New Photoblog!

Not only have I moved my old Blogger photoblog to a new host, I've also figured out how to put a feed from the new blog in my sidebar! You can visit my new blog at de Lumine, and the slideshow on the right should get updated automatically when I post a new photo.

Christmas Break

It's been a few days now since the end of my semester. Finals week was--well, it was finals week. I think I finished well; at least, I'm fairly satisfied, and definitely done. I finished Wednesday and moved home Thursday last week. Since then I've done Christmas shopping, gone to the Nutcracker ballet, rehearsed with my church worship team for Christmas Eve service, put up decorations in the house, helped my sister make our tree the "best tree in the year," baked cookies, made gingerbread, listened to the first part of the Messiah, and listened to various other less classical Christmas music (like Bing Crosby).

So you will understand when I say that I'm enjoying being home, and it's nice not having the stress of schoolwork, but things don't feel like they've slowed down much yet! I'm beginning to wonder if I made too many plans for break (whether articulated or not). I probably did; I tend to be overambitious, especially with time. There are certain things, however, that I really do want to do over break. Beyond the non-negotiables like seeing family and celebrating Christmas, I have three things I want to do every day for the next few weeks:

• Pray. And set aside specific time for devotions. I let this slide as the school semester wore on, and I need to start doing it again.
• Write. Something--anything. It can be weaving a poem or collecting notes for a story or even rattling off a blog post, but I want to write regularly this break.
• Read. And if I read nothing else, read The Brothers Karamazov. This is a challenge that I'm doing with one of my friends from school: the whole book during break. He read Brothers a few years ago and loved it; this will be my first time. The plan is that we'll read 30-40 pages a day and discuss. So far, I've read... none. Heh.

Those are the main things. My to-do list is much longer than that, but I won't mind so much if I don't get to the rest of it. I don't think those three will be unmanageable so long as I stick to them daily; perhaps, too, having them written down will help.

Meeting Jenny

The cafeteria at my school likes to employ people from the surrounding community. As a result, you get to meet people in the cafeteria that you don't see elsewhere around campus. Since we are across the street from a seminary, and since the church on campus has a lot of international ties, the surrounding community can produce a lot of interesting people.

One of the ladies who works at the cafeteria is from Africa. She's not especially tall, and her slight build makes her seem smaller than she is, but she's noticeable because she's so friendly. She always smiles and says hello when I walk by. Still, until a couple days ago we had never talked more than to pass the time of day.

This week I got to know her a little more. I came up to the cafeteria one afternoon, when no one was there, and we talked over the counter for a while while she made pizzas. Speaking in a rich African accent, she told me that she and her husband have been here for several years while he has been studying at the seminary. Both their children were born here. Although her husband has visited Africa a few times since they left, neither she nor their children have been back, and it was clear that she was missing her country. It's not that she hasn't made a place for herself here, but when she talked, Africa was home. She worries, too, about her children growing up away from their heritage.

She was curious about my accent, especially when she found out I had never been outside the US. She said I sounded as if I'd just come back from Europe (which I took as a high compliment). It surprised her even more since I've been living in Tennessee most of my life. I explained that neither of my parents are from Tennessee, and that I'm careful about my English. And watch a lot of British movies. I made the comment that English is a goodly heritage which I try to preserve. She was pleased at that. She said it was encouraging to her, because she's trying to do something similar for her children: to teach them their heritage and keep them involved in their native culture while living away from home.

We talked about our Thanksgivings, and she told how her family spent theirs. Her culture has no Thanksgiving tradition of its own. Since she and her family are in the US, they decided to celebrate the holiday, but in their own fashion. So they got together with a group of friends, mostly foreign students in the area, and had a party and made "gaught" for dinner.

At that point I lost her. My puzzlement must have been evident in my face, so she repeated the word a couple of times. I still couldn't make it out.

"I don't think I've heard of that," I said dubiously. It sounded rather like "God," but that didn't seem right. I know Christians are meant to take the communion seriously and all, but surely this fellowship of believers didn't eat God for Thanksgiving dinner.

"You haven't had gaught before?" she asked. I was flummoxed.

Finally her co-worker (who is from Jamaica) came over and joined the conversation. "You've never heard of goat?" he asked with some surprise.

Oh! I felt foolish. "Well, yes," I said, trying to cover my ignorance, "but never as a meal."

They were surprised. How could someone have never had goat? I must try it some time. She said that it's not hard to find. They get their goat from a local farmer who goes to the little church on campus, which is their church as well as mine while I'm here. She said they have goat three or four times a year. I asked what it tastes like; she said it was very similar to lamb. Which makes sense, I guess.

Then she asked me if I'd be interested in joining them for a goat dinner sometime. Of course I said yes. So perhaps one of these days I'll be able to tell you for sure what it tastes like. I'll keep you posted.

On Species of Writing

I have been learning about the kinds of writing. It is a learning which is coming not by any regular curriculum but simply by using and reading and thinking about the various kinds. So of course I still know little enough about them. But I like what I am learning. Each kind must be approached in its own way because each has its own rules and standards of beauty. And there are so many different kinds.

For instance newspaper writing is different from academic writing which is different from essay writing which is different from blogpost writing which is different from letter writing which is different from nonfiction writing which is different from short story writing which is different from novel writing which is different from playwriting which is different from poetry writing. Every single one of those takes a different style and different skills.

I do not mean that one must relearn how to write for each kind of writing. Skill once learned is of course adaptable. But no two kinds of writing take the same skills in the same ways. Each one requires another modulation of craft. And I love that they do. Language can take forms so delightfully varied that getting to know the ins and outs of them all is in itself a pleasure. Discovering the power and bounds of each one is a study and a joy which could last a lifetime. Humans at least shall never lack for modes of expression. It was a wonderful thing when we were given language. I think it was only a slightly less wonderful thing when we learned to write and began the permutation and proliferation of written species which led us to the present population of form and style.

An All Hallows' Eve Tale

Once upon a time—a time not so unlike our own—there lived a man who, like all men, was a traveler. This man loved a maiden, as many men do; and the maiden loved him in return, which is more than many men can say. Nor was she an ordinary maiden, though she was a commoner, for she was as fair as autumn and as faithful as the seasons. But there are other powers in the world than Love, and not all are powers for good. So it was that the man and maiden were parted, and both were laid under binding spells that they might not go and seek one another. They remained many days in duress; but upon All Hallows' Eve Day, the man broke the spells that bound him and set forth upon a journey to find the maiden again. Twice a hundred miles he traveled, through misty mountains and over dark rivers, until he came to a town in the midst of a forest.

That was a strange place, for the town lay upon the borders of Elfland, and heavy were the enchantments that held it there. No time passed in those shadowy marches between our world and the other, but each morning dawned upon the same day, so that the folk grew no older, and the land did not decay. The force of the spells about the town was such that it was often hidden from human sight; at such times, any who found it would find only empty buildings and whispering streets. Indeed, only a few days in the year could that town be found by mortals; but All Hallows' Eve Day is of all days the most potent.

In that town, under the veil of enchantments, the maiden was hidden. Resting as it did on the border, the town had become a meeting-place for the worlds, and men named it Fairhaven, for within its walls humans and elves alike found refuge. Through its streets passed lords, ladies, peasants, pickpockets, fairies, elves, merchants, craftsmen, swordsmen, scholars, knights-errant, stranded seafarers, traveling jugglers, wandering minstrels, and others so many that the tale of them would last seven days in the telling. Among these the maiden took her place, living by her music upon the streets, and waiting for her love.

The man stopped before the gates of Fairhaven. The guards that keep the gates looked him up and down and muttered amongst themselves, for they let none pass that have not the welcome of the town's governors; and the man was a stranger. So he stood without the gates, gazing with wonder into that elfish place. Hard it seemed to have come to the gates of Faerie and be denied entrance; and harder still, for the man knew that the maiden had passed through those gates; and now only a single wall lay betwixt them; yet it was an impassable wall. Still he was patient, and waited for something to happen; and, as usually happens, something did.

For, by some way of magic, the maiden had learned of his coming. When she knew that he was without the gates, she ran thither as swiftly as her legs would bear her. And there in the doorway of the elfin city those two long parted met again, and in the twilight between Earth and Faerie the man found the end of his journey, and the maiden the end of her waiting. After a time she led him through the gates, for she had a word of passage from the governors of the town, and once within she became his guide through all the wonders of that place. The sights that she showed him there, musicians and players, merchants and craftsmen, jousts and processions, and more beside, must be left for another writing, for there is not space nor skill here to describe them. Through all these things she led him; and all that day he did not leave her side.

Yet, when the day ended, and All Hallows' Eve had passed, the enchantments that had bound the man once more summoned him away. All Saints' Day was come; the day of wonder was gone, and the man returned whence he had come. Once more the man and the maiden were separated: she went again to the town of Fairhaven to await his return; and he was borne back to a far-off land of thick and dreary enchantments. Yet even there, at times, the memory of Faerie, and of her who waits, returns to him in waking dreams. And it may be that they shall not remain thus parted: for there be other days in the year with potency against dreary enchantments; and there be other powers in the world besides those that strive with Love.

(I, Owen Locksley, son of Sir Reginald Locksley, servant of the Crown, do attest to the truth of this tale. Yet it may be that some find the story dark, and think the right shape of things hidden by the telling, and the facts obscured in webs of words. For those that make such complaint I say merely that this account is true to the utmost, as far as it goes; and for a clearer telling of the facts, they must wait for some other day. For tales take long in the weaving, even such tales as be reworkings of things already past; and a knight's son has scant time for tale-weaving.)

Prayer for Empty Hands

Give me strength
In these two hands
To do what I must do.

Give me the strength
To fulfill the demands
Of a writer's task. Renew

Again and again at length
The weakening bands
Of mind and body. View

With grace my empty strength,
And fill these hands
With bread, to make a new

Body in this old length
Of flesh. Fill these hands
With words like wine, true

Writer's blood. By the length
And breadth of grace, by the hands
Whose holes proclaim true

Strength, I plead for strength.
Give into my weary hands
The grace to do what I must do.


After being sick for two weeks and missing more school than I've ever missed in my life, I have work to do. A full weekend and week and month of it ahead.

Between Earth and Earth

This looks like a poem, and I'm categorizing it under poems, but it's not much of a poem yet. In other words, if you call it a poem, it's a bad one; but if you call it the first impression of a poem not yet written (and probably never to be written), then it might not look so bad. I myself would call it "rambling in linear form," but one must categorize somehow. (Translated: I'm lazy and I'm done with this poem for now and I know it's far from perfect but I'm posting it anyway and my conscience is nagging me for it.)



How little now stands
between me and the ground.
Two legs, a strange support
that can hardly balance
at the best of times—
small wonder, being as they are
incongruous pillars of
blood and bone and sinew,
which are, of course, only dust
lashed together by a few words.

And what supports those legs
but the spirit that is in the man?
Upon that fragile clothesline hangs
every limp muscle between my head and foot,
each one pinned to that lifeline
expecting to be filled with breath:
the wind of life or spirit of air
that can turn heavy, drooping fabric
into dancing raiments
quick with movement.

Even so, with borrowed air
and many borrowed words
to hold together my shaking line
upon which hang so many
unlike things—even so,
my feet are weak, my knees
wobbly, my legs too much like
wet fabric; and this
damp line of earth
the only thing that stands
between me and the earth.

So, stumbling again like a child
I ask to enter the world again
like a child, trusting to
others' legs to hold me up
and others' arms to catch me
while I go running
(stumbling, falling)
with grateful wonder
towards each new thing
and each old thing
I find in the way. I may
be wobbly, yes, and perhaps never
quite sure where I'm going;
often running off-course
through the weakness of my legs;
often needing that someone with
surer footing to pick me up
and help me on my way;
but always following the path,
never doubting that
running on wobbly legs
is better than not moving at all.

Song of the Valley

To be sung in the manner of Chesterton

Splendid rides the sunset o'er the garden of the Lord
Where summer spreads its colors on the hills like emerald wine
And the mowers raise the incense of the grass and of the soil
And the ponds and trees and houses gleam like grapes upon the vine
In the sun that smites the valley with the brightness of a sword:
In this cool and quiet garden in the center of the world
Where the people's death and living makes a song of righteous toil
In this precious piece of nowhere in a corner of the world;
In this garden of the people which is sacred to the Lord.

Two Histories

My humanities reading tonight was better than usual. The reason was an experiment entailing extra-curricular material. The first part of my studies I spent struggling to stay engaged in the textbook's flaccid account of the French Revolution and Napoleon. So, for a change, I pulled my old Churchill off the shelf and read his chapter on the French Revolution. (Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples was one of my highschool history books.) It was like a firm, warm hand-shake after weeks of meeting people who do nothing but hang their limp hands in yours. Churchill's writing was strong and sinewed: his sentences short and direct, his modifiers sparse but descriptive. In a few words he could describe the character of a man or an age. Take, for example, these miniatures of the Revolution's leaders:

Among them was Danton, a figure of tumultuous power and dedicated energy; Robespierre, a ruthless, incorruptible tyrant; Marat, a venemous rabble-rouser of genius; and Carnot, who survived them all, the War Minister and organizer of victory.

Compare the textbook's introduction of Robespierre:

This utterly selfless revolutionary has remained controversial from his day to the present. From the beginning of the revolution, he had favored a republic. The Jacobin Club provided his primary forum and base of power. A shrewd and sensitive politician, Robespierre had opposed the war in 1792 because he feared it might aid the monarchy.

Churchill tells who he was; the textbook tells what he did. To some extent this stems from the different purposes of the authors. Churchill set out to tell a manageable account of English history as he viewed it. The textbook authors meant to present the facts of the situation with as little bias as possible. The fact is, however, that Churchill says more about the characters of those men in a single sentence than the textbook could in long paragraphs about what they did. To me that is more important than the textbook's facts. If we were historians ourselves we might want nothing but the facts, so that we could study them and construct our own interpretations. Most of us, however, read a history book asking not only to learn but to be taught. The great advantage of reading a History is that we gain access to an expert's mind, an authority's interpretation.

All of that is just my opinion, of course. I realize that this debate goes all the way back to Herodotus and Thucydides, and that my siding with one or the other camp isn't going to affect either. All I want to point out, therefore, is the literary quality of Churchill compared with the textbook. The textbook is full of information but ennervated. Churchill writes plainly, but his writing is descriptive and engaging. The textbook says more than Churchll on the page; but when the words reach the mind, Churchill's have more substance.

In medias res

Wherever you begin something, there will always be something else that comes before it. This seems especially true of a blog. You live your life, meeting people and learning things and doing things, developing a catalogue of plots and subplots along the way—and then suddenly you decide to start a blog, right smack-dab in the middle of all those storylines before any of them are finished and without giving a reader any chance to catch up. The situation looks something like this: life life life life blog! life life life. And there's no other way to do it. A blog of necessity begins in medias res—which means, as I conveniently learned in freshman humanities, in the middle of things. That's not a bad place to start a story. It lets you jump in on the action and catch up on the backstory later. It's rather like dropping you down on a path feet-first and running. As far as this blog goes, I might fill in bits that have gone before; I might not. Actually, it's quite probable that I'll post thoughts and poems sporadically and leave the narrative bits out.

I have blogged before: in a joint-project family blog, of which I am still a part and at which I still intend to post. More and more in the last few months, however, I've been thinking that I need a place to put down loose thoughts: ideas which aren't fleshed out enough to be finished projects, but are well worth saving; perhaps worth sharing, too. I also sometimes need a place to journal where I'm comfortable posting more random me-related stuff than I would on the family blog. (Not gratuitous personal details, mind you, but remarks upon little things that happen. And big things too, sometimes.) I also hope that having my own blog will stimulate me to write more. I like to think of myself as someone who writes, but for some reason I have a problem with the whole "writing" bit of being a writer. Having my own special place on the internet beckoning me to fill it with words might help. So: here I am, in the middle of things—but writing about them now. At least, that's the idea. If you want to read along, I'd be more than happy to have company along the way!