October 30, 2004
Still later in the day...

I read this in today's Writer's Almanac, and it seemed to potentially address the questions raised with the last one I excerpted:

"[Ezra] Pound was set on supporting innovations in all kinds of literature."

[So he was a forward-thinker, supporting forward-thinkers.]

"He critically and financially supported writers like James Joyce, Robert Frost, and T.S. Eliot. He said he had 'to keep alive a certain group of advancing poets, to set the arts in their rightful place as the acknowledged guide and lamp of civilization.'"

I thought you might appreciate the flip side, the idea that artists are the guide and lamp, out in front, illuminating the path, advancing literature or the fine arts or visual and musical arts or whatever arts you can think of. Call these people what you like: forward thinkers, innovators, explorers, risk-takers; maybe they're techno-wizards like Stephen Spielberg or maybe they're anti-technology like Barbara Kingsolver and Wendell Berry...whichever direction they go, they are most likely not flopping-along.

Perhaps that's my fear, of being status-quo; of just going with the flow, not really thinking about life, not really making choices...just letting things roll over me by default. Maybe that's it.

October 28, 2004
Today's Writer's Almanac had a piece about Evelyn Waugh, whose birthday it is today. Toward the end, they tell us of Waugh, "In his later life, he grew to hate everything about the modern world--modern music, modern art, modern inventions. He never drove. He used an antique pen that had to be constantly re-dipped into ink, and when his hearing went bad, he refused to buy one of the new hearing aids. Instead, he started carrying around a giant horn that he held up to his ear...Waugh lived in a huge house out in the English countryside, as far away from the modern world as he could get, and he kept a pet pig named Glory."

So he was anti-trend, you see.

Perhaps I should get a pig?

Anyway, they ended with this: "People called him a snob and a reactionary, but he said, 'An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.'"

Perhaps I, too, am a bit of a snob when it comes to current trends and the tenor of this age. But really, like Waugh, I don't want to go flopping along. I don't know that I'm any great artist, but I want to think rather than live by default. If I were living by default, I'd flip through JCrew catalogs and pick up Lucky magazine from time to time to discern trends; I'd own at least one piece of furniture from Pottery Barn and pay for cable television or satellite TV--and I'd watch it, too.

Instead, I toss the catalogs in the recycling bin, shop second-hand stores for both clothes and furniture and occasionally tune into the sparse offerings of network television. I'm not exactly standing against the tenor of the age, and I don't think I'm going so far as to be dubbed reactionary, but I seem determined not to go flopping along.

I'm not consistent, however. I do use a computer, even using the Internet, as you can plainly see. I don't have high-speed access, however, or a laptop. Though I confess I want one. So I'm not so strong in my choices. I would probably buy a hearing aid instead of using the giant horn.

October 25, 2004
I'm thinking about emergent churches again. A few months ago I interacted with some folks at a small church in Florida. This was before I'd read one article about emergent church, so I was just operating in ignorance. I was so moved by these people and how earnest and open they were, I even pondered moving down to join them in whatever they were doing. Little did I know they were doing emergent things, pushing couches into their meeting space, lighting a few candles. What I did notice was that they were keeping things simple, focusing on Jesus. We attended a beach service that included several different churches including theirs, and I felt so drawn to them that I wrote them a note telling them how their contribution was what affected me the most. They wrote back a gracious and humble reply saying something like, "I wish I could say we're emergent church on the cutting edge, but we're really just a bunch of ragamuffins huddling together trying to figure out life." It was charming, disarming, and honest. I looked for the letter, because I saved it for weeks. Unfortunately I can't find it. There's something especially appealing to me about that attitude, however, with the idea that they don't have everything figured out and they're just trying to help each other live out their faith in Jesus Christ day by day.

On a completely different note, I'm going to try double-posting here and at Blogger. If anyone has opinions on which is preferable, please let me know. You can email me (see above). Here's the link:
www.contemplativemom.com/blog/

October 24, 2004
Every few months I try to find something to attend that's for writers. Sometimes I've found the speaking engagement of a favorite author, or a writing gathering of some sort. This past weekend, I went to a small "colloquium," as they called it, that offered workshops led by Vinita Hampton Wright, Lil Copan, and Phyllis Tickle. I admire all three and it was close, so I signed up with an old college friend of mine. I realize how isolated I am as a stay-at-home mom when I get out to something like this; I'm deeply affected by hanging with like-minded people, and there's a huge part of me that needs the like-mind of writer-reader-thinkers. When those writer-reader-thinkers are also fellow believers in Jesus Christ, it's even richer.

The colloquium was held on a small college campus, so my friend and I opted to buy a meal ticket and eat at the dining commons. We are now over 15 years away from our own college experience, so it was a nostalgic choice. In our opinion, the food was great! There were far more choices than we ever had way back in '85, let's say. In this particular setting, it seemed that most students were vegans. The vegan options were set apart, separated by a wall, even. Cubes of tofu were offered on the salad bar and potato bar, along with lentils and hummus. Vegans would have been on their own to choose wisely among the sparse selections at our dining commons at our Big Ten university in the 1980s.

A part of me wanted to go back to school, take graduate writing courses, and become a vegan.
Instead, I'm back home fixing bacon and eggs for my kids for breakfast; writing a blog, a few e-mails, and a non-academic book project.

I'm grateful for an escape now and then, a chance to dream of different lives and possibilities. But I'm grateful, too, to come home to this life and the possibilities within it. A creative life works within restrictions and boundaries, using what's available to invent, build, form and experiment. That's what I must do. To keep up my writing in the context of motherhood, I must work within certain "restrictions," if you will, though I don't like the implication that kids are restrictions, so that's not the right word. It's just that the way I'm choosing to be a parent results in time limitations. Within those self-imposed boundaries, therefore, I must experiment with when and what and how I might write.

And so I shall.

Well, technical difficulties with my website have yet to be resolved. In the meantime I'm experimenting with Blogger.

But that's not what I want to write about today. What I really wanted to write about is the Lee Strobel show I watched on Saturday night. He's launched a new show called "Faith Under Fire" on PAX. Thankfully, even this cable-free family can get PAX, but it was pretty fuzzy at times. For a few seconds at the beginning we were still monkeying around with the antenna and couldn't see anything; the screen was blue! Finally we got a reasonable picture and began to watch. Lee had people talking about all kinds of topics, letting people spar over topics like theology and politics.

It airs at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 9 p.m. Central and Mountain. I read on WorldNetDaily that Tony Campolo and even Hugh Hefner will be on future episodes! I think the idea is to have a wide range of opinions presented in a fast-paced format. They certainly whet my appetite. I'll be tuning in again this coming Saturday.

One of the questions was, "Is God a Democrat or a Republican?" Sojourners, too, has had a campaign that claims "God is not a Republican...OR a Democrat." At the end of "Faith Under Fire," Lee suggested with a grin and chuckle that perhaps God is an Independent.

I may not have the intepretation right on this verse, but it reminds me of the moment when Joshua comes face-to-face with the angel of the Lord in Joshua 5. It says, "Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'

"'Neither,' he replied, 'but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.'"

It seems that this angel doesn't really even get the idea of taking sides...he simply does what the LORD commands.

If only we could be more like that angel. "Are you a democrat or a republican?"

Neither. I'm just hoping to obey the Lord.