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The song “Teardrop” by Massive Attack begins with these two lines:

“Love, love is a verb

Love is a doing word”

You may recognize this tune as the theme song for the medical drama “House.” Unfortunately, the show only uses the instrumental portion of the song, but the lyrics, in my opinion, are as good as the music.

And it was this song which was repeating through my head last week, as I received the call that my grandmother had passed away.  I, along with my husband and parents, sat with her for just a few moments before other family and clergy arrived. Free of pain at long last, she laid there no longer plagued by her struggling mind, her withering body. The noisy oxygen machine had been silenced and removed.  Her roommate had been taken out for the morning.  The sun invaded the right side of her bed from the nearby window.  Out of sheer habit, I kept waiting for her chest to rise.  I swallowed my panic when it didn’t. As I sat there and the minutes swiftly rolled past me, I had a feeling that this moment, one filled with utter sadness and solemnity, would be remembered as a sacred one.  A body with the spirit newly liberated.  That was all she was now.  I was beginning to realize that I didn’t recognize her, not as I had known her my whole life.  There was no smile on her face, her hands were inert.  The glow was absent.

She isn’t here anymore. She left.  She’s gone.

Even when you expect it, it still stings when it occurs.  The hole her absence creates is still a painful vacuum. We can fill it with whatever we want, but they are poor substitutes.  For me, that is an incredibly sad realization.  All of a sudden, gifts she gave me before she was ill, time we spent together, stories she told me, all had a deep and abiding significance.  She is all that can replace this emptiness…and she is not here to replace it. That was what hurt so much in the first few days.   A matriarch, a pillar of support for my entire life, had collapsed.  Although dementia robbed her of so many things, it robbed us of her essence.  She was not the same as she was.  She was a shell, a vacant and lonely cocoon with her passion and personality stripped away.  But at least I had something of my grandmother.  It wasn’t completely “her”, but I had this tiny body suffering and medicated. For a time, that was enough for my heart and my confidence.

But as she declined, we all knew what was approaching. My father is a diligent son.  He and my Mom visited her several times a week during meal time and fed her small portions of pureed food on the tip of a spoon.  Gentle hands carried some form of nourishment to obedient, tired lips.  She would be heavily medicated but she would still assist  him as best she could.  One day, she cupped his hand next to her cheek.  The last time I saw her awake, she waved a frail hand of goodbye to Mom and me.  My parents worked for many months to make the transition to the nursing home a comfortable one for her, and had visited her often.

This is what love is. Love is disguised as so many things in our culture. Every day, I listen to teenagers confuse it for lust.  Society tells us to pursue it at all costs, but can’t really define it (Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy, right?). The world strives for the height of ecstasy, for butterflies in the stomach.  But butterflies are privy to get tangled in nets. As C.S. Lewis once stated, it is very dangerous to capture an impulse and set it up as “the thing you ought to follow at all costs”.  Love, through the world’s lens, is often an embellished, fictionalized emotion.

But love is much tougher than that. Love is hard sometimes. Real love is unconditional. Love is sitting in a nursing home with your ailing mother.  Love is cleaning out her home.  Love is giving your wife a cup of cold water at the funeral because she needs it and she’s too overcome with grief to get it herself.  Love is compromise.  Love is sometimes inconvenient.  Love endures heartache.  Love is taking from yourself and giving to others, without regret.   Massive Attack had it right: love is a doing word. Your hands reveal your heart.  In the days after her passing, I began to ponder the evidence of her enormous love, and furthermore, the extravagant love our Father has for us. The night is dark, but joy comes in the morning.  Every time I become tearful, He whispers that promise to me again.

As the healing begins for us, I am learning new aspects about life. Death has a way of instructing us. Through it, you can understand eternity much better.  And maybe, just maybe, you can improve your life by accepting the fact that life is finite – a vapor, a blade of grass.  With this knowledge, we can become better people and attempt to fill the shoes of the “giants” who trained us.

1.       Invest time where it matters.  Let’s face it, there are unhealthy people out there. I don’t mean from an exclusively spiritual stance.  Some people want to use you, to take up your time, to encourage heartache, even if they intended well.  There have been times in my life where, to impress someone who perhaps didn’t care, I have let others who genuinely loved me down.  But not now.  I only focus my time and energy into people I feel truly care about me. I don’t chase acceptance anymore, especially after reading Lewis’s “The Inner Ring” (great essay!). I want to be found a “craftsman” and find myself in the company of other “craftsmen”.  I do the work that God gives me to do.  I walk the path on which He is leading me. I have people surrounding me who genuinely care for me as I care for them. That is love, and that is enough.

2.       Embrace your leadership role in life .  As I age, I begin to understand that my role in life transitions from passive to active. I was so scared that my matriarch was gone, concerned that I couldn’t be the kind of person she was.   But there are people out there who need good leadership, and we need to be leaders.  I remember going to Target last Monday night and being so heartbroken.  Then I looked around to see others, busy with their lists, pushing buggies full of kids, and scurrying between sections.  I stumbled upon the realization: yes, my grandmother is gone but these people aren’t.  Those who survive must guide.  The world needs us, our children need us. If I honestly want to honor my grandmother’s memory, I will strive to be the person she was for others.  My generation needs to accept our leadership roles in society.  We should exercise our influence. Whether it is as a parent, a coach, a teacher, a mentor, we must understand that God is preparing us to take the reins one day. We need to muster the strength our predecessors provided for us and lead.

3.       Laugh often and love often. Be happy.  Don’t live your life in the realm of “what if”.   Create radical dreams and passionately pursue them.  Be relentless about your life. Last night, my husband and I booked our flights to Europe, where we are going for nine days this summer.  While I’m there, I’m going to meet up with kindred spirits, have new adventures, and even chase my ancestors.  I will take pictures and collect stories.  I will dwell in joy.  While the blood runs through my veins, I will live, I will love, and I will thrive.  There will be a day (hopefully a long time from now) when I will be buried among my family.  Until then, I will unapologetically drink life to the dregs.

It’s a great paradox, but one that continually rings true: dying has taught me to live.

*image courtesy of Shyduck

Bertie Love, Requiescat in Pace

This morning, my loving, tenacious, passionate grandmother passed away in the rest home. I recently wrote about her in a blog titled, “On the Shoulders of Giants”. Grief prevents me from writing much now, so I will borrow the poignant words of Frederick Buechner:

“How they do live on, those giants of our childhood, and how well they manage to take even death in their stride because although death can put an end to them right enough, it can never put an end to our relationship with them.  Wherever or however else they may have come to life since, it is beyond a doubt that they live still in us. Memory is more than a looking back to a time that is not longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that is in it still.  The people we loved.  The people who loved us. The people who, for good or ill, taught us things. Dead and gone though they may be, as we come to understand them in new ways, it is as though they come to understand us – and through them we come to understand ourselves – in new ways too.  Who knows what ‘the communion of saints’ means, but surely it means more than just that we are all of us haunted by ghosts because they are not ghosts, these people we once knew, not just echoes of voices that have years since ceased to speak, but saints in the sense that through them something of the power and richness of life itself not only touched us once long ago, but continues to touch us. They have their own business to get on with now, I assume – ‘increasing in knowledge and love of Thee,’ says the Book of Common Prayer, and moving ‘from strength to strength,’ which sounds like business enough for anybody – and one imagines all of us on this shore fading for them as they journey ahead toward whatever new shore may await them; but it is as if they carry something of us on their way as we assuredly carry something of them on ours. That is perhaps why to think of them is a matter not only of remembering them as they used to be but of seeing and hearing them as in some sense they are now”

– The Sacred Journey, pages 21-22 (emphasis added)

I wasn’t supposed to be a writer.  I was supposed to be a singer.

Since my childhood, people have complimented my singing voice.  My father is a prodigious bass, his notes resonating power and clinging to the bottom of the measures.  I grew up watching him sing in church and when I had reached appropriate age, I began singing in the youth choir. Church ladies oogled over me.  “My, that child has such a pretty voice,” they would remark. I earned the position of Mama Bear in the first grade presentation of The Three Bears because the music teacher enjoyed my stirring rendition of “I’m cooking in the kitchen, I’m cooking in the kitchen, I’m cooking in the kitchen for Father Bear…for Baby Bear.”

In middle and high school, I joined the choir and quickly discovered my lofty falsetto and a seat in the soprano section.  As my adolescence progressed, I achieved spots in District and State choirs. I competed in singing competitions warbling Italian arias.  I studied with a renowned vocal coach.

Singing was always my identity.

But it was not to be. Instead of packing my dreams in a suitcase and heading to Nashville, I went to college instead. Initially, I attempted to study Elementary Education. However, I changed my mind and minored in Music. I soon realized that dissecting notes robbed me of the mysterious joy of music. I was forced to take singing lessons which were difficult to juggle with classwork. I eventually changed to Sociology.  That lasted for a semester, until a classmate complained that all of the professors in the department “drove crappy cars.” My nineteen-year-old brain with its *adept* reasoning skills hoisted the red flag of impending poverty and I switched majors again.

It just so happened that an upperclassmen who usually gave me a lift home for breaks was an English major; she was particularly interested in journalism.  When I confided in her about my “major” dilemma, she responded that she took English courses because she “looked in the catalog and was genuinely interested in the classes.”  Hmmm.  Seems simple enough. I grew up reading, since I was an only child.  I crept alongside Nancy Drew when she checked out that creepy woodshed, with just a simple flashlight and her courage.  I also read plenty of Archie comics, chuckling at how Jughead always loved those burgers (but yet somehow was still skinny as a rail) and hoping Archie would pick Betty because I thought Veronica was too high-maintenance.  As a teenager, I loved My Antonia and The Scarlet Letter.  For me, reading was as natural as breathing.  Out of options and nearly out of time, I eventually considered an English major a safe bet.

The following semester was my sophomore year and also the point in which one officially declares a major.  I gulped, prayed, and signed up for two upper-level English courses. I launched into the English abyss with renewed hope and enthusiasm.  One class, an American Literature course, required us to read selections of A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Douglass, like myself, had not grown up in affluence but he knew what I knew, that education would provide me with a world of opportunity.  Education does not simply equip you with a piece of paper, but rather an altered state of mind, a sharpened consciousness of the world, a fresh understanding of the patterns buried beneath our existence. The professor prompted us to write about how Douglass escaped slavery.  I wrote up a short piece on how education freed Douglass from both physical and intellectual captivity. The next week, the professor stood in front of our class, mainly composed of lethargic sophomores, and read a piece.  After a couple of sentences, the work sounded vaguely familiar.  Oh crap, I thought, she’s reading my paper!   For the first time in two years of college academics, I felt validated.  I experienced the great ecstasy that I am where I should be, where God wanted me. Finally.

I now had the means to tell my story.

I wish I could tell you that I warmed quickly to writing, but I didn’t.  I continued to pursue music.  After two albums and two different auditions with record executives which did not produce any options, I came to the painful conclusion that it was not going to happen for me. At that point, I was a graduate student in English (Yeah, I know – I’m not great at acknowledging the obvious). By then, I had matured mentally and emotionally, and both aspects were blossoming in my sparse and feeble attempts at writing. But I continued doing it clandestinely – scribbling song lyrics or reflections on life in various notebooks. I never considered it anything other than a means to an end.  I didn’t see it as an experience that fundamentally changes you.  Documenting life has a charming quality about it, but unfortunately, the portrait was splintered and fragmented. I had only written when I was upset.  What a shame that I had overshadowed such fond memories with recordings of the darker moments. I had a good life, and absolutely nothing to complain about. With this observation, I attempted to write with more frequency.  However, I didn’t always do it; it still remained more of an anesthetic than a chronicle.

Last year, when I finished an eight-month writing marathon to complete my dissertation, I finished and breathed a sigh of relief…then a sigh of boredom.  I felt this nagging vacancy in myself.  I didn’t have to write anymore, if I didn’t want to, but I did want to. No, I HAD to. Other people said they liked my writing. My dissertation editor admitted that it was hard to edit, because she enjoyed reading it so much. My committee liked my draft. So now what?

So I start a blog last May.  I write about my loving husband, my dogs, my love of C.S. Lewis, the importance of good leadership, insightful books. And people started reading that.  I was completely astonished. I was back in sophomore English again with God granting me the reassurance that I am home.

The knot was firmly tied when I met poet and head Muse Kelly Belmonte.  I’ll admit I was a little ambivalent about this writing business, until I began a correspondence with her. She challenged me to write (and not just when I’m angry), she introduced me to a multitude of other talented writers, poets, and Muses, and she consistently encouraged me. She has a rare and wonderful gift of bringing out the best in people.  That was it.  I was smitten.  Smitten with words.  Infatuated with sounds.  Allured by alliteration. Crippled and awed by the power of verses and life-altering passages. I wanted to stretch vocabulary and imagery to its limits and create. I think I’m ready now. After all of this time, I’m finally ready to get serious about writing.

Writing is a strong thread that runs through the tapestry of my life. I enjoy it, I wrestle with it, I hate it, I love it.  It pushes me and sometimes I push back, because I am stubborn. But in the end, it always wins. My excuse for everything in life is, “I would but I have to write”; I’ve personified it into a tyrannical slavemaster. But it’s absence is far more hazardous. If I don’t write, I’m like an addict detoxing; I am angry, upset, and chronically discontent with the world.  I seriously go into a funk. It’s an easy diagnosis, quickly cured by writing for a few minutes in my journal or prepping to write a blog (or reading great writing). Writing is like therapy. It may hurt sometimes, but it ultimately heals. I call my office/library “The Womb” because it is where I create. Do I sometimes experience labor pains?  Do I groan in my expectancy?  Yes, but I know the product is something I’ll be proud of.  And spilling out your guts is very cathartic. That’s a nice conclusion.  To read and enjoy and reciprocate by creating yourself.

That is why, dear friends, it is important to share your story.  You never know when a truth you utter will resonate with someone else.  I have often thought, What if C.S. Lewis had decided not to write? What if he had decided to just be a quiet don and keep his faith private, for convenience?  It would have forever changed the direction of so many lives, lives altered by reading Lewis’s work.  He spoke up and the world profited.  How many are waiting to hear your story?  How many chains will you loose with your words?  How many spirits will your sentences lift for someone else (or even yourself)?

The world is waiting…

The Bible tells us that David danced in front of the Ark of the Covenant, but the authors unfortunately do not provide us with further specifics.  Did he do the Jelly Roll?  The Electric Slide?  The Window Washer?  Did he cry out, in the midst of his rejoicing, Oh Lord, wilt thou teach me how to Dougie??

I love to dance.  The problem is I can’t. I am a consummate book worm.  I have two left feet.  I lack that precious skill called “swagger.”  So I gave up the dream of wearing those cool parachute pants and moving gracefully across a stage behind a rap star. At some point, we all have give up the dreams we know are not ours. If a man can do nothing but create stick figures, Thomas-Kincade style landscapes and majestic portraits are out of the question.

However, not all dreams crash and burn so easily.  I secretly get to indulge my fantasy through the gift of virtual reality (which can, ironically, have realistic implications).  It all started when I noticed that I needed to lose some weight…

Back during graduate school (Master’s), I noticed I was developing a “little belly” from the late night eating binges and added stress. My pants were getting tighter but I ignored it and continued eating the package of Oreos and Soft Batch cookies. AND, I can’t forget about those awesome crème-filled cupcakes with swirls on top.  A ravenous appetite is one of the unforeseen side effects of graduate school.   And with tackling a mile-long reading list and an arduous thesis to write, who has time for exercise? Hey, Heart of Darkness isn’t going to read itself.  My metabolism had slowed to a crawl, like a creeping-through-the-desert-with-no-water-and-the-sun-beating-on-your-back crawl. Finally, in 2009, I had a bit of a wake-up call.  At 53, my father had quadruple bypass surgery.  Then I discovered that heart disease was rampant in both branches of my family.  In essence, I was a genetic bulls-eye.  I decided that year that I would begin a fitness regimen, reclaim my old body, and hopefully prevent (or at least postpone) any future heart issues. Besides, in my supreme negligence, the “little belly” had grown unchecked and eventually expanded to my hips.  I was nearly 40 pounds heavier. My husband’s co-worker even asked if I was pregnant.  I quickly and shamefully reassured her that I wasn’t. Instead of dropping the topic, she fumbled headlong into an inconvenient (and somewhat embarrassing) argument.  “Oh sure she is,” the girl sternly replied, unaware of the impropriety of such comments.  The fact that I had to convince someone else that I was NOT pregnant was enough to challenge my previous apathy and fuel determination for real change.

Because I had no money to join a gym (I already said I was a graduate student, right?), I purchased the Nintendo Wii and lost 23 pounds.  I was in shape, feeling better, eating better.  Then 2011 happened. My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer all while I was reading and later writing for my dissertation.  Everything went out the window.  I ate all the unhealthy crap again, out of stress and depression. By the end of that year, I had gained all but one pound back.

Then I saw a commercial for Zumba.  I had heard great things about the program.  Basically, women dance and incinerate calories. Health magazine claimed that women could potentially lose 1100 calories in an hour. Best of all, you didn’t have to know how to dance. Sign me up.

Many friends encouraged me to attend a local class, but there was no way I was going in front of God and everyone (some of them equipped with camera phones and accounts for YouTube) to humiliate myself.  I had no desire to enter a room full of relative strangers and shake what my Momma gave me. I’m sure if I truly attempted to shake it, it would be incredibly awkward or I would possibly break something. Instead, I elected to buy the Kinect game.  It turned out to be the best fitness decision I made.  The mid-length class passed quickly because I was more concerned about getting the steps right (and all while having fun). I was burning 1000 calories a session. Thanks to that game paired with a diet of salmon sandwiches, I lost enough weight to not scare people off the beach when I went to Key West last summer. The rigor of the class and a balanced diet were helping me shed pounds and get my old body back.

However, the main reason why I adore Zumba is that it taps into an old desire of mine – my hopes of becoming a hip hop dancer.  That’s right, this book nerd wanted to be a “fly girl” on In Living Color. When I was younger and my parents left the house to run errands, I would put on headphones, pop in a CD of “No Diggity” and flail around the house like those crazy arm balloons you see at used car lots. For me, it was liberating to dance and, you know, not suffer extreme social isolation.  Who wants to wear a scarlet NS on their chest (“No Skills”)?

The main problem is that my body is rather stiff.  My knees are nearly always locked and my hips cannot operate independently of my trunk and legs. Therefore, if I attempt to swing my hips, the rest of my body follows without avail. It’s like watching a rag doll being pulled by her belt into a tornado. Instead of moving hips seductively like Elvis, I’m having some sort of seizure which (instead of mesmerizing them) prompts people to call the paramedics. My elbows, in frustrating contrast, never lock. They have some sort of perpetual bend which makes a powerful fist thrust look like a knobby tree branch. Form is definitely not my forte. Another great benefit to the Zumba game is that you are only 2-3 inches tall; the screen is dominated by virtual dancers.  That way, you think you are casting some sort of erotic spell with your movements (a la Sucker Punch), until you glance at the left corner and see this corny figure clumsily beating the air with her fist and twirling like a lunatic.

Nonetheless, I am beginning to get the hip movements. You won’t see me on So You Think You Can Dance? anytime soon, but my body is slowly beginning to obey what my mind dictates.  I enjoy my morning workouts (finally) and my clothes are fitting better.

So in the fortress of my living room, in front of a T.V. and sofa that won’t mock me, I surreptitiously spin and stomp my pounds away.  It’s not graceful, it’s not pretty, but it’s progress. And somewhere deep down, the fly girl who wants to break out some mad grooves smiles in satisfaction. Don’t ask her to come out in public or “in da club” though.  Seriously don’t.  I’m not that confident.  If you want real dancing, watch the video below.

I contemplated writing a blog about Christmas or tackling a challenge for the new year but last night changed all of that.

Several months ago, I wrote “Moving: Ends, Beginnings, and Continuums” about preparing my grandmother’s home for sale.  Earlier this year, she was moved from her three acres of rural bliss to a modest room in a local retirement home.  Dementia has slowly diminished her mind.  The spark in her eyes was replaced by an unsettling vacancy.  When it first began, she would have glimpses of confusion and episodes of disillusionment (a rare occurrence for a typically jovial woman).  She was well-known as a boisterous and friendly lady, a gentle soul.  I remember fondly her laugh, a full-throated cackle saturated with happiness and joy. During my childhood, my cousin Joey would push me around my grandmother’s property in a wheelbarrow.

Together, we would explore the vast wilderness of her land: the mysterious woods, the brambles and thorn bushes, the old well.  It was an ecstasy of the senses – the blackberries were slightly sour on my tongue, mornings began with the shrill repetition of a rooster, the texture of tomatoes was slick and smooth as we pulled them from the Earth.  Her small garden patch produced a variety of vegetation, and I will always remember her posture, her slow and methodical pace as she visited each plant, inspected its progress, and gently pulled it from the stem if it was ripe. The sun flooded the valley as she would go, a bag of produce swinging freely on her arm. She would also attend to the chicken coop, where several nests revealed new eggs nearly every morning.  The eggs were freshly laid, feathers on their delicate shells.  Several eggs were brown or speckled and as a child, I remember thinking (rather erroneously) that they were not as “clean” as the white ones we sometimes purchased at the store.  Ultimately, she had tamed her small corner of the Virginia wilderness and worked it with her hands, her sweat. It was something of great pride, her carrying on of the agrarian tradition of her ancestors.

Those are the memories I invoke as I sit in her quiet room at the retirement home.  Nearly two months ago, my family sold the property in order to meet her financial requirements. Now, nearly conquered by dementia, she sleeps uncomfortably in a small bed. She has learned to tune out the dull roar of the oxygen machine and the occasional groans of other patients. After practice, she can easily ignore such cacophony. A small shelf and television display moments of her life, memories stolen over the last few years by a tyrannous disease. Her fingers (she was once employed as a seamstress) now curl idly beneath her blanket, rising only to scratch an itch or pull the sheet closer to her chin.

Last night, I visited with her while my parents met with Hospice. The doctors believe she only has months left and have asked my father to make the proper arrangements.  While my parents met with the nurse, I casually watched her and spoke softly to her, as my father and mother have done during her stay at the home.  Her rest was rather inconsistent, periods of dozing interrupted by uncomfortable squirming. Her food arrived, pureed into three distinct portions.  She stirred when the nurse entered. I arose from the chair and carefully began to feed her dollop-sized portions on the tip of a spoon (as my father has done).  Obediently, she would open her lips to welcome it. After a few bites, she rested.  I sat in the chair near her bed and quietly wept. How many times has she fed me over my lifetime?  I couldn’t resist the urge to contrast this quiet, tiny woman with the larger-than-life matriarch I knew. In all her current frailty, did the nurses know how she used to be?  Strong, independent, self-assured, generous, loving.  As evening filled the window, she quietly ate her food and sipped her milk. How many more evenings does she have?  And is it selfish for me to want her to stay when she endures so much pain, locked in a tired body with an untrustworthy mind?

Even as I watch her silently struggle, I cannot help but feel some sense of hope, even in the utter despair one often sees in a rest home. There is something reassuring in those well-known words from the Bible: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith”.  It is warm and comforting, after the long and arduous journey,  to collapse into the Father’s arms when you are tired from buffeting the storms of life. Power lies in those words, an exhalation of relief.  I ran my first 5K this year, and when I crossed the finish line, I could not describe the elation I felt. I hope that for her, it is the same.

Regardless of when she returns Home, I refuse to summon up these fresh images.  I prefer the old ones, the familiar ones. I want to remember her in all her glory: bent over her tomato plants as the morning sun streaks through tree branches or sitting contentedly in her pew at church highlighting pertinent verses in her Bible. Part of me wants to write her as a character one day, resurrecting that part of her I so admire (and honestly mourn).  She is passionately alive, in all her color and vitality, in my memory.  That is how she will remain for the rest of my life. I aspire to be like her, to have her fierce determination, her indomitable strength, her enduring faith. I know when I finally pass from these Shadowlands, I will find her again.  I will find her just as I remember and all will be restored.

I don’t want to get preachy, but as we welcome in the new year tonight, please spend time with those you love. Understand that time is finite, and we are never guaranteed the next moment. I am not attempting to recycle old clichés, but enduring wisdom still has resonance today. You succeed because you stand on the shoulders of giants (as C.S. Lewis once wrote).  Even when those giants begin to atrophy, be grateful.  Hoist them up with the strength they inspired you to have.

I wish each of you a very happy new year!

 In J.R.R. Tolkein’s story “Smith of Wooten Major”** the village cook Alf is preparing to bake a grand cake for a Feast of Twenty-Four, a children’s feast celebrated once every twenty-four years and celebrated by twenty-four selected children.  A bit of a novice and quite nervous about the feast, Alf searches his kitchen for small treasures to place inside the cake.  While pillaging through his shelves, he remembers a strange black box left by his predecessor.  After he discovers it on a high shelf, Alf lifts the weathered lid to find a small star, “made of silver but…tarnished”.  Alf’s apprentice, Nokes, informs him that the star is indeed special – it is a “fay”, a star hailing from Faery. Alf ignores Nokes and places it in the cake, where a boy named “Smithson” nearly swallows it. Smithson, perplexed by the peculiar object on his tongue, spits the star out and places it on his forehead, where it stays throughout his life. He realizes that the star grants him unparalleled access to the Faery world.   Smithson (later called “Smith”) could visit the Faery world and return to a time of magic and wonder.  Smithson becomes a successful craftsman, wielding iron into beautiful shapes inspired by the images he sees in another reality. Smithson, as an adult, sometimes escapes into the Faery world, deep into an enchanted wood.  His adventure and interest into another world never ceases.

But who put something in my cake?   

As an only child, I escaped into distant lands via storybooks.  My parents read to me as a child, and I longed to drift into these magical worlds.  There was something charming about the escape. I had a wonderful childhood and stories only enhanced these experiences.

As I matured, I didn’t want to completely relinquish these stories. I enjoyed them but let’s be honest, it is completely uncool to discuss simple “kid” stories in college, with the analytical minds of the undergraduate English department. I couldn’t tell my English major friends, who had their heads down in a volume of Dostoyevsky, that there was still a twinge of delight at the old enchanted tales.   I read the required reading, usually darker novels; I was especially fond of the moderns.  I wanted pain.  I wanted anguish.  I wanted a complete dismantling of the old paradigms.  “Do I dare disturb the universe?” T.S. Eliot asked.  Disturb? I wanted a whole new order to sweep in and lay waste to the old traditions. I wanted to tear down the ivory towers of optimism and view humanity in all its brokenness.  The uglier, the better. I began to perceive optimistic works as juvenile. A modern mind would surely embrace the darker subjects (a rather “priggish” way to approach literature, I might add). I read thriller novels later, but even then, a vestige of those ancient stories remained.  The “good guy” should triumph and the “bad guy” should suffer.  This was the cherished tradition of the great tales. I eventually made my way back, quite delightfully, to the stories of my youth.

C.S. Lewis writes that fairy stories should not be read exclusively by children, but enjoyed well into adulthood.  Furthermore, fairy stories tickle that yearning we have for our “homeland”.  There is ethereal existence beyond our realm and even as adults, we can be drawn in, as Smithson was, to the vivid and magical worlds we embraced as children. Someone “put something in our cake” and we still desperately long to escape to these beautiful lands as the years pass.

That excitement emerged in me as I stood in line to watch The Hobbit last weekend.  I tightly clasped my 3D glasses with soaring hopes of a wonderful adventure. And I experienced one. As many of my colleagues have pointed out, there are (and always are) textually inaccuracies when a story is translated from page to screen. If you entered the theater a purist, you leave shouldering a fair amount of disappointments. I have actually taught The Hobbit (although it has been a while) so I already have my own preconceived notions.

However, as Sorina Higgins suggested before the film opened (http://iambicadmonit.blogspot.com/2012/11/packing-for-unexpected-journey.html), we need to leave The Hobbit at home.  It is a rare occurrence when such retellings remain faithful to the original works. Honestly, it shouldn’t reflect complete originality because essentially the story is told through the interpretive lens of someone else. Such other “interpreters” include the great William Shakespeare. My fellow Muse Andrew Lazo explains this concept very well in his latest post for All Nine (http://allninemuses.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/incarnational-invention-peter-jackson-retells-bilbo/). Only Tolkien can accurately tell his own story, so if you insist on authenticity, you are better off staying home, saving your money, and rereading the books.

Also, the film was not made for “Tolkienians” alone, as Donald Williams states (https://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&&note_id=10151363762220520).  To appeal to such a large audience, Jackson uses broad strokes to tell the story.  In this way, some of the text is sacrificed.  However, Jackson attempted to remain faithful to the mythology Tolkien created, focusing his attentions on how The Hobbit fits into a long chronology of Middle Earth history. In fact, as others have noted, Jackson used many other Tolkien works, such as The Silmarillion, to complement his story. Most casual moviegoers will be unaware of such parallels. Jackson, I believe, had to step back and look at the overall result, which considering the long history Tolkein created is an ambitious task.  Will people think this is a good retelling? Does it have adventure and suspense? Those elements usually determine what is included and excluded in the film.

As for me, I enjoyed the film immensely.  Did I cringe at some of the changes? Well, yes. I think the Dwarves singing while they pillaged Bilbo’s house was unnecessary. The “pipe-smoking” chant was nice, however. I also have to side with Donald Williams here – a rabbit-led sled?  Seriously? Radagast, are there no other animals available?  Rabbits are far down my list of optimal creatures to pull me out of danger, especially when I’m being chased by a bunch of savage orcs. I don’t have too many qualms with the eagle scene, although I’m glad they were ALL in advantageous positions when everyone clings to life over a cliff.  The only other scruple I have with it was that, during the latter part of the movie, I felt that Bilbo’s story becomes secondary; Bilbo is almost relegated to a minor character. True, he was only “the thief” of the crew, but Jackson takes great pains to establish Bilbo as a home-loving, introverted creature in the beginning of the film (and thus one who is conflicted about going on an adventure).  At one point, he seems to completely disappear from the storyline. And no, not because he used the ring…

All in all, it is up to us to determine the yard stick with which we measure the film.  William O’Flaherty shared his criteria for judgment here(http://lewisminute.wordpress.com/).  When I left the theater, I asked myself, “Was I entertained? Was it worth the money I paid?” To this, I had to answer a firm “Yes”.  I really enjoyed the film. For nearly three hours, I was swept away into the climes of Middle Earth.  I went to Rivendell and overlooked the cliffs of the mighty mountain.  I watched intently as Bilbo and his scrawny antagonist Gollom exchanged riddles.  And I saw the vast fields of Hobbiton unfurl before my eyes.  I and a room full of strangers went on a marvelous journey together, with stars blazing brightly on our brows.

**This and other tales can be found in Tolkein’s Tales from the Perilous Realm.

April 1999.  Two disillusioned teenagers, both victims of vicious bullying, enter their Colorado high school brandishing weapons.  Then they open fire. Fueled by rage and resentment, they did not discriminate as they shot into open crowds throughout the school. Video captured the alarmed students as the shooters entered the lunchroom and sprayed bullets into the fray.  Scared teens, some crying and trembling, ducked under lunch tables.  Screams echoed off the walls. When the rampage was finished, the boys committed suicide in the library, ending the long, terrible episode of violence.

That same month, I was a sophomore declaring my major at Berea College in Kentucky.  At the time, I had contemplated teaching high school English.  When news of the tragedy hit campus, I severed all of my hopes of teaching. It was a strange case of deja vu.  Late in 1997, there had been a similar incident in Paducah, Kentucky.  Armed with a shotgun and pistol, a male student assaulted a morning prayer group at Heath High School, killing three and injuring five. Something deep within me still wanted to serve in education, but the fear was too strong.  I finished my English degree two years later, but remained adamant that I would NOT pursue Education.

But life has a way of curving your path toward your destiny, even if you stubbornly stomp in the opposite direction.

Now, nine years into my teaching career, I learned about the Connecticut tragedy while students file into my room for Creative Writing class. Surrounded by consciencious and talented individuals, I reported that another school shooting had occured, this time at an elementary school.  The students were both saddened and outraged.  “Who could do that to a bunch of little kids?” one asked.  A wave of shock swept through the room. “That is so sad!” another remarked.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time I’ve had to report such ominous news.  In 2007, I told a room full of seniors that two hours north of us, a single shooter had claimed 32 lives at Virginia Tech.  One of my students had recently been accepted there, and was nervous about his own future.  Eventually, the student went on to have a very successful career at Tech, despite his initial misgivings.  While at this particular high school, we had two real lock-downs after students threatened violence against the school or administrators. It is a sober reminder how tragedies like Columbine have forever changed the landscape of public education.

Honestly, it’s hard to go to work the day following tragedies such as this. Some students are understandably absent, as parents fear a “copy cat” will strike in the local schools.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, there is a dark cloud which tends to hang over our classrooms after these events. I remember, during the second lock-down, I had to squeeze 15 students into a book room, while trying to read Hamlet. As we plodded through an ironic play which questions the meanings and motivations of life (“To be or not to be”), I looked up to see 15 faces contorted in fear. Should students be forced to face their mortality this early in life?  It is a hard thing to witness. We comfort, we carry on. But why?

Why do we continue to have faith in humanity?  It is difficult to grasp the concept that 20 families will not celebrate Christmas with their children.  Perhaps there were already presents under the tree for them. Their stockings hang expectant.  But instead of celebrating the birth of Christ, these families will be mourning.  Mothers, who cried themselves to sleep, wake up this morning with the reality that it was not a horrible nightmare and weep afresh. The brave adults who risked and lost their lives will miss all of the Christmas parties and get-togethers.  Their spouses, children, and extended families will feel the emptiness.  A quiet house, a vacant side of the bed, her dirty coffee cup in the sink, the houserobe hanging behind the bathroom door undisturbed.  Those victims should be enjoying the warmth of the fire, but now they will be returned to the cold, hard soil. When we ponder such horrible things, how can we believe that the world can be better?

But you see, I believe we must be resilient and maintain our faith in humanity.  Hope is essential.  The reason I get up every morning and enter a classroom full of adolescents is because I genuinely believe that they can shape the future, that they can spread light through the darkness of ignorance, that they can make the world a better place.  Knowledge really is power. The world can be better if we teach the next generation to love, share, and be compassionate.  There is no excuse for the heinous acts that occur, but must we reply by losing hope?  The young are depending on us to protect them, to instruct them, and to model for them how to cope in such a tragedy. Do not forfeit hope.  We cannot insure ourselves against evil people, but we certainly can choose how we respond the day after.  Do not allow such events to erode our positive perspective of humanity; the malevolent shooter is an exception to a race that is flawed, but ultimately aspires to do good.

I have experienced far too much goodness, even in the shadow of fear, to relinquish hope.

So tomorrow morning, I will get up and return to my classroom with optimism in my heart and prayers on my lips.  Thirteen years ago, I was frightened into stagnation,  but I cannot be controlled by fear. The Bible tells us that true love casts out fear.  So today, I choose love.  I remain motivated by that hope.  For my fallen colleagues in Connecticut, I carry on because, I feel,  that is what you would have us do. It is our duty to reach out to our kids and teach them what faith and hope and goodness are.  We must look up and continue on. We cannot let anatagonists like this shooter compromise our vision for public education or of humanity as a whole.  We have the power to change lives, so let us not become distracted or grow weary.

For more great insight on this tragedy, please read William O’Flaherty’s blog  –  http://lewisminute.wordpress.com/    William is a trained counsellor and shares his wisdom about how we react to such tragedies, including how we discuss them with our children.

My prayers continue for the families of victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School and for the community of Newtown, Connecticut.  Please join me.

“Do you think that people choose to be born?”

In the new film Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln poses this poignant question one evening to two young men employed in the Telegraph office. The calm giant, who towered over his friends and opponents in stature, was uncharacteristically anxious as his political career and the future of slavery depended upon a precarious possibility of peace. Lincoln wanted to abolish the scourge of slavery from the American consciousness.

But he was up against stiff adversaries.  Years of tradition prevented the south from relinquishing its chokehold of slavery. The House of Representatives was sharply divided on the issue of granting African Americans a voice in Congress. Meanwhile, the swarm of hostility extended far outside the debating halls of a young government.  Many men, both Union and Confederate soldiers, lay defeated on crimson battlefields.  Lincoln grieved deeply for the fallen soldiers and secretly arranged a peace meeting between the North and South. Exhausted yet optimistic, he juggled the frustrations of veteran politicians and a maze of diplomacy with the omnipresent dangers of domestic war. Personally, Lincoln still mourned the loss of his own son from illness, and struggled with a wife whose grief nearly overshadowed reality. What a tangle of circumstances was this! It was enough to bring the statuesque politician to his knees.

So that night, Lincoln awaited news on the state of affairs.  He was facing a choir of naysayers and a rising body count. He and two of his telegraphers occupy an otherwise lonely office.  The trio spoke warmly to one another, attempting to distract themselves from the terrible crisis at hand. Lincoln was known as a great storyteller, spinning yarns and eliciting laughter in the most dire of circumstances.  Some mistook his humor for indifference, but Lincoln simply wished to lift the dark cloud from an ominous situation. And so, in a moment of quiet reflection, he asks, “Do you think people choose to be born?”

To answer Lincoln, no.  No, we do not choose to be born, but we certainly have plenty of choices which await us as we journey through life. Lincoln could have easily obeyed the status quo and upheld the discriminatory attitude that African Americans were “less” than citizens. But he could not. He could not rest until every man, regardless of color, was guaranteed the same rights under the Constitution. Despite the wave of controversy, Lincoln persisted and utilized every avenue he had to persuade politicians to amend the Constitution to include voting rights for those considered slaves. The decision made him unpopular.  But sometimes good leadership requires one to be so.  Today, he is celebrated as a national and international hero (there is a statue of him near Westminster Abbey in London), but during his lifetime, he was renounced as a heretic.  He was accused of pandering politics, of dividing parties, of upsetting “the Southern economy” and even of disobeying the Biblical principle of slave and master (a verse taken out of context for generations to support the role of oppressors). Nonetheless, he did not relent.  He continued on determined as ever, carried on the tide of his convictions.  The decision, as we all now know, proved fatal.  Was Lincoln a martyr?  Yes, but more importantly, his work and dedication illustrate the significance of his choices.  His decision improved life for an untold number of Americans both past and present.

Pondering Lincoln’s question sparked an interesting inquiry for me.  How much of life is what happens to us?  Furthermore, what aspects of life correlate with our choices?  Are we responsible for the things that occur to us?

As an English teacher, I am very familiar with the passive voice.  Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab describes the passive voice as an instance when “the subject is acted upon; he or she receives the action expressed by the verb” (para. 1).  For example, instead of saying, “Jimmy ate the sandwich”, the sentence reads, “The sandwich was eaten by Jimmy.” We teachers like to take our nice red pens and correct this mistake in essays and research papers, but how many of us live in the passive voice?

Do we feel that life does us more than we do life?  How many of us travel through life checking tasks off a never-ending list?  Our schedules do not spin out of control all of a sudden.  The pace increases slowly, like filling up an ocean with tablespoons. Can’t you just tackle one more responsbility? Darwin said the key to survival was adaptation.  So we alter our routine to add another task.  There’s a ballgame here, and that meeting there, and we were just invited to this get-together on this date. Suddenly, we face a long inventory of expectations. Are we truly living life or are we carried on the silent gears of our requirements?  Our daily lives move us ever forward. Each spring eventually fades into winter, which melts into another spring.  Life moves so quickly. We stare in the mirror at a slightly older visage.  We see the evidence of laughter near our eyes and…is that a silver hair I see?!

Essentially, we must strive amid our daily lives to the ultimate goals we seek; that is what we were born to do. We may not be called to lead a nation out of slavery, but we have a higher purpose to fulfill.  Every morning, as the sun peaks over the horizon, we are given another opportunity to amend faults, to right wrongs, to create a better community and a better world.  We can do what is required of us (and we should because those things are important), but keep the bigger picture in mind. Progress is not a marathon or an expressway, rather it occurs slowly and methodically.  It requires patience and effort.  Although Lincoln’s life was abbreviated, he spent his living days fighting a daily battle for a better world, an effort that proved successful indeed.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that we often say our tasks prevent us from living our lives, but these tasks are our lives. Lewis knew this truth well.  He balanced a heavy student load at Oxford, sponsored the Socractic Club, responded to each letter he received, helped Mrs. Moore around their home The Kilns – all of this while writing the successful works he is known for today.  He composed the cascading waterfalls of Narnia after watching his faucet create dishwater.  He wrote The Voyage of the Dawn Treader years after building a makeshift skiff with his brother for use in their pond.  A pen occupied his hand, but so did a dishcloth, a broom and a hammer.  Those same hands which captured his imagination also maintained his humble home. We can never escape our work, but rather, create among these responsibilities.

We do not choose to be born, but we can certainly choose how to live our lives. Make it a daily goal to improve the inequities around us, to lead, to serve, to be humble, to have the courage to make a difference.

Let it be granted that I do approach the poet, at least I do it by sharing his consciousness, not by studying it.  I look with his eyes, not at him.  He, for the moment, will be precisely what I do not see, for you can see any eyes rather than the pair you see with, and if you want to examine your own glasses you must take them off your own nose. The poet is not a man who asks me to look at him; he is a man who says, ‘look at that’ and points; the more I follow the pointing of his finger the less I can possibly see of him.   – C.S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy  (11)

Tomorrow is C.S. Lewis’ birthday. He would be 114 years old.  To celebrate, I want to share with my readers the reasons why I admire Lewis so much.  As most of you know, I wrote my dissertation on C.S. Lewis as Transformational Leader.  After months of research and a trip across “the pond” to walk in his footsteps, I found that my fondness for Lewis deepened with time. At first glance, it would appear that a girl from the Appalachian Mountains would have nothing in common with an Oxford don. But on the contrary, Lewis and I share many great qualities – an Irish heritage, a love of literature, and most importantly, a desire to strengthen faith in God.

So before we indulge in the birthday cake, let’s take a look at the five reasons I admire C.S. Lewis:

5. Lewis engaged my imagination. Last year, when I attended the C.S. Lewis tour in Belfast (with Sandy Smith), I had the distinct pleasure of travelling with retired Irish schoolteachers.  During tea time, one of the ladies approached me and asked how I came to know Lewis.  When I mentioned Mere Christianity, she was surprised.  “I figured at your age, you read Narnia first,” she exclaimed.  I didn’t read Narnia until later in life, while I was preping to write the dissertation.  Until then, I had been primarily concerned with Lewis’ apologetic works.  However, The Chronicles of Narnia introduced me to a whole new world and a whole different side of Lewis. Lewis “baptized my imagination” (as MacDonald’s Phantasies did for him).  It’s okay to read “kid stories”, because they contain a seed of wisdom that we often neglect in our adulthood. (For more information on this, read Lewis’ essays “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” and “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said” from Of Other Worlds).

4. Lewis shared my love of literature. As a nerdy bookworm, I lived my life experiencing other worlds vicariously through famous literary works. Nestled between two covers, a tale can transport me to places real and imagined. It can bring to my nose fragrances I have not smelled, or display sights I have never seen.  Because of Homer, I have heard the sirens warble to Odysseus.  Because of Dickens, I have heard the groan of the great, towering machines which powered Victorian England.  Because of Tolkien, I have trembled to enter the dark shadows of Mordor.  Because of Lewis, I have felt the calming presence of Aslan when I was afraid.  Authors have unparalleled access into our heads.  They can plant images and ideas there, seeds which can blossom into a great harvest of imagination and intellect.  Lewis is one of those great farmers.  His impact is wide and his harvest is abundant.

3. Lewis illustrated the art of integration. One of the major themes of my research on Lewis was his integration of faith and intellect & intellect and imagination.  Many argue that faith and intellect are natually opposed, and cite the scientific revolution of the Victorian period as proof that the two cannot coexist peacefully. Lewis was well aware of this. However, he argued that ultimately humans prevent a reconciliation between faith and science.  Knowing how an automobile operates does not negate the presence of an engineer. When we arrogant humans began making scientific discoveries, we foolishly dismissed our notion of God as “mystic”. When we should have been in awe of the divine design, we chose pride instead. Since the Garden of Eden, we have continually made that choice.  And yet, we are ensnared in those same traps.  Progress indeed!   Also, Lewis shows us that a world-class scholar can write a successful children’s series.  Lewis was not plagued with the arrogance and condescension of his contemporaries.  Professors are still people.  Lewis wanted to reach all readers, not simply the erudite.

2. Lewis was a true leader.  Our culture often characterizes leaders as politicians, administrators, and managers. However, leadership expert Peter Northouse defines a leader as an individual who influences a group of people to achieve a goal. That goal does not necessarily require sales charts or analytic data.  The goal can bring people closer to Christ or  illuminate some truth in order to assist in understanding.  Leaders do not require a title.  Leadership doesn’t begin when one achieves a job promotion or earns a new position. Titles do NOT qualify leaders. Effective leaders, like Christians, should be measured by their fruit.  As I stated in an earlier blog, the best leaders are servants. Lewis consistently (and privately) put others above himself. He took care of Paddy Moore’s mother after he was killed in action. He gave an estimated half to two-thirds of his income to charity.  He personally responded to each letter he received. He married an American poet to (initially) extend his British citizenship.  Examples of his generosity abound. Most of all, he never boasted of these things. He simply carried on, giving what he could.  Evidence of Lewis’ influence are everywhere. He is the true definition of leadership.

1. Lewis reinforced my faith in God.  I’m not going to lie. Attending courses at a secular university challenged my faith.  I struggled with the great myths.  I questioned the beliefs that were instilled in me. To me, “open mind” meant “ambivalent faith”. Lewis assured me that it was okay to marry my faith and intellect, to essentially integrate. He spoke the truths I could not articulate. He restored to me the wonder of God I secretly wanted to recover. He firmly proclaimed that I don’t have to compromise intellect to embrace spirituality. What a relief!  Below is one of my favorite quotes of Lewis from Mere Christianity.  It has never stopped humbling me, nor has it failed to penetrate the callouses I’ve developed over years of resentment and disappointment:

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.  Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.  If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.  I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.

The work of C.S. Lewis was the metaphorical “glasses” I needed to see the Truth clearly. Although he left us nearly 50 years ago, his words still possess much relevance. When we discuss his works, when we mull over his theology, when we read Narnia to our children, we are keeping a small piece of Lewis alive. We are perpetuating his influence.  Most of all, we are sharing those spectacles with others. and looking beyond the poet to the Great Author.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Have you ever felt the weight of a thousand tasks on your back?  In my post for All Nine Muses this week, I discuss the sanctity of everyday jobs.  Come and join us!

http://allninemuses.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/unveiling-the-sacred-in-the-everyday-naomi-shihab-nyes-daily/