Mitsumasa Anno, picture book author and illustrator, b. 1926.
Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright, b. 1828. I’ve read several Ibsen plays: A Doll’s House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, An Enemy of the People. He’s fond of pittting an individual against the stifling rules and expectations of society. The individual rebels but is often killed or forced back into the mold. Ibsen saw the problem clearly: individuals must violate their own moral standards or live lives of suffering and mental anguish in order to comply with the expectations of others. Sometimes the individual’s suffering is caused by his own rebellion against what is right. Sometimes society’s rules and norms are actually wrong. Either way, anyone who breaks the rules is destined to experience difficulties at the least, great hardships perhaps. What Ibsen failed to see was that such suffering can have meaning only if it is placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If I decide to violate the unwritten (or written) code of my culture in order to fulfill my own selfish desires, my consequent suffering has no meaning or purpose. I may be an individual, but then I die. If, however, I obey the call of Christ to follow Him whether or not my society approves of my course, then my dificulties and problems have meaning and serve a greater purpose; my suffering is redeemed by a God who has suffered Himself. Suffering in the service of self is meaningless (in spite of all the existentialists say); suffering in the service of Christ is a reflection of the image of God.
Archive | March 2005
March 18th Birthdays
Grover Cleveland, Democrat twice elected President of the United States, b. 1837. He died when Teddy Roosevelt was president in 1908. The most interesting thing I read in his obituary was that, according to his friends, Cleveland died leaving a wife and four young children with not very much money.
“When Mr. Cleveland left the White House the last time, and for many years thereafter,” said one of his intimates yesterday, “he had, together with his wife, about $10,000 a year. His income often worried him exceedingly, especially as he saw his family growing up about him, and knew their future was not as well provided for as he could wish. He would not accept anything from his friends; he was extremely proud on that score, but those who know him best knew that his circumstances worried him not a little.”
Can you imagine an ex-president in this day and time becoming impoverished–or even “worried about his income”? Apparently, presidential retirement is much more lucrative than it used to be. I’ve read stories of Grant feverishly finishing his memoirs on his deathbed in order to provide for his family or his widow when he was gone.
Wilfred Owen, World War I poet, b. 1893. He was a friend of Siegfried Sassoon. Unfortunately, while Sassoon survived the war, Owen died seven days before the end of WW I in November, 1918.
St. Patrick’s Breastplate, or The Lorica
This powerful poem/prayer of blessing and invocation is supposed to have been composed by St. Patrick himself both in Latin and in Gaelic. This version is one translation that I found here.
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.
I arise today through the strength of Christ with His Baptism,
through the strength of His Crucifixion with His Burial
through the strength of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
through the strength of His descent for the Judgment of Doom.
I arise today through the strength of the love of Cherubim
in obedience of Angels, in the service of the Archangels,
in hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
in prayers of Patriarchs, in predictions of Prophets,
in preachings of Apostles, in faiths of Confessors,
in innocence of Holy Virgins, in deeds of righteous men.
I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendour of Fire,
speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.
I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to secure me:
against snares of devils, against temptations of vices, against inclinations of nature, against everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and anear, alone and in a crowd.
I summon today all these powers between me (and these evils):
against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul,
against incantations of false prophets,
against black laws of heathenry,
against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry,
against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
against every knowledge that endangers man’s body and soul.
Christ to protect me today against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so that there may come abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right,
Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length,
Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.
Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of Christ. May Thy Salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.
A Few (shorter) Irish Blessings for St. Patrick’s Day
May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept youMay you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door.
May there be a generation of children
On the children of your children.May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children,
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.May those who love us, love us
And those who don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts
And if he can’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles
So we will know them by their limping!
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
What if airplanes had never been invented? What if all the technological innovation of the early 20th century had gone into perfecting air travel in huge airships kept aloft by a gas called hydrium that was even lighter than hydrogen?
In Kenneth Oppel’s alternative history Airborn, the Aurora is just such an airship, larger and more luxurious than the Titanic. And Matt is a cabin boy on the Aurora. He has no fear of heights and feels he was born to fly an airship, particularly the Aurora, his home. As the novel begins, Matt’s airship encounters a hot air balloon and its pilot on a trip to circumnavigate the globe. However, the balloon is in distress, and Matt must rescue the pilot at the risk of his own life.
This rescue is just the beginning of Matt’s adventures. He and his friend Kate search for an almost mythical creature, explore an island, and fight air pirates–while attempting to remain just friends. The book was sheer fun and adventure, with a little romance thrown in, and a satisfying ending.
El cuerpo (corpus)
Computer Guru’s Latin teacher sent this list of body parts in five Romance languages: Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Eldest Daughter and I share an interest in languages, particularly Romance languages and English. Can you figure out what each of the twenty-five terms is in English? And if you can, is it because you know one of the languages or because of the English cognates for many of these words for parts of the human body?
1. auris oreille oreja orelha orecchio
2. bracchium bras brazo braco braccio
3. capillus cheveux cabello cabelo capelli
4. caput tete cabeza cabeca testa
5. cerebrum cervelle cerebro cerebro cervello
6. collum cou cuello pescoco collo
7. cor coeur corazon calcanhar cuore
8. crus jambe pierna perna gamba
9. dens dent diente dente dente
10. digitus doigt dedo dedo dito
11. frons front frente testa fronte
12. gena joue mejilla face guancia
13. iecur foie higado figado fegato
14, labrum levre labio labio labbro
15. manus main mano mao mano
16. nasus nez nariz nariz naso
17. oculus oeil ojo olho occhio
18 os os hueso osso osso
19. pectus poitrine pecho peito petto
20. pes pied pie pe piede
21. pulmo poumon pulmon pulmao polmone
22. sanguis sang sangre sangue sangue
23. umerus epaule hombro hombbro spalla
24. vena veine vena veia vena
25. venter estomac estomago estomago stomaco
I think I know all of them except #13, but that’s because I speak Spanish. I’ve seen the word higado, but I can’t remember what it means. Nor can I guess from the words in the other languages.
March 14th Birthdays
Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnesy, English poet, b 1844.
Albert Einstein, scientist, b. 1879. This year is the centennial of Einstein’s “Annus Mirabilis,” his miracle year of 1905, during which he created the Special Theory of Relativity and the quantum theory of light, explained in one paper Brownian motion and in another how to determine the size of atoms or molecules in space, and extended the theory of relativity to include the famous equation E-mc squared. He did all this while working forty hours a week in a patent office. I don’t have a clue what any of these discoveries really mean, but I’m impressed with the Einstein miracle.
“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism have brought me to my ideas.” Albert Einstein
Marguerite DeAngeli, author of 1950’s Newbery-award winning book, The Door in the Wall, b. 1889. In this favorite quote from The Door in the Wall, Brother Matthew is speaking to Robin, a boy who has been crippled probably by polio:
“Whether thou’lt walk soon I know not. This I know. We must teach thy hands to be skillful in many ways, and we must teach thy mind to go about whether thy legs will carry thee or no. For reading is another door in the wall, dost understand, my son?”
Bored–Nothing To Do
Spring break hasn’t even started yet, and one of the urchins is already worried about being bored. While I’m tempted to bop her over the head, I promised instead to make her a list of 100 things to do. Here’s the list. Feel free to use it to amuse and stimulate your bored urchin.
1. Read a book and write about it on your blog.
2. Bake a cake or some cookies and give them away.
3. Help Bee with her scrapbook.
4. Organize all the pictures you’ve taken with your digital camera into a scrapbook on the computer. (iPhoto?)
5. Sweep the porch or the driveway.
6. Plant the flowers in the flower bed around the tree in the front yard.
7. Go to the bookstore with your sister.
8. Help Bear clean and rearrange her room.
9. Read to Z-baby.
10. Send postcards to all your friends telling them how much they mean to you.
11. Write a real letter to your grandmother or to your aunt or to your cousin.
12. Take a photograph for each letter of the alphabet and make Z-baby an alphabet book.
13. Take someone with you and go for a walk.
14. Make a list of 100 random things about you: books you like, clothes you wear, things you’ve done, things you want to do, etc.
15. Draw a picture of something beautiful and give it to someone, or frame it and put it on your wall.
16. Plan a meal and make it for the family.
17. Write someone’s name at the top of a piece of paper. List all the ways you can think of to bless that person.
18. Rearrange and clean out your bookshelf.
19. Make a pillow for someone you love.
20. Write a poem every hour for a whole day–12 poems. Share them with someone you love or post them on your blog.
21. Make a list of every person you know and beside each name write at least one good thing about each person.
22. Find your favorite poem. Read it out loud twice a day until you have it memorized.
23. Read Psalms all the way through.
24. Find a place where you can be alone and pray for 15 minutes. Can’t make it for 15 minutes? Try 10. Try 5 minutes.
25. Go for a whole day without speaking. Can you do it? What do you learn by not talking?
26. Write a letter to yourself to be opened at your high school graduation. Tell yourself what you would like to be doing when you are eighteen.
27. Tell knock-knock jokes with Z-baby.
28. Make jello.
29. Put on some music and dance with your sisters.
30. Choose a drawer and clean it out.
31. Learn how to say “I love you” in ten languages and make a card for someone using the languages.
32. Help Karate Kid plan his birthday.
33. Try not to think about polar bears.
34. Comment on 20 people’s blogs.
35. Play cards (Alligator) with Bee.
36. Daydream.
37. Paint your nails.
38. Do 25 crunches.
39. Play SET on the computer.
40. Make brownies.
41, Update your calendar.
42. Jump on the trampoline.
43. Call a friend on the phone.
44. Find something that’s lost.
45. Play dominoes.
46. Drink nine glasses of water in one day.
47. Put lotion on your feet and then wash someone else’s feet and put lotion on them.
48. Turn your mattress over.
49. Clean out a flowerbed and buy some seeds to plant in it.
50. Tell somebody a joke.
51. Sort out our photographs. Have an envelope for each person in our family and and envelope for groups.
52. Match all the socks in the sock basket.
53. Ask Daddy to give you all his shirts that are missing buttons. Sew buttons on them.
54. Write 100 words in a journal or blog every day–no more, no less.
55. Give every person in the house a hug.
56. Listen to someone else’s music.
57. Learn to play a musical instrument.
58. Eat so much junk food that you’re sick of it.
59. 27 fling boogie.
60. 27 give away boogie.
61. Brush your hair 100 strokes. Brush someone else’s hair 100 strokes.
62. Take a long hot bath.
63. Do a math lesson.
64. Read the encyclopedia.
65. Color in a coloring book with your little sister.
66. Ask a neighbor if you can do something to help her in her house.
67. Write a story.
68. Read the jokes in the old Reader’s Digests and tell one to someone else.
69. Watch one of the movies on Semicolon’s 105 Best Movies list that you’ve never seen.
70. Scratch someone else’s back.
71. Rake up all the pine needles in the backyard.
72. Make funny faces.
73. Clean all the writing off the windows in the gameroom.
74. Find a way to display our collection of buttons.
75. Find a new word in the dictionary and use it in conversation at least 5 times today.
76. Go outside with a piece of chalk and write something encouraging on the sidewalk–in ten different places.
77. Send a thank you note to someone who’s done something for you.
78. Wash and dry all the comforters in the house.
79. Walk around the couch and tell yourself stories.
80. Videotape the younger children doing a show or a play.
81. Clean out the van.
82. Organize the pantry.
83. Doodle on the whiteboard.
84. Read a short book of the Bible out loud all the way through.
85. Pray for ten people who need your prayers.
86. Write something in all the other children’s blank books.
87. Paint a picture.
88. Play with make-up.
89. Make milkshakes or smoothies for the family.
90. Teach Bee to play hopscotch.
91. Learn calligraphy.
92. Make a collage.
93. Find your “life verse,” the Bible verse that God is giving you to help you see His purpose in your life.
94. Think of something you want someone to do for you. Do that thing for someone else.
95. Do something kind for someone for free–in Jesus’ name.
96. Read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). Use your camera to take one picture to illustrate each Beatitude. Or take pictures to illustrate one of the psalms.
97. Read a magazine.
98. Get Karate Kid to teach you some martial arts moves.
99. Sing a hymn out loud.
100. Sing all the songs from your favorite movie musical.
I told the bored urchin that she should do something for someone else when she’s feeling bored, but this idea didn’t go over too well. So I tried to make my list to be fun and reflect that idea. Maybe some concrete examples will help. I do believe my children spend way too much time worrying about how to entertain themselves, and that goal invites boredom. Joy really is found in service, but it’s a hard lesson to learn. (It’s also a hard lesson for me to model sometimes since I tend to be as self-centered and entertainment-seeking as the next person.)
Some of these ideas, by the way, were loosely based on ideas found at a site called 52 Projects.
March 13th Birthday
Ellen Raskin, author of Newbery Award winning book The Westing Game, b. 1928.
“When she was asked to name those people and experiences that most affected her work, she listed “Blake, Conrad, Hawthorne, James, Nabokov, Piero della Francesca, Calude Lorrain, Gaugin, Matisse, Fantasia, Oriental art, baseball. hockey, zoos, medicine, and Spain,” in a Top of the News interview published in June, 1972.”
What would your answer to this rather open-ended question be? What are the people and experiences (and I would add , books) that most affect(ed) your work?
My list (in no particular order): The Bible, growing up Southern Baptist, libraries and librarians, Texas, my mother, my grandmother, C.S. Lewis, Lottie Moon, working as a summer missionary, Dr. Huff, Mary Pride, marrying Engineer Husband, homeschooling, Growing Without Schooling magazine, WORLD magazine, Agatha Christie, reading lots of books, Julia, goodness this list could go on for quite some time, couldn’t it? And my list isn’t nearly as impressive as Ms. Raskin’s, is it? Oh, well . . .
First Five Movie Quotes
I’ve seen this game/meme elsewhere. What are the first five movie quotes that come to mind?
1. He also made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure.
2. I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.
3. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.
4. I’d rather kiss a Wookie.
5. But it is not this day. Today we fight.
Easy, I know. But can you name the movies?