

Women fear each other too, but we don’t mind talking about moments of mortification. The reason is that embarrassment, for us, is a badge of dignity. The ability to be ashamed of a social faux pas just proves that our standards for ourselves are very high. "Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m wearing exactly the same dress as her!" (Would a guy even notice that he had on the same shirt as his friend? Probably not.) The higher a woman's social standing, the more likely she is to announce that she’s sooooo embarrassed by a mistake that is soooooo tiny that noticing it almost amounts to bragging. It's a twist on the princess and the pea sydrome. The parallel for men would be a guy saying something like, "I can't believe I ran that mile in 4:01--and I used to be fast."

Well, anyhow, all of this is really an introduction to an embarrassing moment of my mine, which I'm only telling because I want you to think that I'm a socially adept person who couldn’t possibly do such a thing in ordinary circumstances.

One day I was sitting in a church service next to a friend of mine who’s usually very quiet and reserved--never particularly emotional or demonstrative. Of course, since we were evangelicals, the service was taking place in a large gymnasium with an air conditioner going at full blast. The pastor started to pray, and as he prayed, I heard my friend begin to cry. Though I didn’t want to be too pushy, I patted her a few times comfortingly on the back. She kept crying, so I put my arm around her and rubbed her shoulder gently, all the time keeping my eyes closed and wondering what could possibly be wrong. She said nothing, only continued to sob gently, while the pastor prayed on.

Finally, he ended the prayer with an "amen." I looked up at her, squeezed her arm, and said,"Are you all right?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm fine, but I think somebody behind me has the sniffles."

02/05/2002 From the Infidelity Desk:

PITCH FOR ADULTERY FINDS

HOUSTON MARKET

By CLAUDIA FELDMAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Feb. 2, 2009

Football fans are used to outrageous ads on Super Bowl Sunday, but a 30-second pitch for adultery had Monday-morning quarterbacks buzzing.

"Infidelity is a form of betrayal, and the idea of portraying betrayal as an answer to relationship problems is mind-boggling," said family therapist Tim Louis in Houston.

He was referring to the $250,000 spot for AshleyMadison.com, an online dating service for married folk.

The ad, deemed inappropriate by NFL and NBC officials, ran only in Texas. It showed a couple celebrating their anniversary at a white tablecloth restaurant. The man blew his nose, answered his cell phone, then stood up to leave in the middle of dessert.

"Happy anniversary, honey," he said on his way out.

Then came the voice-over, speaking to women: "Isn’t it time for AshleyMadison.com?"

Louis was emphatic that the answer is no.

"The reality is many people do have affairs, but they only create additional problems between husbands and wives," he said. "There’s nothing like a big old secret — and guilt and fear — that further isolates you from your partner."

AshleyMadison.com CEO Noel Biderman said he started the service in 2001, after reading that 30 percent of the people signing up for singles dating services were actually married.

"I thought, wouldn’t it be better to be honest about your status?" he said. "About 3.3 million members and tens of millions of dollars later, I think I was right."

Today, the Toronto-based company is focusing on Texas because Houston, Dallas and San Antonio represent its fastest-growing markets.

"We’ve had close to a quarter-million members join in the past few months," Biderman said. (italics mine)

Two things to say here. First of all, you must know you've scraped bottom when NBC and the NFL deem your ad inappropriate for television. These are the people who "deemed" those GoDaddy.com ads "appropriate" (you know, the ones with the dorm guys and the computer and the shower and Danica Patrick's probably silicone-enhanced cleavage).

Secondly, there's not much funnier than hearing a scumbag like Biderman justify making money from his homewrecking business: "I thought, wouldn't it be better to be honest about your status?" You get the idea that he came up with the idea at some mountaintop retreat, staring at the stars, thinking about the millions of souls toiling down below in the bonds of unsatisfactory matrimony. . . the cashier at the bowling alley whose husband watched television during dinner (even on Stouffer's night!); the school principal that no one understood, not even his wife of thirty years; the politician who really only wanted a kind and understanding listener; the poor soul who sat at a restaurant on her anniversary and watched her husband blow his nose and answer his cellphone!

I don't mean to make fun of people's legitimate sorrows and disappointments in their relationships. Marriage is hard work, and sometimes a wide gulf opens between the public joy of the wedding feast (the smiling bridegroom, the glistening bride, the cheering friends!) and the loneliness and struggles of the hard years that come later. Not everyone can cross that gulf. But how horrible, how absolutely wicked, to push people into the abyss!

I guess there's a challenge here for everybody who feels critical of Noel Biderman (and when I say critical, I mean we're drawing pictures of him hanging over a fiery pit with his toes wiggling just out of reach of the flames). We all know that marriage is a social act as well as a personal one (this is one of the things that separates it from its more popular cousin, shacking up). It implies a covenant with a community as well as between two people. The couple offers the community the strength that comes from the combination of different gifts and personalities: they agree to raise children together (if children come) and thus make the world all over again in a new generation. They bring more connectedness to society by establishing bonds between people and families who were once strangers.

The community, meanwhile, offers a newly married couple. . . what? A few place settings of silverware and china, matching Snuggies, and best wishes for the future. After that, they're on their own. Can we do better? With so many expectations and pressures heaped on their narrow shoulders, and with the forces of Satan (that means you, Noel) arrayed against them . . . what else can we do for married people, particularly those struggling to get through the rocky stretches which inevitably turn up, especially (apparently) in

Texas?

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to study on it.

02/04/2009 So That's Why I Look Young!

I needed some good news this week! On the Today Show this morning, I saw a report about the effects of environment and behavior on aging. It turns out that a study of identical twins reveals the three biggest things that will turn you into Granny Clampett while your twin sister swings with Chloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars.

So here they are:

1) smoking (Stop smoking, now! Do you hear me? Now!)

2) lying in the sun (Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad)

and

3) Are you ready?....

Being Thin!

What?

Of course Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, bless their hearts, were eager to tell us not to go out and gain a few pounds just to look younger. But the pictures they showed could have been advertisements for junk food: sets of photographs, ALL women, naturally (men don't mind a saggy porch as long as the plumbing works) that looked more like before and after photos than pictures of twins. "Was it the plastic surgery? No! Expensive and greasy vanishing creams? No! She dropped the years by gaining the weight with the Little Debbie diet!"

Ah, some days are good days.

02/02/2009 No TV Left Behind

As we learned during the First Gulf War, the one thing our government can do very efficiently is drop bombs down incredibly narrow chimneys without hitting Wolf Blitzer. For everything else, there's the free market, which is extremely good at correcting itself every seventy years or so with violent depressions that wipe out half the wealth on the planet. And even then, Wolf Blitzer just keeps on reporting it all. IF, that is, you have cable or satellite television on which to watch him.

Until today, this home has been a cable and dish-free zone, an anachronism, a living tribute to a simpler time when people (like us) stuck rabbit ears on top of their T.V.s. or occasionally held them over their heads (while standing on top of a chair propped on top of a couch) to get better reception of S.E.C. games. Sometimes, Knowshon Moreno ran down the field and it seemed like he had two tacklers right on his heels, and we shouted, "Run, Knowshon, run!" only to realize (when all 3 did identical dives into the endzone), that we'd been fooled once again by fuzzy reception.

I need to make clear that we haven't put off getting cable on account of our old-fashioned values or homeschooling scruples. That would be giving ourselves too much credit, though I have to say that a childhood with little to watch besides Mr. Rogers (today, friends, we're going to take a look at a woodchipper!) and Barney (submit to Barney submit to Barney submit to Barney) is sure to push your kids back on their own imaginations. My girls were thirteen before they found out one of the chief facts of life: that before Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton was just a blind guy with a headband stuck on the bridge of his nose.

Well, a few months ago, I heard that the government planned to do something previously unimaginable: turn off the analog signal for the public airwaves and broadcast only in digital. Old T.V.s like ours with bent and broken rabbit ears would have to go limping out to pasture unless we ordered a government coupon and purchased a converter box from our local superstore. If we should get that blessed coupon, however, incredibly clear and startling sharp T.V. reception would be ours from that moment on. Never again, unless our glasses were steamed up , would we have to endure fuzz and snow; never again could we be fooled into thinking human beings had landed on a distant rock rather than a styrofoam set at the Pentagon. All would be. . .revealed.

People, I tell you my story for your own good, in case any of you are still waiting for that government coupon (you'll have to throw in $20 of your own, by the way), and thinking that the converter box will solve all of your troubles. What they haven't told you is that your federally funded box will only work if your digital signal is coming through strong. If the signal is weak, you get nothing. If your old rabbit ears would have given you three Knowshons, your new box will give you. . . a blank screen.

Oh well, I'm not too sad about having 300 channels. That's a 3000% increase from what we had just yesterday. Nothing like the free market

. . . if only it were free.

02/01/2009 Random Thoughts While Watching Superbowl XLIII

Wonder if the NFL pays a Latin teacher somewhere to figure out their Roman numerals for them

Wonder if that teacher is sitting in a sports bar right now saying, "I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm an NFL consultant..."

The Pittsburgh punter is the only one who looks like he could have played in Superbowl I--he probably would have been a linebacker

We're becoming our parents...every time a sexy commercial comes on, I let out an involuntary scream; then the kids ridicule me

OH MY GOSH, LOOK AT WHAT

THAT WOMAN'S WEARING...

MUST

SEX SELL

EVERYTHING.....?

EEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!

Is Kurt Warner related to Pop Warner?

Who designs these uniforms? Large men shouldn't wear shiny pants. They all looked so much better in college

Do those women in Bruce Springsteen's band really play the guitar? Their hands haven't moved in about ten seconds

Now who's playing in this game, did you say? The St. Louis Cardinals? Oh, the Steelers...where's Terry Bradshaw?

01/31/2009 A Stimulating Tale

Once upon a time in Fairyland, there was a widow who had five daughters: Hilda, Hulga, Hepsibah, Hester, and Havilah. Times were hard, but she knew that her girls were enterprising and strong (particularly Hulga, who could bench press 250 pounds). With a little outside help, such girls would surely prosper--spinning straw into gold, growing gigantic beanstalks, catching talking fish, etc etc etc.

So the widow trotted off to her wealthy uncle, Sam, to ask for a stimulus package.

"Uncle Sam," she said, "look at the energy and dynamism of my daughters. Look at the enormous feet of Hilda and Hester! With just a little start-up capital, imagine how many grapes they could stomp in one day! I'm not asking for a handout, I'm offering you a chance to get in on the ground floor of a great little winery!"

The widow told Uncle Sam about her other ideas: Hepsibah, who was very gifted, planned to use her stimulus money to invest in magic mirrors--"Think of the military applications!" she said.

And of course there was Havilah, who talked to animals and made flowers grow wherever she walked. Havilah planned to harness the energy of the wind and the sun to keep the lights on in Fairyland--no more pale dwarves laboring in mines in distant mountains. From now on the dwarves would mostly work in coffee bars and play Sudoku and write e-novels.

Uncle Sam, who had actually been asleep for most of this long speech, grunted his approval (anything to get rid of the garrulous widow), and then rolled over on his back and began to snore vigorously. The widow reached her hand under his mattress and pulled out a wad of I.O.U. notes, which served as cash in Fairyland, though nobody understood why.

A few months later (or was it years), Uncle Sam woke up. He looked under his mattress, found that his I.O.U. notes had disappeared, and then remembered a strange dream he'd had, which apparently hadn't been a dream at all. He put on his hat and grabbed his cane and ran over to the widow's house, planning to demand interest on the investment he'd made from some cash he'd borrowed from certain characters in a certain Chinese fairy tale, but that's another story.

"So," he said, "what has become of my stimulus money? Show me the winery, the magic mirrors, the green energy, the dwarves happily employed in coffee bars!"

All he saw, however, was the old widow with her daughters, sitting in a very smart-looking cottage. "We're still making plans," said the widow, "but first we're improving the infrastructure. Hilda and Hester needed custom-built shoes--with feet that big, you don't just run over to Payless. Hepsibah changed her mind about the magic mirror business: she decided to get a degree in art history. Havilah took the renewable energy capital and--well, frankly we haven't seen her in a long time."

Uncle Sam threw up his hands in despair. "Do you mean to tell me that all of my money has been frittered away--not of one your daughters has made any return on my investment?"

"Well," said the widow, "there is Hulga. As you know, she's quite strong. Fundamentally strong, you might say. And bright, too. Just this last week she was able to rid the town of Hamlin of vermin. And they've promised to pay her very well, too. In fact, top dollar. . ."

So Uncle Sam returned home, somewhat cheered by this news. But as he reached his door, a messenger in scarlet tights and a jingle-bell doublet met him at the door. "Sir, I come from Hamlin, over the mystic mountains, to humbly beseech you for another small loan..."

01/29/2009 Live Poor on More

Yesterday, passing by the window of the bookstore at a certain enormous church where I spend way too much time, my eye landed on an interesting title. Live Rich for Less. I was in a hurry, yes, but I felt I couldn't exist for another moment in this world without going in to investigate. So I did. Closer inspection revealed that the book was on the discount shelf. That seemed a bit ironic. The subtitle of the book was descriptive, and I was happy to see that it dialed the Gilded Age rhetoric back a bit: Create the Lifetstyle You Want by Giving, Saving, and Spending Smart.

Now, I know a little bit about how titles get chosen. Basically, they're not the author's fault, or otherwise I would never have produced two books with seven word-plus titles. So I'm trying to imagine a conversation that could have occurred in the marketing department of a Christian publisher about 6 months to a year ago:

So what do we call this thing? Complete Money Makeover? Total Financial Peace?

The author wants to call it something Biblical like Storing Up Treasures in Heaven or The Cheerful Art of Giving...

No!

What?

The word "giving" does not go in the title. People don't buy books about giving.

Not even Christians?

Definitely not. Put it in the subtitle if you have to.

But the Beatitudes...

Jesus never had to sell the Beatitudes, did he? We have a very conservative audience. They don't think they should have to choose between being comfortable and being generous.

What do we think? Do we think they have to? Do we think WE have to?

Not when my money's earning eighteen percent guaranteed.

Eighteen percent! You're kidding!

Listen, here's the phone number for my financial planner. He's a genius, and he doesn't let just anybody in. In fact, he's very selective...

Well, enough fantasizing. I've been doing a lot of thinking today about the kind of financial advice I'd give people if I were to write a book based on my years of being a ~~starving sharecropper~~ teacher's wife in ~~the~~ ~~Dust Bowl~~ Leeds, Alabama Call it Living Poor on More: Making the Most of Your Dire Circumstances. Here are a few of my suggestions:

--Don't spend money on groceries if you don't have to. The dessert samples at Barnes & Noble and Books a Million can sustain an overweight woman for a day or more

--The Wal-Mart returns department will take almost anything back, including canned goods from other stores. They may not give you cash, but you can still take the opportunity to return those garbanzo beans your husband bought by mistake--and then use the store credit to buy something really healthy, such as Spaghettios

--For as long as possible, don't let the kids know that there are places like Disney World; tell them that everybody in America wants to spend the hottest week of July at their Aunt Charlotte's small un-air-conditioned house in Dayton, but only a limited number of tickets are available

--If you have the preacher over to dinner, be sure to deduct the cost of the meal from your tithe. If he has a large family, or is a big eater, you can dip into next month's tithe as well

Oh, I've got lots more suggestions. But my starving children are calling me from the next room.

1/27/2009 Never Forget

The purpose of my blog today is to celebrate National Thank a Friend for Being Strange Week. I want to thank my slightly old and very dear friend Pam, pictured above, not only for being strange herself, but for blazing a trail of idiosyncracies that I've followed since the age of twelve, when I first met her. It was 1978, and we had both been dragged by our parents (who, being evangelicals, had of course met each other thirty years before at a Bible camp in another state) to a tiny, struggling bastion of the Reformed faith in suburban Atlanta. Pam and I exchanged a few pleasantries that night, and then she yanked a handful of grass out of the church parking lot (that should tell you something right there), and said, "Treasure this always, and never forget me."

Which of course, I haven't. Just the other night, I was having dinner with a mutual friend at the Macaroni Grill here in suburban Birmingham. (Being an evangelical, I naturally recognized the waiter from Vacation Bible School.) And when I say that this friend was "mutual," I mean that at camp, she and Pam and I once dressed up as Siamese triplets. We braided our hair together: that's how close we were. Sitting at the restaurant, gorging myself on Tiramasu, I started to realize how blessed I've been in my life--both in terms of desserts and in terms of friends. At an age when I didn't have much sense of my own, I met some wonderful, weird, funny people who infected me with the idea that life is what you make of it. You don't wait for clues about how to live from the culture around you: if anything, when the culture tries to make friends, you run the other way.

This philosophy has stood the test of time. Here are a few of Pam's ideas that helped me get through hard spots:

Avoid everything fashionable, including artsy people who avoid everything fashionable

Choose a good person to marry and then fall in love (at the age of 16, Pam was really gung ho for arranged marriage: her passionate nature, though, guaranteed that she'd fall head over heels before she got to step two)

It's better to be poor and virtuous than poor and immoral; almost everything else is a pipe dream

Sing hymns in harmony at the top of your lungs, no matter who complains

Don't wear large bows on your head unless you want people to think you're insane

Shop at thrift stores

Beware of letting people know how good you are at leading children's church

When you're depressed, watch the Star Trek episode where Spock goes in heat; it almost always works

01/26/2009 You Lie Like the Rug on Your Head

Will the biggest liar please stand up?

Watching these four men, two famous liberals and two famous conservatives, lie straight through their big, shiny, white teeth (Nixon is the only one who probably never had delusions of studliness) makes me want to find something that they all have in common. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have a fullproof test for dishonesty--the key to picking out a liar before he's picked your wallet or picked you to be Barack Obama's replacement in the Senate?

I'm studying on it, but I haven't found that key just yet. Did they all go to some summer program where they learned to prevaricate really, really well...Liars Camp?

01/25/2009 The Department of Connections

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll begin by saying that some of my friends have accused me of being a name-dropper (yes, Burt Boykin, I'm talking about you). I don't care to argue with these people, because that would mean foregoing today's blog, which is about my three-way connection to one of the world's most famous men, somebody who once got in trouble for saying he was bigger than Jesus Christ. Now there's a big head for you. If Jesus had been the vengeful type, which he wasn't (and isn't), he could have written a message in the clouds saying, "Yes, my son, but you still haven't sold as many albums in Europe as Engelbert Humperdink or Boxcar Willy."

So I don't have quite as big a head as John Lennon. In fact, the idea of being connected to celebrities is now sort of funny to me, because the celebrities just aren't what they used to be...you know, back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, when studios even changed people's names lest they sound ordinary and unglamorous...Archie Leach thus becoming Cary Grant, Ethel Gumm reinventing herself as Judy Garland, and Norma Jean Baker

metastasizing into Marilyn Monroe.

What's so odd about this three-way connection to John Lennon is the way it's shared between my husband and me, giving our marriage the stamp of destiny, of fate. In fact, the first prong in La Forchetta del Destino (the Fork of Destiny) can be traced to my husband's youth. In the late 1970's, he was a high school student in Japan. He spent some of each summers at Karuizawa, a mountain resort town (then much smaller) where missionaries from The Evangelical Alliance Mission had a language school and retreat center. He remembers playing tennis and working as a parking attendant--raking in big tips from the Crown Prince, who paid those funny Americans to find a spot for the old Aston Martin, or whatever it was he drove (amazing how missionaries do fall on their feet!) Sometimes, at the park, my husband and his pals ran into a British guy named John who brought his little boy Sean there to play. Being quite a few years behind on their knowledge of American pop culture, the missionary kids didn't really know who these people were, only that they were staying over at the Ono house, not far from the T.E.A.M. compound.

Second prong in La Forchetta del Destino. At college, we both knew a very intelligent, very intense girl who was half Japanese. The year after she graduated, we heard from friends that she was Yoko Ono's daughter. It was a secret at that time, and now it seems a shame to me that people betrayed her in that way. Since then, though, she's reconciled with her mother and her identity is widely known. My husband clearly remembers saying to her, "Wow, has anybody ever told you that you look a lot like..."

And now for the third and tragic part of the story. There's no room for humor here, but it is an odd coincidence. Mark Chapman lived in Atlanta in the seventies. After getting off of drugs and becoming a Christian, he became engaged to a girl who was a family friend of ours. The engagement didn't last; he was already mentally ill and unhinged. I don't remember clearly all that transpired between then and the day in 1980 when he took a gun and shot John Lennon outside his hotel, but I do remember the mother of that girl sitting at our kitchen table, crying with my mother.

So my question is...do we really have an unusual connection with this one famous person, or does celebrity just highlight the many connections that already exist in a person's world--do we only see an odd coincidental combination of connections because there's a famous person at the center of it?

(Correction: My husband says that he did know who John Lennon was, but didn't realize what a big deal he was. Also, the Crown Prince showed up in a convoy of limousines; I don't think that the teenagers were allowed to breathe on them, let alone park them--they simply sat in the booth and took the money. A little less glamorous, but an interesting idea for a novel...)

01/24/2009 Race

Ballerinas weren't the only interesting people I met in Tallahassee. Another woman from our Birmingham dance program was down among the frosty palm trees with her daughter; she and I hadn't really met before, but the long waits during the audition classes gave us plenty of time to get acquainted.

Now, this was Wednesday, the day after the Inauguration, and the woman I found myself talking to happened to be African-American. I wanted so much to know what she was thinking about it all, but at first I didn't dare bring it up. You know how it is. Whether you're white or black or Asian, when you get together with somebody of a different race, the last thing you talk about is the very thing you're both thinking about: RACE. Maybe some people in some parts of the country are past this. In the South, where most of us continually fight the stereotypes and assumptions we've grown up with, it's hard not to see each other as just that--the other.

So I screwed my courage to the sticking point, which is a very odd expression, and asked her if she'd been on the road all day Tuesday (like me), or if she'd been able to see any of the Inauguration on television.

"I watched it!" she said. "I watched the whole thing before I left town. I was at Boutwell! It was wonderful!"

Boutwell Auditorium is a municipal center in Birmingham where in 1938 Eleanor Roosevelt moved her chair to the center of a segregated crowd to protest Southern inequality; in 1948 it was the scene of a States Rights convention where segregation defenders determined to maintain the status quo. On Tuesday, 6000 people gathered there to celebrate Barack Obama's Inauguration with music and dancing. And the music, you can be sure, was a whole a lot more hip than anything offered in Washington.

This woman was joyful, and ready to talk about it. Never mind the old rule of silence; she gladly told me how much it meant to her to see an African-American doing something that she (growing up in a rural area of Alabama) had been conditioned to think was impossible. She told me how she prayed for him every day and felt almost as if he were her own son.

While she was talking about the things that gave her joy, I kept thinking about what was giving me joy at that moment--the opportunity, so long in coming, to speak face to face with a black woman about race. You read and hear all the time that African-American people struggle to believe that they have the same rights and opportunities as white people. Listening to her explain so eloquently that she really felt that way until Tuesday helped me to understand and accept the truth of it. It made me examine myself, too. My beliefs aren't racist, but some of my kneejerk reactions still are: if I'm annoyed at a tailgater in traffic, for instance, or a loud student, I'm not color-blind. The race demon taps me on the shoulder. I know it's awful, but it's the truth.

So I wondered what would have happened if this woman and I had met fifty years ago (as adults, that is). Back then, would I have been just another hard-headed Southerner? Would I (while talking like a good Christian) have walked around with that air of casual entitlement and superiority that black people have long sensed, and resented? I hate to think so, but I don't want to fool myself, either. Maybe.

01/23/2009 Bunheads

A drive through southeastern Alabama and the Florida panhandle is a satisfying thing in so many ways. Not that I'd recommend the trip for its own sake--I'm not comparing it to the Blue Ridge Parkway, for instance, or even Route 66. But if you should happen to take your daughter to a ballet audition at Florida State University, just think of the things you'll get to see:

a fifteen foot rooster made from welded scrap metal

a sign that says "Go to Church or the Devil Will Get You" (and in case the thought alone doesn't inspire terror, there's a silhouette of a figure with horns, tail, and pitchfork who bears an uncanny resemblance to that guy on the chicken salad cans)

a field full of washing machines

a helicopter stuck on a pole

a rickety clump of log cabins advertised as

"PIONEE VIL AG"

a big cow made out of something that looks like duck tape, but who knows?

five or six signs for "ADULT STORE--TOYS, DVDS, NOVELTIES" which I'm sure many a parent has had trouble explaining; those are all in Tallahassee, by the way, where every nineteen year-old boy is apparently an adult

I also saw a van in Montgomery with an intriguing slogan painted on the side: "There is power in the word and tongue-- power available to you-- Weaver Ministries will show you how!" Somebody in the van tossed a cupful of ice out the window, which sprayed all over my windshield and made me believe, for half a second, that it was miraculously snowing.

I had never been to Florida State, and it was my misfortune to visit on the coldest day of the year or decade or maybe even century in Tallahassee. The temperature at 7:30 in the morning was about 25 degrees: the palm trees looked funny under the frost--like people who showed up at a formal party in beach clothes. I parked right under Chief Osceola in the stadium lot, and then walked twenty miles to the dance building, passing a few dazed students along the way. One girl stumbled around in shorts and t-shirts--maybe she was headed back to her dorm after a night of craziness, or maybe she just hadn't packed any warm clothes for college. With a pair of yellow socks, she'd have been pretty well fixed up in the school colors, mustard and red. Thirty minutes more, though, and she'd have had to cheer for Carolina...

And speaking of cold. There's something about being in a roomful of ballerinas. Is it the buns? (I mean the buns on their heads.) Is it the ramrod posture? Is it all those graceful necks and composed faces and and perfect bodies? (Ah, but why should a crowd of young, skinny women intimidate someone like me?) Is it the army of uptight parents in the room, piling their own hopes and fear onto the fragile little shoulders of their children? Is it the low but audible pulse of nerves and self-criticism under the calm surface of so much talent, so much beauty? I understand why people love to dance, but I don't understand why my daughter, or anyone, would want to live in that world, which seems so impossibly hard compared to the world right outside.

As a parent, I have to let my children figure out what they love to do and help them pursue it... at least within the bounds of common sense and decency. But for myself, such a cultured, constricted life would never do. I'll take a field of washing machines over a New York stage any day. And there's just something about a duck tape cow that takes the pressure off. . .

01/19/2009 Tomorrow

I'm off to Tallahassee tomorrow, so this blog will lie fallow till Friday. Will the world last that long? Barack Obama gets the nuclear codes tomorrow afternoon. If it's jihadists we're worried about, we might prefer to have W in office, but if it's the Soviet Union, we're probably better off without Dick Cheney just a pacemaker blip away from the Oval Office. But that's only my opinion.

Maybe I'll pass the band from Florida A&M on the road: the Marching 100. They're going up to Washington to put on the brass (or kick it?) for the Inaugural--what Rush Limbaugh amusingly calls "the Immaculate Inauguration." For the most part I can't stand such naysaying. I can think of a dozen issues on which I disagree with Barack Obama, but I'm completely thrilled about tomorrow. So many people will be so happy, and if you live in the South, that happiness has a spiritual color to it: choirs singing, bells ringing. No, of course he's not the Messiah, but just because there's no Santa doesn't mean you can't put plastic reindeer and runway reflectors in your front yard ..."Rejoice with those who rejoice," right?

We can start arguing about all the old stuff on Wednesday, bright and early. We can snarl at each other and call each other socialists and fascists and worry that we're giving up all our liberties or indulging in freedoms we were never meant to have. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow is a day to celebrate a new president and pray for his guidance and protection.

See you Friday.

01/18/2009 The Anti-Drug

Tonight, on my favorite radio program, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I heard that scientists have identified chemical chain reactions in the brains of prairie voles that correspond with the emotions that enhance bonding between mates.

Love, that is. Romance. You may sneer, but prairie voles, like human beings, are...well, sort of... monogamous. O.K., you're still sneering. But it follows (in the minds of some scientists) that lovelessness may one day be a treatable condition--like depression, or insomnia.

People on the show wondered whether this same research might lead to something very different--a vaccine for people who want to stop falling in love. Now there's an interesting thought. In my experience, love is like a fire hydrant. If you can manage to hook it up correctly and point the stream at the appropriate blazing inferno, there's nothing better. Who would want a vaccine for that? But maybe there's a break in the line somewhere, or the firefighters are inept, or a truck hits the hydrant, or the inferno is just a little out of reach. Then there's nothing more inconvenient and humiliating than an enormous gushing geyser of unwelcome, uncontrollable affection pouring out all over the wrong part of the neighborhood. Yep, I bet some people would line up for a shot...

01/17/09 An Open Letter

To: Barack Obama

From: A Citizen

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

First, many congratulations on your success and best wishes for a great Inauguration. Second, in spite of the considerable things that divide us, I think that all Americans (at least those with their feet planted firmly on the ground) can now come together on one uniting principle.

It's time to get rid of the birds.

You know what I'm talking about. It became almost fatally clear after this week's emergency landing of a passenger plane in the Hudson River. The cause: a flock of large fowl, most likely Canada geese, hitting the plane's engines. Thanks to a skillful pilot, the plane made a soft landing right next to a fleet of Coast Guard tugboats. One more bothersome beak in the belly, though, and the plane might have taken a different tilt--those 155 passengers could be lying at the bottom of the Hudson right now.

So what's the argument for keeping geese--indeed, any dangerous flying beasts--around? This was, after all, nearly the second fatal crash of a large plane on U.S. soil in two years! Out of sixty million logged hours of flight during that period , only fifty-nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine and a half of them of them avoided near fatal encounters with winged harbingers of aviary doom.

Sir, the time is now. The media agree; they're chattering on every channel about what can be done to solve the nation's bird problem. Well, I ask you to put me on the task. I, and a cadre of like-minded companions, shall undertake to rid the nation's airways of those...let's not shrink from an honest word just because it's politicall yincorrect...those rats on wings. No tree will be too tall to climb, no bush will be too small to hide behind, no superhighway will be too broad to dash across like a streak of orange lightning.

Just take those bells off, sir, and open the back door. The rest is up to us. We'll make America's skies safe again.

For I am

Your servant,

Socks

01/16/09 Humility

This afternoon I read an article called "The Advent of Humility" in the December issue of Christianity Today, which has been lying around our bathroom for about a month now, soaking up shower steam. The author was Tim Keller, a humble pastor (and part-time oxymoron) who presides over a large Presbyterian congregation in New York City. "We are on slippery ground," he says, "when we discuss humility, because religion and morality inhibit humility." (I had typed "mutility" here and just corrected it--I don't know what mutility is). He talks about the "two narrative identities at work among professing Christians." One is the moral-performance narrative. People operating within this framework say, "I obey, therefore I am accepted by God." Obedience for them becomes a matter of habit and determination rather than love or gratitude. Their eyes are always on themselves: scrutinizing, measuring, comparing, sometimes congratulating, often condemning. When they do look outside themselves, they seem to take glee in figuring out what's wrong with everybody else. Their tone in debate is frequently sarcastic and snide.

The other framework is the "grace narrative identity." Christians who see obedience as a response to God's grace are free to look past themselves. They accept their own sinfulness, but their eyes are turned Godward, rather than inward. "Gracious, self-forgetfulness," says Keller, "should be one of the primary things that distinguishes Christian believers from the many other types of moral, decent people in the world." But he goes on to say that "humility, which is a key differentiating mark of the Christian, is largely missing in the church. Nonbelievers, detecting the stench of santimony, turn away."

As I sat reflecting on humility, and why it's so difficult (Keller says that as soon as we start wondering if we have it, we lose it), I thought how funny we human beings are, what lowly creatures with what lofty visions--sitting on comodes, reading articles about humility. Nobody with underwear around his or her ankles has any right to feel superior. I agree with everything Keller says, though as I've gone along for a while in Christian circles, I've noticed that even some people (including myself) who despise moralism and curse religious legalism quickly begin to feel that swell of superiority--that sense of being one of the inner circle, the gnostic club. It happens whenever we run up against somebody on the other side. We don't really like them. We wish they'd find another church.

Which is exactly what he gets at, of course, when he says toward the end of the article, "So what is left? Me? Am I beginning to think only we few, we happy few, have achieved the balance that the church so needs? I think I hear Wormwood whispering in my ear, 'Yes, only you can really see things clearly.'" He finishes by hoping that as our hearts hear the message of grace again and again, real humility will start to grow in us.

That ending was the only weak part to me, though the thing I like about Tim Keller is that he really is humble, and the best proof of it is that he always stops when he's out of things to say. What I wish he'd added is that, for a great many of us, ten thousand words about grace won't make a dent in our pride until we've messed up so badly or felt so much pain that we finally to turn to God for help. I know that there are exceptions to this: people who never break their parents' hearts, or get sent to detox, or wake up with a stranger, or lose a child, or face serious illness, or go bankrupt, or become missionaries and fail to make even one convert and then have somebody say "I'm not sending your support anymore because you only have three people in your church..." and yet experience the love and grace of God as fully as the prophet Daniel, who (as far as I can tell) never did anything to deserve the lions. I've decided that the reason those few strong, stable people, those Daniels, are around is because God knew that the rest of us needed somebody to run the farm while we went out and sowed the oats of pain and disbelief. For most of us, humility is just what the Latin word implies: a familiarity with dirt. You only thirst for God when the world begins to taste like a mouthful of sand. And after God has pulled you out of it, your overwhelming sensation is gratitude: the last thing you want to do is look around and condemn anybody else.

01/15/09 Doc-in-a-Box

I can't do much blogging tonight, because I have a sore throat. This is a twist on another famous excuse: "I can't answer your question, teacher, because my finger hurts." I guess the pain means that tomorrow I get to visit my favorite new Doc-in-the-Box: "Hoover Family Medicine, Gringos Welcome." A twenty year old pre-med student from UAB will ooh and ah over my throat, and then practice poking me with needles, while some doctor who lost a malpractice suit and found himself in a tin office in Hoover, Alabama looks on with cold, pitiless eyes. I like these walk-in clinics because, well, you can WALK IN. Pretty nice when you've just sliced off the tip of your finger but would rather cut off your whole hand than sit in an emergency room. On the other hand (so to speak), I don't trust local clinics with anything really serious. A few years ago I pulled out in front of a truck on Highway 119 and totalled my car. The hospital x-rayed and released me, but a couple of days later (on a Sunday) my ribs were killing me, so I drove over to Irondale to find a clinic open. The doctor came in with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking a little worse for the wear. He looked, in fact, a lot like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. He put the cigarette out in an ashtray and then started poking around on me. "Does it hurt right here? Right here under yer boob?" That line about did me in. I told him he must have gotten his diploma on the internet. He laughed, but didn't try to contradict.

01/14/09 Full Speed Ahead

Oh great, I pray for world peace and what happens? I get laryngitis. I feel like Harpo Marx. The whole morning has been an extended game of charades: thumbs up (yes), thumbs down (no), vigorous shaking of head (no, that pizza is not for breakfast), hands thrown in the air, eyeballs bulging (you left your backpack with all your books in at the church?), big smile, pointing to throat, turning motion with hand, hugging arms (hello church secretary I have laryngitis and we left something important in one of your classrooms and I need to borrow the key and did you know it's only 24 degrees out there wow!).

I'm thinking about tomorrow and particularly how I'm going to teach my class of eighteen junior high boys--the class I call "High Impact Latin," because it's such a workout. We'll see if I have a voice by then. If not, I may have to take a bicycle horn and a harp to class.

Well, coming back from the church just now, I listened to news on NPR. They were interviewing people in the neighborhood in Dallas where W and Laura plan to settle after they buzz out of Washington on a great silver mosquito and leave the big white bird behind for Barack Obama, whose initials I just now realized are B.O., but since mine were B.S. until recently, I won't make fun. The people in this neighborhood, fortunately for the Ws, are mostly Republicans. The man who spoke to the interviewer feels that Bush has been a great president, done a great job, and made us all proud to be American.

I don't think many people in the real world still believe this, no matter what party they belong to. But his words made me think of an early episode of the old Star Trek. I'm sure that fellow nerds will remember when Spock mutinied by taking the Enterprise off course; it turned out that he'd done it for a good cause--in order to help Commander Christopher Pike, his former Captain, who had been grievously injured somehow or other--and when I say grievously I mean grievously. Pike was more or less a burned head and shoulders stuck to the top of a piece of machinery that looked like a dishwasher. Such is the technology we have to look forward to. Anyway, Spock remembered a planet the Enterprise had visited some years before where the aliens kept human captives in a dream/fantasy state in order to study their--uh--responses. Call it the Peeping Tom planet. Christopher Pike had enjoyed a romantice dalliance there with a lovely girl who (as he only found out near the end) was in reality frail and disfigured--not that her disabilities kept her from appearing on The Andry Griffith Show and Hogan's Heroes. . .but that's hardly important now. The point is that Pike escaped from the dream planet and left the pretty girl, but after his accident, Spock realized that it would be a great idea to take him back. For only there, on Peeping Tom Planet, could the wounded Pike be whole again, could he live out a happy life with his lost love. Meanwhile, the aliens could add to their knowledge of human behavior, and perhaps one day sew hoods to cover up their bald, cloven heads, which strangely resembled the buttocks of major league baseball players.

So, how does this relate to anything? Think about it. Bush is going back to Texas, where he was once happy, and where people loved him and perhaps love him still. I don't know if George Bush has any Spock in his life who arranged this for him, though when I think about it, Laura Bush does have arched eyebrows and a surprisingly logical turn-of-mind. I imagine her looking at the wounded man before her (O Captain! My Captain!), diminished but beloved, flawed but dear, and dialing up old friends: "Find a place for us where they love George--it doesn't even have to be a real place. It could be a movie set. It could be an alien planet. It could be Texas. I just want to take him to a place where he can believe it's 1999 again. Where we can be happy."

So chart a course, Mr. Sulu. Only a few days left, and then we'll see if B.O. can do any better. . .oh woops, and I promised.

01/12/09 Waah!

Still Sick. Waah! Got to go to meet with Latin students for two hours. Waah! Want to lie on the couch and watch reruns of the Dick Van Dyke show. Waah!

Incidentally, I tried finding a youtube video of a baby crying to link with here. But all I can say is that boy are there some creepy people out there on the internet--and the posters are the worst of it. Who are all those foul-mouthed jerks and where are they holed up? In dorm rooms? In the house across the street from me? I want to know.

01/11/09 A Sunday Book Report

This started out as one of those Sundays. I woke up, grumpy, at 6:45. My husband kissed me on the cheek (I don't believe in facial proximity in the morning, but hes's very sweet). I said in a foul voice, "I have to clean the house, put dinner in the crock pot for your family, and prepare a Sunday School lesson by 9:00. And I'm not happy about it." Then I remembered a Sunday morning when, heading to church, we drove by a lady out cutting the grass, and I thought how lucky she was. But I don't feel so much that way anymore. I like church when I get there, only I wish I could wear my pajamas and take a pillow for the slow times.

The day went along, we had a good service and a nice dinner with grandparents (to walk in a house smelling of pot roast or baking chicken is the 2nd pillar 0f evangelicalism--I still have to think of the other three), and then around 2:30, an ironic event occurred. I began to get sick. As any child knows, the right time to get sick is on a school morning or (if you're a churched child) a Sunday morning. NOT a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon. Yet there I was. Fortunately, I had a nice blanket and a good book, which I shall now tell you about.

The book is The Knox Brothers by Penelope Fitzgerald. My friend sent it to me as a Christmas present, partly because it's so well-written and interesting, partly because it complements the other reading I've been doing lately in the history of early 20th century religion and literature. Most people nowadays have forgotten the Knox brothers, even Father Ronald Knox, who was an extremely influential British Catholic apologist and detective novelist, not suprisingly a friend of G.K. Chesterton (he gave Chesterton's eulogy, I think, but I'm sure Nathan Allen will correct me if I'm wrong!). There's a lot more I could say about him, but I won't risk losing your attention. His brother Edmund was a well-known editor of Punch; brother Dilly an important classical scholar and code-breaker during both wars; and brother Wilfred an Anglo-Catholic priest who had an important role in the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, a loose Anglican community of priests and nuns, still around today, that devotes itself to those two super-popular pursuits within the Christian faith, chastity and poverty.

The lives of the brothers are all fascinating in themselves, but the story holds a special interest for people who wonder what happened to Christianity in England. The father of these four unique and brilliant men was, interestingly enough, the very evangelical Bishop of Manchester, Edmund Knox. From his own father and mother, Bishop Knox had inherited a legacy of Anglican and Quaker piety (his wife's father was a Bishop in India who renounced worldly wealth and position in order to minister to the poor). Bishop Knox carried that piety into his work as a priest and bishop, seeing ministry to the poor and hard work on behalf of God's kingdom as the normal duties of a minister; he was also an educated and intellectual man, however, with brilliant children. Thus, he faced the dilemma of so many English clergymen before him--in order to prepare his children for a successful life among people of their own social class, it seemed crucial to send them to public schools (Rugby and Eton) and then on to Cambridge and Oxford.

What awaited Edmund and Dilly at Cambridge was a vigorous modernism, an easy and offhand antipathy to Christianity. They became friends with Lytton Strachey and Maynard Keynes; they stopped believing in anything and never started again. The other two, Wilfred and Ronnie, took a different course, and ended up as Anglo-Catholic priests. Even that was hard on their father, since it put them in a different faction within the English church. But the worst blow for him, at least as recorded in the book, came when Ronald, the youngest and the favorite, "poped."

Even the author, a niece of Ronald Knox, struggles to understand the Bishop's pain over this break. And it does seem so ridiculous in some ways: shouldn't he have been happy that two of his sons still retained their Christian faith and even devoted their lives to religious services? I almost think you have to be an evangelical to feel his pain. I remember a few years ago when I alarmed a bunch of relatives with my frequent attendance of mass at the Catholic Center in Athens, Georgia (Barbara Dooley was always there, too, wearing a fur, but that's another story). I was looking for God, essentially, and for a way of participating in the mystery of Christianity while continuing to doubt the whole thing. It seemed nearly impossible to do this as an evangelical, since so much of evangel-icalism is a matter of mental attitude rather than bodily ritual. I couldn't seem to think like a Christian, but I didn't want to stop being one, and Cathol-cism seemed to offer another way: a way of practicing the faith with my physical self when I couldn't do it intellectually.

Try explaining that to people, though, who have long since put aside questions about the essentials of faith (is there a God? is man really fallen?) and focus on distinctions of doctrine (justification by faith alone or by faith through works or by grace working faith through works or or or or or or). I'm not saying that these points are unimportant. The pursuit of theological truth is always important, and your view of your condition before God (whether you think he gives a rat's bum about your theology, for instance, when you're not loving your neighbor) makes a big difference in how you live and how you treat other people. But in the modern and post-modern world, in the world since Darwin and Freud and in the world of Richard Dawkins and Philip Pullman, it's good to remember the words of Jesus: "He who is not against us is for us."

One extremely useful insight in The Knox Brothers comes from Wilfred Knox, the Anglo-Catholic priest who helped found the Oratory of the Good Shepherd. He said (and this was around the time of the First World War) that the reason why English people were deserting the church was that they saw it as too enamored of the rich upper classes. He believed that that the English church looked too much like the Conservative party at worship. This seems so true to me: the death of English Christianity was only partially due to the rise of science. At the the core of its demise was its own conceit and hypocrisy, its refusal to identify with the weak and humble.

What does this say for us--for an American Christianity so bound up over the last eight years with a powerful political party and (often) corrupt leadership? I know that in conservative Presbyterian churches, for instance, we tend to worry and whine about the moral decline of our society; meanwhile we climb over each other trying to get to the top of the economic heap. Has there ever been a place where the Christian faith survived while its followers were pursuing wealth and power and ignoring the Gospel of Christ? I've been trying to think of one, and I can't.

01/10/09 Bumpy Roads

I drove up to Lookout Mountain this morning for a family luncheon and returned this afternoon. It's a pretty trip down highway 59, an interstate with shockingly few cars on it. Guess not that many folks need to get from Chattanooga to Birmingham, or vice versa--and may that always be the case! For after all, why should we in Alabama--an under-populated but beautiful state--share our good fortune with the people of Tennessee, too many of whom are now Yankees? O.K., I'm kidding about that. There is one thing, though: an odd dissimilarity between the left and right lanes of I59. The left is smooth and well-kept, but driving the right lane feels like taking a trip from Zimbabwe down to South Africa. Spend too much time in that right lane and you'll be paying a visit to the dentist just as soon as you get home. Come to think of it, maybe those weren't rocks in the road, they were dental crowns.

On my trips back and forth through the empty parts of Alabama, I always do like to spin the radio dial and hear what's up, especially out in AM country. Today I listened to a local swap shop, in which a woman was selling a souped-up hot rod for just $2000. I thought about it, I really did. And I listened to a sermon on WURL (Where You Are Loved) in which a man talked (yelled) about "how they tear down great big old buildings by knocking them with a great big old ball, sometimes now they even got to get to them by explosions and all, and do you know what they do first before they explode them? They turn off the power! So you don't get electrocuted! And do you know what Satan does before he tears us down, before he destroys us? He disconnects our power, he takes all our power away. And it all happens through church people. Not through the worldly people, since the Bible says the gates of hell can't prevail against us, but through other Christians..."

Boy, is that ever true. I don't know if I agreed with anything else the man said (he had a frog in his throat--a big one, and it was making me nervous, so I turned the dial at that point), but it's true that the worst hurt, or at least the hurt most destructive to faith, comes from within the church. Pain from outside usually drives you toward Jesus, if you have any inclination to go to him in the first place. But pain from the inside is like the dark inverse of sacramental grace: it's spiritual poison, ministered to you by the hands that are supposed to bring you Christ. I figured out a long time ago that it's easier to forgive people (inside and outside the church) if you don't make gods of them, if you accept that they're flesh and blood like you and are absolutely bound to fail you. To learn this lesson is a big part of becoming a mature Christian; but another part, maybe even harder, is continuing to have hope in people in spite of their flaws. This sounds so obvious, but it's the thing a lot of older Christians struggle with with most--not being cynical, not being a prisoner of low expectations.

01/09/09 Song for a Warm January

I've just been outside in the sunshine, tromping through the anthills and composte pile, surveying the flood damage. The thought occurs to me that beauty has many champions--everyone likes it, everyone sings about it--but who ever celebrates ugliness?

So today I sing of corruption, of plush black mildew climbing up the posts on the back porch, of anthills bristling with yellow grass and the neighbor's dog's dung deposited (ungraciously) on our side of the fence. I sing of the gently rotting cauliflower on a platter of potato peels in the composte: tomorrow's potatoes are already peeking up from pile, but I want to turn them into green beans and squash: I fold them under the crumbling heap to die and be born again, maybe by April. I proceed to an anthill, which I scoop up (with my shovel, not my hands) and deposit on another anthill in the front yard. Like a malevolent god (or Henry David Thoreau after drinking a case of Red Bull) I bend over to enjoy the carnage. Small red ants race from the top of the new mound, run in circles, crawl over each other in hideous droves while my skin also crawls, and then greet the shining black denizens of the local mound with teeth and legs and ...well, who knows what all those nasty little parts are. I'm hoping that by tomorrow they'll all be dead, red and black alike.

Returning to the backyard, I sing the clothes draped over the rope in the backyard: no, not some elegant clothesline purchased from the Sierra Club catalog, but a mouldy (is that how you spell moldy?) rope stretched from the back porch to the neighbor's tree, in revenge for the dog poop. I sing the six year-old pajama pants and the black t-shirt hanging there, as familiar as my own skin, since they're usually attached to it. I come into the house and sing the 14 year-old in her academic nest upon the couch: blankets, books, bag of chips, and history notes. The 17 year-old wants to drive across town to purchase more ballet shoes. I sing my rising blood pressure, I curse my diet, I eat a carrot stick.

01/08/09 Good News!

Good news, sisters! Fat is good for you! Well, not all fat, just the kind that makes you look like the Venus of Willendorf:

So, grab the nearest archaeologist and party!

01/07/09 Buy a Ring if You Want, but the Main Thing is You

(thanks to Rod Dreher for calling attention to this on his

Crunchy Con blog)

I think of myself as pretty intelligent about people (please, hold your applause). So man do I hate it when smart-alecky journalists come along with a scientific study showing that something I believe about life, about human nature is exactly untrue. And man do I LOVE it when somebody else comes along and explodes their conclusions.

A few months ago, you may have read the headline "Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex" (CBS), Or maybe "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds" (Washington Post). When I saw those stories, I thought something was odd about them. On the one hand, having attended an evangelical high school, I'm thoroughly familiar with the hypocrisy of Christian teenagers, at least the female ones. Back in preppy days, some girls--even a few nice ones-- kept track of their sexual rendez-vous with add-a-beads. I remember a girl at my high school who couldn't stand up straight, she wore so much jewelry. On the other hand, I knew some very dedicated Christian girls who put obedience to God and faithfulness to their parents above pleasing their boyfriends. (No, I wasn't one of these, but don't get excited--you could probably cut the teen pregnancy rate in half if you fitted everybody up with the glasses I wore in high school; they worked better than a chastity belt). Anyway, those kids had no secular counterparts in the 1980's. Whether they were girls or boys, you could only have found them among families who thought of chastity as a Christian discipline rather than a disease-prevention strategy; today, I'm sure, those girls would be the very ones to take pledges and observe them scrupulously. But only to confirm what they already believed.

Well, much to my delight, a columnist from the Wall Street Journal is now taking apart the counter-intuitive articles about abstinence pledges making no difference. It turns out that control group used in the studies did not include the cast of Gossip Girl. Nope. In order to satisfy the requirements of the experiment, it was made up of a similar mix of socially conservative, religious teens who hadn't made any pledges, yet still mostly remained chaste. (Huh? How is that possible?)

So what can we religious people learn from this study? Duh. That what we already thought is true. That it's faith and family--more than a piece of jewelry--that make a difference in teen behavior. That it's not for nothing we've been spending all those quality hours with grumpy teenagers, counting to ten when our eyes start to roll, forcing ourselves to initiate embarrassing talks, repeating the mantra, "Don't worry, the right person will come along someday, and then you'll be glad." Even if our kids don't make it through adolescence unscathed--and they very well may not, considering that all of the worldly forces of darkness (ooh scary!) plus their natural sexual programming (ooh, twice as scary!!) are more or less stacked against our piddling parental powers-- it's nice to know that we're not fooling ourselves, after all. What's always been true is still true today, and we can give our children a chance at pulling off the great 21st century miracle: an add-a-bead chain without any beads on it.

01/06/09 Thoughts from the Deluge

I write tonight from aboard Noah's ark, which has just picked me up at the top of my flooded driveway. That however, will not be the subject of my post. I just wanted you to know.

I'm thinking tonight about evangelicals. They say that the way you pronounce that word proves whether or not you are one. I, for instance, pronounce it "eh-vangelical," like Billy Graham. Bill Moyers, on the other hand, says "ee-vangelical." So do all those well-meaning godlessliberalheathens on public radio. But the pronunciation test isn't conclusive: there are a lot of lost sheep out there who pronounce the word the same way Chuck Colson does (eh-). On the other hand, there are millions of devout evangelicals who don't have the slightest idea what it means or how to say it: if they've heard the word "evangelical" at all, they confuse it with "evangelist." Which takes us back to Billy Graham, who is both an ee-vangelist and an eh-vangelical.

Now I wasn't born again yesterday, I've been around the block, and I can tell you that there are important differences between Northerners (especially Midwesterners, who don't think of themselves as Northerners) and Southerners. Up at Wheaton College in Illinois where I once matriculated (but only once, I promise), evangelicals were very conscious of who and what they were: devout Protestant Christians; heirs of earlier evangelical movements that promoted social reforms such as abolition and care for the handicapped; theologically orthodox; pious in prayer and Bible study; devoted to a reasonably literal view of Scripture (they allowed for poetry and parable, but erred on the side of taking it all as history); and zealous for missions. Naturally, the movement had nuances, and it also had a huge tension between first generation evangelicals (the excited new converts, always on the edge of spontaneous combustion) and 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation evangelicals who ran the gamut--they might be the most devoted, mature, intelligent Christians you could hope to meet, or cynical rebels just one annoying chapel speaker away from chucking the whole thing.

After a years up in Wheaton, we moved to Athens, Georgia, where the mix of people was very different but the climate was still intellectual. Even there I started to notice something which I saw amplified a few years later when we moved to Alabama. Conservative Protestants in the traditional South (outside of university communities where politics was a frequent topic) simply didn't talk about themselves as "evangelicals." It was more common to think in denominational terms: whether you were a devout Christian or not, at some point you'd probably attended a Baptist church; quite likely, you'd been immersed there. If you lived in the deep country, you had a chance of being a conservative Methodist. If you lived in the suburbs, you could possibly be a liberal something or other, attend a megachurch (or sometimes several at the same time--one for each kid and another for the parents) or even go to a

conservative Presbyterian or Anglican church. If you didn't do any of that, but you were still inclined to be religious, you were almost certainly Catholic.

But here's the important point, and I'll switch to the present tense, since it's an ongoing phenomenon. In the South, no matter what your denomination is, liberal or conservative Protestant or even Catholic, you might still be an evangelical by virtue of the way you think of God--as a father who is very present with you, Jesus who died for you, a Lord who asks for your whole life. Evangelicalism in the South is more of a color than a separate identification. The color shows up in various kinds of Christian practice and devotion. Thus, George Bush is seen as one of "us" (in spite of his fuzzy theology and his membership in a moderate to liberal denomination), by virtue of his faith in a Jesus "who died for sins" and helped him recover from alcoholism. The press heard his story of Christian recovery; they heard Bush call Jesus Christ "the world's greatest philosopher," and they saw him sucking on Test-A-Mints. They knew they were in the presence of an ee-vangelical.

I have friends in Birmingham who are Catholic but talk and think much like the evangelicals I've been to something when she noticed the similarity between fundamentalists (in the South of that time, rural conservative Protestants) and orthodox Catholics.

But more on that later. Right now, I have to go walk upon the waters...

01/05/09 M.A.D.D. (Mothers with A.D.D.)

Those of you who read this blog faithfully (which I'm hoping is nobody, otherwise I'd crumple under the weight of your disappointment) may have noticed that I try to alternate between the silly and the serious, the spiritual and the secular, the ridiculous and the merely stupid.

Since my last blog was about my rear end, I feel compelled to write about higher things today; you might say I hear the call from the Apollonian heights. My soul answers back, "Yes, yes, I come. I will incline my heart to what is true, what is beautiful, what is important to the human race."

But I CAN'T. The problem is that my 17 year-old is out in the car. You might not see the connection, but for me, there is simply no way to think about art, philosophy, literature, poetry, or even politics when my beloved child, that smiling golden-haired infant of yesteryear, is careering down highway 31 with rednecks veering in and out of her lane, testosterated teenage boys riding her bumper, 90 year-old grandmas trying to merge in front of her going 32 miles an hour. I warned her about all of them, and her response was, "I'll be careful."

As if that will make any difference. At least I'm not in the car with her. If I were, it would go something like this: Yikes!

View in mirror beside treadmill, looking over shoulder

1/03/2009 Exercise

Hah! Fans of my large rear end will not be happy to hear it, but I went to the gym today! Hah! Thirty minutes of working on the stationary bike and then treadmill while...get this...reading Peder Victorious by O.E. Rolvaag (author of God's in the Earth--one of my new favorites) and studying Greek verbs! Can you top this recital of virtuous activities? I think not! I think not!

Hope I spelled "stationary" correctly, so you don't picture me riding a postalette or walking over flowery envelopes...

1/03/2009 Low Tide

It is the first Saturday of 2009. The University of Alabama has lost the Sugar Bowl to a team from Utah (what? where's that?). Oh my goodness, our heads they are hanging low. Even though I am a Georgia fan, I do happen to live here, and so my head is also hanging low. You might say we are all at low Tide.

But we will, indeed we must, overcome these temporary Utah blues, because on the day after tomorrow, our real lives begin again. I must prepare to teach my 9th grade English students the 2nd half of American literature. The first half was pretty difficult, but mainly in a wholesome, homeschooly way (and these are homeschoolers I'm teaching, though you may question that classification given that I'm not teaching them in their homes, but rather in a church--more on that in a future blog). 9th graders don't find much in the diaries of William Bradford or the musings of John Winthrop to capture their imaginations, but (at least in the imaginations of their teachers) they find traditional Western ideas, anchored in Christian theism. Moving through Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, the foundation gets a little shakier...Edgar Allan Poe is a pleasant if creepy jolt to the nerves....Nathaniel Hawthorne, still a theist, exposes corruption at the moral center of American life: he sees sensuality as sacred and the individual person as a more inviolable sanctuary than any church, all of which is still essentially Christian...and then Emerson shows up with a Transcendalist scythe and a Unitarian plow and overturns all the traces of the old way. From Emerson till the First World War, the greatest sin will be a lack of faith in human potential.

All that stuff is what we learned before Christmas break. Then the 9th graders put on Santa hats, took my exam, handed me my presents: tree ornaments and ginger snaps and shower gel (picked out and wrapped by their mothers, I'm sure). They mumbled something about a Happy New Year and then bolted for the parking lot. When they come back to class on Tuesday, they will face the 2nd half of American literature, or at least the parts of it I've decided to teach. To begin with, there will be Walt Whitman, whom I don't care too much for, even though I like lines such as these, from "Song of Myself."

"Have you outstripped the rest? are you the president?

It is a trifle. They will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on."

Whitman is a democratic and all-embracing poet, the poet of the working guy, "of the woman the same as the man." I like his egalitarian outlook. What I don't care for is his self-celebrating, flesh-effusing, nose-honking, earwax-praising, star and leaf and over-the-top-of-a-cow-leaping poetry. Ah well, he's the next step in what Francis Schaeffer considered the downward trajectory of civilization (and I agree, with qualifications), so we've got to study him. Otherwise the kids might be in shock when they get to The Great Gatsby. It's a strange world, a strange society, a strange 9th grade curriculum that evolves from William Bradford to F. Scott Fitzgerald in just a few hundred pages of a textbook.

1/1/2009 Weird.

It feels so odd to write "2009." I remember forcing myself to put "1974" at the top of my homework. It seemed impossible that 1973 was already gone, but now here we are, in the blink of an eye, thirty-five years in the future. A lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same. I saw a woman at a ballet production the other night who happened to have known me when I was a kid in Virginia. She said, "I was just thinking about you the other day, remembering how you used to love malted milk balls." It seemed like a funny way to be remembered, but I didn't mind: I'm proud to be immortalized as a lover of Whoppers.

Reading the news and various blogs, I have the sense that a lot of people are standing around with their fingers in the wind, trying to anticipate where the country is headed. Whether this is worth the effort, I'm not sure. A year ago, did anybody foresee the mortgage debacle or the perilous credit crisis? A couple of people did, but I say they were lucky; the arrows landed where they happened to be standing--that's all. Before the economic crash we had hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and 9/11: nobody licked their fingers and felt any of those blowing in on the breeze. The one thing most widely prophecied--Y2K--turned out to be a boon for the freeze-dried food industry. Nothing more.

Surveys show that Barack Obama is the most widely admired man in America. I admire him too, but I can't see moving him to the top of my list until he's done at least one substantive thing besides get elected. Not that that was a small accomplishment--he had to convince a lot of folks with their fingers in the air that the breeze they felt was the one at his back, the mighty wind that will heal the economy, save the planet, and flush George Bush into outer darkness. But the people who don't like him also have their fingers up, and they claim that storms are brewing on the horizon. Portentous words whirl about their heads: "Socialism! Waning of the American empire! Last days of imperial democracy! Prepare for the end! Buy a year's supply of rice and beans (from us for a low, low price)!"

Any of the prophets could be right, or none of them. In some places and for some people, the next decade may be a peaceful and happy one; in other places--undoubtedly for many of the world's poorest people--it will be misery. As much as I like to read the news (and I am a junkie, I admit it), I think it's harmful to pretend that

1) anybody can predict the broad

circumstances of the future, let alone the quality of individual lives

2) the sum of the world's experience can ever be felt or known by an individual, apart from God

That second point is crucial, because a lot of the fear (or joy) we feel when we get absorbed in the news is mostly an illusion. Of course the media want us to feel that a national event (a presidential race, an economic crisis) is crucial to our lives. In fact they want us to think of our lives as inseparable parts of the whole--like the tissues of a vast national organism (once again I spelled that very carefully) which experiences each crisis as one being, without distinction in either hope or fear. Otherwise, we'd keep our eyes on matters immediately around us. Some of us might notice that we're not doing too darned badly. And then we might not watch so much Wolf Blitzer or read so much Newsweek. And then we'd be happier and less afraid. At least, I would.

But aren't some national and global things--an election, for instance, important to individuals? Not nearly as important, I think, as personal generosity, decency, hard work, affection, and loyalties between neighbors and family. Those are the things that determine the quality of individual life (I didn't say faith in God because I consider God's grace to all human beings as the basis of every good thing). When it comes to crises in the world, war and tsunamis, I think we need to know about them in order to vote, pray, and send money. Most of the time, though, we just watch and worry: it's cheaper, and it must work, because after a while the stories go away.

1/12/31/2008 Be Gone, 2008!

We're back home now after two days with my family. The reunion was great. The only bummer is that everybody was so darned NICE to each other. I'm left with nothing to complain about, no stories of injustice, in fact no stories at all. It was heavenly. I remember my medieval history professor at UGA, a Catholic guy with big cigars, saying that in heaven there would be no history to write, because there would be no conflicts to write about. He said there would be chronicles of time spent, but no history. The idea really bugged me, and still does, because it makes God sound more like an accountant than the creator of the Universe.

"And now, for an infinity of aeons, we will listen to an account of time spent..."

O.K., anyway, it's New Year's Eve, and I have nothing against accountants. In fact, I wish we had had one or two or several in our family this time last year, because it seems that in 2008 we have become victims of some Christian Bernard Madoff types, if that's what they are. It's predictable in my family that if we lose our shirts, it's not going to be to Godless, secular scoundrels. No, when we choose our scoundrels, we look for the ones with a fish right on the side of their pyramid. Good, rock-solid evangelicals, preferably with Reformed credentials and an ad in the Yellow Pages that reads, "Buy Grace A Loan Default and Bankruptcy: We Take God's Money and Give Back Pennies On the Dollar!"

I won't go into more detail than that, lest I embarrass anybody. I'll just say that in 2009, I plan to practice, in the words of Mad-Eye Moody (not to be confused with D.L. Moody), CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Dave Ramsey is right; if you don't understand something, you shouldn't invest in it. Also, you should stash as much cash as possible in a place where the sticky-fingered greedy rats of the world can't get it (do you think it could be my mattress that's causing this scoliosis?).

My second resolution for 2009 is to lose a little bit of weight. When I hoisted myself onto the scale at my sister's this morning, I saw that I'd gained 15 pounds this year--10 of that just in the last week. Starting tomorrow I'm eating nothing but curried lamb and apple butter.

My third resolution (and I tremble saying this because of so many failed attempts) is to read the Bible more. I've been resolving to do it since I was a fetus, but this year I'm really going to try. I am. I'm really going to do it. Just watch. (I think the problem is that they keep adding to it every year. I can't keep up.)

My fourth resolution is certainly the most important: to ask God to help me love the people that come into my life, even if it goes against every instinct I have, even if they make life inconvenient or hard or painful. I'm going to try to pray for the people who irritate me, and I'm going to work hard to be more honest with the ones I like: this means not being a sycophant and a people-pleaser. I don't think there's much chance I'll get very far in this fourth resolution, but that's where I'll aim my prayers.

Have a Happy New Year everybody!

12/30/2008 Of Course I Don't Need an Edotr?

This morning I showed my blog to my brother Danny, who's a dictionary Nazi. He pointed out that I misspelled a word in my heading a few days ago ("No ~~Desert~~ Dessert Please, We're Evangelicals"). Was I, he kindly suggested, intending some kind of complicated pun about Lawrence of Arabia and mirages and ~~sherbert, sorbet~~, ~~sherbit~~, sorbert, or did I have something else in mind?

No, the only thing I have in mind is misspellings of words like "dessert." I'm a decent speller most of the time, but just decent enough to be dangerouse. In the tenth grade, I won my school spelling bee and went on to the county competition. I'll never forget that day--getting out of school early, going with my Englush teacher to another high school, waiting excitedly on the third or fourth row for my turn in the preluminary round. At last my turn came. I stood up, gathered my wits about me, and received my word from the judges. It was "moron." I spelled it incorrectly.

Aw, who cares. What's the big deel about correct spelling, anyway? This whole obsesion with standard English is the fault of the printing press and Samuel Johnson and other forces of history that have worked to mak us all the same, all uniform, all boring. For years now I've been forced to write under the constraintes of editors editors who would stifle my creativity, inhibit my imagination, put there strangelhold-like fetters on the veritable wings of my muse.

Editors, who needs them? Thank God, I saye, for the intrenet, which has unleased the muzzle from the fountainhed of genius.

ius.

12/28/2008 How I Wish I Could Just Apparate!

Tomorrow we head up to my sister's house in Tennessee. I'm so happy about seeing my whole family together for the first time in two years: my brother the Democrat is coming all the way from Germany with his partner and three kids (with George Bush leaving office, they figure it's safe to come home). My parents the Republicans are shining up the American flag decal on the bumper and heading off through Atlanta traffic--God bless 'em. It'll be great to see everybody, even if nobody agrees on anything.

In fact, the only thing I'm not looking forward to about this trip is the highway. Tennessee drivers between Chattanooga and Knoxville consist of:

truckers in eighteen wheelers, hauling explosive substances

truckers in pick-ups, hauling grandma and mama and the kids (and explosive substances)

grandmas in pick-ups, hauling drunken truckers home from the jailhouse (and explosive substances)

ex-wives of truckers in mini-vans, hauling hung-over boyfriends who are also truckers (and explosive substances)

church buses hauling children of truckers and ex-wives and hung-over trucker boyfriends to Sunday School picnics (probably an extra gas can in the back)

truckers in eighteen wheelers racing to catch up to the minivans of their ex-wives and hung-over trucker boyfriends (bombs on wheels!)

And of course there will also be my nuclear family on the highway, a peaceful little oasis among all that dysfunction, a small vessel of hope and sanity wedged among the flotsam and swept along by the violent tide at about 85 mph (if I'm driving), and 65 mph (if my husband is driving, which is scarier). If you happen to pass us on the road, and you see a woman with her cheek smashed against the windowpane and her eyes bulging from her head and her mouth forming the word "help," that'll be me. Say a prayer. It may be too late by then, but it's worth a try.

I do have much worthier things to blog about, but I must go and check on my peach pie, which is in the oven and smells delicious.

12/27/2008 No Dessert Please, We're Evangelicals

Occasionally I feel a lot of guilt for poking fun at my evangelical heritage. For one thing, evangelicals have been so maligned in the last decade, sometimes fairly and sometimes unfairly. You hate to kick a sub-culture when it's down. Also, I have a little voice in my head whispering that if I cast aspersion on Christian behavior, I might turn people away from Jesus. And finally, I'm afraid of being eaten by wild bears, like those boys in the Bible who called the prophet Elisha "Old Baldy."

So I do think there's reason for caution, but I'm going to throw it to the wind for a minute and talk about teatotaling, the 5th Pillar of Evangelicalism (I'll get to the other 4 later, when I think of them). To be a teatotaler means to do without alcoholic beverages, except Nyquil. It's the answer to a question you might see on a plastic bracelet at the Amen Corner: What would Jesus NOT do? It also makes me think of wonderful etymologies:

teatotality--n., the mass of a particular thing or substance, minus alcohol; The teatotality of Lindsey Lohan on New Years was too small to be measured.

teatotem--n., a charm worn by ancient evangelical Indians of the Pacific Northwest; Wow, my teatotem has pictures of missionaries on it--how about yours?

tipteatotal through the tulips--v., to try to escape from a party where one has discovered alcohol is being served, usually by climbing out of a window and crawling through shrubbery; Boy, when I realized it was a bunch of drinkers at that party I had to tipteatotal through the tulips quick, dontcha know

The good news about teatotaling is that it's no longer almost universal among evangelicals (there were always a few Reformed holdouts, but we weren't sure of their evangelical convictions, anyhow). The bad news is that when younger evangelicals decided that teatotaling was indefensible in light of the Old and New Testaments, they had no healthy examples of moderation; all they had, as far as I can tell from observing them, was the movie Animal House. The amount of drinking and general decadence going on among younger Christians is worrisome. Guess it never occurs to them why their spiritual ancestors decided alcohol was so destructive that a civilized society ought to outlaw it. Maybe they should talk to all those nice heathens heading over to AA to ask a higher power to help them quit.

In the meantime, can't we decide something else is sinful and dangerous and worthy of public shame and disgrace? How about pumpkin lattes? Or maybe chocolate cake with caramel icing? Because I really need some help here...

12/25/20008 Merry Christmas!

It really has been a good day. We have cousins from Wisconsin in town, and they LIKE the fact that it's 65 degrees outside. They don't mind the dull, warm rain because they're sick of snow and ice (I almost typed "snick of sow and nice"--gotta lay off the egg nog).

The gift-opening took about two hours, partly because some of our family members lived during the Depression and believe that opening a gift is like defusing a bomb--you must do it slowly, carefully, without actually destroying any of the wrapping. After that, we ate lunch. I was a bit worried about the food, since I hadn't found time to go grocery shopping until last night. When I did finally go, I discovered that Bruno's was already shut down for the night, so I proceeded to Wal-Mart. And let me tell you people,

WAL-MART WAS CLOSED

It was shocking! I thought it must be the end of civilization. I expected to find a sign hanging out front that said, "The Anti-Christ Has Come, Head for the Hills." But no, it was just shut up for Christmas Eve; I guess all those happy, well-paid employees needed a few hours at home with Tiny Tim and the rest of the family. God bless them, and may they have the grace to get through tomorrow--especially the poor souls at the Return Counter.

On the way back home, riding down an almost empty highway, I listened to Scripture readings from Isaiah and Luke. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." "And she brought forth her firstborn son and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." The local public radio station was broadcasting a service of lessons and carols from Cambridge England. I don't know if the speakers believed in the literal truth of the nativity story they read so beautifully (you just can't outdo the Brits for pomp and circumstance). I hope some of them believed it, or wanted to believe. In any case, I thought of Wal-Mart, the perfect symbol of American consumer capitalism, and what a wonderful thing it is that we still mark the feast of Jesus' birth by shutting those great glass doors, darkening the windows, emptying the vast parking lots, turning away the harried women who forgot to buy the pumpkin filling...

Oh well, lunch today turned out to be a comparatively simple occasion, involving just what we happened to have around the house (plus a ham, from one of the parents at Jon's school). But I made a darned fine sweet potato casserole, if I may say so myself. Loaded with butter and sugar, good enough to kill you. I'm just sorry you all missed it.

Merry Christmas, and may God give us all as much faith as Wal-Mart!

12/24/2008 Christmas Plain Old Eve

It's a lot easier to make jokes than talk about what's so meaningful that words can't contain it. Jokes don't aim very high, and if they fail, there's no great loss, nobody feels too let down. That's what I like about them. When I try to talk about God, love, death, or immortality without using cliches, I quickly feel my own limitations. I aim high but watch my sentences glance off the smooth edges of the wonderful, terrible, and indescribable and land right back at my own little feet.

Poetry isn't really my gift, but I wish it were, because it's the arrow that shakes free of the boundaries of ordinary prose. Besides being a poet (here's my second wish), I would be a 17th century poet. And besides being a 17th century poet (here's my third and greatest wish), I would be George Herbert:

"...The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?

My God, no hymn for thee?

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds

Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

The pasture is thy word: the streams, thy grace

Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers

Outsing the daylight hours.

Then we will chide the sun for letting night

Take up his place and right:

We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should

Himself the candle hold.

I will go searching, till I find a sun

Shall stay, till we have done;

A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,

As frost-nipt suns look sadly.

Then we will sing, and shine all our own day,

And one another pay:

His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,

Till ev'n his beams sing, and my music shine."

12/23/2008 Christmas Eve Eve

The day draweth close. Family hath arrived. Cameras flash a couple of times, and then run out of charge. The neighbor across the street is setting off fireworks, or maybe he's shooting his girlfriend (he's under house arrest and I haven't asked what for).

I have a headache. You might call it a "hangunder," since I haven't partied to speak of and no alcohol has been consumed, yet my throbbing temples do seem somehow connected to the presents under the tree and the tremendous excitement of the whole world straining toward December 25. On T.V. they're saying that the shopping dollars in Jefferson County are down, and yet the roads (we live near a major mall) are nearly impassable. Maybe all those cars are racing to the Dollar Tree. Anyway, the best treatment for a hangunder is a little of this, the KING, here to make it all better.

12/22/2008 Christmas Eve Eve Eve

Well, like I told y'all the other day, thanks to Dave Ramsey, I got me some folding money now, some cash set aside just for emergencies. And chief amongst my emergencies is Christmas.

Now I must acknowledge that this is not the Ramsey way--the great man says that Christmas is a thing you should plan for and work into your budget, like car repairs and taxes and terrorist attacks. However, when you live in Alabama and it's still warm on December 20, Christmas does have a way of sneaking up. And so it was that today, while I was yet drowsy from lunch, I got me into my tiny red car and went up unto the bank and cashed me a check from my emergency fund, and then headed over to the Galleria to buy these spoled children of mine their danged presents.

First stop was Aeropostale, a store the size of my kitchen with about two hundred people packed into it: screaming babies, men speaking Spanish in loud voices--si, bonita!--teenage girls with their clothes painted on; boys with hair artfully draped over drowsy eyes, their arms artfully draped over girls; women my age with skinny boots and fur coats and hoop earrings big enough to use in a lion-taming act. Air was in short supply in Aeropostale. Didn't these people know there was a recession on? Why were they here? They ought to have been out selling apples on streetcorners. I myself was there (don't tell my daughter) to buy a "black cami," which I originally thought was short for "Camaro." It turned out to be an article of underclothing, and now I stood in line behind thirty people with a teensy weensy piece of cloth in my hand, a handkerchief for a doll in mourning. The price tag said "$16.99" and I couldn't believe it. Almost $17.00? For this? I could hear my daughter saying, "Oh mom...!"

In the middle of the chaos I caught a vision of myself in the mirror on a post (right after I crashed into it and stumbled backwards). There I was in my old plaid coat, baseball cap, practical shoes; my face looked as good as it's ever going to look, meaning that next year I'll like even more like a dust bowl farm wife. It's all downhill from here. Meanwhile the sun rises on my children, and my own orb-shaped self pretty much revolves around them, too.

I must decrease that they may increase! Christmas is for the children! Must make them happy!

Oh oh oh, it's not supposed to be this way, I thought. I need to get myself home and think about the true meaning of the day. Need to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. Need to think over the sermon from Sunday. Remember the little nativity play they did during Sunday School--those shepherds marching to Bethlehem? Those little angels on the risers, their faces tilted upward in excitement? I need to read Luke 2 again; I need to read Galatians and remember that Christ came to set us free from the law of sin and death.

But for now, must....buy...pricey... underwear. I reached the counter. I held out the thing. The nice clerk looked at the price tag. "$7.00," she said.

"Huh? $7.00? Half off?"

"More than half. You have a Merry Christmas, Ma'am."

"Oh, I will! Yes, indeed I will!" I took my package then and ran joyously out into the mall, scattering baby strollers and knocking over gangbangers.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY! MERRY CHRISTMAS! AND GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE!"

12/21/08 Sunday Meditation

Dear Ones,

I come to you this blessed Sunday afternoon with a meditation on the Costs of Discipleship. Well, a few of the Costs. A few of the negligible Costs. Here, in fact, are my top eight church ailments of 2008:

1) Choir Lips--a treatable condition brought on by excessive amounts of sucking from Dasani water bottles between choral offerings and/or solos.

2) The Arthritis Hand of Fellowship--common among pastors, a result of vigorous and repeated squeezing/shaking by enthusiastic visitors, usually members of other churches who think this preacher just stuck it to their own (best remedy--encourage them to join, and the hand-shaking should diminish over time).

3) Pewphyxia--a true medical emergency in which the patient suffers a prolonged lack of oxygen due to someone letting a big whopper in the near vicinity during a sermon; best treatment is an altar call.

4) Chronic V.B.S.--not life-threatening but often socially debilitating, this illness is brought on by the stress of yearly recurring Vacation Bible School; manifests itself in various ways including uncombed hair, coffee breath, zipper failure, and alarming kool-aid stains (also the excessive wearing of bizarre hand-made jewelry, such as charm bracelets with pictures of Baptist missionaries).

5) Soggy Belt Syndrome--primarily pediatric ailment in which coat belts, ribbons, and occasionally Easter hats are dropped or flushed in the commode before or after Sunday School.

6) Pie Shock--most common indication is a visit to Grandma's church. Patient usually presents with a slice of rhubarb pie mistakenly thought to be chocolate.

7) Inflammatory Mouth Disease--a condition in which the patient's theological opinions swell and protrude from his mouth, blocking the blood flow to his brain and other vital organs; common during committee meetings and Sunday School picnics.

8) Undiagnosed Crackling Disorder--presenting symptoms include loud crackling and/or zipping sounds which emanate from patient's body during public prayer. Exact cause always eludes diagnosis.

You may wonder why I don't have a 9 or a 10--it's because I've got Sunday Afternoon Must Run to Wal-Mart Syndrome. See you there!

12/19/08 Have a Dave Ramsey Christmas

The evangelical world has always been crazy for one thing or another. Remember Shaklee for instance? (It's still around, but not such a potent force of the evangelical household). Remember the powdered drinks, the clever vitamin organizer (makes a great composte separator, if you still have one around), the horrible snack bars that tasted like a mouthful of oatmeal and sand? As awful as those things were, I was always begging my mother for them.

"No, that's expensive stuff."

"But I want one!"

"Eat a twinkie!"

"I don't want a twinkie! I want a Shaklee bar!"

I think it's because I grew up an evangelical that I have such great sales resistance now. Those girls in the mall who try to sell me the 30 second miracle fingernail polisher may as well leave my pinkies in peace (great deal! just 65 bucks!), because I know one thing: if I buy it, I'll be sorry. I've been sorry so many times before! While the rest of the world went ga-ga for Ginsu knives and the Ronco catalog, we were buying Amway, drinking pasty, banana-flavored health beverages, rubbing on Christian Aloe Vera products, visiting the Minirth and Meier Clinic for emotional problems and placing our boundless hopes in one truly quacko medical outfit that claimed to treat everything from migraines to allergies to troubles of the bedroom (I remember that witch hazel was a component of the remedy, but where did one put it?) The outfit shall not be named here, in case the quacks are still around. Let it be enough to say that none of the fads ever worked any better that what we already had, and they were always twice as expensive. Lesson learned.

I could write a whole book about Christian fads, and most of it wouldn't be very nice. I'm still pretty cynical about anything that's commercial, popular, AND available in your local Christian bookstore. However, in the last few years, I HAVE (I'm happy to announce) given in to one fad, one fashion. Dave Ramsey.

Granted, he's not peddling health products (other than, occasionally, Bee-Alive Royal Jelly, and I'll forgive him for that, as long as he doesn't smear it on his books). But what truly makes Dave Ramsey better than previous gurus and quacks is the fact that his Financial Peace program is simple, old-fashioned, and actually works. It comes down to a few basic principles:

Make a Budget--and Be Sure to Tithe!

Save Up a Little Cash (duh)!

Pay Off Your Debts, Smallest to Largest (not quite so duh, at least I hadn't thought of it)!

Work Your Rear End Off!

Save a Ton of Cash!

Be Sure to Give a Whole Lot of It Away!

On the radio show, he can be tactless sometimes. I often feel sorrier than he does for the poor souls who call in, and I've really had to squash my inner liberal as I've wrestled with the idea that it's o.k. to try hard to make more and do better. (I'm not a bad Christian, I'm not a bad Christian, not a bad Christian...) It's been a struggle for me to reconcile the Biblical idea that the love of money is the root of all evil with my ironic realization that I can do more to help the poor if I'm not one of them, except in spirit.

In any case, here we are at Christmas 2008, and the economy is tanking, but lately (thanks to Dave Ramsey), we're thinking more about whom to help than how we're going to make it to January. That's a wonderful present. Hope you all are having similar good fortune--and long live Dave!

12/17/08 Obama, soooo pomo

There was a girl I worked with who was fresh out of grad school and hadn't fully recovered. One of her favorite words to throw around was "po-mo," an abbreviated form of "postmodern," which she applied to almost everything.

"That band (the Red Hot Chili Peppers)is soooo po-mo."

"This sandwich (bologna) is soooo po-mo."

At the time, I was only familiar with the term "po-mo" in an architectural context, specifically as it applied to the fairly new High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which was supposed to be, like, soooo po-mo. I liked that building because it reminded me of sets from 1930's movies. It definitely had that white tile and chrome look to it, somebody's idea of the future back when people were just getting used to indoor plumbing. In the 1980's, it was surprising and also beautiful.

In fact, postmodernism, among other things, represents a movement against progress, per se, which was the secular religion of the twentieth century. As postmodern people, we're free to stop inventing new stuff; instead we can scratch through the rubbish heap of the past, pick out what we like, reassemble it, and send the rest to the trash compactor. Postmodernism has its smug, annoying side: it's stupid, for instance, to pretend that history isn't moving forward, that we're not part of a stream or at least a cycle, and that things won't change again. That's like trying to pretend that you won't die, or at least that what you build will last forever; of course, it won't. On the other hand, postmodernism does represent freedom from the fads and fashions of your own time. You can choose what you like from the past, the present, even (with a little imagination) the future: go out and fight in chainmail if you want! Paint like a Pre-Raphaelite! Write The Lord of the Rings instead of Ulysses (I think Tolkien was an early postmodern). Form your own commune and chant the works of Henry David Thoreau! Become a Jedi! (Actually no, don't.)

The reason I bring all this up is that we now have the first postmodern president. Sure, maybe it's all about cynical politics, but I think that Obama's announcement that Rick Warren will give his inaugural invocation, along with his statement that we're a country of many opinions, a lot of noise, etc., reveals a new philosophy about the public sphere grounded in the best aspects of postmodernism. By inviting a leader-preacher from the other political camp, from the alternative evangelical universe, Obama seems to be saying that it's possible to have strong beliefs of one's own while allowing opposing traditions to exist and even speak prophetically. Assuming Obama's not simply cynical in this decision (and he may be--a lot of people think he is), then we may yet find a way of coming together without adhering to the old public orthodoxy of "put up or shut up." We'll see.

Note: It's hard to write about postmodernism without getting knotted up like hair on a Barbie Doll. When I suggest that some postmodernists think we've now outlived history, I mean that some of them seem to look at all of history as a corpse and themselves as grave robbers; however, many others would admit to being part of the corpse

12/17/2008 Beautiful and Sad

This is one of the prettiest things I've come across recently. After reading Tatum O'Neal's autobiography, A Paper Life, at the library yesterday, I looked for her mother (actress Joanna Cook Moore) on the Andy Griffith show and found this. The poor woman was out of her mind, but she sure could sing--not to mention act circles around all those artificial Southerners in Hollywood!

12/16/2008 Who Needs Goats When You Got Homeschoolers?

I come from a long line of people who believe that if something is broken you should either fix it yourself or do without. Some of my father’s jerry-rigs are legendary--like the way he got around a broken heating element in the oven by putting a cookie sheet on the top rack and showing my mother that, yes, it was possible to bake a cake that way. As a corollary, she proved to him that you can’t outrun a cookie sheet flung at 85 mph across the backyard. A few of his solutions to common problems are dangerous: when the brakes went out on his lawn tractor, for instance, he never bothered to have them fixed. It was hair-raising to watch him plunge down steep hills into the woods, nicking pine trees left and right like a slalom champ, ultimately stopping the thing by jumping off, sprinting ahead, and hurling a rock in front of a tire. He performed that trick again and again and again until he turned 83, and then gave it up to have more time for bullfighting.

Well, I’m reasonably brave myself, and there’s nothing I like better than an old-fashioned string and stick solution to a contemporary problem, such as a washing machine that won’t spin or drain. After staring at mine a while yesterday, I decided that I should probably not endeavor to take it apart, mostly because I wasn’t in the mood to mop up five galloons of soapy water. So I looked in the phone book and found exactly one number under "Washing Machine Repair." I dialed the number. The man who answered reminded me a lot of this, but that's pretty normal when you live a few miles from the Jim Nabors Parkway. Anyway, the voice said,

"I cain’t get over there till Thursday, Ma'am. Tell you what to do, though, so you won’t get behind on your washing. Open that lid up there, see that piece of plastic poking out right there, it looks like it might just poke you right in the eye if you stuck your head in..."

"Yes! I see it!"

"Now see that hole right under it, right where that sticky thing sticks?"

(Abridged answer) "A hole! Yes, I found a hole!"

"Now stick a pen right in there, it don’t have to be a pen, it could be a pencil or even a chop stick like they give you to eat Chop Suey, make sure the knob is out on the front panel and then just stick in that chopstick and that’ll shut off the safety switch so you can--"

"It’s working! It’s working! It’s spinning!"

"Yes ma’am, as long as you don’t got no kids that are going to climb in there and hurt theirselves, you can just leave the lid open, stick that chopstick in and go on about your business. That oughta do till..."

"Yeah, all right, thank, see you Thursday!"

I didn’t want to waste time with more conversation. I am a woman of action, not insipid small-talk. The thing was, as soon as I got off the phone with him, the machine started rocking back and forth, the chopstick split in half, and I spent the next half hour bailing washwater into the kitchen sink, then a couple of hours doing the laundry at my in-laws’. Such are the inconveniences of life. You can’t fix everything, yourself, right? At least, your husband wouldn’t want you to try, given that your record on these things is less than perfect. No, I guess I’m going to have to fork out $130 on Thursday to have the switch fixed, since in these modern and enlightened times, the neighbors would look askance upon me installing a tub and washboard in the backyard.

Oh, but it’s really too bad, because I do have this GREAT idea. I could borrow

some GOATS (I know just the person to borrow them from) and tie them to a big pole--maybe one of my bedposts would work--I'd just have to chop up the frame--then attach the post to a wheel (Jon never uses his bicycle anymore), and then the wheel would spin around like an agitator and clean the clothes, and...

WAIT, who needs GOATS? This is a GREAT homeschooling project! "Hey! Hey you lazy kids! Get out here!"

12/14/08 God's Language

Tonight I went to see my daughters dance in a lavish Christmas production at a nearby church. The ballet was only a small part of the program; there were three choirs, a chorus of bell ringers, and (best of all) an ensemble from the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

Now, the thing about classical musicians is that they almost never look pleased. Most of the time, they look like they've just spent five hours at a toddler's birthday party in a hot public park; they look like they want to drop-kick their oboes and French horns across the auditorium and storm out, yelling crazy obscentiies. But it doesn't really matter, since you almost never look at their faces, anyway. What you watch are those gorgeous instruments: the curvaceous cellos, the golden horns, the bows of the violin moving in unison like a flock of birds behind the conductor My favorite of all is the frivolous, improbable harp, as frilly as a wedding cake and as clunky as a grand piano propped up on end.

I listen to classical music all the time, but it's been a year or two since I saw a live orchestra and choir. At one point, early in the show, I heard a magnificent chord, all the instruments and voices together, the whole place roaring and ringing. I wanted the chord to last: the thought occurred to me, as it often does at happy moments, that if we could just keep doing that--if the choir could hold the note, if we all waited and listened--we might never die.

It also occurred to me, as it often does immediately following happy moments, that the whole thing, the whole idea of it, was fundamentally scarred and flawed. We were there to adore the Christ child, and the sound we made (most of it, anyway), seemed to reach at something unearthly and eternal. The wonderful chords were patterns of vibration based on mathematical equations--the very language in which God wrote the universe! But the source of the sound was human and earthbound, limited and already destined to decay and die. The evidence was everywhere: sore lips, scratchy throats, itching scalps, calloused toes, swollen knees, aching postate, irritation, swelling lust...who had garlic for lunch? Wish they wouldn't sing with quite so much Christmas spirit...can we climb over you? She's got to get to the potty...man, my back hurts, I think that preacher kissed the blarney stone...look at all the people wearing blue jeans!...shhh, we're praying!...shhh yourself...

What is the condition of things? Does (#1) our art redeem our limitations--does it make us godlike? Or (#2) does death make a mockery of our graspings at the transcendent--does a perfect chord become lost in the vast, meaningless roar of the universe (thank you, E.M. Forster)? Or (#3) do the mortal and the immortal live in delicate symbiotic balance in the universe, like the inside and outside of a fortune cookie? And, if so, could I please have a fried donut instead?

#4, I think, is the Christian answer. It's the most difficult to believe in because it sounds like something a cave man would make up. It involves acts of miracle and wonder, farm animals, instruments of torture, and preachers with big hair. It's a view given lip service by cynical politicians everywhere. It's a view I struggle with. It won't make you a fun date.

It's the view that blood and bones and guts are as precious as a perfect chord; that death will die when the flesh is redeemed; that a grumpy, cross-eyed piccolo player is as marvellous a creation as sound itself, and that the language in which God makes himself known most clearly to human beings is neither mathematics nor music, but DNA.

For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you,

you shall find the babe wrapped in

swaddling clothes,

lying in a manger.

Me, about to be burned at the stake, in 1978

12/13/08 Who You Callin' Ugly, Fool?

What if you had the misfortune to be named the most popular name for females in the year of your mother's birth (forty years before yours), and the even greater misfortune to be awkward and geeky in your early teenage years, when so much depended on whether anybody ordered you a red rose for the 9th grade Valentine fundraiser (the one from your dad didn't count). And then what if you grew up and turned into a fantastically steaming hot dudette. You put the bad memories behind you, you moved on, you became a ~~best-selling~~ ~~moderately well-selling~~ author. But one day you heard people casually referring to a show that seemed to describe your entire adolescence in just two words:

Ugly Betty

Wouldn't you be a little suspicious? Wouldn't you wonder if, say, that girl you once threw water on (over the top of a stall in McDonalds, because she was flirting with the guy you liked) made it to Hollywood and decided to even the score?

Oh, I've been wondering about this. And don't call me paranoid--I've read plenty of Edgar Allan Poe, I know what paranoid is, and I'm not paranoid. Nervous maybe, have been and am, but not paranoid. I've never actually seen the T.V. show Ugly Betty, so I've never had a chance to examine the credits. However, the only person I've known who made it to Hollywood is Todd Komarniki, the producer of Elf; he was in my college poetry class, though I'm not sure he could actually see me, or anyone else, over the tops of his Converse All Stars, which were usually propped up in front of him on the seminar table (at least, I remember those shoes on the table--very proto-retro shoes for 1986, very cool, though not as cool as the bare feet that another guy wore to classes all winter--it was Chicago, after all).

Aw, who am I kidding? This is a coincidence. Some Hollywood producers were sitting around thinking up a first name that would sound great juxtaposed with the word "Ugly." After hours of thinking, they got punchy and tried out all the names from Father Knows Best:

"Ugly Kathy?"

Nah, no ring to it.

"Ugly Bud?"

Not quite.

"Bud Ugly?"

Hah!

"Ugly Betty!"

That's it!

I suppose that the time has come to embrace my antiquated name and get on with life. What's in a name, anyway? Besides my poor dead aunt (for whom I was monikered, posthumously), plenty of distinguished and talented women...not to mention some darned good desserts... have carried the name Betty with style and dignity. There's so, so much to be proud of. Still, I close with this parting thought:

I've never seen that Ugly Betty,

never hope to see her.

But this I'd like to make quite clear,

I'd sooner see than be her.

12/11/08 With a Name Like Blagojevich

They're calling her Lady MacBeth. In the grossest possible language, she urged her husband, the Governor of the Great State of Illinois, to desperate acts of quid pro quo. "Impossible!" say others (even some who are not her sister and Rep.-elect for the state). "This is not the Patti we know! Our Patti is a devoted wife, a loving mother who believed with all her heart in the protection and nurture of children!"

"Hah," say I. So was the mistress of Inverness:

"I have given suck and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. I would while it was smiling in my face have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out had I so sworn as you!"

As far as I know, Mrs. Blagojevich has never harmed a human infant, only the Cubs of Chicago, or at least the Tribune people who were hoping for state financing in order to sell the Cubs' stadium (why do you need financing to sell something, anyway--were they upside down?). The Tribune Company had the audacity to refuse the governor certain favors in exchange for cash..."Hold up that bleeping Cubs bleep," Patti said. "Bleep them." Would the governor have been so determined, so stalwart in his bleeping smarminess, without her bleeping insistence?

"...what beast was it then that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man."

We may never bleeping know. All I can say is, Mary Todd is rolling over in her grave now, along with Abe. Ah yes, and if the people of Illinois are looking for another crooked politician (why not go for a set?), we've got a mayor here in Birmingham that we'd be willing to give away.

By the way--check out Darth MacBeth!

12/10/08 Brother Can You Spare Some Prozac?

The World Bank thinks the global economic situation is pretty dire. Rod Dreher paints apocalyptic scenarios on his Crunchy Con website. I'm going to have to revise my top five list of worries

Top Five List of Worries (Revised)

#1 That a global strongman will take advantage of financial panic to introduce world government, ultimately taking us all to the brink of Armageddon

#2 That I may not be getting enough calcium

#3 That I'd like to learn to eat off the land, but I don't know how to grow Pizza Bites

#4 That I won't be able to finish my blockbuster book about this crisis while people still have money to buy it

#5, probably next week's #1 That I won't be able to get my prozac prescription refilled if society descends into anarchy

Yes, actually it's the last one that worries me the most. I think that things could get really brutal in the suburbs, with scores of desperate prozac thugs going from house to house, banging on doors: "Have you got any fluoxetine in there? Give it to us, now!

Hide your pills everybody, they're coming

12/09/08 Pod People

Another comment on Elissa Wall's book, Stolen Innocence. There are a lot of people out there who think that devout evangelicals are just a shade saner than polygamist Mormons hunkering down for the Apocalypse. I have to admit that, as I read Wall's book, I saw some significant parallels between her upbringing and mine. Like evangelicals, FLDS members (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) have strong loyalties among themselves and view their religious community as a family. That's not a bad thing--don't most of us want that? But the odd by-product of this inward focus is that they look at people outside the community almost as other beings--creatures fundamentally different from themselves. Wall said that when she first met outsiders, she was shocked to see the children behaving just like FLDS kids. Maybe other people weren't all evil demonic beings after all.

Growing up, I never saw non-Christians (including, in my mind, Catholics and liberal Protestants) as evil demonic beings. I just saw them as pod people: benighted zombies without consciences and incapable of love or good will. It was always hard for me to figure out how to feel about the characters I liked on TV. They seemed so much LIKE us, they seemed so NICE. Every now and then you'd see sitcom people sitting around on a Sunday morning, not attending church (the Bradys always went on Christmas, of course--Carol even saying a solo once). Then you'd have to face the difficult truth: they probably weren't evangelicals. More on this later, but for now,

This is What the FLDS People Really Need to Hear

12/08/2008 The FLDS--Another Waco Waiting to Happen?

just finished Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall. It's her story of growing up in the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), a severe sect of Mormonism that practices polygamy and invests a dangerous amount of authority in a living prophet who supposedly speaks for God. For much of Wall's young life, that prophet was Rulon Jeffs, who took two of her older sisters as wives when he was in his eighties and they in their twenties. After Rulon's death, his son Warren received the title of prophet. While Rulon had seemed satisfied to rule with a light touch, Warren was abusive and dangerous. With almost Stalinesque finesse, he consolidated his power by ousting faithful leaders, exiling dissidents, and dividing families, taking wives and children away from natural fathers and giving them to other men.

Most people have probably seen the snake-faced Warren Jeffs on the news and know that he's now in prison as an accessory to child rape. Well, Wall is that child: Warren forced her to marry her own first cousin when she was fourteen and he was nineteen. You get the impression from the book that her "husband" was more of a bully and an idiot than an outright pervert, and sadly, though Walls doesn't seem to want to go there, her own mother was as much an accessory in the case as a victim. Nevertheless, it's the men who have the power of "priesthood" in the FLDS, dominating the women with threats of hell and damnation if they don't get in line. And in the end, it's the men who'll pay.

I hope that Jeffs has lived to regret all the evil he's caused those people, but I doubt it. No, I suspect he's sitting in a cell somewhere, casting himself as a martyr, probably writing his jailhouse revelations. In fact, the reaction of many FLDS members to the government investigations of the last few years has been a kind of bitter grace under persecution: they see their would-be rescuers as persecutors, and look forward to the day of judgment, which was supposed to have arrived with Y2K, by the way, but didn't. You can't really blame them for feeling like martyrs, either, after having their children forcibly removed to foster homes in April of this year. Wall was part of that operation, and felt a lot of sympathy for the mothers. She went along with it, though, because she felt she was doing them good in the long run.

Me, I don't know. I'm really torn. On the one hand, I'm glad to see someone stand up for the rights of individuals against polyester-panted megalomaniacs. I believe more in dystopia than utopia, and whenever I see people get misty-eyed over the possibilities of community, of agrarian fellowships, of all the good things that we Americans might accomplish TOGETHER if we weren't such individualists, I think, "Yeah, and who's going to be in charge of this project--you?" The FLDS people looked happy, healthy, and homogeneous on the outside, and in many ways they were. But some of those wholesome-looking people were really drowning in an ocean of oppression; they were ripe for a Warren Jeffs, even before he came along.

On the other hand, wow. It's the height of foolishness for the government to take such a heavy handed approach with a religious cult--removing children from their mothers' custody, breeding a sense of martyrdom in a people already steeped in crazy apocalyptic theology.

Just because you're right doesn't mean you have the right. Apparently, we haven't learned much since Waco.

12/07/08 The Ties That Bind

Tonight, my children are dancing in a Christmas ballet at Briarwood Church. It's my job to haul the manger on and offstage in the dark, which wouldn't be so bad except that I have night blindness, made worse by the brilliant Christ candle stuck down among the plastic greenery. I suggested blowing out the Christ candle before I heave ho, but ONE DOES NOT BLOW OUT THE CHRIST CANDLE. So I suggested that I might bring a small bushel, in order to hide the Christ candle. ONE DOES NOT HIDE THE CHRIST CANDLE UNDER A BUSHEL (one lets it shine). Finally I suggested that I could hold it in front of me as I leave the stage and slowly float it aloft like the Holy Grail before Sir Galahad. This suggestion was met with pure contempt.

Yes, this paragraph WILL have a connection to the aforementioned Christ candle, albeit a thin one. Those of you who are evangelical know the principle of the three degrees of separation. It amounts to this: if people out in the regular, secular, heatho-pagan world are all six degrees separated from each other, then we in the enlightened, Christian, fundo-evangelical world are all just 3 degrees separated from each other (as an aside: by some strange math, most evangelicals are 12 degrees separated from most Catholics--further even than from Buddhists and Hindus, since we aggressively slaughtered our mutual relations back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centures). Anyway, from time to time, I will be blogging about interesting connections in and out of the evangelical world. Today's interesting connection is between me and Little Ricky from I Love Lucy, the greatest show ever. Keith Thibodeaux (who also played Johnny Paul on The Andy Griffith Show), now heads up the Ballet Magnificat in Jackson, Mississippi, along with his wife Kathy. Keith has many friends and former associates who work at the Briarwood Ballet, where I will NOT BE HIDING THE CHRIST CANDLE TONIGHT. One of those connections is our beloved secretary, Lisa Allen. Thus here are my three steps for you:

Little Ricky...Lisa Allen...me

(I won't go into how this connects me with Ron Howard, but you can reach your own conclusions)

December 6, 2008 The End of Returns

I heard yesterday that several major publishing companies,including Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson, and the many headed hydra, Random House, are laying off staff and even reducing the number of new titles this next year. Also--horrors--they may have to cut back on "returns," the practice of taking back loads of unsold books from chain stores. Have you ever wondered about those beautiful topiary arrangements of would-be bestsellers that greet you at the doors of Barnes and Noble or Borders--pyramids, waterfalls, and Chinese fans created from hundreds of plant-perfect copies of Eldest or Order of the Phoenix, or The DaVinci Code? With titles like that, the abundance of copies makes sense, I guess, but imagine being a first-time author and sitting down at a book signing next to a life-size statue of Michelangelo's David built completely from copies of your fledgling novel, the child of your heart. After two hours of sitting there, you've sold maybe two copies. At the end of the day, or at least the week, most of David (all but a foot, or one leg) will soon be on its way back to your publisher, destined to appear in your royalty statement as "-400." It can be discouraging! After my first year of authorhood, I think I owed the publisher $1000.

I'm not complaining, although it did amaze me to read that Random House considered sales for a debut novel, The Gargoyle, a failure at 34,000. After I scraped my entrails off the ceiling, I was able to acknowledge that publishers take a big financial risk on any book. They have a right to expect the occasional blockbuster. More and more, they're unlikely to commit money to a literary long shot, a title that may not pay for itself in a world of fewer readers and more entertainment choices. I count myself lucky to have published three times and, though my best books still sit unpublished, I continue to dream my childhood dream of seeing them upon a library shelf. In the meantime, thanks to all who still labor in the world of books, and may you keep your jobs in these difficult times!

Sheesh, 34,000.

December 4, 2008 Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

Two days a week, I teach Latin and English at a homeschool co-op that meets at a large church. For those of you who don't know, homeschooling no longer happens at home. About a year ago, all of us homeschoolers got together and pushed the Zero Tolerance of Staying in Our Own Houses Act, which mandated that we can and in fact must educate our children anywhere except on our own property. Most of us now do it in the car, some of us do it at Sportsplex, and a few of us have even started homeschooling in our local public schools, usually in a janitor's closet or locker, though some large families find it more convenient to meet in the teacher's lounge.

I love teaching, especially Latin, and so it always makes me laugh when my students say "Why do we have to learn this?" In some ways, it's a valid question, and the answer that a teacher is practically programmed to give is "This will increase your score on the vocabulary section of standardized tests, help you understand the grammar of your own language, and someday enable you to read Harry Potter in Latin, assuming that you don't think the book is straight from the fiery pit of hell." But I know that my students don't care much about that stuff, not even Harry Potter. What they care about is technology. Most of them, down deep, are really thinking, "How will this help me get an XBOX 360?"

The first year that I taught Latin, I sometimes let myself be led away from teaching long enough to try to answer the "why?" question. It came up more among high school students--the younger ones never questioned what I told them to do. One day, for instance, I taught an entire class of 6th graders to count from 1 to 10 in a made-up language I called "Middle-Lithuanian." I made them memorize "vish, nap, crit, foul, whoop, zee, etc., and then I admitted I'd invented the whole thing: but they didn't mind at all! My high school students, in contrast, questioned statements like, "Take out your books" and "use a sharpened pencil." WHY? WHY do we need to sharpen our pencils? WHY do we need to learn Latin?

One day I had a high school Latin class sit in a circle. I preached them a fine sermon. I said, "The reason something is worth studying is not because it will make you happy, or smart, or help you remain in the middle class. The reason to study something is because it is beautiful, it is wonderful, and God created it. The question you should ask today is not 'Why should I study a language?' That's a foolish question, because God created language, and anything God created is worth studying. The questions you should really ask are, 'What is this thing? What is it made of? How does it work? What does it show me about God and about the world?'"

After speaking for a while, I dismissed them, feeling satisfied and GREATLY stirred by my own eloquence. On the next day of class, though, a pretty girl came up to me with her books in her arms. She said, "Magistra?"

"Yes."

"I told my mother that we asked you why we should study Latin, and that you said it was a stupid question."

"You told her that??"

"Yes, and you know what she said? She said 'Well THAT's a stupid answer.'"

So ever since then, I've saved my breath.

December 3, 2008 Naked Came I, with a Cell Phone

Everybody knows that if you want to buy useless tchochke, Michael's is your Useless Tchochke Superstore (although if you want to shop for your Christmas crappola while listening to inspirational muzak, then Hobby Lobby's the safer bet). If they don't have it at Michael's, that probably means you actually need it. Tonight I fought my way through rush hour traffic, through crowds at the door, through aisle after aisle of unpainted wooden ornaments and plastic poinsiettas (I only bought sixteen) in order to find several rare colors of duct tape. I found naught but silver--could have picked it up cheaper at Fred's, along with a copy of Biker Babes.

But the story I'm telling at the moment is not about duct tape, but about a woman behind me in line, who answered her cell phone about an inch from my ear. "Heyloooo...hey there, well, I'm just standing here in the line at Michael's so I can return these CANDLES. Would you believe it, they won't LIGHT. I KNOW. Something about RED. No, I went to Wal-Mart, they don't have the apple CRUNCH. You just can't get good QUALITY anymore. I HOPE they let me take them back. They better not give me TROUBLE."

The whole time she was talking, the sales guy was standing right there, three feet away from her, calculating the ten thousand coupons of the customer in front of me. She spoke as if he didn't exist. Was that really her state of mind? Was he not there because she did not will him to be there? Is this the way we all operate psychologically, at least in public--do we will others into and out of our private worlds?

It reminds me of a story I heard from my husband's family. They were missionaries in Japan, and knew some other missionaries who had a Japanese man staying at their house. One day, the man went to take his bath, and apparently forgot to take clean clothes into the bathroom with him. Suddenly, he came striding out into the living room, in full view of everyone, naked as the day he was born. HOWEVER-- no eye contact was made, and nothing else mattered. For him, as long as he didn't acknowledge any other people in the room, they weren't there, and thus did not see him, at least in any sense he needed to be embarrassed about.

It's a logical way to live in a crowded society, and perhaps we're getting there, ourselves.

December 2, 2008 What I Really Meant When I Said Sackcloth

Shocked! Shocked! That's what we are here in Birmingham, where our fairly new mayor Larry Langford has been indicted on--well, just a whole bunch of stuff, including conspiracy, bribery, fraud, and, worst of all, not really meaning it when he said that the city council was going to repent and wear SACKCLOTH and ASHES as a sign of contrition for their mishandling of the sewer bond debt (Birmingham is now teetering on the verge of America's largest municipal bankruptcy ever, in spite of the fact that we all pay out the wazoo for sewer service). You can see the sackpeople below, though it's hard to understand what the mayor is saying:

I personally want to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt. I think that, being a man of such spiritual depth, he felt that a more contemporary rendering of "sackcloth" would be "Rolex watch." What else could explain the jewelry, clothing, cars, etc. that he accepted from consultants who used his influence (when he was a commissioner) to acquire lucrative contracts related to the sewer bond?

Seriously, this is all just a big stain on the reputation of a really nice city; it comes right on the heels, too, of our former governor, Don Siegelman, and HealthSouth CEO, Richard Scrushy, going to prison for similar crimes. Also, one of the commissioners who's already been charged in the sewer mess is Chris McNair, father of Denise McNair, one of the little girls killed in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church back in 1963. I interviewed him once for a magazine article: he was a quiet man, not very forthcoming, but his wife was so beautiful and kind. To paraphrase Dumbledore, beware of power--the ones who handle it best are the ones who have no desire for it.

Dec 1, 2008 Alabama Burning

What makes Alabama an interesting place to live? Well, for one thing, our state motto is We Dare Defend Our Rights. And that's not just talk. Those bullet holes in our speed limit signs spell "Slow down, trooper, you don't want to catch me."

One of the rights we defend most vigorously is the right of the rest of the state not to vote Democrat like Birmingham. Another is the right to smoke in grocery stores. Unfortunately, the United Socialist States of America has said ANYMORE YOU CAN'T SMOKE AT THE WAL-MART, which somewhat limits our options. Many of us have taken the extreme step of going back to local, non-socialist stores such as the Piggly Wiggly, but if the Pig should fall (like Richmond), we may have to make our final stand at the Cost Plus Ten, the last hope of free peoples everywhere. The best place to smoke at the Cost Plus Ten is in the snack aisle. That's where you block the aisle with your cart and shout into your cell phone, "They ain't NO difference between the HoHos and the Little Debbie Roll-Ups except in YOUR head and MY pocketbook, Mister!"

Finally, there's the right to sing like this:

Mt. Carmel Baptist Church of Ft. Payne Alabama

November 30, 2008 Charity Begins in Church

It's Sunday and there's sickness in the house. One child has the misery, but she's far past the age where I have to do anything more onerous than say "Aw poor kid" now and then and toss her the Puffs. Still, I did have to come early from church, and for the last hour I've been sunk in a chair, reading Park Honan's excellent biography of Jane Austen. This paragraph impressed me:

"Her impatience as she thought of a 'Miss Curling' or dozens of other irritating people did not sit
easily with the idea of a Christian's meekness. There is no greater contrast in Jane Austen's
writings than that between her sharp, comically malicious letters and the Christian prayers she composed. She did not act uncharitably or cruelly, but behaved well partly because she insulted
others brutally in quiet jokes. Yet was not her aggression still there? Was she any more Christian
in her own eyes because her maliciousness had style and wit? Her prayers suggest that as a
rational woman of deep feeling she felt abject and solemnly and terribly accountable, by no
means pleased with herself. The effort of reconciling her faith with her fury was enough to
try her, and as happy as she was in green country at Chawton she was to make amends in
part through her fictional comedies in which no living being is attacked, but life itself is recreated
and appraised for every reader...'Incline us oh God!' she implored, 'to consider our fellow creatures
with kindness."

This is very true, I think. One of the most appealing things about Jane Austen's writing is the tension between her sharp wit and Christian kindness. While giving a fourth of her income to charity, she could sum up her feelings about a bore by saying "Please kill Mrs. Sclater if you wish." Plenty of Christians feel that same painful contradiction between their observations of the world as unsatisfactory and the call to love it unconditionally. For such people, Christ-like self-denial begins with something as mundane as not pointing out that the soprano sounds like a cat in heat. At a Christian camp in the 7th grade I received the award for "Most Complaining." I responded by putting a pillow under my shirt, greasing my hair back, and doing an impersonation of the camp director singing "Three hundred and one tons of fun." I hope I've matured a little since then, but anyway it's interesting to think of fiction as a safe escape-valve for all those dark little sins that accumulate on Sunday morning: annoyance, boredom, cynicism.

November 29, 2008 Any Given Saturday

Today is my favorite day of the sports year, the day of the Iron Bowl, of Bedlam, of Georgia vs. Georgia Tech madness (go Dawgs!). Why is football the greatest game? Well, unlike baseball, it can't be played by people who are the athletic equivalent of engineers. I once went to a Braves game that lasted until four-thirty in the morning. A little while before dawn, the pitcher hit a homerun, a feat made easier by the fact that the outfielders had gone to sleep with their heads in their gloves.

And unlike basketball, which has only tall people and shorts, football has cool helmets, skin-tight pants, and a ball that wobbles and does really stupid things when it hits the ground; no matter how coordinated the athletes are, the football is designed to skip around like a greased pig at a county fair, making them all look like...well, the kind of people who would hurl themselves at a greased pig. In fact you may have suspected (knowing that the term "pigskin" is a synonym for football) that the game does actually have its origins in pig-chasing contests. The story is told that a young American soldier returned from some war or other (?) with a helmet pilfered from a dead Prussian. Much to the dismay and embarrassment of his family, he insisted on wearing the helmet everywhere, even to church and to the public library. The townspeople were all certain he was crazy--a victim of gas or shellshock. But their pity turned to real horror on the day of the fair, when the young soldier won the pig-chasing contest by spearing the poor animal on the crest of his pointy helm. He was sent to an asylum, and the pig was inflated and used in the next day's rugby match.

The rest is not quite history.

Update: sadly, Tech beat us 45-42. Here's a highlight from the 4th quarter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7crOzXLbKM

November 28, 2008 A Mob is a Mob is a Mob

By now, you've probably read the news about the Wal-Mart employee who died today after being trampelled in a Black Friday stampede. It's very sad, but not so surprising. My husband and 14 year-old got up at 4:45 a.m. to go to our local Mal-Wart, where she hoped to buy a fairly expensive coat with her birthday money. They nabbed the last parking place, and then (since the coat turned out not to be on sale anyway) strolled leisurely past the crowds of zombies straining over the ropes to get at anything with a sale tag. And I mean anything--some really ugly stuff. If the employees had been on sale, the mob would have demanded to take them home.

You can chalk it all up to American consumerism, but I don't think that's it, really. I think it's a rule of human society that about 80% of people feel compelled to love, hate, make, or destroy what everybody else is loving, hating, making, or destroying. Another 10% know how to lead the 80%, for good or ill, and the last 10% are in permanent rebellion against the majority. Those are the Doubting Thomases (like me) who can never raise our hands in church or cry at funerals. We always wonder, "What's wrong with us? Why don't we feel what everybody else is feeling?" Ah, but when the tyrants show up...that's when you people appreciate us.

The mob at Mal-Wart didn't really care about cheap electronics: they cared about being part of the mob. Oh, and speaking of mobs, some idiots have actually tried to suggest (based on this incident) that black people are more prone to crowd violence. Here's Charlie Chaplin to remind us of the white gang that pretty much set the standard for all time. If you haven't seen it, you must watch!

Charlie Chaplin as The Great Dictator

November 27, 2008 Happy Thanksbinging!

It's 9:15 a.m. While I schlep around the house in my hideous, frilly-pantaloon pajamas, while my husband reads his Billy Collins and my teenage daughters recline upon the couch of ease, pouring over their respective copies of Twilight for the twentieth time, let me pause to consider what I have to be thankful for this year. First of all, there is our beautiful silver cat, who is draped over the T.V. at the moment like some furry piece of tchotchke. Second, there is Yiddish dialect, without which this paragraph would not have been possible. Third, there is the pumpkin pie in the oven making me so hungry that I could eat the carpet. Fourth, there is the fact that, while the end may be near, it has not arrived yet: in spite of the grim look on Barack Obama's face, and the failure of Ann Curry to climb to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro (is that a Yiddish mountain?), and the death of newspapers and small towns, and the fact that we're all going to die someday no matter how much we cut back on melamine, most of us are still eating, drinking, laughing, singing, and making tacky turkey napkins. Thank you, Lord, for all of it!

November 24, 2008 Christmas Movies

Most people have their favorite holiday movies. At the top of my list is The Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Frank Morgan. What makes this a classic, I think (apart from Samson Raphaelson's funny, touching screenplay) is the incredible economy of the staging. Most of it happens in just one place, a little Budapest leather-goods shop where the employees are desperate to keep their jobs during the 1930's. The claustrophobic intensity of the shop life, combined with the fact that the main characters are related in secret ways that you, the viewer, anticipate before anyone else (I'm trying not to give too much away) put you right on the edge of your seat until the end. None of the remakes (You've Got Mail is one) work half as well; they all seem to assume that the essential drama springs from the ironic irattraction between two people who initially can't stand each other. That's part of it, certainly, but a good portion of the drama comes from the physical closeness of the shop and the unlikely solidarity that forms in a group of people struggling through hard times.

November 23, 2008 Thankfulness

Yesterday I heard Margaret Visser talk on the radio about her book, The Gift of Thanks. I don’t know anything about Margaret Visser, and I usually distrust people who wax eloquent on things that we all seem to understand instinctively, such as singing or enjoying food or being angry or (potentially, in this case) feeling grateful. After feeling an initial throb of irritation, though, I found myself agreeing with her argument that gratitude is not a natural human response, but is still one of the most profound and uplifting of all our experiences. When I came out of a horrible bout of depression ten years ago, what I entered wasn’t a state of happiness, exactly--it was thankfulness that I’d been saved from the misery and humiliation of the life I’d been living. I loved people in a way I never had, and I wanted to pass on all that good will to everbody around me.

Ten years later, I’m quite happy, but far from being the person I was then. I still say "thank you" as often as possible, but the gratitude that comes after forgiveness and healing is a real miracle...you can't force it in yourself or anybody else.

November 21, 2008 Survivalist on the Rocks

Today is that rarest of days in Alabama, dry and cold with a far-away sky and a wind that makes your nose burn. I went outside and up the hill to check on my little red lettuce plants. They're hanging in there, despite the unseasonable cold. In about two weeks, it'll be 85 degrees again and they'll fling their beet-colored leaves to heaven, crying, "The end is near! Warming has accelerated!"

I've been getting a big garden ready for next summer. I've always gardened, but lately some Cassandras have been warning that society may collapse soon, in which case we'll all need to grow our own food. Though not prone to hysteria, I like to operate from a worst-case scenario perspective. The only problem is that we live in an area known as "Rocky Ridge." Picture me as a raw-boned nineteenth-century farm wife, a curl of smoke rising in the background from my underground hovel, a skeletal mule at my side. Here in the little farm on Rocky Ridge...we will undoubtedly starve.