Sing, sweet Gigi, sing

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Our precious Gigi Louise has a song again. The Lord released her from earth just a few hours before her 96th birthday on Tuesday.

Gigi Louise's passing marks the end of an era for our family. Her remarkable generation, those raised by parents and grandparents of the 19th century, is now all gone. Suddenly the ship seems slight of ballast; our identity feels diluted by her absence, and oddly mutable.

Many of Gigi's friends and loved ones have expressed the sense that, as my friend Rachel put it, "her kind is vanishing from the earth." We feel the watershed, and it is sobering: somehow we must become the ones who take their place in the ballast hold. We feel too light for it, and yet here we are. His mercy endureth to all generations, His mercy endureth to all generations...

And it was through that same mercy that our Gigi Louise aged with truly astonishing grace. As she became more frail and infirm, she also became ever more pleasant and content. This is a rare grace among the aging, and it has been heartening to witness. Even as her mind and body began to fail her, she was full of childlike wonder and effusively grateful for even the smallest things. She noticed beauty everywhere. And now she is surrounded by it.

Gigi Louise lived a kind of life that can never be lived again. She served her Lord faithfully and she took great delight in loving all the people He brought into her life. She leaves us all inspired. I feel honored to have known her and loved her.

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adventicipations

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Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest . . .
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes,
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended,
I must see him torn.

by Luci Shaw
from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation
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we pause for birthdays

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Beatrice and I share a birthday week and so we've been rather consumed these past several days with getting older and wiser and better looking and more like fine wine and all that sort of thing, if our loved ones are to be believed.

Beatrice's big day comes first. A couple of handsome chaps came all the way from Tennessee to help us celebrate her 17th. We plowed through enchiladas and rellenos at Chuy's Tex-Mex (the best!) and then surprised her with tickets to a stage production of Code of the Woosters over in Fort Worth. Muy spot-on, I say, wot?

A couple of nights later, they threw a spiffy party for my birthday. After regaling me with a rather Bugs Bunny-at-the-opera rendition of Happy Birthday and a bit of toasting (I do love being toasted, don't you?), there followed Some Golden Moments the details of which should and shall remain cloaked in the Hallowed Shrouds of Family Mystics.

Then the assembled revellers unwittingly performed a very fine pigs-at-the-trough impression over a communal and rather excessive banana split. (Please don't try this with strangers. It's a good thing that people you love don't have germs.)

On Friday night our entourage attended Fa's second major voice recital for the week (See Fa sing! See Fa sing during finals! See Fa sing Mozart in Italian and Bach in German when she can barely order a cheeseburger in English!). Our buttons were well nigh popped. Next morning we rolled out again to cheer Spuddy Buddy's basketball team through their last preseason game.

We also scrapped our way through two protracted, epic, to-the-pain Monopoly battles that advanced way into the wee hours. Ever tried playing with eight greedy lunatics players? It's nuts.

[Memo to players: We really should know better than to play with a career negotiator, hello. Who seeks not to win, like a normal human, but rather to get sick thrills avocational catharsis out of confounding every roll of the die with convoluted kickbacks and leveraged rent immunities and various other notwithstanding-the-foregoings heretofore without precedent in the history of Monopoly, and who, having thus created a level of perpetual chaos sufficient for his own dark amusement, announces that he just has to get some sleep and bails out of the game. And to think we fell for it twice in one weekend, O Best Beloveds. Silly us. And I bet we'll let him do it next time, too.]

I could post pictures of all this merriment, but someone must protect the guilty.

Speaking of pictures, we will snap Beatrice's annual birthday pictures and post them just as soon as a) we've recovered from the aforementioned merriment, and b) Beatrice has finished midterms and c) we three girly girls go to the superfoofoo salon on Saturday to get all dolled up for Christmas. Glee!
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adventicipations

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Open

John 20:19, 26


Doubt padlocked one door and
Memory put her back to the other.
Still the damp draught seeped in, though
Fear chinked all the cracks and
Blindness boarded up the window.
In the darkness that was left
Defeat crouched, shivering,
in his cold corner.

Then Jesus came
(all the doors being shut)
and stood among them.


~Luci Shaw
from Accompanied by Angels - Poems of the Incarnation

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a child squinting

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 7 - The High and the Low: A Double-Sided Humility

"Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because He shows us both God and our own wretchedness." - Blaise Pascal

"There was a time in my life when I feared sin so much that I focused almost exclusively on not sinning. Now sin is a very disturbing thing and you might well ask what could be wrong with fearing it. The answer is that my fear was so separated from God's grace that I was afraid to take an honest look into my own heart. I thus lost touch with my weaknesses, and the result was pride. I lived in an illusory and self-deceiving "holiness" based on discipline and works while my heart was full of evil attitudes and judgments. God used a period of dryness to reveal the true state of my heart."

"In the dryness and emptiness of this night of the appetite, a person also procures spiritual humility, that virtue opposed to the first capital vice, spiritual pride. Through this humility acquired by means of self-knowledge, individuals are purged of all those imperfections of the vice of pride into which they fell in the time of their prosperity. Aware of their own dryness and wretchedness, the thought of their being more advanced than others does not even occur in its first movements, as it did before; on the contrary, they realize that others are better. From this humility stems love of neighbor, for they will esteem them and not judge them as they did before when they were aware that they enjoyed an intense fervor while others did not. These persons will know only their own misery and keep it so much in sight that they will have no opportunity to watch anyone else's conduct." ~John of the Cross

"Ironically, if our self-understanding is truly born in heaven it will actually encourage us rather than discourage us... Once our self-view is no longer tied to our own worth but to the worth ascribed to us in God, we can readily admit our shortcomings and begin working on them while we are encouraged that we are not left alone in our failings."

"When we are ashamed about where we are spiritually, we have two choices: We can create a false front and a glittering image, or we can be honest before God, ourselves and others about our weakness and allow transformation to occur. We will not have the energy or resources to do both; we must choose one or the other."

"Humility is at root a celebration of our freedom in Christ; we are freed from having to make a certain impression or create a false front."

"Humility is simply admitting what is true."

"...God is supreme truth; and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is a very deep truth that of ourselves we have nothing good but only misery and nothingness. Whoever does not understand this walks in falsehood." ~Teresa of Avila

"A peasant shut up in his village only partially knows his wretchedness, but let him see rich palaces, a superb court, and he will realize all the poverty of his village. He cannot endure its hovels after a sight of so much magnificence. It is thus that we see our ugliness and worthlessness in the beauty and infinite grandeur of God." ~Fenelon

"It's easy for a man or woman to be proud until he or she gains a glimpse of the God of the universe. Once we see what could be, humility is as natural a reaction as a child squinting his or her eyes to block out the glare of the sun."

"I need to be in awe of God today... If I ever lose that profound reverence that leaves me standing silent in fascination and wonder, pride and sin will be waiting to claim my soul."

"Keeping sight of God is vital to humility, just as keeping in touch with humility is vital to seeing God. We cannot maintain one without the other."

"Christian communities, including families and churches, break down in proportion to the loss of humility of their members."

"Community is essential for humility because how we treat others is a better test of our humility than how we treat ourselves."

"If you were in this happy [humbled] state, far from impatiently enduring those who are not, the immense stretch of your heart would make you indulgent and compassionate toward all the weaknesses which shrink selfish hearts. The more perfect we are, the more we get along with imperfection. The Pharisees could not bear the publicans and the women sinners, whom Jesus Christ treated with such gentleness and kindness." ~Fenelon

"When Jesus faced self-righteous hypocrisy He was brutal and unyielding in His confrontation, but when He faced those caught in the misery of sin He often showed a softer face, becoming a Savior who would not break a bruised read or blow out a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3).

"The enemy often suggests a great desire of things that are absent, and which shall never occur, so that he may divert our mind from present objects, from which, however trivial they may be, we might obtain considerable profit to ourselves." ~Francis de Sales

"The King of Glory does not recompense his servants according to the dignity of the offices they hold, but according to the measure of love and humility with which they exercise them. Saul, seeking the asses of his father, found the kingdom of Israel. Rebecca, watering the camels of Abraham, became the spouse of his son. Ruth, gleaning after the reapers of Boaz, and laying down at his feet, was advanced to his side and made his wife..." ~Francis de Sales

"The proud man, who trusts in himself, has just reason not to attempt anything; but he that is humble is so much the more courageous, by how much the more he acknowledges his own inability; and the more wretched he esteems himself the more confident he becomes; because he places his whole trust in God, who delights to display his omnipotence in our weakness and to elevate his mercy upon our misery." ~Francis de Sales

Chapter 6 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)

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Power Caroling 2008

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If The Beehive has a Ghost of Christmas Past, it's a post from December 2005 that begins to reappear unbidden in our blog stats every December when longtime readers once again dig it up from the archives: Power Caroling, Or Our Top 10 Desert Island Christmas Albums.

I loaded all that lovely music into our disc changer last weekend, and oh! mercy! me! I'm dazzled all over again. What glorious stuff! So now that I'm feeling all sparkly and inspired to spread the joy, I decided to revise and expand that old Power Carolling ghost of a post.

First, Two Foregone Conclusions:
1) That any worthy Christmas CD collection begins with a foundation of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Julie Andrews, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Toss in The Andrews Sisters, The Mills Brothers, and Peter, Paul and Mary, and baby, you've got the cultural nostalgia angle pretty well covered.

2) That you've already got the all-time number one disc you simply must have for atmospheric glorification: The Messiah by Handel. (That links to a blog post about our two favorite recordings of it.)

So okay. Now we're ready. Drumroll, please. Without further ado, here are the Top Twelve Christmas Albums We At the Beehive Wish Everybody Everywhere Could Hear.


1. Christmas Celtic Sojourn (various artists). The rough beauty of this odd gem grows on you. The atmosphere is like a village gathering in a Great Hall with everyone pitching in to celebrate Christ's birth, each in their own lovely, human, quirky way. At times they sound like a half-wild lot of simple sinners in a country pub somewhere happily singing their hearts out for the joy of being redeemed. Which is essentially what I am, minus the pub. Don't miss The Wexford Lullaby on this one -- the harmony work is sheer art. Puts a lump in my throat.




2. Angels' Glory with Kathleen Battle and Christopher Parkening. Ahhh. No rough beauty here; this defines sublime. Sometimes when La Battle is wafting through the speakers, I realize I've been standing riveted to the floor for countless minutes, stilled by her utterly perfect voice. And once your ears develop a craving for Parkening's classical guitar, you'll want his other albums for family dinnertimes and quiet evenings reading by the fire. Perfection. Both Battle and Parkening are believers, which is just the cherry on top for me.



3. Next, Jessye Norman. A force of nature, this woman! Christmastide (left), which I've had for 21 years and never ever tire of, has been re-issued in a two-disc set with her second Christmas album (right). Glee! Before you die, you must hear Jessye sing "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Promise me you will. When Miss Jessye belts out "Rejoice! Rejoice!" believe me, you get with it and rejoice!












4. Songs of Joy & Peace... Yo-Yo Ma's gift to the world, that's what this is. Yo-Yo is much beloved by the finest musicians alive today, and he charmed a bunch of them into playing with him on this album: Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Allison Kraus, Natalie MacMaster, James Taylor, Diana Krall, Dave Brubeck, Chris Botti and more... This is one of the best albums recorded in the last decade, Christmas or otherwise. Check Youtube for a sample.




5. Comfort & Joy -- another round of spirited jubilation from the Christmas Celtic Sojourn folks. There are songs here that make me feel like I'm full of joy bubbles, and then there are others, notably the endearing "Shepherds Arise" and the majestic "Noelenn Brehed," that are so unpretentiously beautiful that sometimes they make everything around me look all blurry for a minute or two.






6. Scottish Christmas by Bonnie Rideout, a master Scottish fiddler, with Maggie Sansone on dulcimer. Also features Eric Rigler, the bagpiper for Braveheart, on several types of pipes. This is Scottish Christmas at its best.

(If you know any children who don't have Rideout's album "Gi'me Elbow Room: Songs from a Scottish Childhood," make haste to give them a copy for Christmas! It's wonderful. We've worn out two copies.)





7. Carols from the Old and New Worlds -- Theatre of Voices singing a capella with Paul Hillier directing. This is poetry come alive. Sacred Harp, folk, choral and ensemble works by songwriters ranging from Jeremiah Ingalls to King Henry VIII to Handel. Such a feast of rich lyrics and harmony! If you really want something unique, there is nothing else on this list remotely like this one. I love to listen to this one during breakfast and late at night.





8. Ancient Noels by Maggie Sansone (see #6) and the Ensemble Galilei. Unlike anything you'll ever hear coming through department store speakers, that's for sure. These are truly ancient noels. Gorgeous.










9. And now for something completely different: The Hampton String Quartet. Twenty years ago, this alternative classical string quartet (yes, you read that right) began transforming classic rock songs into Baroque style. Amazing. On my way home from work one evening in the 80's, I heard them on NPR playing Christmas songs a la Baroque, and I drove straight to the CD store to buy "What if Mozart Wrote Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?" It was instantly my fave. Long out of print, HSQ albums have sold for big wads of dinero, but I've never let go of mine. The CD pictured is "HSQ Does Christmas (again)" - a digitally remastered reissue. MP3 download at Amazon.


10. The Holly & The Ivy by John Rutter with the Clare College Choir in Cambridge, England. This is choral bliss, a classic recorded thirty years ago which is still selling well. This is the album that made people take notice of John Rutter's incredible choral talents. I would buy this just for Gabriel's Message, but I love the whole album. We always play this one on Christmas Eve night.





11. Nine Lessons and Carols by King's College Choir, Cambridge University. You could call this Anglophile Christmas 101! Played on the radio on Christmas Eve for decades, this live recording of an Anglican Christmas Eve service in England features lush choral selections (lots of bell-toned boy sopranos here!) interspersed with lessons (scripture readings and prayers) that weave the strands of the Christmas story into a lovely, meditative, glorious event. I like to listen to the whole service on Christmas Eve morning while I cook.




And...

12. James Taylor at Christmas. Yay! Need I say more?








UPDATE: As it turns out, I got Comfort & Joy and Christmas Celtic Sojourn backwards (easy to do as they are similar), which, being interpreted, meaneth that Comfort & Joy should have been the one of those two which tied for the number one spot... but it's such a close call that I'm not going to bother moving them around!

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squash circles

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Okay, y'all. I need witnesses. Something very strange happened in my kitchen last night while I was sleeping.
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I'm pretty sure aliens invaded my squash.

Okay, let me explain. Seriously, this is too weird.

That big lumpy bluish-green object to the left of the perky little acorn squash is a hubbard squash. Now, don't feel dim if you didn't know that; it's not your fault. Our grandmas probably knew hubbards on sight, but these days they are rare. Farmers have practically stopped growing them (and most of the other bazillion varieties God gave us for our squashy amusement) because apparently most modern grocery shoppers are disinclined toward inviting lumpy bluish-green pods into their homes. I guess the popular acorn squash, looking so much like artsy baby pumpkins, just come off less threatening.

But being sort of an odd squash myself, I get all goofy and enthused about weird produce. And sometimes I get to feeling all crusaderish about all the hundreds of vegetable varieties going extinct every year. So every autumn I look for odd squash, and for some time I've secretly hoped to score a hubbard. Well, this was my year. The nice farmers' market dude told me he had gotten a dozen or so this season (he was pretty excited about it, too) and that I was lucky to get his last one. Happy me..

Now here's the creepy part.

This morning, I wandered all bleary-eyed into the kitchen, and there it was. . A crop circle on my hubbard squash. For real. You do see it, don't you? Tell me it's not just me.
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Here's a close-up:

Is that not just about the strangest thing you ever saw? I mean, those are near perfect concentric circles. And they weren't there yesterday. I promise they're not drawn on or anything -- they're part of the pigment of the squash rind. They're actually more pronounced than the photo shows -- the light from the window diffused them a good bit.

Maybe there's a reason why hubbards are rare.

Maybe nice farmers' market dude is actually one of... them. You know, you can never be too sure about odd squash pushers. .

Might ought to go check your produce, people. And watch for strange lights in the sky over your house. And if you don't see me blogging for several days... well, I'm just sayin'.

adventicipations

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Say to them

that are of a fearful heart,

Be strong,

Fear not

behold, your God will come with vengeance,

even God with a recompense;

He will come and save you.

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the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying,

Fear not,

Abram

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And the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her...

Fear not

,

,

And the LORD appeared unto Isaac, and said...

Fear not

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Thus saith the LORD that made thee,

and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee

Fear not,

O Jacob

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Then said he unto me,

Fear not,

Daniel

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But the angel said unto him,

Fear not,

Zacharias

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behold,

the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying,

Joseph, thou son of David,

Fear not

.

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..

and the angel said unto her

Fear not,

Mary

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..

adventicipations

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I wait for the LORD
my soul doth wait
and in His Word

do I hope
My soul

waiteth

for

the

LORD
more

than they that watch

for the morning
I say

more than they

that watch for the morning

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Psalm 130:5&6

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a heart full of noise

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 6 - Cultivating the Quiet: Simplicity

"The sin many of us fall into is not that we shake our fists at God and defy Him to His face; that is the sin of unbelievers. Our sin is that we passively rebel against God, filling our lives with so much noise and busyness that God's voice cannot, or will not, penetrate."

"Cultivating the quiet is a painful experience when we are addicted to noise, excitement, and occupation. Opening the door to spiritual quiet can also open the door to spiritual fear and loneliness. It takes a great amount of courage to face God."

"[Blaise] Pascal believed that many young people live in a fundamentally dishonest existence, pretending they're having a good time while they live in constant terror of the truth of their hearts. Their "lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future. But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it...""

[He cites Augustine as saying that adults do the same thing, but often cover their idleness by calling it "business." Ironic - and convicting.]

"Pascal said the boredom that drives us to diversion could be the catalyst that calls us to change -- if only we were not afraid to do the necessary work. But Satan offers us his narcotics* as alternatives..."

"The difficulty of simplicity is that it will, at times (especially in the early stages as we break our addiction to diversion), lead us into soul boredom, gloom, depression, and possibly even to despair... I would be less than honest if I suggested that one day our lives are filled with diversions and the next day we walk hand-in-hand with God in glorious rapture... We who have been drugged by diversions cannot expect to enter the quiet without a struggle. Our souls will roar for diversion, the fix that saves us from God's presence."

"God calls us into the quiet (Isaiah 30:15**), not to chastise us, but to draw us into a deeper communion with Him. If we are to quit hiding from God, we need to know why we hide."

"...alone before God, we stand naked and vulnerable. We won't be able to pretend anymore; before God, we will have the choice to obey or to disobey, but pretending will no longer be an option. If we are miserable, we will have to face our misery. If we are sad, we will have to face our sadness. When we dwell in God's presence we must dwell in truth; we cannot control the outcome."

"...I realized that if I insisted on becoming consumed by every major sporting event or political race, every move of the stock market, or even every worry of parenting, if I let these things seize my heart, I simply could not enter into a true celebration of the Sabbath or the joy of a baptism, or the Lord's Supper, or Christmas and Easter, or any other true and significant celebration."

"I have learned the necessity of "guarding my heart" (Proverbs 4:23***) because my heart does not have an infinite capacity to rejoice or be alarmed. By becoming preoccupied with passing things, I exhaust my heart's ability to care about the things that really do matter."

"Just as someone who is allergic to cats learns the beginning symptoms of a reaction and makes haste to get away, so we often unknowingly begin to learn the sensation of God breaking into our hearts and we rush into some activity or diversion to avoid His presence."

"Simplicity frees us from being tabloid Christians."

"Our instant information age pounds us with up-to-the-second details about many things we simply don't need to know. These incessant bulletins can weigh us down and root our thinking in transitory matters."

"The spiritual life is impossible in a heart full of noise and occupation. God will not fill a heart that has no room."

"I seek simplicity only because God is so great I want to strip away the clutter that keeps me from Him."

*By "narcotics" Thomas refers to all manner of diversions and self-focusing distractions -- TV, computers, sports, shopping, gossip, etc.

**Isaiah 30:15-16 - For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.

***Proverbs 4:23 - Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.


Chapter 5 quotes
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)
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