On the Lighter Side

I taught him to play Magic before he could read the cards. He now regularly bests me at the game. I taught him to play chess when he was 4. At 14 he is now a far superior player then I ever was or will be. My last hold-out was my record time solving the Rubik's Cube. I can no longer solve one at all, but when they first came out in the 1980's, my record time was one minute fifteen seconds. As of yesterday, my oldest son has bested me there as well with a time of one minute flat (and he is improving daily!). Kudos to you Anthony!

Themes and Variations (Commentary)

There were a couple of collaborative poems that particularly caught my attention that I will be commenting on as promised.

One of these is a variation on Line One:

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Demonstrating the power and creativity of the potter's hand.

What caught my attention is that the outcome of this poem is a celebration of life as created by God. Surprisingly the "seed" here came from a poem celebrating death. The first line is by Sylvia Plath. Her poem begins as follows: "I am vertical, but I would rather be horizontal. I am not a tree with my root in the soil." The second to last line is: "And I shall be useful when I lie down finally." Sadly, she accomplished lying down finally and horizontally by her own hand on February 11, 1963 at the age of 30.

Given the origin of this first line of this poem, I was amazed at how it was translated from a poem celebrating death to a poem celebrating life.

All of the starting lines I gave in this collaborative project were from published works, references for which you can find in the comments section of my last post. For the most part I chose lines out of the middle of poems so they would not be familiar, because my project required that I have these created as blindly as possible.

Another result I wish to comment on began with a line from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I LOVE the ending of this poem, so I could not resist using one of the lines, even though I was afraid it might be familiar. I just had to see what would become of mermaids singing. Here is the end of Eliot's poem from which I took the line:

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

(Whether or not you understand what you just read - and I'm not so sure I do, take a moment to read it again just for its music; read it aloud. It can be quite haunting in a lovely way if you allow yourself to take it in for its music alone.)

As I said, I just had to see what people would do with the line about the mermaids. Here are two of the results:

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I choose to watch TV instead


I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.

Regarding the first variation, I wasn't sure what to think when I received the concluding line about TV. At first it felt sarcastic - which is fine, this was all free game, but when it was all put together, it reminded me of a poem by Auden called The Labyrinth, which speaks of trying to figure out this maze called life. At the end of the poem, the protagonist looks up at the sky out of the tall hedge maze and wishes he were a bird to whom such thoughts must seem absurd. Sometimes we get so messed up trying to figure life out, we really do have to take a break and just sit down and watch TV! (Or look at nature and wish we were birds!)

Regarding the second, Auden comes to mind as well. The last line contains the words done and said. There is a line elsewhere in Auden where he says, "Sighs for follies said and done twist our narrow days." I'd always thought of mermaid's voices as being melodic, but here I think they are singing a cacophony of frustrating memories of what what the "author" and others have done and said - painful memories of things done and said that just won't stop crashing in the mind like waves crashing on the beach.

OK, maybe it is time to go watch some TV :-)

Once again, my thanks for all who participated in this collaborative effort. I'm impressed with you all!

Themes and Variations (Full Results)

These are the results of the collaborative poetry effort of my last post. From the 10 lines I posted as seeds, 10 poems and 14 variations grew.

If you contributed a line, see if you can find it and read the final result containing your line.

Each of the ten initial lines is from a published work. See if you can guess the author. Answers are in the comments section.

In a few days I'll post comments on a couple of the following that have some special qualities. Again, my thanks for your help on this project!

ONE

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Demonstrating the power and creativity of the potter's hand.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But rather the clay's form from the potter's toil
Be something he carefully pondered and planned.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But a derrick bursting with oil
Not to be held in one’s hand.

TWO

At times you sink, you fall
At times you are upheld
At all times you can hear him call
My strength and power with yours to weld

At times you sink, you fall
At times you are upheld
like Churchhill or DeGaulle
Great men by greater forces felled.

THREE

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
And call the dead from beneath their loam

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Sheep that bleat each for their fellows
Are drawn together as they roam.

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
The ladies and gentlemen stand in a row.

Bells that toll across the meadows
Flutes that pipe the Shepherds home
Can also call archers to their bow
And that concludes this telephone poem.

FOUR

Earth does not understand her child
For her child is not her own but God’s
He made them all, both tame and wild
He made us all, the normals and odds.

FIVE

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
No matter the effort or how many tries
He always manages to get his work done.

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
No matter the effort or how many tries
It can do naught but shout to us: Run!

The Truth’s superb surprise
Is hidden like the noon day sun
When threatening clouds its glow denies
And former brightness now is done.

SIX

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought
Let us meet death on our own terms
With each breath, our life dearly bought
Oneness with all life, even worms.

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought
Let us meet death on our own terms
knowing it is what we sought
But that knowledge was filled with vile germs.

SEVEN

To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
The beginning of a the nightmare time
Of doubt and fear and cold regret
The time has come to end this rhyme.

To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
The beginning of a the nightmare time
The blind journey through the upset
and find tranquility most sublime.

EIGHT

One luminary clock against the sky
Ticking away our final days
As heaven waits for us, we all must die
But first we must come through life’s maze.

NINE

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
To touch the hem my soul to heal
And smooth the wrinkles when annoyed
And keep my heart on an even keel.

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
And marked it with my painted hands
That the towers of men would be destroyed
And sifted as the desert sands.

I had grasped God’s garment in the void
In hope, nay faith, that He would hold
Lest all my labors be destroyed
And turn to dust and not to gold.

TEN

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I choose to watch TV instead.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Though to do so ought to be within reach
I’m hopelessly daunted by the chasm ahead.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head.
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.

PLEASE HELP!

Mission accomplished!

HUGE THANKS to all who participated in helping me complete this part of my winter term project. Many of you commented that it was fun - how cool is that? My work gets done and others have a good time!

In case this is your first look at this post, and you have no idea what I'm talking about - what was going on was a collaborative poetry effort similar to the children's game telephone (where one child whispers something in another's ear and that one passes it on, and you see at the end how different the saying comes out!). At each stage there was a line from a poem, but the rest of the poem was hidden, and I asked people to add the next line knowing only the prior one.

Twenty-four poems were created out of 10 "starter" lines that I put up.

Responses came from Norway and Micronesia and within the US from California, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts!

If you're interested in seeing the full results, check back in a few days. I'll put up two posts about this - one with all the poems and one with just a couple of poems with comments. As a teaser for now, here are two samples:

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each
And cannot rid the sound from my head
Like crashing waves upon a beach
What is done and what is said.


I am not a tree with my root in the soil,
Nor am I an ostrich with my head in the sand
But a derrick bursting with oil
Not to be held in one's hand.

Update

Wow! We feel so loved! We received an amazing amount of prayer support and hugs and just felt surrounded by love during and after David's medical issue last week.

David is doing GREAT! We're continuing to pursue testing and the best possible preventative treatments, but, other than that, life is going on entirely as usual.

David is appreciating all the extra hugs from friends, family and coworkers but seems a little embarrassed about all the attention and is really downplaying the whole thing.

There is one thing, however, that he is playing to the hilt! The doctor told him he would be experiencing short term memory loss. He has already been exploiting this information, and I think that is just going to be his blanket excuse for forgetfulness for the rest of his life!

"I'm sorry, I don't remember that. I've had a stroke, and I have short term memory issues."

He'd better not try using that excuse when our anniversary rolls around - especially not with our twentieth this year!!

Mixed Blessing

It was hard to know how to title this post. I considered “Gratitude.” I considered “Pondering Life.” These fit too, but we’ve certainly experienced a "mixed blessing" this day.

We have been reminded of how precious life is.

We have been reminded of how quickly life can change.

We’ve had quite a scare.

We’ve seen many blessings.

This morning my husband woke me up just after 5am. He wanted to let me know he was going to drive to the hospital. When he told me what was going on – one arm entirely numb, dizziness and a sense of being too warm – I suggested I should drive him. As he continued to dress I made a call for him to get someone to lead his morning Bible study, but before I could complete the call he collapsed onto the bed, arms spread wide, saying, “Call 911. Call 911.” Then he got really quiet.

Thus began our day. It was a day of worry and of grace.

The firemen and paramedics arrived very quickly. I waited for a friend to arrive to remain with our kids who were still in bed; thankfully they had not been awakened to witness and become distressed by what was going on. I then headed to the ER. Everyone there was great – kept us informed, got a series of tests (6 of them!) started right away, were very thorough. The doctor was fantastic – kind, informative, attentive, concerned, personable.

As the morning progressed at ER and the numbness receded, my husband began to think it was a fluke, a pinched nerve or something, and he began to feel a bit silly for having gone in. This was not the case, however, as we soon we found out to our profound amazement. He had experienced a TIA (transient ischemic attack), a “mini-stroke” or “warning stroke.” What we also found out from the CT scan is that he has had a stroke in the past – a stroke that did damage but one which he did not feel and that had not impacted any functioning, so we were totally unaware of it. This was all rather shocking.

We’d never heard of TIA’s before. We now know that they are somewhat common among the elderly but particularly concerning in someone this young, especially someone with no risk factors – no smoking, no family history of stroke, no hypertension, no obesity, etc. He will need to take precautions to prevent possible future occurrence of stroke, and we know that if he experiences numbness or dizziness in the future that he needs to get to the hospital right away.

Tomorrow we will receive more information as he sees his primary doctor.

On the one hand, it was a very scary experience, and it is of concern to know that he has some degree of risk for stroke (and has actually had a stroke in the past) even though he is only 41. On the other hand, we have seen many blessings of God in this day. The timing could not have been better. It happened while he was awake rather than asleep. The numbness came on after he’d been up for a while; had he woken up with it he may have thought he had just slept on his arm in strange position and not taken the numbness as seriously. It happened at a time when the kids were spared the distress of witnessing our living room full of firemen and paramedics and seeing Dad wheeled out on a gurney and leaving in an ambulance. It happened at home, and we live very near the hospital. It did not happen when he was driving. We were upheld by many forms of support both tangible and intangible and were reminded of the love surrounding us and what fantastic, caring friends we have. The testing that he was given alerted us to a problem that was already there but that we would have had no other way of knowing about. This served as a warning that has given us the knowledge we need to be able to take precautions. This has reminded us too of what I listed above – how quickly life can change – how precious life is – how precious we are to each other - and how we need to remember that every day.

My posts don't usually contain such deeply personal events, but I think today calls for it.

I am so thankful for my husband and for God’s sustaining grace in this day.

Shul

I have always loved old stone walls such as the one in the photograph below. I love the hollows left by the stones that are missing. There is a beauty there, and the beauty is in the history and the meaning, the fact that something WAS there and made an impression. It is an emptiness that is not empty; the emptiness itself signifying something. The hollows always leave me wondering, “What was the color of the rock that was there? What was its texture? Whose hand placed it there? When did that hand place it there? When did it fall out and why? What was this wall built to keep out or to keep in?” With all of this in mind, I took the following photo, which I entitled “Shul.”

"Shul" is a Tibetan word defined as “an impression – a mark that remains after that which made it has passed by – a footprint, for example." From what I understand, it can also be used to describe such things as the hollow in the ground where a house once stood, the spaces worn in a rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where a deer slept the night. Shul is an impression of something that used to be there, but this hollow signifies meaning rather than emptiness.

Mathematician's Resolution

Consume less

Forth into the New Year

As I move forward into the new year, these are the verses in my mind:

"The LORD replied, 'My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.' Then Moses said to him, 'If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.'" Exodus 33:14-15

"Make your tent bigger; stretch it out and make it wider. Do not hold back." Isaiah 54:2a

Person of the Year - Who Me?!

Well, I sensed when I began my blog this year that good things would come, but to be selected as Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006 was an unexpected honor!

As you can read on the cover, I was chosen because I now control the information age. I find it quite a responsibility and promise to do my best to do so in an ethical and professional manner.

I know it was a tough choice for them, which is why they did not have time to call me in for a photo-shoot. Cleverly they put a mirrored computer screen on the cover so I could see myself.

(Due to the aforementioned time constraints and my picture not appearing, you may want to click on the image here to enlarge it so that you can see my name as proof of this honor - although I'm sure you believe me without such proof being necessary.)

A Perfect Afternoon (PLUS!)

A perfect afternoon:

A long walk on a sunny winter day with my husband

A game with my son (while enjoying Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits - hey, gotta expose him to the classics!)

A joyful, lively dinner conversation as family

But wait! There's more! - perfect afternoon followed by a perfect (and LATE!)evening. Tonight was the end of the year celebration with wonderful book club companions and an eclectic collection of movies:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer documentary
1951 version of Scrooge
Neil Simon's "Murder by Death"

BONUS: My husband ordered a large book shelf for me today. Yea! More space for MORE books!

(Just kidding, Hubby!!)

















sort of ;-)









. . . and now at 1:10am, off to bed to be rested for our family excursion to Sonoma tomorrow.

Oh, and last night's Rook game with Mom, Dad, Tim, AJ, Hubby and I - and all the laughter - good stuff!

Now we just need some Pinochle in the mix! Let us know when you're ready, partners!

I love Christmas break!!! (and it came none too soon!)

PS Happy Birthday Brant, from Aunt Heidi!

Holiday Fun (Audio Quiz #2)

This holiday weekend it seems appropriate to post something light and fun, so here's Audio Quiz #2. This time each clip is from a movie. See if you can name the movie.

Movie 1

Movie 2

Movie 3

Movie 4

Movie 5

Movie 6

Movie 7

Movie 8

Movie 9

Movie 10

How did you do? Check "comments" section for answers.

(Click here to try Audio Quiz #1.)

Language: music and passion

". . . I see my father. I am seeing him at this moment; and I hear his voice saying words that I understood not, but yet I felt . . .

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

John Keats 1795-1821

I thought I knew all about words, all about language (when one is a child, one feels that one knows many things), but those words came as a revelation to me. Of course, I did not understand them. How could I understand those lines about birds' -- about animals' -- being somehow eternal, timeless, because they live in the present? We are mortal because we live in the past and in the future -- because we remember a time when we did not exist, and foresee a time when we shall be dead. Those verses came to me through their music. I had thought of language as being a way of saying thing, of uttering complaints, of saying that one was glad, or sad, and so on. Yet when I heard those lines (and I have been hearing them, in a sense, ever since), I knew the language could also be a music and a passion. And thus was poetry revealed to me."

from Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), This Craft of Verse

AfterMath

YAHOO!

I have completed the semester - and none too soon. My studies had begun to impact my family. As I was in a theorem-mumbling, study-induced stupor, my oldest son finally proclaimed that he is going to develop the "Nice Value Theorem" as opposed to the "Mean Value Theorem" I kept repeating. Of course all of my children laughed uproariously whenever they heard me mumbling the term "Lipschitz Condition."

Now that it is December 19 and less than a week before Christmas, I can begin preparing for the holidays!

Ho! Ho! Ho! and away I go!

Busy Signal

For the next 10 days, if you check my blog, you will just get this "Busy Signal."

I am entering the busy-zone of exam week (and a half) as both student and teacher.

My motto for the next 10 days is:

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US MAKES US STRONGER!

I imagine I'll be much stronger by December 19!

Hero Nomination

After class tonight I happened to walk out to the parking lot with a fellow student, and he shared with me something that happened in his class today.

He teaches in another town, one that has a reputation for crime, gang activity and families living in difficult and dysfunctional situations. In his class are many students who are especially low-achieving and have been dealt a pretty raw deal in life. One of his students had seen her father shot earlier this year.

He and I were discussing teaching as we walked, and in the middle of telling me about how he is approaching effective note-taking, he shared that he had been overcome today by a need to go deeper with his students as a group.

In the middle of class today he suddenly said, "Whatever you're doing right now, put it down. This is serious. I'm gonna go deep with you. I need your full attention up here. Do any of you play cards? Do any of you play domninoes?" When he got many "yes" responses, he asked, "What do you do when you get a really bad hand?"

The students were very honest with him. Some of the responses were:

"I give up."

"I get angry."

"I cheat."

"I quit."

He created a "web" on the board of the responses.

Then he looked at them and said:

"What do you do when you've been dealt a bad hand in life?"

Everyone got quiet.

He continued: "I know some of you wish you had a Dad. Others of you wish your mom and dad were together again. I know the situations many of you are in. I know what it is to have a hard life. One time my mom had no money and the cupboards were nearly bare. When she asked us what we wanted to eat, we said, 'Pancakes.' She didn't have any pancake mix, but she looked at what little was in the cupboard, and she made us pancakes out of whatever she could find, and you know what? They were the best pancakes we'd ever had."

Some of his students commented that maybe she had just been a really good cook. He responded that he didn't know about that, but that wasn't the point. She had looked in the cupboard, and, instead of looking at what wasn't there she figured out how to use what was there.

He then shifted the discussion back to games. He said, "You've given some comments about what you do when you get a bad hand at cards or dominoes. I play a lot of dominoes. If I get a bad hand, what I do is I start looking around. I look at what's out there. Instead of thinking of what I don't have, I look at what I do have and how it hooks in and how it can work together - that this connects here and then that will connect there and so on, and pretty soon I know how to play the hand, and I play the best I can."

He told me that by this time some of his students had begun crying and he began crying too. That must have been quite a sight because he is QUITE an imposing male presence (and I'm sure serves as a father figure to many of them).

He didn't share this to impress me. He shared this because his heart was overflowing after this had happened in his classroom today.

I know he's overloaded with work right now. Due to student population he was moved from 4th grade to 6th grade this year - all new curriculum to teach - VERY time consuming to prepare! He is going to school himself, working on a graduate degree at a campus more than an hour's commute from where he lives. He is concerned about teaching well, and he is concerned about his students' hearts.

He has no idea I have a blog nor that I am writing this, but I nominate sixth-grade teacher Eric C., a big man with a big heart, as a hero because in the midst of his own very busy life he is aware of other lives that need to be touched, and he reaches out and touches them. I can only imagine how different the lives of some of these students may turn out - differently than they could have turned out given their environment - because of his impact, care, and inspiration.

Kudos to you Eric!

Art in the Middle

It is a running joke with my students that I cannot draw a circle. Unfortunately it is often necessary for a math teacher to draw circles. The very best of my attempts end up looking like eggs - and really pathetic eggs at that! I just laugh right along with them and say, "There's a reason I teach math and not art!"

The artwork above is by my middle child, age 12 - merely some doodles he was doing in the car one day. It is clear that he gets his "art genes" from his father and not his mother!

Christmas Moved to December 3

Today was my day to sing in the Messiah, and as far as I'm concerned, that is my Christmas - and more - it is a taste of Heaven on earth.

Fall and Finitude

My oldest son commented recently, "Mom, it's hard to believe I've only experienced 14 autumns. It's just weird to think I can put a number on it like that."

It does seem rather strange to think of the finite number of times we have experienced any given season or event - whether it be autumn or summer or Christmas or Thanksgiving.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936) was thinking along the same lines over a century ago:

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Always Ourselves We Find in the Sea

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

Happiness is . . .

. . . football on the beach














. . . running down dunes in childhood















. . . butterfly-filled skies
















. . . toes in the tide


. . . a hammock and a good book













. . . no rain while tent camping

Photos: Pismo Beach, Thanksgiving weekend 2006

All Fall Down

The beauty of my favorite season passes too quickly for me. The tree in our front yard produces brilliant yellow leaves that appear golden against the blue autumn sky. I can't get enough of that beauty. Sadly, it seems that in a week to 10 days after it reaches its full glory of color our tree is completely denuded of leaves, and only the bare skeletal branches remain.

Won’t you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

—Basho, 1692

Kaselehlie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of Thanksgiving, I want to share one of my blessings with you: the laughter I enjoyed in reading the following post by my brother-in-law Dan who lives in Micronesia.

Among so many other blessings, I am thankful for Dan, for blogs which allow a sense of closeness even at great distance, for Dan's writing talent, and for the gift of laughter.

THE JAMES THURBER MAID SCHOOL

I gave Serlinda, my maid, some extra money yesterday for her birthday.

She responded with a full page note explaining that her birthday isn't until next week.

Within the note was this cryptic sentence:

"Also, Dan could you pay another bush for the toilet powl."

So, with respect to her request, I've been offering money to shrubs, but none of them have offered me powls of any kind.

Truth

God can make use of all that happens. But the loss is real.

from Perelandra by CS Lewis 1898-1963

The Color of Water

The universe is an amazing place, but what I think of as one of the most fascinating marvels may seem quite commonplace to most people.

When I think that God came up with the idea of water, I am awed. Have you ever sat by a river and just contemplated the nature of water? Who would have thought of such a thing?

There is a color in water at certain times in certain places that is my favorite color. I don't have a name for it. It's not really blue, and it's not really green, and it's not really blue-green. It's translucent and sort of aquamarine but not quite aquamarine either. It's bright but not flashy; it has depth, but it's not dark. I know it when I see it, but it is not something I can always find when I go out looking for it.

I guess that's the way with a lot of things in life. The best things are often the things that show up by surprise and take your breath away but can't necessarily be found when you seek them out.

Back to the Future?

I'm already IN the future.

. . . at least according to my youngest son (9). I'm trying to figure out what that means, but there is no sense asking him, because he doesn't engage in discussion about his comments, which is but one of his many quirks.

Context:

My youngest has always had quite a sense of humor, and that has now been combined with a very hyper stage that he has recently entered. He was being particularly hyper and funny a the dinner table the other night - a bit too much so, which caused me to comment that I could not wait to meet his future wife, who would certainly be a very special woman!

I then extended it and said I couldn't wait to see all of us in the future; he then made the statement, "Mom, you're already IN the future."

Coming from him, I don't know how to take that.

It might mean I'm "old" and as an adult am already in MY future. It might have a more philosophical meaning as in, "A moment has passed since you stated that, so you have moved into the future."

With him, you never know, and that is why I have to ponder this. He is the same child who at age 7 said, "Mom, it's really hard to think about when God started." On another day he began another statement by dismissing it before saying it: "Never mind, Mom. I was just going to ask you what you thought it would feel like not to exist, but then I realized I wouldn't be here to feel what it was like not to exist."

Having a bent towards the metaphysical myself, I get very excited about such ideas and want to converse with him, but when I ask him leading questions after such statements he will not go further with it, which drives me crazy! I sometimes think God is teasing me by having sent me a son whose mind is intrigued by the same kinds of thoughts as mine but who is unwilling to go beyond a single comment.

To further illustrated his personality, here is his idea of posing for a photograph:
Should he marry, his wife will certainly be a special person - as is he!

Back to "The Future:"

. . . was my son calling me old or was he being philosophical? Since he'll never tell, I think I'll assume the latter.

temporary wierd stuff

Something is goofy with blogger. I've been trying to post lovely pictures to my last entry ever since I put it up. I've finally made some progress trying to get images to appear using html on my own rather than using blogger's non-functioning template, but you can see the messed-up results below, and right now I have to put fixing that in a holding pattern to get back to my homework.

I want these lovely pictures to illustrate the timelessness I spoke of, but I remain trapped in time . . .

. . . so for now, back to my research paper on what can be done to fix all the ills in math education in America!

Stay tuned (but it might be a while!)

Post Script:

Um . . . never mind. I got it to work. Procrastinating from writing a paper allows one to accomplish many things! I still haven't solved the ills of mathematics education in America, but now that the images are up (although somewhat imperfectly) I'll either have to get back to my paper or find some housework to procrastinate with instead. (I'm thinking the ills of math education in America will be solved first! - sorry Dave :-)

Eternal Now

Have you ever had such an experience of transcendence that you felt you had to say to the world, “You’re going to have to hold my place until I get back because I’m totally out of here?”

I think, if we are TRULY living beings, for each of us there is (or can be) something that brings us into the eternal now, something that takes us out of the world but at the same time makes us one with The World - with people of all times and places - with the heart of all things.

My transcendent experience is annually parceled out to me once a week for 5 weeks in November and December as our little local oratorio society practices and then presents Handel's Messiah.
















For me it is the very real presence of Heaven on earth. As I participate I feel I leave my small world and in doing so become part of something much larger. I become part of all creation, of the very rocks of which would cry out if we were not praising God. I feel I become a part of every person who has ever sung this piece and that I become a part of every place where it has ever been sung. I feel like I am a part of every other person singing with me in that sanctuary as our different voices become one telling the story of the reconciliation of God with man, of a love for us so profound that God gave His own life to reconcile us to Himself, and of a time when we will all be in an eternal now in His presence.



Time and space disappear for me.

I’ve heard there is no time in Heaven, because Heaven is outside of time, so I imagine this is what Heaven will be like.

Today, as our annual practices began once more and I exited my small world and its concerns and entered paradise I made the same request as e.e. cummings (1894-1962)makes in his poem: "really unreal world,will you perhaps do the breathing for me while i am away?"

as any(men's hells having wrestled with)
man drops into his own paradise
thankfully
whole and the green whereless truth
of an eternal now welcomes each was
of whom among not numerable ams

(leaving a perfectly distinct unhe;
a ticking phantom by prodigious time's
mere brain contrived:a spook of stop and go)
may i achieve another steepest thing--

how more than sleep illimitably my
--being so very born no bird can sing
as easily creation up all sky

(really unreal world,will you perhaps do
the breathing for me while i am away?)

Is there something that makes you truly alive, pulls you out of your little world, and leaves you so breathless that the world has to go on doing your breathing for you until you return?

I hope so. There’s nothing like it!

Some High Window

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window;at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)


e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

AproPOE

What better day than Halloween to post pictures of the graveyard where Edgar Allen Poe, that inimitable master of the macabre, is buried? HAPPY HALLOWEEN!











I've had a fascination with Poe ever since reading The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado in high school, seeing The Fall of the House of Usher and later memorizing The Raven . . .

"and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted . . . NEVERMORE."

I never imagined I would have a chance to visit Poe’s gravesite, but thanks to Dan and Rohaizad I had that chance this summer – thanks guys for providing reason to go to Baltimore (the US premier of your wonderful musical) and for the tour and time together the next day – great stuff! (So, how do you celebrate Halloween in Micronesia?)