Dream a Little Dream

Life is harder for dreamers.

I don't mean "dreamers" as deified by modern culture, those people who sacrifice everything to realize their "dreams." I'm too pragmatic, and probably too pessimistic, to be one of those people. I figure, hey, if I can't write a great bestselling novel because -- as I've lately realized -- I can't actually write fiction, it doesn't invalidate who I am. Maybe I'll never write a book at all, and probably I can live with that regret. My sort drives "dreamers" crazy.

No, I'm talking about people who dream, literally. We go to bed every night expecting busy, technicolor adventures. We have learned, over the years, to exercise some control over our dreams, so we can run, fly, and even rewind if we don't like the direction things are going. While it makes nighttime more fun, it makes daytime a little more difficult.

It's the reality vs. surreality that's the problem. I'm always having to figure out if Darren really told me something, or if I just dreamed he did. I recently went through half a day with a satisfied feeling that I'd resolved a problem with someone, only to realize about noon that I hadn't actually talked to the person; instead, I'd settled everything in my dream the night before. As far as that goes, I've resolved my conflicts with my stepfather many more times than I actually attempted to do during his lifetime. It doesn't seem fair that something as involuntary as dreaming can set my emotional tone for the morning, but unfortunately that's the case.

This morning I woke up very grouchy indeed. The kids irritated me, the fact that we were nearly out of milk irritated me, and then I checked my usual round of blogs and some of the comments irritated me. So when Darren called for his morning check-in, I was a joy to talk to. After a few moments of complaining, I suddenly realized why the blog-comment especially put me on edge: just before I'd woken up, I dreamed that some officious new supervisor had dismissed a blog-conversation between me and Amy K. by saying we were off-topic and wasting time. When I explained it to Darren, he laughed.

"I knew you were having a bad dream." Twice he tried to cuddle with me. The first time I turned over in a huff, and the other time I pushed him away. Well, no wonder. I was being reprimanded, and directly after that I rode in an elevator whose doors didn't close and which didn't stop at my floor. Who wants to cuddle at a time like that?

I'm glad to say that after I figured out the source of my pique, I cheered up considerably. The rest of the day went well. The weather was nice, the children could play outside, and Darren said he was taking off tomorrow so I could spend the day shopping and drinking Coffee Toffees.

Or did I just dream that?

-- SJ

Quotables

Proper Terminology

My brother Matt and his family took our nieces, Camie and Felicity, along with my mother (got all that?) to see Thomas the Tank Engine. Mom pointed out that Thomas was actually a diesel engine made up to look like a steam engine, complete with dry ice to simulate steam. (Very ironic, considering that the diesel engines are the villains in the Thomas series.)

Mom said it was a cross-dresser. After pondering the subject, I called her back.

"That diesel dressed up to be steam engine? It was a trainsvestite."

***

Overheard at the DMV:

(A young teenage girl looking at her young teenage boyfriend's new license):

"Man! You look horrible! You look like a thirty-year-old man!"

Won't they be surprised to find out that thirty isn't as old as they think it is?

-- SJ

I'd Like a French Hen, Please

From my mom's-club e-group, an email from a member requesting that the updated club roster be emailed to her:

"Could you please send me a rooster too? Thanks!"

-- SJ

A Defective Christian Reads Her Bible

One of my "Lenten resolutions" was to read my Bible daily. This reading-my-Bible thing has been a continual hindrance to my personal perfection. As anyone who has grown up in fundamentalist/evangelical circles knows, reading your Bible is expected of all good Christians. My childhood Baptist church went so far as to make it one of several signs of salvation: you know you’re saved if you have a new desire to read Scripture. Seeing as I found the Bible terribly dull, I concluded that I was a defective Christian.

It didn’t help when, in later years under later teachers, the Bible became a mere book of "principles," which further dried out an already dull read. And then I was expected to "glean insights" from the text, to find out what it said to me. Perhaps not surprisingly, it never said anything nice to defective Christians.

Then I married a man who truly loved the Scriptures. He admired Paul’s writings, he loved the book of Job, and he enjoyed reading the Psalms. I was frankly puzzled. Darren never pressured me to "get into the Word," and fortunately never tried to get the Word into me by reading it to me. With his gentle example, and other changes in my heart and mind, I eventually gathered up courage to open my Bible again.

It was still dull reading. Even after a year of consistent reading and journaling, I still didn’t see the point. The words echoed in my head, and I filled up notebook pages with what I thought about them, but I knew that what I thought wasn’t necessarily right. The only discernable benefit I reaped from that year was that I gained the confidence that if I missed a day, or a week, of reading, I was still admitted to God’s presence through Jesus – without having a red "defective" sticker slapped to my spiritual back. To be sure, it was worth a year of trudgery to get to that realization.

But here came Lent again, and I again resolved to Read My Bible. My pastor – who also never slapped that sticker on my back – assured me that God would lead me to whatever I should read. He’s more of a charismatic than I am; I figured that since Darren had preached just the past Sunday on I Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, I should start with that.

At first, I did it just the way I was taught to do it. I snatched a few minutes during the day for a "quiet time" alone with God, with the usual feelings of boredom and frustration. Within three days, I was back to my usual oops-I-forgot-guess-I’ll-read-before-bed routine. That turned out to be a very happy mistake. Since I’m dispositionally incapable of reading anything without commenting on it, I mentioned something to Darren about I Corinthians 14 (spiritual gifts). Darren, of course, can answer Bible questions with, "Well, some theologians think this, but others say this, and historically the Church has said..." We spent the next fifteen minutes discussing the question. The next night, I found another bit to remark on, and Darren explained that I Corinthians was written as a letter in response to a letter that is now lost, and we lamented the fact that the first letter was lost. And so it went, every night or so. And for the first time, I think: maybe I'm not defective. At least I am enjoying my Bible reading now.

In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. I don’t even like watching movies by myself; why would I enjoy reading something as important as Scripture entirely alone? I love having Darren to exchange ideas with, to expostulate and laugh with. Furthermore, I now understand more about how this book of the Bible was written, why it was written, and what great Christians of the past have thought about it (all courtesy of my well-informed husband, of course). With this knowledge behind my reading, I now can understand better what God does say to me, without having to force "insights" from the text.

After Lent is over, I’ll probably let my Bible drop to the wayside again, from sheer force of habit if nothing else. But I think I’ve caught a glimmering of the joy of Scripture. I think I’ll pick it back up sooner than usual. One day I might even use my Bible to scrape that self-applied sticker off my back.

-- SJ

Half a Loaf is Better Than... Cardboard

I've always kept a tally of the few books which were improved by a movie version, such as The Princess Bride and The Lord of the Rings. Ha, ha, did I blow any fuses? Of course not LOTR, although the loss of Tom Bombadil in the film version wasn't exactly soul-wrenching. As it happens, it's a quarter till twelve right now and I can't remember any of the other books on my tally (Princess Bride still stands). But that's really not my point, merely my introduction to get to my point. Which I now come to.

I've now been exposed to the world of children's books and videos, and have made discoveries. There are amazingly clever children's books. Some of these books have been translated into very enjoyable videos. The Magic School Bus and Charlie and Lola are two hits in this household: the books are fun to read, and the videos are fun to watch.

But since this is America, where our unspoken motto is "As long as you can make money off it, beat that dead horse!", the companies who produce the videos then turn around and base books on the videos. And these books are almost invariably worthless. For one thing, the shows necessarily have to distill the book into an easy-to-grasp structure. So the Magic School Bus class goes from fifteen or twenty anonymous children saying funny things and writing informative reports in the margins of the book, to six children with fixed personalities. That works great for the video: there's so much moving action going on that you like having a handle on the kids, and you don't really need the extras from the book. But when these characters reappear in print, in books with broad-stroke illustrations and none of the original marginal discussions, they're like Sprite without the fizz. The books completely fail in their original purpose, to educate children about science. They just make money.

Charlie and Lola is a new discovery for me. Both the books and videos portray very good sibling relations, and the videos in addition have the most charming British accents. I came across the videos first, so set out to find the books. The first one I read was just as entertaining as the videos (well, almost. You couldn't hear the accents.) I was disappointed with the second one. It wasn't clever, just tedious. It took the original ideas and recycled them, but didn't do anything new. And then I realized: this one had the Charlie and Lola logo on it. It was commercialized. It just made money.

I find this practice utterly despicable. (Had you guessed that?) It's like serving children fresh-baked bread, and as soon as you see that they like it, substituting cardboard in the shape of bread. Children learn to like a book for the characters pictured inside, not for the actual story. As they get older, they're not likely to wander from familiar characters to explore new, un-logoed worlds. Basically, they'll read just to extend their video fix.

I suppose all I can do to fight the trend is make sure that my children get the original loaf, not the cardboard substitution. We'll still watch videos and we'll still read books -- we'll just take care not to mix the two.

-- SJ

(The same thought goes for the Baby Einstein series. The first few are charming and just a little unpolished. Then Disney bought it out, and produced slick and polished in-the-manner-of videos, as well as a spin-off series, whose only charm is what they borrow from the first ones. Make money or die!)

Just for the Record...

...I hate time changes.

-- SJ

An Addie Sampler

Considering that Addie didn't speak until she was two and a half, her verbal expression has come a long way. She spends most of her time with a book and evidently she retains much of what she reads... both actual quotes, and the general literary flavor. My mother says we need to take away whatever she's been reading because she's starting to sound like Elsie Dinsmore. (I don't think Elsie Dinsmore ever read a children's version of The Odyssey.)

As for the traditional Randomizer remarks, they're rarer now that she can explain her mental associations. But never fear: her mental associations are decidedly random.

Here's a recent sampling of Addie Remarks:

* "I was wishing and wishing to make juice from clementines, and now you generously made my wish come true!"

* "I was going to get the princess, but suddenly the pony caught my eye."

* "When I thought I had to leave Mollie’s, I was in despair. But suddenly, an idea came to me: I could go back tomorrow afternoon! So then I was happy."

* (Rainbow the stuffed rabbit speaking) "I will not let one noise keep even one of Addie’s eyes awake!"

* (Reading a book about Johnny Appleseed): "Mama! I just found out that John Chapman [Johnny Appleseed] was a bookworm! Like our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln! Actually, he was a Bible worm."

* "Little girls who can't watch Polar Express are angry!"

* (When I noticed her eating something): "It's just a biscuit, not poison."

* (Reading a condensed version of Ozma of Oz): "There were as many of Ozma's soldiers as the Books of the New Testament!"

-- SJ

American History According to Stuart

For school this week, we read about Native Americans (sorry for adopting the politically correct term, but it's accurate. And yes, yes, I'm a native American, too, blah blah blah). After looking at the different styles of houses, we made a tipi (as spelled in the history book, but I'm less convinced that it's more accurate) out of newspaper rolls and baby towels. Stuart liked the house, but preferred a weapon, so I made him a spear. Addie wanted one, too.

I made her one, but was compelled to inform them that in that culture, women usually didn't have weapons because they didn't hunt or fight. "What did they do?" Addie asked. I explained that the women made the clothes, cooked the food, and took care of the children.

Stuart grabbed his spear and announced, "I'm an Indian Cyclops!" So much for historical accuracy. He turned to Addie. "Hey, let's go hunt some buffalo. I want some new clothes."

-- SJ

Meditations on “Love Does Not Envy”

What is envy? The dictionary defines it as “a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.” It is one of those “little sins” that can be so devastating, because we don’t realize we’re envious. We tend to excuse it as ambition or desire.

Envy is different from covetousness. If I covet my neighbor’s car, I may take steps to obtain it for my own. If I am envious that he has it, I am unhappy and resentful that he has it. I think it’s often linked to feeling that he doesn’t deserve to have it.

I think that one area envy occurs is when Christians look at other people in the church and say, “I wish I had their life. They don’t have any problems, or if they do, they don’t compare to the problems I have.” For this reason, I think that envy often occurs more in casual relationships than in close friendships. The more that we get to know someone, the more we see the truth.

Thus, one of the evils of envy is that it poisons incipient relationships. If I see my neighbor’s life of ease and feel envy, believing that he does not deserve such, will I make an effort to reach out to him? Probably not.

In the end, then, love does not envy because love is always reaching out, seeking the other person’s good. Envy is self-centered, rejecting the other person's good.

--DJ

Life According to Daphne

+ "I'll be back in just a minute" means that Mama or Daddy is about abandon me alone and by myself, and it is evil.

+ Baby food is evil.

+ Real food is good. Especially real food like potatoes and carrots that have been cooked with sausage. That's REAL good.

+ My brother Stuart is lots of fun at a distance.

+ My brother Stuart never stays at a distance.

+ Bottles are not evil. They are just strange. I can't figure them out. Who needs bottles, anyway?

+ Twila Paris sings to me all night. She is always there, even though I can't see her. She is with us all day, too, until Mama exclaims, "I've been listening to that thing ALL DAY LONG!" and then Twila Paris goes away.

+ My sister Addie sings lovely songs to me, consisting mainly of the words, "Daaaaph-a-neee, Daaph-a-neeee."*

+ Daddy is good.

+ Mama is all-time best of all.

+ Life is good, except when it is evil. But I know how to scream to make it good again.

-- DMJ

* Transcriber's note: The official pronunciation of Daphne's name has only two syllables. We haven't met a child yet who didn't add that third one.

Mythology According to Addie

Every night, I read a couple of Bible stories to the kids. We've been going through Judges recently, and before reading the story of Gideon, I asked Addie if she remembered who Baal was. (I had told them a couple nights before.)

Addie thought for a minute and then said, "Yes. He tried to be the god of the sky, but he was too late. Zeus already was."

--DJ