"What if there is a Reality behind the reality we know?"

Books and Culture, July/August 2011
The Aroma of the New by Makoto Fujimura

Fujimura reflects on the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder:

On the spare, dark stage, the famed story of a small New England town was brought to life. One scene in particular stood out to me. Young Emily, who died giving birth, is caught somewhere between life and death, fighting to recover her memory. She is given the opportunity to move back in time to her 12th birthday.

At this point, the stark colors of the small stage begin to change. And faintly, we in the audience begin to detect an aroma. At first, we think that it is a nearby restaurant cooking their dinner for customers. But the aroma of bacon and eggs continues to fill the theater. The producers have a surprise in store of us. The entire back stage opens up to reveal yet another stage, filled with color and light. Real bacon and real eggs are being cooked by Emily's mother. Emily's memory, though fading away, is depicted as more real than the "reality" of the main stage, or even of the gravesite where the other characters stoically sit. Before Emily returns from her vision to die, she is given, perhaps for the first time, a full experience of Reality - fully engaging our senses in the process.

What if there is a Reality behind the reality we know? What if there is a Stage behind the stage of our life? What if our "memory and desire" point to a greater Reality?

Find the rest here:  The Aroma of the New

I say to you, do not be anxious for your life...

For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for you body, as to what you shall put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil, nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these.

But if God arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?

Do not be anxious then, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'With what shall we clothe ourselves?'  For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25, 28-34

For good relationships are heaven anywhere...

Neither do walls nor rich furniture make a home...But where there are good relationships, where love binds the family together and to God, there happiness is always to be found.

For good relationships are heaven anywhere.

But the fire of love must be kept burning warmly and brightly with the sweet wood of sacrifice. In teaching us to cross the "I" out of life, our Lord tells us the secret of happiness. 

Divine love seeks to give rather than receive, to serve rather than to be served, to love rather than be loved, and will sacrifice anything for the beloved. Only then does love become a clean and holy fire in the heart.

Saint Seraphim of Sarov
Nineteenth Century

St. Seraphim quote found at Close to Home

The Friday Clive

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.

Charlotte Wisdom

"We perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought; and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas."  Charlotte Mason, School Education

HT:  Ordo Amoris 

Summer musings

I miss the beach in the summer.  I miss the foggy  mornings, the cool temperatures, the salty breezes.  Moving from the beach to the foothills, foothills that are famous for scorching summer temperatures, made the transition bumpy.  I wilt in the heat, and I come alive in the fog.  Summers here have been a challenge, all twenty-three of them. 

But not this week.  Monday night, Rex and I waited at the train station for Madelaine, and we froze in the chilly wind.  This morning I got up, and the high fog of a coastal summer was in my foothill view.  No salty breeze, but it was chilly enough that I grabbed a sweater as I ran out the door.  A sweater.  In July.  Up the hill we drove, above the fog, and when I turned around to come back, I could see the layer of gray waiting.  For a moment I could imagine the ocean breaking against the sand just beyond the clouds.

My beach fix will be satisfied soon, but this morning it took all the discipline I could muster to not keep driving west.

I miss the beach in the summer.

As the rain...

 Red geraniums after a welcome summer rain

As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
   will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
   will clap their hands.

Isaiah 5:10-12

When the words get stuck

 

So what do you do when the words get stuck in your head? This usually happens for me when I am upset or busy, and my solution used to be to solve the problems, or hack down the to-do-list, and then get back to writing. That isn't possible any more. The problems are too big, the list too long, and I am not interested in waiting FOREVER to get back to work.

Two resources have helped me keep it going this summer:

750 Words 

From their home page:

I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.


I've used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It's a daily brain dump. Over time, I've found that it's also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.


750 Words is the online, future-ified, fun-ified translation of this exercise.

I write with reckless abandon, as fast as I can, not worrying about content.  I don't even go back and read it.  I just write.

Not only have I kept writing, but I have sorted out worries and ideas and dreams and plans.  750 Words  is a brilliant resource.

On a more creative and less time consuming note, there is The One-Minute Writer. In their words, "You have 1,440 minutes a day. Use one of them to write." Complete with a one-minute timer in the sidebar, this site provides you with the prompt for the day and the ring-a-ling to let you know when your time is up. I simply open up a word document, think about the prompt for a moment, hit the timer and write. One minute is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing. I plan to include The One-Minute Writer in my lesson plans for the coming school year. 

The Friday Clive

(Ah, Clive...I have missed you!)

The first thing, when one is being worried as to whether one will have to have an operation or whether one is a literary failure, is to assume absolutely mercilessly that the worst is true, and to ask What Then? If it turns out in the end that the worst is not true, so much the better: but for the meantime the question must be resolutely put out of mind. Otherwise your thoughts merely go round and round a wearisome circle, now hopeful, now despondent, then hopeful again - that way madness lies. Having settled then that the worst is true, one can proceed to consider the situation.

From The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves
but found, as usual, in:

Just yesterday

Twenty-six years ago today, we had our first date, and the following June, we stood before family and friends and promised to be husband and wife. I will never post our vows; they were way too long, totally unrealistic, and a little silly. We both wish someone had said, "You'll regret this!" but we probably would not have listened to them any way.

 June 28, 1986

Palo Alto, California

Amidst the vows, the tuxedo mistakes, the broken hurricane lamps, and the blistering heat, we have incredibly fond memories of that day. It was filled with friends and family, dancing and singing, lace and beautiful flowers, love and celebration.

 June 28, 2011

Calistoga, California

Marrying this man is the best thing I have ever done.

Here's to the next twenty-five years.

Hot summer nights

Because sometimes a little umbrella helps.