Twenty years ago this very evening, Great Scot showed up at my door unexpectedly and asked me if I would marry him. I suppose the title of this post is not exactly an accurate representation of my initial response, but then, it was a Tuesday, as veteran Beehive readers will surely recall.
Love you, Great Scot. (awwwww)
September 30, 2006
September 29, 2006
September 28, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL TSUNAMI!!!
if you have to ask, she's the coolest cat ever, that's who. i mean it.
September 27, 2006
Why the spinach problem matters to you, even if you don't eat spinach
q. shenaynay
Fa and Beatrice are reading What The Bible Says About Healthy Living by Dr. Rex Russell, which is based on three simple principles:
Fa and Beatrice are reading What The Bible Says About Healthy Living by Dr. Rex Russell, which is based on three simple principles:
- Eat the food God created for you.
- Don't alter God's design.
- Don't let any food or drink become your god.
It begins to appear that the current spinach problem is the result of those first two principles being violated on a large scale. Now, some of you, and you know who you are, will be thinking about now, "Yay! QS is going to say we weren't designed to eat spinach!!" Uhh, no. Sorry. God made spinach because you need stuff that's in it.
But the spinach problem is not a spinach problem, really -- it's a cattle problem. It's the cattle industry that violates principles 1 and 2 in this case... and the rest of us suffer the consequences. Including the produce farmers.
Even if you don't eat spinach, please read this article from the New York Times. Because the E coli problem, if uncorrected, will soon be about more than just spinach. Plain and simple: if our food production sources continue to alter God's designs for the creatures He created, we are headed for more problems like the spinach problem.
Leafy Green Sewage
By Nina Planck, NY Times, September 21, 2006
Farmers and food safety officials still have much to figure out about the recent spate of E. coli infections linked to raw spinach. So far, no particular stomachache has been traced to any particular farm irrigated by any particular river.
There is also no evidence so far that Natural Selection Foods, the huge shipper implicated in the outbreak that packages salad greens under more than two dozen brands, including Earthbound Farm, O Organic and the Farmer’s Market, failed to use proper handling methods. Indeed, this epidemic, which has infected more than 100 people and resulted in at least one death, probably has little do with the folks who grow and package your greens. The detective trail ultimately leads back to a seemingly unrelated food industry — beef and dairy cattle.
First, some basic facts about this usually harmless bacterium: E. coli is abundant in the digestive systems of healthy cattle and humans, and if your potato salad happened to be carrying the average E. coli, the acid in your gut is usually enough to kill it. But the villain in this outbreak, E. coli O157:H7, is far scarier, at least for humans. Your stomach juices are not strong enough to kill this acid-loving bacterium, which is why it’s more likely than other members of the E. coli family to produce abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever and, in rare cases, fatal kidney failure.
Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It’s not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new — that is, recent in the history of animal diets — biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It’s the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms. In 2003, The Journal of Dairy Science noted that up to 80 percent of dairy cattle carry O157. (Fortunately, food safety measures prevent contaminated fecal matter from getting into most of our food most of the time.)
Happily, the journal also provided a remedy based on a simple experiment. When cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold. This is good news. In a week, we could choke O157 from its favorite home — even if beef cattle were switched to a forage diet just seven days before slaughter, it would greatly reduce cross-contamination by manure of, say, hamburger in meat-packing plants. Such a measure might have prevented the E. coli outbreak that plagued the Jack in the Box fast food chain in 1993.
Unfortunately, it would take more than a week to reduce the contamination of ground water, flood water and rivers — all irrigation sources on spinach farms — by the E-coli-infected manure from cattle farms. The United States Department of Agriculture does recognize the threat from these huge lagoons of waste, and so pays 75 percent of the cost for a confinement cattle farmer to make manure pits watertight, either by lining them with concrete or building them above ground. But taxpayers are financing a policy that only treats the symptom, not the disease, and at great expense. There remains only one long-term remedy, and it’s still the simplest one: stop feeding grain to cattle.
California’s spinach industry is now the financial victim of an outbreak it probably did not cause, and meanwhile, thousands of acres of other produce are still downstream from these lakes of E. coli-ridden cattle manure. So give the spinach growers a break, and direct your attention to the people in our agricultural community who just might be able to solve this deadly problem: the beef and dairy farmers.
Nina Planck is the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and Why.’’
* * * *
A cow's digestive system was perfectly designed for grass. As a cow grazes, grass goes into the first of its multiple stomachs, which acts as a sort of holding tank. Later, when the cow rests from grazing, the grass comes back into its mouth as a wad of cud. As the cow chews this -- a process that takes hours -- digestive juices in its mouth begin collecting all the rich nutrients from the grass. The roughage that remains goes through a complex system of stomachs that filter it of any impurities.
What cows eat might not seem like a very important detail to your average burger-and-a-shake consumer, but it mattered to God when He designed the internal organs of cows and other ruminant beasts, and it mattered to Him when He gave dietary laws to His children in Leviticus 11. "Whatsoever... cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat." Beasts that did not chew the cud were ruled unclean and forbidden. Which raises a good question to which I would really like to have an answer... do grain fed cattle chew the cud in the same way grazing cattle do?
Here in the Beehive kitchen, we have bought grass-fed beef and milk whenever possible, but for yet another reason: meat and milk from grass-fed cattle is rich in the essential fatty acids -- all those omegas -- that are now missing from grain fed cattle products. Free range cattle also produce purer milk and beef because they need fewer antibiotics... because they are healthier. Imagine that.
Bottom line: God knew what He was doing when He designed the earth and everything in it, and when we tinker with that, there's going to be a price to pay.
What can you do? Tell your local grocers that you want grass-fed beef, and keep asking until they stock it. Or find a grazing farm and buy your beef directly from it.
And plant some spinach in your back yard, maybe, because your body still needs the stuff in it!
September 21, 2006
first and last
q. shenaynay
We have a first day of school tradition here at the Beehive of having all the student types color their grade number on a sheet of paper, and then pose for pics in the yard. We did this on September 5th, but it's taken me a couple of weeks to post the pics, due to our as yet uneasy relationship with the new computer.
This is Fa's last time to be in the picture, which had all of us rather choked up that morning during the coloring session... which means we then had to get silly in order to recover.
You can see pictures from our very first day of school, and some other first day pics through the years, here. Observant sorts will notice that Beatrice somehow managed to skip 9th grade... well, umm... we sort of miscalculated last year. Such are the perils of homeschooling -- we just don't pay all that much attention to grade levels and such.
We have a first day of school tradition here at the Beehive of having all the student types color their grade number on a sheet of paper, and then pose for pics in the yard. We did this on September 5th, but it's taken me a couple of weeks to post the pics, due to our as yet uneasy relationship with the new computer.
This is Fa's last time to be in the picture, which had all of us rather choked up that morning during the coloring session... which means we then had to get silly in order to recover.
You can see pictures from our very first day of school, and some other first day pics through the years, here. Observant sorts will notice that Beatrice somehow managed to skip 9th grade... well, umm... we sort of miscalculated last year. Such are the perils of homeschooling -- we just don't pay all that much attention to grade levels and such.
September 20, 2006
Muscadines
q. shenaynay
I was rolling a plump, emerald acorn squash from hand to hand, my fingers falling in its heavy valleys to playfully defend its beauty from the ravages of gravity, when Caitlin's incantation came lilting over the bushel baskets of papery Vidalia onions that spanned between us: "Oh, Mamadah, come here...."
It's a wonder I even heard her, lost as I was in my annual reverie of celebrating the return of fall squashes to our neighborhood organic market... except for the fact that she spoke a magic word:
"Mamadah... they have muscadines."
Oh. Oh. My precious Granddaddy. Just that one word -- muscadines -- and though he has long since gone home to the Lord, he is suddenly everywhere.
Caitlin stands by the produce scale, beckoning with a flutter of her fingers. Her heart is in her smile. She knows that I am about to go, and she knows where. "Muscadines," she repeats, quietly. It's hypnosis, pure and simple.
Half-gone already, I pick one of the bronze-tinged grapes from the nearest cluster. It's the first one I've held in my fingers in many, many years. Its perfume chases the oxygen from my lungs. Something deep in my chest constricts, as though my full-grown heart is straining against a ribcage that has reverted to child-size. My eyes shut tight, crowding out tears that escape to run straight toward the mysterious green orb I hold beneath my nose. Loss falls upon me like a smothering net.
"Oh, Mamadah... oh," I hear my daughter whisper, and I feel her arms fold me in. She knows, and yet she doesn't. Not yet.
I slip the grape into my mouth, and its heavy juice makes decades dissolve. I am small and golden again. I am in my grandfather's Tennessee garden, skipping down the vine-laden fencerow that runs alongside the grassy lane to the old white barn. The sun is setting under the lower branches of the big pecans in the chicken yard, gilding a palette of every imaginable green --fanning, waving, dancing greens. The air is heavy, laced with the aromatic lure of the towering, handsome dill stalks that bend in breezy flirtation toward my Grandmother's intoxicating cabbage roses.
Granddaddy's garden is both tame and wild, a wonderland of God's imaginative providence expressed in sensuous, verdant marvels.
And he is back, too, all back. His lanky, ancient form flickers and rustles through tall corn as he swats his way through the stalks that reach out to him as he passes. He is singing to them, singing songs of his redemption, the uncontainable joy of which he expresses through the art of this impossibly beautiful patch of fallen earth. The song is a parable, sung as it is over soil he toils daily to redeem from nature's chaos, and all for the glory of his Redeemer. I hear his ringing tenor that sinks into my bones and remains there forever. I hear the corn stalks whisper hosannas in his wake. I hear the garden spigot dripping rhythm in the pail. I hear the evening train shouting out all my childish joy in the distance.
A whole world existed inside the bronze-green skin of my Granddaddy's grapes, a world now so very removed from my own. It is all gone now -- the gardener, the garden, the lush vines that promised precious communion wine for my grandparents' much-beloved church (which, thankfully, yet remains). A complex maze of sterile commercial storage buildings now entomb those acres of fertile soil my Grandfather rendered rich and dark and silky to the hand by his continuous daily feasts of compost and love and rejoicing.
But I still have the songs Granddaddy sang in his garden. And the One who made muscadines and dill and cabbage roses and sunlight, the One who redeemed my Grandfather, the One whose blood we revere through wine from these small miracles we call grapes -- He is still here, too.
With blurry eyes, I tucked the grapes into my basket and brought them home. Though my grandfather never saw my home, when I arise in the morning, my kitchen will smell like he has been there, standing at the sink, testing the wine to make sure it's worthy for the Lord's Supper. And when I arise in the morning, I just might sing to these grapes -- a song of redemption, of a life blessed by grandfathers and gardens, by daughters and roses and muscadine wine.
I was rolling a plump, emerald acorn squash from hand to hand, my fingers falling in its heavy valleys to playfully defend its beauty from the ravages of gravity, when Caitlin's incantation came lilting over the bushel baskets of papery Vidalia onions that spanned between us: "Oh, Mamadah, come here...."
It's a wonder I even heard her, lost as I was in my annual reverie of celebrating the return of fall squashes to our neighborhood organic market... except for the fact that she spoke a magic word:
"Mamadah... they have muscadines."
Oh. Oh. My precious Granddaddy. Just that one word -- muscadines -- and though he has long since gone home to the Lord, he is suddenly everywhere.
Caitlin stands by the produce scale, beckoning with a flutter of her fingers. Her heart is in her smile. She knows that I am about to go, and she knows where. "Muscadines," she repeats, quietly. It's hypnosis, pure and simple.
Half-gone already, I pick one of the bronze-tinged grapes from the nearest cluster. It's the first one I've held in my fingers in many, many years. Its perfume chases the oxygen from my lungs. Something deep in my chest constricts, as though my full-grown heart is straining against a ribcage that has reverted to child-size. My eyes shut tight, crowding out tears that escape to run straight toward the mysterious green orb I hold beneath my nose. Loss falls upon me like a smothering net.
"Oh, Mamadah... oh," I hear my daughter whisper, and I feel her arms fold me in. She knows, and yet she doesn't. Not yet.
I slip the grape into my mouth, and its heavy juice makes decades dissolve. I am small and golden again. I am in my grandfather's Tennessee garden, skipping down the vine-laden fencerow that runs alongside the grassy lane to the old white barn. The sun is setting under the lower branches of the big pecans in the chicken yard, gilding a palette of every imaginable green --fanning, waving, dancing greens. The air is heavy, laced with the aromatic lure of the towering, handsome dill stalks that bend in breezy flirtation toward my Grandmother's intoxicating cabbage roses.
Granddaddy's garden is both tame and wild, a wonderland of God's imaginative providence expressed in sensuous, verdant marvels.
And he is back, too, all back. His lanky, ancient form flickers and rustles through tall corn as he swats his way through the stalks that reach out to him as he passes. He is singing to them, singing songs of his redemption, the uncontainable joy of which he expresses through the art of this impossibly beautiful patch of fallen earth. The song is a parable, sung as it is over soil he toils daily to redeem from nature's chaos, and all for the glory of his Redeemer. I hear his ringing tenor that sinks into my bones and remains there forever. I hear the corn stalks whisper hosannas in his wake. I hear the garden spigot dripping rhythm in the pail. I hear the evening train shouting out all my childish joy in the distance.
A whole world existed inside the bronze-green skin of my Granddaddy's grapes, a world now so very removed from my own. It is all gone now -- the gardener, the garden, the lush vines that promised precious communion wine for my grandparents' much-beloved church (which, thankfully, yet remains). A complex maze of sterile commercial storage buildings now entomb those acres of fertile soil my Grandfather rendered rich and dark and silky to the hand by his continuous daily feasts of compost and love and rejoicing.
But I still have the songs Granddaddy sang in his garden. And the One who made muscadines and dill and cabbage roses and sunlight, the One who redeemed my Grandfather, the One whose blood we revere through wine from these small miracles we call grapes -- He is still here, too.
With blurry eyes, I tucked the grapes into my basket and brought them home. Though my grandfather never saw my home, when I arise in the morning, my kitchen will smell like he has been there, standing at the sink, testing the wine to make sure it's worthy for the Lord's Supper. And when I arise in the morning, I just might sing to these grapes -- a song of redemption, of a life blessed by grandfathers and gardens, by daughters and roses and muscadine wine.
so you'll get it when Aunt Helen calls you Charlie
q. shenaynay
If you're among the multitudinous number of our Gentle Readers who live to sing from shape-notes (and those are surely the happiest of all Beehive visitors, yes?), you'll want to go to my friend Javamom's blog and savvy yourself up to a pretty neat trick she learned from her daddy!
If you're among the multitudinous number of our Gentle Readers who live to sing from shape-notes (and those are surely the happiest of all Beehive visitors, yes?), you'll want to go to my friend Javamom's blog and savvy yourself up to a pretty neat trick she learned from her daddy!
September 19, 2006
Talk like a Pirate Day
Great Scot
Avast, me hearties, once more it is Talk like a Pirate Day. I expect all of you scurvy bilge rats to make your comments on the Beehive, like a pirate, savvy. If help be what ye need, set sail fer www.talklikeapirate.com.
"Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Rum"
Avast, me hearties, once more it is Talk like a Pirate Day. I expect all of you scurvy bilge rats to make your comments on the Beehive, like a pirate, savvy. If help be what ye need, set sail fer www.talklikeapirate.com.
"Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Rum"
September 18, 2006
1. Love some people. 2. Make sure they know it.
q. shenaynay
Yesterday, I read an article about the potential pitfalls of living each day in continual awareness of one's to-do list. Now, this is a tender spot for me. If you see me, there's probably a pink legal pad and a PDA less than fifteen feet away. About once a week I sit down with both of those items plus a cup of hot tea, and redraft everything -- I like to start a week with tidy, well-organized lists. Seriously.
Hello, my name is Queen Shenaynay, and I am a hot sync-aholic.
I sometimes suspect this might be a genetic tendency. You could, at any time, ask almost anyone on my family tree to produce a list of something, anything -- and chances are good they could whip out at least one from a pocket or a purse within seconds.
The list habit can be a blessing or a curse. It all depends on how the list is perceived and how it's used. My list habit usually helps me keep life under control -- I am keenly aware that in order for good things to actually happen and for good ideas to find their way to fruition, I DO have to keep lists. But it can turn on you without warning -- the big bad list occasionally threatens to rule, to keep you from doing cool, fun stuff for the simple reason that you Still Have Stuff To Do. The List Said So.
The list is merely the maintenance tool for a great big life; it is not the life itself.
And that, essentially, was the article author's main point... that living by the list can become a thorn that distracts you from the roses.
She suggested that a good, full life is not lived so that our tombstones can read, "She crossed everything off her list," but rather...
She loved some people, and they knew it.
Her life was full of memorable moments,
and she didn't miss many of them.
Great idea. I think I'll put that on my list of good quotes.
Yesterday, I read an article about the potential pitfalls of living each day in continual awareness of one's to-do list. Now, this is a tender spot for me. If you see me, there's probably a pink legal pad and a PDA less than fifteen feet away. About once a week I sit down with both of those items plus a cup of hot tea, and redraft everything -- I like to start a week with tidy, well-organized lists. Seriously.
Hello, my name is Queen Shenaynay, and I am a hot sync-aholic.
I sometimes suspect this might be a genetic tendency. You could, at any time, ask almost anyone on my family tree to produce a list of something, anything -- and chances are good they could whip out at least one from a pocket or a purse within seconds.
The list habit can be a blessing or a curse. It all depends on how the list is perceived and how it's used. My list habit usually helps me keep life under control -- I am keenly aware that in order for good things to actually happen and for good ideas to find their way to fruition, I DO have to keep lists. But it can turn on you without warning -- the big bad list occasionally threatens to rule, to keep you from doing cool, fun stuff for the simple reason that you Still Have Stuff To Do. The List Said So.
The list is merely the maintenance tool for a great big life; it is not the life itself.
And that, essentially, was the article author's main point... that living by the list can become a thorn that distracts you from the roses.
She suggested that a good, full life is not lived so that our tombstones can read, "She crossed everything off her list," but rather...
She loved some people, and they knew it.
Her life was full of memorable moments,
and she didn't miss many of them.
Great idea. I think I'll put that on my list of good quotes.
September 15, 2006
Ouch.
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare."
--C. S. Lewis
September 13, 2006
Spuddy's Recitation Challenge
by Spuddy Buddy
I am memorizing stuff for school. Would you like to do it with me? Okay! Here is the scripture I'm memorizing this week:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17
And here is the poem for this week and next:
Little Things
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
So the little moments,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
So our little errors
Lead the soul away
From the path of virtue,
Far in sin to stray.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the heaven above.
by Julia Fletcher Carney, 1823-1908
At least memorize the scripture with me. That's the most important. Leave me a comment when you've got it down!
I am memorizing stuff for school. Would you like to do it with me? Okay! Here is the scripture I'm memorizing this week:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17
And here is the poem for this week and next:
Little Things
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
So the little moments,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
So our little errors
Lead the soul away
From the path of virtue,
Far in sin to stray.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the heaven above.
by Julia Fletcher Carney, 1823-1908
At least memorize the scripture with me. That's the most important. Leave me a comment when you've got it down!
September 11, 2006
5 things
q. shenaynay
I think I got tagged somewhere for the Five Things meme sometime in August. So I'm tardy. Who cares?
5 Things in My Refrigerator
garlic stuffed olives
almond butter
carrot juice
three almost empty jars of salsa
basil pesto
5 Things in My Closet
six hatboxes (with hats inside)
three quirky caftans (nirvana)
a stash of blank journals (hope springs eternal)
a portrait of my mother at 18 (beautiful)
hidden gifts (woops)
5 Things in My Purse/Backpack
my PDA
a tiny composition book
an Incredibles pinchlight
a pocketknife
an excessive selection of Origins lip gloss
5 Things in My Car
The Car Library: 2 hymnals, a dictionary, a Bible, and Norton's Anthology of English Lit.
a hat and sunscreen
on audio: sermons, the Bible, Winnie the Pooh stories, and P.G. Wodehouse books
granola bars and Altoids
hairbrushes, as many as five at a time (umm, we have a lot of hair)
Tagging everyone.
I think I got tagged somewhere for the Five Things meme sometime in August. So I'm tardy. Who cares?
5 Things in My Refrigerator
garlic stuffed olives
almond butter
carrot juice
three almost empty jars of salsa
basil pesto
5 Things in My Closet
six hatboxes (with hats inside)
three quirky caftans (nirvana)
a stash of blank journals (hope springs eternal)
a portrait of my mother at 18 (beautiful)
hidden gifts (woops)
5 Things in My Purse/Backpack
my PDA
a tiny composition book
an Incredibles pinchlight
a pocketknife
an excessive selection of Origins lip gloss
5 Things in My Car
The Car Library: 2 hymnals, a dictionary, a Bible, and Norton's Anthology of English Lit.
a hat and sunscreen
on audio: sermons, the Bible, Winnie the Pooh stories, and P.G. Wodehouse books
granola bars and Altoids
hairbrushes, as many as five at a time (umm, we have a lot of hair)
Tagging everyone.
September 9, 2006
Gettysburg!
here are the pictures of a model that i set up of the gettysburg battle just so you know, the green ones are the good guys, and the khaki ones are the bad guys.
Cemetary Hill
September 8, 2006
Gazing Into the Heavens
fa-so-la-la
There are very few hymns written about the resurrection, you'll notice. Most people are hesitant even to talk about it. This should be odd, I suppose, except that it's all so big there's really no wonder. I'm still reeling over the wonder of the kidneys, let alone the triumphant return of the Savior.
We have the rather demanding blessing of an elaborate God. Our sin-constricted brains are puzzled by the extravagance of Creation. We'd be more comfortable with economy, with a more spartan simplicity to the universe. But no. God won't let us get away with that. Not satisfied to dazzle our incomprehending senses with a sun and a moon, 'He made the stars also,' as the author of Genesis mentions in an almost parenthetical aside. Can't you see it? God's almighty fingers twinkle, and instantly the stars bloom; it's effortless, merely a little extra, a small flourish just for the fun of it. In the Creation account it's rather like an afterthought amidst other matters-- "And He made the stars also." That's it. Good lands.
But that's how it is. God's elaborate surprises jump out at us and yell "boo!" beneath every microscope, before every eye, beyond every telescope. No matter how much we mutter our finite flea-brained protestations that fifty million galaxies are quite enough, really, He will force another million or so upon our notice. And we think the government throws big numbers around lightly.
Sometimes I imagine God creating the universe. I see Him deciding that ten species of fish simply won't do, and delightedly creating hundreds more of wildly imaginative form and color. I see Him taking joy in the design of the golgi formations in cells and composing water with the triumph of a master artisan. And then come the primates. It's not enough to merely create such a comical beast as the baboon; He had to give some of them purple bottoms. Every time I see a mandrill, I can't help but think that God's creative, expressive nature has a streak of the divinely rambunctious.
When Christ was on earth, things were no different. At the end of his record of Christ's life, John tells us with bewilderment that "there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Christ could have limited Himself to a miracle here, a miracle there, perhaps one raising-the-dead incident as a final flourish. And we would have been amazed. But He was not stingy with His bounteous glory. He walked the earth shedding miracles like we shed dead skin cells.
Then there's the issue of the plan for the salvation of His chosen people. We can't simply earn our way in. Nothing so seemingly sensible as that. Instead we live in an elaborate fairy-tale construction of a world, our salvation secured in an epic battle against the powers of sin and darkness. One man's transgression becomes his children's transgression, one Man's triumph becomes His children's triumph. It's a duel, with every man's fate in the hands of one Hero. This triumphant Hero rescues His bride from her captivity in the evil kingdom where she is held at ransom, and the story ends, like any really good story, with a wedding and a happily-ever-after. And after countless plot twists, cliffhangers, subplots, complications, developments, and finally the grand resolution, the wild story God has written leaves us breathless.
What are we to do? With our debased, contracted minds and stilted imaginations, how are we to cope in the lush, elaborate wildness of this jungle of wonders the Lord has placed us in? How can we comprehend the unashamed magnificence of our Maker? I'm not sure, really. The disciples themselves were taken aback at times. When Christ ascended to heaven, they could do nothing but gape. The two angels immediately at hand, calibrated as they were to wonders far exceeding even this, obviously thought it was just a little bit ridiculous. "Ye men of Galilee," they inquired, "why stand ye gazing into the heavens?" The glorified Son of God has just risen to His throne on the right hand of His Father, that's all. Now get to work.
I hope these angels will pardon me if I, too, stand gazing into the heavens, squinting with aching eyes at even the dimmest reflection of God's splendor. I'm sorry. I'm a silly little sinner who can never quite comprehend it all. Patience-- I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll stop squinting one of these days.
There are very few hymns written about the resurrection, you'll notice. Most people are hesitant even to talk about it. This should be odd, I suppose, except that it's all so big there's really no wonder. I'm still reeling over the wonder of the kidneys, let alone the triumphant return of the Savior.
We have the rather demanding blessing of an elaborate God. Our sin-constricted brains are puzzled by the extravagance of Creation. We'd be more comfortable with economy, with a more spartan simplicity to the universe. But no. God won't let us get away with that. Not satisfied to dazzle our incomprehending senses with a sun and a moon, 'He made the stars also,' as the author of Genesis mentions in an almost parenthetical aside. Can't you see it? God's almighty fingers twinkle, and instantly the stars bloom; it's effortless, merely a little extra, a small flourish just for the fun of it. In the Creation account it's rather like an afterthought amidst other matters-- "And He made the stars also." That's it. Good lands.
But that's how it is. God's elaborate surprises jump out at us and yell "boo!" beneath every microscope, before every eye, beyond every telescope. No matter how much we mutter our finite flea-brained protestations that fifty million galaxies are quite enough, really, He will force another million or so upon our notice. And we think the government throws big numbers around lightly.
Sometimes I imagine God creating the universe. I see Him deciding that ten species of fish simply won't do, and delightedly creating hundreds more of wildly imaginative form and color. I see Him taking joy in the design of the golgi formations in cells and composing water with the triumph of a master artisan. And then come the primates. It's not enough to merely create such a comical beast as the baboon; He had to give some of them purple bottoms. Every time I see a mandrill, I can't help but think that God's creative, expressive nature has a streak of the divinely rambunctious.
When Christ was on earth, things were no different. At the end of his record of Christ's life, John tells us with bewilderment that "there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Christ could have limited Himself to a miracle here, a miracle there, perhaps one raising-the-dead incident as a final flourish. And we would have been amazed. But He was not stingy with His bounteous glory. He walked the earth shedding miracles like we shed dead skin cells.
Then there's the issue of the plan for the salvation of His chosen people. We can't simply earn our way in. Nothing so seemingly sensible as that. Instead we live in an elaborate fairy-tale construction of a world, our salvation secured in an epic battle against the powers of sin and darkness. One man's transgression becomes his children's transgression, one Man's triumph becomes His children's triumph. It's a duel, with every man's fate in the hands of one Hero. This triumphant Hero rescues His bride from her captivity in the evil kingdom where she is held at ransom, and the story ends, like any really good story, with a wedding and a happily-ever-after. And after countless plot twists, cliffhangers, subplots, complications, developments, and finally the grand resolution, the wild story God has written leaves us breathless.
What are we to do? With our debased, contracted minds and stilted imaginations, how are we to cope in the lush, elaborate wildness of this jungle of wonders the Lord has placed us in? How can we comprehend the unashamed magnificence of our Maker? I'm not sure, really. The disciples themselves were taken aback at times. When Christ ascended to heaven, they could do nothing but gape. The two angels immediately at hand, calibrated as they were to wonders far exceeding even this, obviously thought it was just a little bit ridiculous. "Ye men of Galilee," they inquired, "why stand ye gazing into the heavens?" The glorified Son of God has just risen to His throne on the right hand of His Father, that's all. Now get to work.
I hope these angels will pardon me if I, too, stand gazing into the heavens, squinting with aching eyes at even the dimmest reflection of God's splendor. I'm sorry. I'm a silly little sinner who can never quite comprehend it all. Patience-- I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll stop squinting one of these days.
September 7, 2006
Did you know...
fa-so-la-la
...that Robert the Bruce wrote the Arbroath Covenant as part of his government reform when he became king? That it was more influential than the Magna Carta? That it was the first such declaration or covenant to acknowledge that ordinary people had certain inalienable rights and to promise freedom for all, not just a few privileges for the nobility as the Magna Carta had done? That the phrase 'inalienable rights' was first written in it, and later borrowed by the writers of the Constitution? That the founding fathers quoted the Covenant 92 times in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution?
Yep, that's my Uncle Bob for you.
...that Robert the Bruce wrote the Arbroath Covenant as part of his government reform when he became king? That it was more influential than the Magna Carta? That it was the first such declaration or covenant to acknowledge that ordinary people had certain inalienable rights and to promise freedom for all, not just a few privileges for the nobility as the Magna Carta had done? That the phrase 'inalienable rights' was first written in it, and later borrowed by the writers of the Constitution? That the founding fathers quoted the Covenant 92 times in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution?
Yep, that's my Uncle Bob for you.
September 5, 2006
What Fa Did On Her Summer Vacation
A beautiful summer has wound to an end, bringing a summer-to-fall transition that is slightly more wistful than usual. I'm a senior this year, and everything is tinged with the faint bittersweet flavor of a last time.
But enough of that. Things Change. Life Happens. And we're glad.
I think I have inherited Queenie's knack for good intentions. I made a list at the beginning of this summer of everything I was going to do while I had so much free time. It was admirable. I was going to read Mansfield Park aloud to Claire, fix my handwriting, practice piano lots, read a stack of books rivaling the Sears Tower in vertical splendor, do vocal exercises, clean under my bed, etc etc etc.
Ha.
So, you ask, if I didn't do that, just what did I do this summer? The answer is that I'm not exactly sure myself. But as best as I can recall:
-had mono/pleurisy for four weeks, which involved bedrest, lots of movies, a little boredom, some sweet cards and emails, a trip to the ER, and some really nasty green vitamin junk taken by the tablespoon.
-got in the habit of drinking lots of water (one of the few things mono is good for).
-went to two really spiffy singing schools.
-which gave me the Incredible Amazing Hyper Super Mega Month Long Sore Throat (there went the vocal exercises and reading aloud).
-went to a really spiffy church meeting.
-was blessed to see God's providence working right before my eyes.
-only stayed up past 2 AM a very moderate number of times.
-spent time with a lot of people I love, which made me even more aware of how much I love them. Which is alot.
-bought several pair of Really Sweet Shoes.
-started driver's ed for the 3rd time (hopefully this effort will be more than an effort).
-bought some books.
-read some books (not the ones I intended to read, naturally).
-among them a 1065 page book: Bleak House by Charles Dickens (it was worth it).
--got over my fear of traveling by airplane alone by doing just that and not missing my flight or getting lost or winding up in alaska or even losing my boarding pass or anything!
-vanquished the SAT, thereby freeing myself of the bondage of all such odious time-wasting standardized tests forever. yah.
-came up with some Really Good Intentions for fall.
-fell in love.
-fell even more in love.
-fell even more in love than that.
...and that's about all.
::chortle::
Believe me, it was plenty.
But enough of that. Things Change. Life Happens. And we're glad.
I think I have inherited Queenie's knack for good intentions. I made a list at the beginning of this summer of everything I was going to do while I had so much free time. It was admirable. I was going to read Mansfield Park aloud to Claire, fix my handwriting, practice piano lots, read a stack of books rivaling the Sears Tower in vertical splendor, do vocal exercises, clean under my bed, etc etc etc.
Ha.
So, you ask, if I didn't do that, just what did I do this summer? The answer is that I'm not exactly sure myself. But as best as I can recall:
-had mono/pleurisy for four weeks, which involved bedrest, lots of movies, a little boredom, some sweet cards and emails, a trip to the ER, and some really nasty green vitamin junk taken by the tablespoon.
-got in the habit of drinking lots of water (one of the few things mono is good for).
-went to two really spiffy singing schools.
-which gave me the Incredible Amazing Hyper Super Mega Month Long Sore Throat (there went the vocal exercises and reading aloud).
-went to a really spiffy church meeting.
-was blessed to see God's providence working right before my eyes.
-only stayed up past 2 AM a very moderate number of times.
-spent time with a lot of people I love, which made me even more aware of how much I love them. Which is alot.
-bought several pair of Really Sweet Shoes.
-started driver's ed for the 3rd time (hopefully this effort will be more than an effort).
-bought some books.
-read some books (not the ones I intended to read, naturally).
-among them a 1065 page book: Bleak House by Charles Dickens (it was worth it).
--got over my fear of traveling by airplane alone by doing just that and not missing my flight or getting lost or winding up in alaska or even losing my boarding pass or anything!
-vanquished the SAT, thereby freeing myself of the bondage of all such odious time-wasting standardized tests forever. yah.
-came up with some Really Good Intentions for fall.
-fell in love.
-fell even more in love.
-fell even more in love than that.
...and that's about all.
::chortle::
Believe me, it was plenty.
September 3, 2006
What Q. Shenaynay Did On Her Summer Vacation
A moment of silence for Summer; by our reckoning, she officially slinks off into the realm of history this evening. The Schedule-Driven Life resumes at the Beehive in a matter of hours.
Pausing to examine one's life from time to time is a Wise and Revealing Thing To Do.* The turning of seasons hails that moment for me more dependably than anything else. Tomorrow being Labor Day means that here I am, as though on some compulsory cosmic cycle, rewinding the summer frame-by-frame and evaluating whether I spent it wisely and well enough to graduate to Fall.
This is a dangerous business.
It's been some years since my to-do list has seen a day when it would not fill an entire page of a legal pad. I have actually had vivid, manic dreams of waking to find my to-do list blank. (That, and my chronic bruxism, should tell me something about my need for more yoga sessions or maybe just a lake house.) But the task load on that infernal list always hovers just beyond my daily capabilities, remains just unconquerable enough to make me feel like I'm perpetually failing. I crave the cruelly elusive sensation of progress in my life -- but I also rarely give much satisfactory notice to the things I actually do accomplish.
So it is, as always, that Lots of Stuff I Meant To Do This Summer just didn't get done -- is STILL smirking at me from my PDA screen, my legal pad, my email inbox, and the plenteous post-it notes that decorate my life. But before I begin to wallow in regret and sink in the Slough of Despond, let me quickly consider The Good Things I Did This Summer:
~ Kicked my coffee addiction; took up anti-oxidant rich and less caffeinated green tea, which I'm positive I will eventually look forward to just as much as that long-beloved java fix. Positive. Really.
~ Started taking my herbs and vitamins like I should again.
~ Went to Memphis for a week and heard some fantastic preaching.
~ Nursed my daughter through mono and pleurisy.
~ De-cluttered, de-junked and generally weeded out my closet, with the considerable help of Beatrice, which has changed my life. Seriously.
~ Emptied, cleaned and reorganized my pantry and spice cabinet.
~ Stocked my freezer.
~ Sang a lot.
~ Grew my hair out.
~ Masked regularly for the first time in a decade (Origins masks are tha bomb; addictive stuff).
~ Bought an intensely incredible-deep-red-velvet-double-wide-squishy-squooshy-kissy-chair to read in.
~ Sat through an entire movie on several occasions, which my kids will tell you is a miracle.
~ Got out my juicer and started buying organic carrots in bulk.
~ Micromanaged my children's academic futures for yet another school year, and bought all the necessary books.
~ Helped a friend teach two back-to-back week-long singing schools even though I was completely unprepared to do so and scared half to death. But she asked. And I love her.
~ Got my teeth cleaned.
~ Bought a bunch of new books (duh).
~ Discovered the perfect voice of Susan Graham.
~ Got a full body massage. Oooh Ahhhhhhhhhh.
~ Took lots of sunset walks with my kids.
~ Wrote an article to be published.
~ Had lots of good intentions.
There's still plenty left to do. I could show you my list.
Nah.
*It is hoped that our fellow Austen fans noted the verbal wink here even without the nudge of this silly asterisk. (I never flatter myself, but my friends say I certainly do know how to make a clever allusion.) However, if it sailed right past you, it's a clear signal your Janeology is sadly slipping, in which case you will need to re-read Emma this fall. Oh, even if not, read it again anyway.
September 1, 2006
and the winner is...
The Kamman book wins yet another award:
The Beehive Blondies' Coolest Cookbook Award.
Though I had anticipated Fa and Beatrice would choose different books, they both chose this one, and independently of one other at that. Since I want them to have their own copies to scribble in and to keep, and since this hefty volume is 40 smackers retail, I'm very happy to have discovered that www.bookcloseouts.com has a few copies for $14. (But not for long now, I bet!)
Both girls also asked to dabble a bit on the side in their respective first runner-up books. For Beatrice, it was Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which she could not bring herself to put back on the shelf, and I can't blame her -- the book is a wonder. And Fa could not entirely resist the charms of la dame Julia, so she'll be taking the occasional foray into The Way To Cook.
Now, this pleases me for many reasons, not the least of which is that, as any right-thinking academician would agree, it clearly justifies the purchase of the newly released DVDs of Julia's vintage, classic PBS French Chef shows from the 70's. Sure it does. I mean, this is for school. One cannot merely read Julia and cook with Julia if one cannot accurately hear and envision Julia perfectly in one's head! Indeed not!! I mean, this is JULIA we're talking about here!!! One will neeeeeeed those DVDs, riiiiight??::takes a deep breath; puts down the wooden spoon::
Seriously, it's... well, it's a vital matter of education philosophy principles. The Science of Relations, The Making of Connections, all such as that. It's sound education theory put into practice, y'see. You could look it up.
Ahem.
Note to self: Start exercising more, immediately.
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