on a boisterously cloudy day

I checked out of the antique library on base, To Kill a Mockingbird. How I missed this book in high school must be in part due to a homeschooled scheducation. How I have missed the musty pleasure of the NAS base library is a consequence of my fear and terror of the prison-like building; and the suspiciously shy Woman Behind the Desk keeps her own hours, despite the official posted ones, invoking laziness on my part to never stop by and brave the rusty-handled door.

Half way into the first few chapters, I thought Scout was a boy. I hope Dill comes back every summer. He reminds me of the albino boy in Susan Cooper's Drawing of the Dark series.

sigh and sight

I've been reading the collected works of Emily Bronte. Her words speak as windy days that buffet the unspoken out of our soul. How many of us little girls hide behind a smile and curtained eye, only to find solace in a lump pillow in the night~

She dried her tears and they did smile
To see her cheeks' returning glow
How little dreaming all the while
That full heart throbbed to overflow

With that sweet look and lively tone
And bright eye shining all the day
They could not guess at midnight lone
How she would weep the time away


what I see in winter-times:
Still as she looked the iron clouds
Would part and sunlight shone between
But drearily strange and pale and cold

Do you know, one summer full moon, it comes upon you...
I know not how it falls on me
This summer evening, hushed and lone
Yet the faint wind comes soothingly
With something of an olden tone

Forgive me if I've shunned so long
Your gentle greeting earth and air
But sorrow withers even the strong
And who can fight against despair

spring greens

Every year, I watch for the budding of the new leaves on the trees, and every year, I write somewhere something about the glory and joy of their catch-breath beauty. If Christmas marks the deep furrows of the honourable old things, the venerable traditions of faithful man on Time's winding road, then Easter heralds the delightfully new, the diamond light of translucent radiant mercy sparkling from every tree top as the spring time rushing winds pour through supple young branches. I find that here in south Texas, even the scruby, knarled and bent old grey mesquite trees are clothed in delicate, lacy greenery that flies up in the wind like little girl dresses on a Sunday morning.

Living the Life

As I have grown older (matured one might say...) I have learned that it is not the one who argues the loudest, puts on the best show, or berates his opponent in the most efficient manner is not the one who ultimately ushers in a change of the heart. In order to effect change we have to enter into the lives of those we hope to persuade and dare I say love them...through the long run. Dr. Tim Keller says: "You need to enter into a person's worldview, challenge that worldview and retell the story based upon the Gospel." Hardly revolutionary...No, now is the time to think reformationally.

breaking and remaking

In one of his sermons on greed and giving, Tim Keller says that "Culture is a world with meaning;" even our everyday pennies go for or against something. He says that we can use our money in two major ways: as a distraction by purchasing sensation stimulation OR as seed to plant and grow exciting liveliness, for our friends, our family, our neighbour, ourselves. Lest we think it is our dollar bills that fund and run the universe, we must learn the reality that, in Keller's words, "God's righteousness re-weaves creation."

Eric and I inevitably find ourselves spending more than we should on food we didn't need, wasting money on fees and penalties, investing where we didn't have back up plans, and in trying to be prudent, robbing ourselves or someone else of the happy luxuries we call necessities of life. Where the balance of giving and saving lies, no one knows until the money's on the line and a decision must be made. We learn meanwhile to say the honoured prayer, "give us this day our daily bread," hoping in God's righteousness for tomorrow by praising His provision today.

Valentine's Day

Two years ago today Eric picked me up to walk across the street to the coffee house, 49 West, in Annapolis. He had just flown in from Virgina. A waltz party was going on at St. John's that gave him reason to come back early and ask me to the dance, since we'd been taking swing lessons on Tuesday nights in the little back stage room on St. J's campus. I suppose we wouldn't have gone to the dance if my answer had been different that night.

After all, the new semester marked the turn of the year in which we had barely begun to be simply friends. We got back from Christmas break wanting to renew an old aquaintance, go out to a movie in the greyness of winter, and found out that we already frequented Barnes and Noble to study, and it would be lovely to get our mutual friends over there at the same time. Meanwhile, we're both thinking of other possibilities; but one can hardly be expected to say yes to a man after two dinner conversations and a few stolen side long glances at him over oceanographic equations.

I found myself faced with his question over a small cup of strong coffee, warming my fingers, while the rest of the drafty ailse was cold. His words were diplomatic ambassadors from his heart to my head. I felt necessity impelled me to explain a few things; I didn't think he could really be serious if he really knew me; and here was a man not to be messed with. His reply encompassed my fears round about and drew them into a kerchief as on a stick to be carried on his back and taken up together at a right time some time down the road. The undertaking he proposed, to gain my affection through the proving of his own for me, seemed unlikely, but desireable. Thus, his words met their mark and mine echoed, yes, I'd like that, too.

Religion

I am a religious person...but so is Ted Kennedy...so what differentiates us? In the newspapers, on the TV, and in conversation it seems that religious people are only Christians; and they seem intent upon forcing their religion upon the rest of an unsuspecting populous.

Websters defines religion as a "particular faith system and worship." And so, yes, I as a Christian am Religious. My life is spent in worship to the Creator of the Universe. However, since the humanist-leftist-neo-Darwinists feel that Christians are the only folks who are religious and are also the only folks who wish to impose their religion upon others, we need to take a moment here and call a spade a spade. The humanist-leftist-neo-Darwinist is just as religious as I and he is bent upon forcing his religion upon me. In fact, he is so zealous about forcing it upon me that he even does it with my own tax money in the Public School system, through legislation, and through political action.

The difference exists in Truth. The reason that the humanist-leftist-neo-Darwinists are working so hard to suppress the Christian Religion is that it alone stands as Truth. No other belief system requires so little of a person, and yet so much, to recieve salvation. As in other religions where salvation is dependent upon the work of the individual, Christianity calls for the individual to submit, admit they have sinned, and ask for forgiveness. Such submission is not acceptable in our culture. It is within Christianity that the humanists fear, for in Christianity life is sacred, things of this world do not matter, Truth exists, boundaries are present, Grace and Mercy abound, and death has been conquered. If I were a humanist-leftist-neo-Darwinist and relying upon my own goodness to achieve Nirvana, I would want Christians to shut up as well.

down by the Frio

On Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, we celebrated on the Frio River, first running long distances of road winding through the Hill Country, eating large amounts of panckaes, and finally getting down to the river, where Aunt Paula suggested we launch one of their kayaks to test Herbie's sea legs. Eric took him out first, then I followed up with my first ride in the slender water craft. Even with cool, cloudy skies, the paddling is great fun, and now we have to find sea kayaks to take out on the Bay!

I'm in the club

Last night was my first time attendance of the Officer Spouse Club meeting of Eric's flight training squadron. It was a perfect time to join the large group of women, in an evening of wine tasting; where one would normally be shy and self conscious (of the shirt one changed three times before showing up), the wild animal feelings of self strangulation in the midst of a crowd of new faces are calmed with the sweet Resling or a more heavily grounding Merlot. Next time it'll be waffle baking.

glaciers in his heart are melting

If you've never seen Ice Age, now's the time, and you will see the essense of doggie animalistic terror written upon the face of Scrat, the prehistoric squirrel. Scrat is the screen-living representation of human frustration. Both Herbie and his new dad are experts in the expression of this wide-mouthed Scrat-scream, since both their lives are filled with little daily frustrations.

Tonight was the night that Herbie crossed the line of Scratty new house pet to playfellow: he's already chasing, leaping and catching bones midair, reducing the king and queen of the house to floor-roiling packmates.

the Secret Life of Herbie

At heart, he's a mild mannered, pleasant sort of little man, who asks only for his slippers at bedtime and a biscuit to top off his tank.
However, the trying transition between households has altered his life clock and upset his worldview. His former playpen of the great outdoors is now a threatening Hazardous Front Line upon which he must keep on red alert, translated to: tail between the legs and run to mommy (who's on the other end of the leash).
To help him overcome outdoor people and Other Dog terrors, he gets carried one-way on walks and then let down again to race his way back home.
It is, after all, a useful thing to know the way home when caught out in the wild world.

We've got him

Herbie came home with us yesterday! He's a wild boar coloured, four month old Wirehaired Dachshund. To see pictures of the breed, go to raydachs.com and you can see his mom ("Goose").