But Thanks Be To God

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It rained all day yesterday. This morning the birds are singing and the sun is perfect. The sky is clean, the air is bright, and the stillness of soggy weather has given way to a gusty breeze. The world is beautiful. Summer's coming. I've only got one school book left to finish. I'm going to see *him* tomorrow after what feels like but probably isn't a very long absence. It's April. I finally have a licence. There isn't any laundry piled up in the back room. I live in Texas. I read Anne of Avonlea for what is probably the sixth time yesterday, though I haven't kept count. God's grace abounds, life is good, and right now, 8:30 AM on Wednesday the 25th of April 2007, I am happy.

It's hard to believe at this moment that a thing called sin actually infests the world. But I am human, which being translated means I am of dull perception, and to God's eyes the scene before me probably appears terminally diseased with the stuff. If I look more carefully I observe evidences too. The dead leaves in the gutter. The rush of the freeway in the background (surely God wouldn't permit such 4-lane atrocities in a perfect world?). The splotchy grass in our front yard, beneath trees the sun can't penetrate. The locks on every door and window in sight. The anonymous scars on my right foot. The fact that I really should be inside sweeping the perennially needy kitchen floor.

Suddenly it occurs to me that even some of the newnesses and beauties around me trace their lineage back to sin-- the flower beds on either side of the front walk, for instance. They are freshly planted; we fixed them up last weekend, breaking up the dense clay soil with hoes and shovels, planting, and spreading the mulch that smells so wonderful now. We did this because of sin.

Come to think of it, it is the things most worthy of our time that combat sin, or, if you please, it is the things that combat sin that are most worthy of our time. And I think most of us know this instinctively. We all get feelings sometimes, while flipping through a magazine or dawdling or doing this that and the other on the internet, that we are wasting time. To a child of God, mightn't this be also called the feeling that what we are doing has no significance in God's reality?

God's reality is the reality of redemption, or victory-- to Him they are the same. Victory. Victory over sin. Redemption of His chosen ones. His every action in time is ultimately another nudge toward the redemption of His people, and the defeat of sin. And here, on a lower plane, we take part in the battle too. Doctors healing people are fighting it. Anyone who takes a walk and glories in Creation is fighting it. Girls brushing their hair are fighting it. Anyone who creates beauty of any kind is fighting it. We fought it when we took mud and turned it into a flower bed. I'm fighting right now as I use words to give order to my scrambled thoughts.

For order is of God, and chaos of the devil. God's redemption of each of his children means taking a blackened, tortured, chaotic soul and restoring to it His intended order and beauty. On the last day our bodies will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, from this chaos of illness and death and decay to the beautiful order and perfection He intended. We shall be changed. "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." In a smaller manifestation of this pattern, we too are meant to be victors in this world.

Victory is the birthright of a child of grace. Of course, no one quite lives up to it. Sin has a way of interfering with that. But sin comes in lots of shapes and sizes, and of all its forms perhaps the most insidious is the demon Mediocrity. I won't speak for anyone else, but I know that he haunts me day and night. He tells me to do the easy thing instead of the beautiful thing, to squeak by on the bare minimum requirments of life instead of living redemptively. He is a cheat, defrauding me of my birthright by telling me this mess of pottage would really be so much more convenient. He wants me to be satisfied, soothed, drowsy in my own complaisance and inactivity. But I intend not to let him, because God demands victory-- over the flesh and the devil, over sin, over the world, over messy kitchens and scrambled thoughts and dead grass, over ignorance. Victory over the isolation of souls adrift in selfishness. Victory over ugliness-- beauty. Victory over hatred-- love. Victory, which for us frail ones means a temporary redemption of some small corner of God's good earth. Kitchen floors, for instance. I think I'll go sweep now.

International Ambivalence Day

Today is International Ambivalence Day. I want each of you to go out there and make this fact known to your friends ............., or not. Whatever!

WHOOOOSH.

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Yes, I said WHOOOOSH.

Because, after two days of being herded around with sixty or so other soon-to-be-freshmen at orientation, I am now supposedly filled with the spirit. And at UTD, when we are filled with the spirit, we say WHOOOOSH. You see, the UTD sports teams are named The Comets, and what do comets do? They WHOOOSH! of course. So while down at UT Austin they hook'em horns, we UT Dallas types go WHOOOOSH!

I'm really glad I signed up for the early orientation, because all the classes were open by a mile and it made planning and registering for classes easy and non-stressful. They told us that this April orientation is referred to as the anal retentive orientation, because all the egg-heads who want to make sure they get into the classes they want go to this one. And let me tell you, the egg-heads were out En Masse. Oh man. It's pretty pathetic when I'm one of the 'cool' people in a crowd of 18 year olds. I was one of the only three girls there that fixed their hair. It was fantastic. :-)

Saturday morning, Mamadah and I got there for check-in at 8:00, from whence we were herded into an auditorium for the first session. The cheerleaders did all the school whoop-de-doos for us, and then the spirit team shook their flatironed hair at us accompanied by really bad music. The Dean spoke, and then they turned on --I am not kidding you-- James Bond music and we watched this groovey little video where James Bond, played by an OTM, or Orientation Team Member, rescued the other OTMs from the clutches of some sort of evil robed creature who was out to mess up orientation and thus make freshmen suffer. Then the OTMs themselves came in and we divided up into small groups for icebreakers. Oh yes. Ever played 'Ride the Pony?' No? Trust me-- you don't want to. We were shuffled around to a few more this-and-thats, addressed by the Offices of Registration, Advising, Bursar, and the UTD police force, had lunch, and then....drum roll.... skits. Oh me.

The OTM's put on about two hours of skits about student life. They taught us many useful things-- don't drink too much, take advantage of the health services on campus, go to any event offering free food, get counseling at the Women's Center when you have any problems, and most of all, Be Tolerant. Embrace Diversity. Don't Judge People Because Of Their Lifestyle. Everyone Is Special. I also learned that lots of topics that I had considered taboo are not quite so taboo amongst college students. Yikes. Y'all, these kids will say anything. And I mean anything.

Next morning, despite the fact that it was Sunday, we had to go back to campus for advising and registration. My advisor was very nice older lady who was very helpful, and as I already had most of my classes figured out it didn't take long. I'm majoring in Arts & Humanities, with probably an eventual minor in Creative Writing. There's no chance of switching majors, apparently a UTD pastime, because this is the only major offered that I would even think about! The school is known for its math, computer science, and engineering courses, and most students are in those areas. Calculus is HUGE here-- they even have regular calculus pizza parties!

I'm registered for 16 hours-- RHET 1101 (a one-credit-hour mandatory freshman course that's supposedly a 'here's how to be a good college student' sort of class-- I'm taking the honors version, which will hopefully make it a little more interesting), College Algebra, Freshman English, and Texas and U. S. Government (honors). At the moment I'm also registered for Art History and Literary Analysis, both of which I will take eventually, but I'm auditioning soon for Voice and Chamber Singers, and if I'm accepted I'll drop these. They're my backup plan.

I really like my schedule-- I'll never have to be on campus before 10 AM, and my latest class, Government on Tuesday and Thursday, ends at 5 so I can get home for dinner every night. The biggest gap I have between any two classes is an hour and a half, which I'll use for homework.

After I was out of advising I walked around the campus and found the buildings my classes will be in. I was really happy to discover that all my buildings are right next to each other, grouped around a nice treeish area with lots of benches, and next to both Student Union and the library. Sweet.

I really like the campus. It's not too big, but it doesn't feel cramped, and there's lots of parking. The buildings are nothing special at all, mostly grey cement, but the trees are beautiful, and there's open land all around the campus, so the sky is good and big. I'm Texan to the bone, you see, and if there's open sky, I'm happy. There are lots of nice places to study-- grassy areas with trees and benches and tables, tables stuck just about anywhere practical, rooms in the library, a nice student lounge with lots of natural light, and study rooms in the apartment complex on campus (instead of a dorm-- cool, huh?) that even commuter students like me can use. In Student Union they've got Pizza Hut, Chick-Fil-A, a sandwich and salad place, and a restaurant thingummy called The Pub that serves food and Starbucks, but I intend to bring food with me on the days when I'm at school over lunch. Because I'm a Thrifty Sponge, or hope to be, anyway. Another great thing is that all the contiguous buildings have enclosed walkways between them, which will be great for the cold windy days later this year. Best of all, the campus is 15 minutes from home.

So now I'm just about done with preparations for this fall-- I've got to buy my books and get a parking pass and a few other straggling things like that, but nothing huge. I'm feeling anticipatious. It's going to be so different it's almost unthinkable, but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it in a regretful sort of way, just like any big change. You know how it goes.

And don't worry-- I'll make sure I WHOOOSH! properly on August 16th.

May I introduce you to Elwood P. Dowd?

The Afore-Mentioned Essay In Which I Confined My Expansive and Fascinating Self To A Few Well-Appointed Paragraphs*

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*(In other words, this is the bally cove required by Ye Olde Office of Admissions. They pretty much ask you to tell them why they want you. It took some doing.)

*****

[Q. Shenaynay interrupts to say that it also took some considerable powers of persuasion to get Miss Fa to post this essay, because it's the sort of thing one has to write to draw attention to oneself (aka brag), which is precisely the sort of thing Fa doesn't enjoy. But since Q. Shenaynay has, for just a few more days hence, full possession of Fa's diploma, and has suddenly realized the ripe opportunities for maternal extortion inherent in such a situation... well, here's the essay.]

My parents always said they would only homeschool me as long as it worked─as long as I was thriving, enthusiastic, and taking full advantage of the opportunities given me. They taught me that knowledge itself is a privilege and a blessing, which is an idea that sounds rather clichéd to a kid balking at a science test, but can have profound effects on a person if carried toward its conclusion.

Education, my mother said, is not just a discipline, but also an atmosphere and a life. Learning and life were so seamlessly melded in our house that sometimes as a child I hardly noticed I was learning anything at all. Butterflies and Eskimos, patriots and constellations, pioneers and nefarious kings and queens who were inexplicably fond of doing each other in─they all became part of our everyday landscape. It made for some good fun. There was the year my sister had a crush on George Washington, and the time we reenacted The Iliad starring our dollhouse people as the fierce Greeks and Daddy's houseshoe as the Trojan Horse. Once properly introduced to Jane Austen, we spent hours pretending we were Jane and Elizabeth Bennet. We hid in cellars during air raids and planted victory gardens; we escaped time after time from Norman invaders─we were Saxon princesses, naturally.

Encouraged to find the things that interested me and to pursue them, I discovered the joy of words, my first and enduring fascination. As a new reader, I delighted in my ability to comprehend everything from the proverbial back of the Cheerios box to the King James Bible. I fell in love with books─the comfortable camaraderie of page after page, the complete immersion in the lives and thoughts and worlds of each story, the homey smell of the bindings, the beauty of a page of print.

Reading led to writing. I decided when I was seven to be a very famous author when I grew up, a process I apparently thought as instantaneous as a just-add-water cake mix. While I lost my naiveté on the subject of fame, I kept the desire to write. Those early efforts─rambling narratives scrawled around crayon illustrations and published with a stapler─gradually gave way to attempts at poetry, usually fervent imitations of the Romantics (“Oh lily of the golden chalice,” etc.). But after a while I left behind the realms of verdant glades, sunsets, and ABAB rhyme schemes. I began to see that there are stray bits of reality all around that require only a willing pencil─mine perhaps?─to be tempered into poems. The discovery was exhilarating, the possibilities infinite. I’ve written poetry ever since.

Music, especially the roots music of Scotland and America, became an engaging pursuit as well. I treasure my involvement in the Sacred Harp tradition, a style of a cappella four-part harmony music using shaped notation and sung in groups, which sprang from the religious music of early America. The best reward for the time spent learning to read the confusing ovals, triangles, and squares of the shape note scale was an unforgettable night at Bass Hall in Fort Worth, when our local Sacred Harp group sang with Alison Krauss and many folk music legends in a concert on the Great High Mountain tour.

Some people seem to equate being homeschooled with being stuck at home, but this has hardly been my experience. My family has traveled often, taking advantage of our freedom to set our own schedule. I have so many good memories of these times­─each one was significant, broadening my perspective in the way only travel can. Once, our Girl Scout troop, after selling more boxes of cookies than I care to think about, went to Jamestown and Williamsburg wearing authentic period costumes (including fully boned corsets!) that we researched and made by hand. We spent an amazing three days exploring the streets and buildings of these towns, talking to the re-enactors, and feeling much more like colonials than modern-day visitors. The trip that affected me most, though, was the two-week tour of Scotland and England my family took during the spring of my junior year. My mind grew moment by moment as the history and literature I had studied so long sprang to life from the fields and towns and castles we visited. These places and things were transformed from mythical fairy-tale lands to real places where real people live and breathe and cook potatoes.

It's easy, especially in these later years of school, to fall into the trap of looking at learning as a means to an end─the way of thinking that says I'm studying such and such because I need the credits, or because my teacher told me to and if I don't I'll get in trouble. But learning is not, in the end, something we do for our teachers, but something we do for ourselves. When we learn, and learn well, we become more alive, more aware, more sensitive to the things that are truly worthy. The boundary between what we know and who we are is blurred, and life and learning meet. Just as years of accrued knowledge made my appreciation of the things I saw in Scotland so much greater than had I gone not knowing much of anything, so everything I learn will somehow make me appreciate more the world around me, the big things and the small, the abundant commonplace miracles of everyday life. I'm thankful that I have been taught to see knowledge as something to be excited about, something to accumulate joyfully. I hope to be learning all my life, because I hope to live abundantly─thriving, enthusiastic, and taking full advantage of the opportunities given me.

Vote for Eeyore. Or not. It hardly matters.

q.shenaynay

The Beehive was nominated for the Homeschool Blog Awards in the Best Group or Family Blog category. Voting began today and continues through Friday, and my how the votes are rolling in.

However... we were accidentally left off the ballot. Yep.

It all makes one feel rather Eeyore-ish, don't you know. We can't all, and some of us don't. Nice To Be Noticed, anyhow. Sniff. If you want to make us feel better, you could leave us an Uplifting Sort of Comment and maybe part of a red balloon. We could pretend it was a vote for What Someone Did.

Oh, well. Figures. Anyhow, thanks for noticin' us.


UPDATE: THANKS TO THE HELP OF OUR DEAR FRIEND MOMMY DEAREST, WE ARE NOW ON THE BALLOT. WOEFULLY BEHIND, BUT IN THE RACE NONETHELESS. THANKS, MD!

If you'll permit me to paraphrase--

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Oh to be in Texas, now that April's here...

Did you ever notice...

...that pine trees know when it's Easter?

bumper sticker of the week award goes to...

...this one, seen yesterday on a new mint green VW bug:


Wag More. Bark Less.


If I were inclined toward bumper stickers, I'd find this one tempting. But I'm not, so I will be contented to stick it here on my blog instead of on my car.

Barbecue is amazing.

q. shenaynay

The word "barbecue" has got to be one of the more fascinating and flexible bits of verbage ever. Consider this:

1. It's a verb used to describe the action of producing... itself (a noun). Therefore,

2. It's a noun used to define what is produced by the action of its namesake verb. Further,

3. It's an adjective used to describe the noun which is verbed in such a manner.

4. It's also a noun for the apparatus in which the former noun is verbed.

5. It's also a noun for the event at which that noun is used to verb that other noun.


Confused? Then let me offer a handy example:

We went to a barbecue (noun 1) and Joe Bob hauled out his fancy new barbecue (noun 2) to barbecue (verb) us some barbecue (noun 3). Those were some good barbecued (adjective) ribs.

Can you think of a word that tops that?

Awake, My Soul

Awake my soul, in joyful lays,
And sing thy great Redeemer's praise;
He justly claims a song from me!
His loving kindness, oh how free!

He saw me ruined by the fall,
But loved me notwithstanding all;
He saved me from my lost estate,
His loving kindness, oh how great!

Though num'rous hosts of mighty foes,
Though earth and hell my way oppose,
He safely leads my soul along,
His loving kindness, oh how strong!

When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,
Has gathered thick, and thundered loud,
He near my soul has always stood;
His loving kindness, oh how good!

Often I feel my sinful heart
Prone from my Jesus to depart;
But though I have Him oft forgot,
His loving kindness changes not.

Soon I shall pass the gloomy vale,
Soon all my mortal pow'rs must fail.
O! may my last expiring breath
His loving kindness sing in death!

Then let me mount and soar away
To that bright land of endless day,
And sing, with rapture and surprise,
His loving kindness in the skies.


--Samuel Medley, 1738-1799