It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Lent

Today is Mardi Gras, which I celebrated by eating two Take-5 bars because I won't be eating anything like it for another forty days. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which ushers in the pentiential season of Lent. Managing to be pregnant on Ash Wednesday has spared me a day's fasting. Unfortunately I can't argue the same about chocolate, ice cream, and blogging, all of which are very dear to me; I'm giving up them up during this season. This year Darren isn't giving up blogging, so he'll keep me abreast of all the exciting (and otherwise) developments until Easter.

Lent is a very serious time of reflection, repentance, and renewal. All the Lenten songs reinforce that attitude. I was pondering possibilities for a lighter, more user-friendly type of Lent song. For instance:

It's beginning to look a lot like Lent!
When we're solemn and penitent.
Remembrance, examination
Meditation on damnation
And how for our sins Jesus was sent! (sorry, this is getting worse as I go)

Lent, that "bright sorrow,"
Officially begins tomorrow.
It's a long forty days,
But at the end you're always
Glad you went through it.

The real problem with this type of song catching on is the tradition that you don't say "Alleluia" during Lent. I can't imagine how you can have a praise song that doesn't involve at least six repetitions of "Alleluia."

Farewell, all and sundry. See you on Easter!

-- SJ

The Way Things Are

Stuart, in a moment of revealing sincerity, volunteered,

"Mama, I love you, especially Daddy."

-- SJ

A Couple Pictures

Here are two pictures from Christmas. The first is a picture of our church, taken the Sunday before Christmas. I think it came out pretty well. The second is our annual family picture, which (unusually) we were all happy with.

--DJ

Happy, Convenient Logic

At a used-book store, I found an old volume entitled "Chautauqua Girls at Home." It was published in 1877, and since I'm fascinated by the thought that it was "born" exactly a hundred years before I was, I bought it.

Naturally -- and this is my lot in life -- it was the second book of a series. I always find the second book first. When I get to Heaven, and am granted a look in the Lamb's Book of Life, St. Peter will add over my shoulder, "Of course, that's the second volume... somebody else has the first one out right now." The first book of this 1870s series was called "Four Girls at Chautauqua," and it's easy to figure out the plot: four girls from very different backgrounds attend a two-week-long Chautauqua conference. These conferences were popular during that time, either as religious meetings (as in this case) or simply a culturally-enriching series of lectures and performances. In this book, all four girls find Christ, and return home to live out their new lives as Christians. That's where I picked up the story.

As a whole, the story was on the low side of okay. A couple of very good plot turns near the end redeemed it, and as much as the heroines' suddenly grave demeanors and amazing spiritual maturity annoyed me, it's obvious the author was out to effect good on her readers. However, one section left me sputtering, which I proceeded to do at great length to Darren. And now I will blog about it.

Flossie (can you believe parents thought this an acceptable name?) has just learned that her pastor likely disapproves of card-playing. So she goes to her three friends and asks them about it. They agree to do a Bible study on it and come back together with their answers. Well, as it happens, nobody can find "card-playing" in their Bibles. So then Marion, the daughter of a devout man but former atheist herself, pulls out her Bible and dazzles her friends with her incisive Bible study skills. She cites I Corinthians 8: "Don't cause a weaker brother to stumble." She explains what the passage was talking about (eating meat offered to idols) then says,

"Just you let me read the passage, substituting the object about which we are talking, and see how the verses will fit. ... 'But cards commend us not to God: for neither is we play are we the better; neither if we play are we the worse. ... 'Wherefore if cards make my brother to offend, I will play no more cards...'

Eurie interrupts, "What right have you to substitute the word cards? It is talking about another matter."

Marion replies, "Now, Eurie Mitchell, you are too bright to make a remark as that! If the Bible is
for our help as well as Paul's, we have surely the right to substitute the noun that fits our present needs."

What happy, convenient logic that is!

And can anyone guess what the next grave moral failing they addressed was? Dancing! The author devotes lots of discussion to this issue, pretending that she's making a case for both sides. My favorite part was when Marion the Wise says that all those verses Eurie found on dancing refer to dancing during worship. Eurie says, "Well! I'm glad it's not done that way anymore!" They don't discuss exactly why this form of worship has been invalidated: it's obvious, at least to the author. Having settled that question, the four girls pursue their happy, convenient logic to its end, which is that dancing is bad.

It's not that I think we should live heedlessly, with no thought as to how our actions affect others. It was a pivotal decision of mine, years ago, not to go dancing with friends. (I met my husband because of that, incidentally... what a good moral to the story!) What I object to is taking cultural standards -- card-playing, worship style, clothes, music -- and making them into Scriptural standards. I know people who still use that happy, convenient logic, and I find it just as fallacious as it was a hundred years before I was born.

-- SJ

P.S. As a completely irrelevant endnote, the author wrote under the name "Pansy."

3 for 1: Randomizer, Carbivore, and Generalizer

Last night at Bob Evans (the kids' favorite restaurant), Addie was in rare form.

At the table, the Randomizer appeared:

"Speaking about God [which we weren't], baby birds [which we also weren't talking about] go to sleep when their mamas feed them."

As we were paying on the way out, Addie (who had eaten a roll and a half, plus a big serving of mashed potatoes) clutched her stomach and said:

"I feel awful." Just what any restaurant wants new customers to hear as they arrive :)

In the van, eating our normal post-Bob Evans peppermint patty, the Generalizer decided it was her turn:

"Four year old girls who are sick feel better when they eat peppermint patties."

--DJ

Arriving Home

Last week, I got home from work to find this note taped to the door. Note: It is Addie's job to water the plant, and Stuart's job to bring sippy cups out to the sink in the morning.

"Warning:

Any expectations of industry, diligence, or upkeep in this household will be disappointed. Reliable reports indicate that, from 7:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., dishes have not been touched, toys have been left where they lay, tables have not been wiped, and kids were mostly half-dressed all day.

Persons responsible for this state of affairs have not indicated much remorse.

P.S. The plant did get watered, the sippy cups brought out before quiet play, and supper is underway. And also some people are most of the way finished with a Lord Peter Wimsey book."

--DJ

Christianity in Action

I love missionary stories. Christianity Today Magazine has a good one this week, about a country (India) that I know all too little about.

--DJ

A Cross of Elsie and the Randomizer

At DanaR's suggestion, I've cross-bred Elsie Dinsmore and the Randomizer. It's just as disorienting as expected. For those privileged not to know Elsie Dinsmore, she was the heroine of an 1860s series of books, heavily moralistic and more than a bit hard to swallow.

***
Addie Dinsmore was perched in a large chair, her shining hair falling softly into her thick-lashed eyes, observing the scene before her with an unusually grave expression for a four-year-old. It was her parents’ annual All Saints Day Party, and the revelry was loud and boisterous.

"Why, what makes my little friend so grave tonight?" asked a kindly voice, and she looked up to see the gentle blue eyes of Mr. Trillobyte, a family friend.

"Oh, I do hate to say anything that would make this occasion unhappy,"said the tender-hearted girl, but a dewy tear glistened on her darklashes.

"Nothing you say could make me unhappy," said Mr. Trillobyte. At which point, Daddy firmly escorted Mr.Trillobyte out of the house, where he never returned, and he left with the kindly advice from Daddy that he find a nice girl nearer his age to talk to.

Addie Dinsmore was left to her thoughts, until Mrs. Walters, the silly mother of two silly daughters, spotted her. "Addie!" she cried, her shrill voice rising above the noise. "Come out and sing and make merry with us! You cannot sit there all night!"

"No, thank you," answered Addie. "I’m afraid, Mrs. Walters, that I cannot join in. I wonder – I do wonder – whether it is good and right to indulge in such frivolity and abandon a mere 36 hours before the Lord’s Sabbath!"

"Well!" said the two Walters girls, who were very silly. "I declare! What a funny thought! Why I never give any thought to the Sabbath, except to sit through those very long church services and try not to fall asleep!"

It need not be mentioned that both these girls, and their mother, experienced many unhappinesses and tragedies later in life.

Mama came to Addie and said, "You need not scruple on that account, my daughter. Surely the Lord blesses a gathering in His name!"

But Addie shook her head wisely, her soft hair shining. "I think, Mama,you should instead read His word. That way it will make your cheeks healthy."

The frivolity came to an abrupt halt, and everyone left in an unusually solemn frame of mind. No one even fell asleep in church 36 hours later, because they were all still trying to figure out what on earth Addie Dinsmore had meant.

-- SJ

Advice From Recent Personal Experience

If you eat a raspberry-filled Lindt chocolate ball, do not eat Reese'sPieces directly afterward.

-- DJ

A Spot of Irritation

I recently glanced through a Biblical novel about Sarah. It was a different strain from the Christian novels I read (and tired of) as a teenager. This one was written by a Jewish man (so would it count as "Biblical"?). I didn't get very far into it. I think part of my distaste was simply my upbringing, which shrinks away from earthy discussions of... well, earthy things. And maybe it was my Western-Christian-homeschool delicacy which thought that the author dwelled a little too lovingly on female rites of passage and pagan worship.

But what mostly irritated me (since how often do I write about books which don't irritate me?) was that Sarai/Sarah was, of course, a STRONG woman. And that means that she starts at twelve years old bucking traditions, starting with a deep horror at the realization that her father is going to give her in marriage to someone she hasn't met. That was my first silent scream of frustration. Granted, she might not have liked the idea, but I simply can't believe she'd have been so blown away by it. That was the way it was done -- she wouldn't think any other way. In fact, I wonder it would even occur to her that it shouldn't be done that way. It would have made a less cliched story if Sarai had worked within her restraints, instead of trying to throw them off.

The author may have been working off Jewish legends that I don't know about. In the book, Sarai takes herbs which stop her cycle, which then ushers her into the priestesshood of Ishtar (and temple prostitute) before she goes off with Abram. I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt, because otherwise he seems to have created a fiction around Sarah that he then fell in belief with.

I probably would have liked the book marginally better if I was at all interested in historical/Biblical novels in the first place.

-- SJ

Mundania V

* Last night I scrapbooked with several friends; we've been a group for over a year now. I announced that I am pregnant, and they all squealed, "Oh! We're having a baby!" Three of them are on Weight Watchers and have slimmed down beautifully the past few months, and none of them even offered to share the weight gain with me.

* Addie has turned into a little ministering spirit. Anyone who knew Addie as a toddler would be as surprised as we are. Last week some plans fell through, and it seemed very important to me. So I cried. Addie sat with me on the couch, wiped my eyes with her sleeve, brought me a cup of water, and told me I was a sweet Mama and that it wasn't my fault.

* At Bible study yesterday, I set myself a new life goal. It's inspired by a woman who got up in front of everyone to recite a devotional poem she'd composed. She was sparkly, vibrant, good voice, quick wit... and 93 years old. That's what I want to be when I grow up.

* This morning Stuart was playing with a stick horse that, when you push a button on the ear, makes galloping noises. He couldn't remember where the button was, and was feeling all over its head and neck. "Try the ear," I suggested. When I turned around again, he was dutifully pressing his ear against the horse's head and neck, still unsuccessful.

* S: "Did we remember that we needed to get more olive oil?"
D: "No, and I didn't check before I made the list. It's my fault."
S: "Yes, I know, but I worded it like that to make it sound nicer."

-- SJ