All-In-All

There have been ups and downs.  Pros and cons.  Fun times, and then less-than-fun times.  My doctrine has been questioned, my little world rattled.  I've been challenged to think.  Really...think.

I've trekked through the woods of a nature reserve, observed every scene of a three-hour play, and blogged twice a week, every week, for the past fifteen weeks or so.  And I have learned.

I've read stories about horses with wings, a man with wings, a Hindu woman in love with Christianity, and a mentally retarded American in love with Russia.  I've read more poems than I can recount: certainly more than I had read in all my life before this class (at least what has been deemed professionally poetic).

I've been challenged to appreciate nature more.  I've been challenged to love humanity more.  I've been challenged to throw my thoughts into the fire and see if they really do hold up.

Introduction to Literature has been my favorite class this semester.  It was taken seriously by the professor, and taken beyond the depths of a conventional class, as well.  To say my favorite is to say that it hasn't been a cakewalk, and that there were parts I didn't enjoy.  But that I learn and/or walk away better than when I walked into the classroom.  This isn't to reassure the ego of the professor or to massage a few more points into my grade.  If so, I would have stopped blogging when the last assignment was due.

All this is to say, though, not just that I learned.  It's that, all-in-all, I've changed.  And I dare say for the better.  Thank you, Professor Corrigan.  Thank you, classmates.  And thank you, God, for pardoning my ignorance long enough to catch somewhat of a greater glimpse of who you are.  Because I would venture to say, God, that literature is a thing you do.



My profile picture at the beginning of this blog:

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The Cleverness of the Characters Cast: Interpreting the Persons of Descartes

                The narrator of the story recounts the phone conversation he had earlier.  His interview subject suggested they have tea together.  He recalls the homework he had done on his interview subject: the careers she has had throughout the years.  She had brought audiences to their feet and governments to their knees in her lifetime, both within the frame of artistic beauty.

                When he catches his first real glimpse of her, through a mirror’s reflection in a café pillar, he stops to observe the breath-taking beauty that is Madame Descartes.  Even in her old age, she still had an unmistakable elegance about her.

                After introducing himself and apologizing for his tardiness, he fumbles with his notebook and begins busily taking notes.  She replays her career as a performer and a model, a photographer and writer, alongside her love life and her interests.  She recalls with faint and distant sadness the horrors of war and the violent deaths that ensued.

                Then, without skipping a beat, she asks the narrator to “put your notebook down’ I’ve/Decided to take your picture.”  As he tries to ready himself for the suddenness of becoming her subject, instead of the other way around, he is intrigued at “the small café table/Which Madame had so easily turned.”

                In the first read, things seem to be going easily enough.  This is due, in part, to the fact that there is no clash of perspectives.  It’s just the narrator’s.  So then why, at the end, is Madame not quite the woman we had first imagined?  And why is the narrator not quite as talented with spoken words as he is with thoughts?

                The tale of this afternoon tea with the Madame offers a good look at two very interesting types of personalities.  Not much is said about David St. John, the author of this poetic piece of literature, in his narration.  But when we look within the narration, the way he acts and then reacts to Madame Descartes, as well as the way she reacts to him, we can see into his character and learn something about this reporter.  Secondly, we have Madame Descartes, who seems the retired showgirl, but is much more the wizened cynic than most will ever know.

                He (St. John) walks into this story, and he doesn’t seem to lack a sense of confidence.  He’s a writer, and he works hard.  And he’s taken an interest in this latest subject of his, Madame Descartes.

                Madame Descartes, St. John has discovered, has a beauty so ageless that St. John calls her reflection “unmistakable”, and so unique he finds it “riveting/As the Unicorn’s/Soft eye.”  From the text we can interpret a woman who knows the life of a goddess.  Many of us wonder what it must be like: to be instantly liked, constantly sought after, inadvertently pleased (because it seems that such a pretty, likeable-looking face shouldn’t be walked all over by this less-appealing world).  She knows what it’s like.

                And here is where St. John accidentally slips the first glance of a self-portrait: “Her beauty/Was so close to a vengeance—one exacted by the world/Upon those of us so ordinary, so weak, we can barely/Admit its existence.  So I just sat there…”

                He then goes on to tell us more about Descartes.  She provides to her interview a look at the glamorous life of the pretty people.  So what happens?  She gets bored.  She “took several lovers” and then “the fatigue set in.”  She just keeps getting bored!  Poor thing doesn’t even know (or perhaps it’s that she’s grown too numb to care) that St. John, and billions of others on this planet, would love to have her life.

                Alas, though, since multiple lovers will not satiate her search for happiness, she gets married.  This, too, grows old quickly.  And that was when Descartes stumbled upon photography.  She uses this latest love of hers to document the grotesque images of war (which, of course, our ill culture eats up) and attains even more fame and riches!  Yet still, she seems unimpressed with the world and, if it can be of any shock to you, bored.  Not completely, though…We find out at the very end of the story that, while St. John has been taking notes on Descartes, Descartes has been taking note of St. John.

                “‘And now,’ she said, ‘put your notebook down; I’ve/Decided to take your picture.”  She’s intrigued by this little man, who I’m imagining is actually quite a nervous and confidence-lacking individual.  I derived this from the way he calls himself “ordinary” and “weak” and spends so much of the poem/short story just reflecting on her physical attractiveness.

                In these last few lines, then, we stumble upon something even greater than the famous Madame Descartes, and it is that the famous Madame Descartes has become intrigued by this reporter.  Intrigued enough to make him into one of her works of art.  If she were to give it a twenty-first century name, one could imagine she might name it “Zac Smith”.

                St. John finishes the story with my favorite lines of the entire literary piece.  I have already shared the last few words, but it is the collective lines that provide the greatest insight.  (I am just now feeling, with some interest and some sadness, as well, that the this “greatest insight” might actually be an insight into myself.  Did I pick this piece because it reminded me…of me?)

                “Before her consoling wink, I simply sat back, trying somehow/To smile, to look worldly, desirable, nonchalant—/My hands so self-consciously gripping the small café table/Which Madame had so easily turned.”

                In the end, this is really who these two characters ultimately are: Madame being the character who turns tables, and St. John being the character who wants so badly to entertain the small thought that he is someone that someone might be interested in, someone who spends far too much time admiring beauty while “self-consciously gripping” this small table where he thought he knew, for sure, how to posture himself.

                I’m not so sure at all how this interpretation matters.  But I think I can finally tell you why.  From the first time I read “My Tea with Madame Descartes”, I genuinely felt like I was the narrator: hard-working, a bit of an odd ball who finds the lives of has-beens so fascinating, self-conscious and nervous, and “trying somehow/To smile, to look worldly, desirable, nonchalant…”

                And I admit—with some shame but in all truth—that I’m just kind of hoping that one day I’ll find the Madame Descartes within myself, and maybe even one day out in the world, who finds me so fascinating that they want to take my picture.  Could ya’ imagine that?  Someone, for my artistic appeal and in my attempt to “look…desirable, nonchalant”, wanting me…

A Tale for Adults

What is to be said of this strange visitor?

With weathered wings, home to parasites and musty filth, washes up on the shores of a forsaken beach.  Is he the harbinger of death that the old woman next door predicts?  Is he a suspicious character as the Father has concluded?

I love the picture painted at the beginning of this story: this common couple is fending off the crowds of crabs seeking shelter from the torrential storm pouring outside.

This decrepit old creature of myth, lying on the shores in their backyard.  What explains this?

People flock to this couple's meager shack on this glum ocean's edge to observe the mythical beast being kept prisoner in a chicken pen.  So is he really there by force?  I somehow doubt it.  So then...why?

This is the question that kept bothering me the whole time I was reading this short story.  When the creature opens his wings in reflex, a hurricane wind is pushed from his body.  The few hairs on his head are white.  Only a few teeth reside within his mouth.

It is only at the end of the story that we receive the biggest clue about this "angel".  He makes an amateur attempt at flight.  Which means...he doesn't know how.

So...does he only have a few hairs on his head because they are the first to grow from his scalp?  Has he but a few ivories from his gums because he is just now teething?

So then...the Very Old Man with Enormous Wings is a babe, I suppose.  But why?

And that is when I remembered the rest of the title: A Tale for Children.

It reminded me of a children's film I watched recently, called Ponyo.  At first, the story didn't make much sense, but then I tried to see the story from a child's eyes...and it made so much more sense!

And so, seeing "A Very Old Man with enormous with Enormous Wings: A Tale for Children" from children's perspectives begins to paint that very first portrait I loved so much in an entirely new light, with entirely new colors.

So now, as we've learned in this class, the picture must be painted again, starting from the very beginning.

"On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night..."

A newborn babe...and a newborn angel.  One sick, the other washed up on the shore.  And in the end, their baby will fly.  It will be a pain along the way, a relief at the end, and a blessing every step of the way.

Perhaps, then, this story could also be a tale for adults.

Omelas Sounds Like Omelets

We just read the story by Ursula K. Le Guin entitled "The One Who Walk Away from Omelas", and I am here to tell you that Omelas sounds like Omelets.

That being said, I found this story to be very trippy.  And yet...I kinda liked it.  Granted, I didn't like it nearly as much as, say, "Temple of the Holy Ghost".  But it was still good.

What struck me most, and I'll be sure to share this in the class quiz tomorrow, was a line that said "The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy..."

In this statement, Le Guin is saying that there is a right kind of joy and a wrong kind of joy.  Omelas, at first glance, is a very socialist version of Ethiopia.  There is no war; there is only peace.  There is celebration.  There is happiness.  And then that statement was made, and we find that ultimately this Ethiopia is dictating what is right and wrong.  And there, in and of itself, is reason for controversy.

My thoughts aren't coming together because I'm much too tired and relish too much in the art of rambling.  But we'll see what becomes of my rambling.

The story would have been awful without the role of the "it" tucked away in the storm cellar.  But I feel pretty confident that Le Guin wrote this story FOR that character, and this is the reason why I find this story to be decent.

This character, clothed in nothing but a shroud of darkness and trembling in its feces, represents the humanity of humanity.  Who we really are, when we stuff our imperfections in a basement, is the evil that exists in our soul.  The reason why the human race created by God is different from the Omelasians is because we are redeemable.  God has set forth the process of being redeemed and we can be within reach.  Why?

Because we're trying?  As a societal whole, we are trying to be better.  There are those in the world that don't.  But I really have to believe that there is more desperation for right than a satiating of lust for wrong.

The Omelasians, though, are all quite aware of their humanity--their fleshliness--and instead of improving life for everyone for the ground up, the bottle that which they deem unworthy and "the right kind of joy", or the right kind of entertainment, or the right kind of PERSON, as it would eventually become, is all that's allowed in daylight.

And that's the Omelets for you.

As Lights in the World

"Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you APPEAR AS LIGHTS IN THE WORLD..."
-Top of page 3 in Letter to the Philippians, NASV

This was probably my favorite use of figurative language.  As soon as I read it, I thought "Christmas lights".  It may sound corny, cliche, or even "typical" and problematic to the cynic.  But I love Christmas lights.  I see them as intricate and beautiful, thousands of individuals that work together to make one breath-taking sight.

If I did it right, and that's a big "if" (a stab, if your Josh Morway =~D), then I found over thirty uses of figurative language.  I feel like it's been quite a while since I've been thoroughly involved in the figurative language realm.

The English Comp classes I took focused largely on academic writing.  If you started getting artistic with them, you were getting off track.  You wanted to be clear, concise, and to the point; there was no room for paint and pastel, just pen and pencil.

But in Intro to Literature there seems to be quite the emphasis on the poetry of writing, especially obvious in our section on poetry. ...I appreciate that.

I think the use of figurative language in the Bible makes this collection of works much more captivating.  And Philippians is no exception.  Paul's talk of "the fruit of righteousness" and "lights in the world" provide marvelous scenic imagery.  "To live is Christ and to die is gain."  Who can say more in reponse to this than "Wow..."?

I love the imagery in "the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".  I picture these large stone guardians, like from the Disney animated film "Atlantis":


standing watch over the city and encompassing it in a shield that is unbreakable.  A shield of love.  (By the way, I also just really love this movie.)

The figurative language used in Philippians made for an interesting read.  The content, however, conveyed through the use of figurative language is what really brought the message home to me (a use of figurative language in itself, if I'm not mistaken.)

Perhaps the Prose Supposes...

Okay...so I'm gonna take a stab at this.

I feel like I'm relatively wrong every time I try to connect a symbol.  But then, we read in the chapter on symbolism in our textbook that the reader shouldn't even go looking and digging for symbols, that they should be ready for observation throughout reading.  Or, that's what I got out of it, anyways.

To be honest, having finished read this short story by Flannery O'Connor, "A Temple of the Holy Ghost", and now looking through it some more, I don't really see much symbolism.  I think I'm starting to better understand what some of my classmates say when they don't exactly connect with a certain piece of literature.  I enjoyed this one, but I feel like I'm missing this symbolism stuff.

Here goes, though:

-Perhaps Suzan and Joanne represent those unabashed, unashamed aspects we tend to have.

-Perhaps Wendell and Cory represent those naive and innocent aspects we tend to have.

Maybe the reason why these couples were put side-by-side is because Flannery O'Connor wants the two symbols side-by-side: unapologetic sin and soft and sweet purity.  Just a guess.

-Perhaps "the child" represents me.  And so then she would represent you.  Whoever is reading it, that is the child.

And she's watching these two symbols, the girls and the boys, alongside each other.  And so the text that ensues is her thoughts of the actions and reactions.

-Perhaps the circus he-she represents the ambiguity of "right and wrong", how everything isn't as black and white as it was once thought.

-Perhaps the priests who came and shut the circus down represent that "right and wrong" is "black and white".  For them, maybe it's piety or sin.  There is no in-between.

And so the part of the plot that unfolds involving these characters is the clash between these two contrasting thoughts.  The he-she is shut down for trying to tell his-her story, and the priests insist that he-she pushes the knowledge of this "flaw" into darkness and so that the world doesn't have to live with it.

And so maybe, then, the child's reaction (and so our reaction) is simply the learning of this clash and our confusion over this spiritual war.  Maybe, anyways...

Who knows, though?

The Man Who Stayed for More Than Dinner

The assignment at hand in this class is the play, "The Man Who Came to Dinner".

I went to "The Man Who Came to Dinner" and I stayed for at least 45 minutes...lol jk I know it was a stupid joke but I wanted to say it and so there it is.  I stayed for the whole thing, I promise.

I love this girl's expression.  I don't even know what she's thinking but  the fact that she is looking at my phone as my friend took the picture makes me laugh a little bit.

The play was humorous, to say the least.  The entire story was filled with sarcastic lines and hilarious turns-of-events.  The actors, as well, did a good job of making the words come to life with their faces.  At times, their expressions, like the girl in this picture, were simply priceless.

My favorite part was probably the end.  The very last thing that happens just left me in a humored mood.  I felt like it made the play a grade level higher just because it ended so.

One of the lines that tickled me most was one in Act I, and takes place when Sherry tells Maggie that he simply does not want to be disturbed by any visitors.  Then someone walks in, pushes past Maggie and finds Sherry welcoming him gladly.  To this Maggie replies: “Sherry, the next time you do not want to see anybody, just let me know, and I’ll usher them right in.”

The whole play was fun and lighthearted.  There were only a few scenes where I desired more to go to sleep than I did to stay awake, and that’s a lot to me, since I’ve never actually been to a formal theatre house before and seen a play.  And there wasn’t even really a moment where I didn’t want to finish the play.

My sympathies go out to the man who came to dinner.  I hate that he had to stay for more than dinner, but quite the humorous and chaotic plot ensued, so I’m not as sympathetic as I actually stated.

All-in-all, it was wonderful experience. 

A Mission in My Mind

EARLY AFTERNOON
Okay. (A breath.  I survey the room before I decide to move again.)
It's safe to put the supplies down now.  (I turn and shut the door, swiftly but in silence.)
My memory had slipped me earlier in this mission and had almost cost me. ( I think back.)


2 HOURS AGO
I can't remember.  What was the number?  It was so crucial!
I can't trust just anyone to help me.  Only a trusted ally can provide me with the information.
I turn to the man in the suit who's running the operation.  Surely I can vest my trust in him.
He slips me the information and I continue.  Time is of the essence, now.
If I arrive back at base too late, I'll be found out.
I find the supplies, make the transaction, load the supplies up, and set out.
An intense scene full of anxiety unfolds on the streets, but I make it back, safe.
Timing is critical now, though.

EARLY AFTERNOON AGAIN
I make it back and begin sorting through the supplies.  I have to hurry!
Just as I begin unloading them, I hear a voice.
I turn to find someone standing behind me.  A familiar face.
I quickly make him an accomplice, and start instructing him what to do.
Just as we're working through the supplies, we hear a knock on the door.
It's too soon!  We had to think quickly!
We began loading them up in our arms, stuffing them down our T-shirts.
We start devising a plan to stash them out back.
We couldn't get caught with the supplies!
But we can't linger any longer and risk looking suspicious.
So I advise my accomplice to play it cool.
He won't be able to see through our lies if we pull it off just right.
I approach the entrance, turn the knob, and pull back the door.
"Hi Jack," I offer, as he stands there with a half-smile on his face.
"It's nice to see you, Jack."  I am stealth.  I am a professional.
"It's a nice day today," my accomplice adds.
He enters in and we continue with the facade.
But then another shows up.
He is just as guilty as us, and just as committed to his mission as us.
So he diverts Jack's attention to our scheme and foils our plot.
Impossible!  I think.  How could this have happened?
This is what happens when you must rely on American-bred co-workers.
Everyone knows--the best spies...come from Russia.

ARNOLD
"I don't believe this.  You make a plan, you think it all through, you work out all the details, and then...I'll tell you truthfully, I really don't believe this.  This is the kind of thing that bothers me a lot.  I mean, it was foolproof."

Dear Jack...

Dear Jack,

Life is not easy, and yours is no exception.  Your friends are...different.  I was going to say retarded, but I worry quite a lot about appearing crude or insensitive.  I worry about even offending someone.  But this letter is not about me.  Just from me.  It's about you.  I'm writing you because, well, I'm worried about you.
At the end of the play, "The Boys Next Door", it is everyone else who acts as though their worlds are falling apart.  They are devastated.  But in a year or two, maybe a matter of months, I really think they'll learn to get over it.  But you, Jack, I wasn't so sure...
Arnold tells you on page 64: "I'm lost on my way to Russia..."  But I really think that you are the one lost on your way to Russia, not Arnold.  Are you going to be able to get along with out Arnold, Lucien P. Smith, and Norman.  You love them, ya know...  I can tell.
And what about Barry?  Will you ever stop thinking about how he sits in that institution, so far sunk into depression and cynicism, that he could be lost to his ruined self-image for the rest of his life, and no one outside those four mental hospital walls will ever know or care.
And so, as you embark on the next chapter of your life, Jack, I really do care, and I really do wanna know: Are you gonna be able to make it?
You've shared in so many special moments, so many wonderful memories with these four wonderful people.  But what are you willing to learn from them?
You can learn that this life that we stress so recklessly over is not meant to be such a chore.  We're meant to have fun, and take each second for what it's worth.
You can learn that, even when you're so confused (like Lucien), when you get so discouraged (like Barry), when you feel like running away from it all (like Arnold), or when that one special person feels like an eternity away sometimes (like Norman), life goes on.
Stay safe and pursue God's will, Jack.  It will never steer you wrong.

Zac Smith =~)

Looking at Myself. For Real... (extra post)

Last week at Firefall (It was last week, wasn't it?), a friend approached me as I was leaving.  We talked for a second and then he asked if he could pray for me.  I said definitely, naturally.
I ended up fighting back tears at what he said, the words he was praying.  I went back to my room and ended up writing a song.  It's super introspective and (as you might see) very personal, but I don't think God would have us keep our song to ourselves.  It may just speak to someone else in this big old world.  So here it is:

I'm content
Just to sit
Here in my corner and weep
I don't ask much
Just a glimpse of love
And that I never catch a glimpse of me

'Cause when I'd look at myself
I never felt like enough
Couldn't see past my skin
Or the stains of my sin, but now
When I look in the mirror
And I see Your love
Covered me and within,
I feel beautiful
Again

Why do those
That catch my eye
Never catch me when
I'm fallin for them?
Can you try
To see why I
Find it so easy to believe
In beautiful lies

'Cause when I'd look at myself
I never felt like enough
Couldn't see past my skin
Or the stains of my sin, but now
When I look in the mirror
And I see Your love
Covered me and within,
I feel beautiful-

Don't waste Your time, my Love,
Picking me up
I'm pitiful, so pitiful
But when I look into Your eyes
I see no pity, just the sight
Of my reflection, and Your affection for
Me.

The Sadness Caused by Shaw...

Last week, we read an essay in class by a writer named Luci Shaw.  The title of the essay was "Beauty and the Creative Impulse".  She starts off with the statement: "I have come to believe that beauty is something inherent in creation (and by creation I mean the environment, the created universe in which we live)."  I thoroughly enjoyed this statement.  She had me from this one sentence.

"But too often beauty escapes us..." "But beauty gives us pleasure."  "The messages of beauty through the senses, when combined with the responses of our reasoning intelligence, achieve meaning or significance for us."  These words are so true, and yet I found myself frozen in my tracks in the next-to-last paragraph, having not even really comprehended the very last few sentences.  I was stuck on this:

"The other 'Christian' alternative is a conservatism that responds only to kitsch, a sentimental art of the Hallmark greeting card variety that cheapens true sentiment, turning it into sweetness and light or mere moralistic propaganda..."

Ms. Shaw keeps going, but I could not.  She continued to elaborate on something that was not supposed to get so much attention, but I couldn't help myself.  My heart was breaking for those Hallmark artists being attacked.

I don't know how I would feel if I knew there was a published writer, along with many of her readers, who dismissed my art--MY ART!--, accusing it of "cheapening true sentiment".  HOW DO YOU SAY THAT ABOUT SOMEONE'S HEARTFELT HARD WORK???

She even goes on to say that it has "[n]o real Christianity either".  How does she get off saying that?
Okay, so I know she's making a point.  And she, herself, is a beautiful artist with words.  Please understand that I do not feel this to be a pressing issue in spiritual warfare.

But, as an amateur in hopes of honing my artistic ability, I have realized that I am going to be required to put myself out there.  But if I run into a Ms. Shaw, who walks up to whatever art it is I've created, and announces to the world that her professional opinion has found that it "cheapens true sentiment" and has "[n]o real Christianity either", I think I would probably want, so badly, to cry.

The Battle of Weather: A Stunning Event (short, extra post)

A torrent of water is, right now, pouring from the sky.  Even from where I sit on the second story balcony of the library, I can see that the lake's surface out the floor-to-ceiling window is being penetrated by hundreds of thousands of of pinpricks.

The light outside is dim and blue, and yet the lightposts shine valiantly, offering a glimmer of hope in a storm of despair.

And yet this storm of despair excites me.  We have discussed so much in class the relevance of nature.  So I assume that, for now, it is enough that this is what excites me so.

The Armadillo Omen

I’m not a superstitious person, mind you.  But when you’ve been at least well-rounded a person to have considered all different sorts of ideas, well then you haven’t all-together dismissed anything.

As I entered into the Lost Bridge Trail, I heard the snap of a twig on the ground and looked down to my left.  Not but ten feet or so away, an armadillo skirmished about in the beginning brush of the woods.  Right there!  I figure armadillos to be relatively harmless, but I felt so uneasy in that moment that I almost turned back and took the Shady Oaks Trail, which looked much more friendly and inviting.

As I looked up into the Lost Bridge Trail, at the dark hanging canopies and the path that disappeared behind the first of many curves, I had cold feet.  Throughout the trip, I would see around four more armadillos.  Perhaps I should have given in to superstition and accepted this recurring theme in my visit as an omen to turn back.  I eventually would, though, with no harm come to me.

But do you ever wonder if that rattling in the marsh is a pool of snakes?  That the movement of that little branch is a jumping spider, repositioning itself to leap?  That the cacophony coming from the bushes and the sky are conspiring?  Or not even conspiring, so much, as that they know something you don’t.  About some lurking beast just beyond the shroud of nature, that you remain oblivious to.

The whole trip, I was quite unnerved.  I thought several times of turning back, and just when I was about to give in, I saw it.  There, peaking about behind one last turn, concealed by a hanging branch, was the beginning of a bridge.

Not a terribly long bridge, mind you.  Not short, though.  Within the narrow, stretched-out bridge, though, I felt vulnerable…to the marsh below me, the branches above me, and the insects swarming around me.

I simply felt vulnerable…

The Rickety Bridge

On this rickety bridge

I place my weight.

And with this rickety bridge

I trust my fate.

Look at the birds of the air,

at how they fly,

living life without worry or care.

They eat as the Good Lord provides. Why

do I question You, Lord? Why

do I question You, Lord? Why

do I question You, Lord? Why?

Tell me…why.

This world so unknown to me,

dirt and filth is all I see.

Earth on my shoes,

sweat on my brow,

I’m concerned with the way I look

but I can’t see how—

see how the lilies of the field grow

with no vanity.

And yet their breath-taking beauty shows

How breath-taking they can be.  Why

do I question You, Lord?  Why

do I question You, Lord?  Why

do I question You, Lord?  Why?

Tell me…why.

Why does the thought

of fall-

-ing scare me so?

Inside those familiar walls

I breathe easily

‘Cause I’m sure of my security.

But tell me why

I question You, Lord.

[I went to Circle B Bar Reserve for this field trip, and I stayed there for at least 45 minutes.]

2nd PASS

This is my second and last PASS. =~(

The Little Girl on Planet Earth

"Rain...through blurred glass / Gusts of a Pacific storm...a schoolgirl / Negotiates a cross walk in the wind, her hair flying. / The red satchel on her quite straight back darkening / Splotch by smoky crimson splotch as the rain pelts it... / Inside the backpack, dog-eared, full of illustrations, / A book with a title like Getting to Know Your Planet."

After reading this poem and looking it over, I was very caught up in the plant life and animal life...And then I wandered back...back to the humanity of the poem.

Wasn't this poem about a girl on the sidewalk curb, trying to cross the road?

And how she, along with "the six billion of her hungry and curious kind" affect this planet on which we live?

When I hear the title, "State of the Planet", I think of the State of the Union address the President of the United States gives once a year, letting the constituents of this country know the present status of where they live.

The poem can talk all it wants to about the planet.  I cannot lie to myself.  I'm far more interested in this girl.

Caught in a torrential downpour, holding to her side the concerns of this earth, she has the power to impact this planet, and (to me, anyways) this is what the poem is all about.  God has ordained her to look after, care for, and see to this planet on which he has placed her.  But it is to learn how to be a good steward.

Ultimately, whether author Robert Hass knows it or not, this poem is about one thing and one thing, only.  Her.

As she stands on that sidewalk, eager to get home and get warm, does she even know that she is the epoch of Creation?

Lucretius can concern himself with Venus.  I'm more concerned with her.

A Conversation with Myself: I've Decided to Start Smoking* (extra post)

Me:  So I've Decided to start smoking.
Myself:  What?  Why?
Me:  Why not?
Myself:  Because it's wrong.
Me:  No it's not!  The Bible doesn't say anything specifically about smoking.
Myself:  So?!  It's still wrong.
Me:  Why is it wrong?
Myself:  ...That's a bummer, man.
Me:  Why?  It's no big deal...You can't show me one place where Jesus says it's wrong, so I don't see what your problem is.
Myself:  ...I don't know what to say.  You're right, man, you're right.
Me:  You shouldn't judge people.
Myself:  I'm sorry, man.  I don't mean to.  You can go ahead and smoke, man.  You're right.

I, along with Myself and feeling defeated, walked away.  Soon all my friends started smoking.  Everyone in the church started smoking.  Then they, along with Me, started drinking.  And then they, along with Me, started cursing.  They, along with Me, started watching whatever movies they wanted to because I, along with Myself, couldn't tell them, along with Me, where it says not to watch whatever they want, in the Bible.

Over time, the smoking and drinking started aging our faces and bodies, we started quoting movie lines, some that involved racy humor and some that involved foul language.

We were still saved and Christians.  And we were able to get closer to people, too, inside their circles and what not.  We looked like them and we sounded like them.

And it was all because I, along with Myself, didn't have tangible proof that it was wrong.

So then everything is cool and everyone else was right.  Right?

(*I have NOT started smoking.
When someone asks me "Why not?", someone or something inside of me is screaming "BUT WHY?!!!"
The scream echoes in my blood.  I look down at my body and then turn to a mirror to find that my entire body is covered in blood.  Someone else's blood.
I run.  I run because the blood inside me is guilty.  But I don't stop running because the blood that covers me is innocent.)

Euphoric is the Battle which is the Drug

Breathe in.  Silence.  Surrounded by things that aren't so important anymore.  At least for the moment.

We pray.
And then we read it once.  Aloud.
And then we sit.
The same mental images that came to mind when I read it earlier once again came into view.
Nothing new.
We pick a passage and we say it.

And then we read it again.
And then we sit.
This time, I start having pictures in my head pop up: pictures with the same quality as say a seventies or eighties cartoon.
We reflect.
Rather, they reflect.
I say nothing.

And then we read it.  Again.
And then we sit.  Again.
But this time...
This time, with my eyes closed, I stopped thinking about what everyone thought of me.  I knew I looked weird, but it's how I wanted to sit: back tall, eyes closed, book against my chest.  I'm so self-concsious.  But I have realized that self-concscious people achieve so few of their dreams.  The weird people, though, they live them.
As I listened to the words being read aloud, a different quality flooded my mind.  With euphoria pumping through my veins, a battle scene right out of the land of Narnia comes into focus.
Only this battle scene is far more intense.
A line states: "...by the fire and fury of the battle which was occurring in him up there."
Maybe that's what triggered it.  There were swords, blood, fire, rock, sweat, and fear.
We zoom across the clearing where the battle is playing out to the edge of the woods.  Something is rustling just inside.
"...the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air."
A great lion leaps out from the woods and, as I watch it leap over me, I am but a foot beneath its massive body.
It stampedes into the war, muting the fire and leading the blood bath to a close in a triumphant raid.
As we watch death and darkness die, the warriors look around at one another: they're all just kids.  Or, rather, just fragile people, wanting only to live to see tomorrow.

We reflect in silence.
We say a closing prayer.
And then we leave.

The River Witch in "Sonny's Blues"

There are two instances, two quotes I'd like to take from James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues".

The first:

"'Tell me,' I said at last, 'why does he want to die?  He must want to die, he's killing himself, why does he want to die?'
"He looked at me in surprise.  He licked his lips.  'He don't want to die.  He wants to live.  Don't nobody want to die ever."

The well-meaning narrator, concerned for his younger brother who has found himself wrapped up in the kudzu vine of the world's trappings, begs a friend of the younger brother to tell him "'why does he want to die?'"
And the crazed friend "licked his lips" and said "'He don't want to die.  He wants to live."

In my mind, I picture the intriguing mystic from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Tia Dalma, licking her lips with a wide-eyed expression and an all-too-knowing grin as she replies: "Him don't want to die.  Him wants to LIVE..." as she settles back into her seat and continues to offer her wicked expression.

Isn't that why everyone entangled in the world gets there in the first place?  No one wants to die.  But they're willing to risk their lives to LIVE!



The second quote:

"She was crying again.  Still, I couldn't move.  I said, 'Lord, Lord, Mama, I didn't know it was like that.'
"'Oh, honey,' she said, 'there's a lot that you don't know.  but you are going to find out.'"

Here, Tia Dalma has postured herself as a tear-plagued mother who knows, with heart-wrenching dread, what the pain of the world will do to her children.

It wasn't too hard for me to jump to, this scenario.  I loved, after all, the parts in the third installment of Pirates where we see Tia Dalma grieve her old lover's choices and her old love's cruel and bitter past.

As this river witch looks out the window, mourning over the dying world, she offers an endearment and a piece of advice: "Oh, honey...there be a lot you don't yet know."  She turns to him now, staring at him (or through him, maybe) with a foreboding (if not frightening) expression on her face. "But you are GOING to find out."

To "Face" or "Embrace" the Darkness around us?

                And here we are.  And here is the middle of the semester.  And we have approached the middle of the semester.  And so now here is where we are.

                At the moment there is no new material to mull over.  But that’s appropriate, isn’t it?  We are halfway through a significant leg in our educational journey, and would it not make a mockery of the knowledge we have passed by if we kept on going without stopping to remember it?  That’s almost like making a promise to a friend, as you say goodbye for quite a while, that you will think of them daily and miss them.  But then you are doing well to think of them once a week and have found that making new friends was not so hard.  And that old friend has slipped from your memory.

                Well I do not wish to slight that old friend by failing to remember him, so I have looked back at lessons learned in the first half of the year in hopes that I will hold them with me always.

                So I decided to look back at Professor Corrigan’s article “Darkness, Questions, Poetry, and Spiritual Hope”.  Professor Corrigan often asks us, in class, what has “struck” us.  So I think I shall beat him to the punch line.

                His lines toward the end of his essay struck me: “In poems that embrace darkness, hope is sometimes a footnote.  This is to not pretend to embrace darkness while really rushing to the light.”

                What is “darkness”?  Dictionary.com provided me with six definitions, so let’s look at these for a moment, shall we?

1)      THE STATE OR QUALITY OF BEING DARK: THE ROOM WAS IN TOTAL DARKNESS.  Well this first one is pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?  With the example tagged on the end, we almost feel like this is a no-brainer.  But with all of the semantics surrounding the word “dark/darkness”, perhaps it’s not as self-explanatory as we had hoped.  So let’s continue.

2)      ABSENCE OR DEFICIENCY OF LIGHT: THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT.  Okay, so maybe this one helps us out a little bit with the first one.  We can use this one to help us elaborate on the first one.  So now we know that darkness is all about lacking light.  The example talks about the darkness of night to help us picture the definition.  But then what does light mean to darkness?

3)      WICKEDNESS OR EVIL: SATAN, THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS.  Well this seems to portray darkness as something less than what we had hoped, does it not?  The lines from the essay talked about embracing the darkness.  There are several places in Professor Corrigan’s essay, though, that talk about “facing darkness”…So are we to “face” or “embrace”?

4)      OBSCURITY; CONCEALMENT: THE DARKNESS OF THE METAPHOR DESTROYED ITS EFFECTIVENESS.  Everything is not clear, this definition is saying.

5)      LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OR ENLIGHTENMENT: HEATHEN DARKNESS.  So darkness is ignorance… Should we, then, be rid of darkness?  Or maybe ignorance is not a fair enough word.  The definition uses the words “lack of knowledge”, so as to say a lack of what is to be known.  It also uses the words “lack of…enlightenment”, so as to say a lack of coming to the point where a person realizes “this is what is actually right” and/or “what I had previously thought was wrong”.

6)      LACK OF SIGHT; BLINDNESS.  Darkness means being blind.  Are we to embrace being blind?

And so this essay, when looking at the definition of darkness, raises many interesting questions. The answer to one, though, I feel rather confident about:  Do we face darkness or embrace darkness?

We face darkness.  As to whether or not we embrace darkness, are we not then embracing: the state of being dark, the absence of light, wickedness, concealment, lack of enlightenment, and blindness?

Do You Care That I Care? (extra post)

Ya know what?

Help me, or have nothing to do with me.
Entertain me, or do not bore me.

But if you do not entertain me,
be there with me and I promise
Not to be bored by your presence.

Comfort me, or do not pretend
To care about me.


Can I do the same for you?

Will you let me help you?
Or have nothing to do with me?

Will you let me entertain you?
Will you tell me when I bore you?

Can I be there with you
And not bore you with my presence?

Will you allow me to comfort you?
Do you care that I care?

When I Go Home…

We took the old highway coming into town so that we could stop at Arnold’s.  Yes, I knew it was November.  Yes, I knew that November brings snow to Crystal, Tennessee.  But I grew up on Arnold’s Frozen Yogurt and it had been too long.

As we came into town, I noticed stores that had new looks, stores that had the same old looks, and stores that were gone.  I looked for old neighborhood houses and, in some cases, struggled to even make out entire neighborhoods.  I realized, with a look back at my childhood, the things that had changed and then things that had stayed the same, and probably always would.

Our car pulled up to the curb, and David put it in park.  I looked out the passenger window and across the street to the lit-up living room window on the other side, nestled in between all the other cozy-looking houses in this old, historic neighborhood.

We sat there for a second, both myself and he, as well, before he asked, “Are you ready?”

I looked back at him, with his warm expression on his face.  Having him here made it so much easier.  I contemplated his question before looking back at the house again.  “There’s one more thing I need to do.”  I clasped my hands together, resting my elbows on my knees and then my forehead on my hands. Dear Lord, …help me…Amen.

I took a deep breath, let it go, and opened my car door.  He did the same.

When we got to the threshold, we could hear the soft sounds of people fellowshipping on the other side of the door.  David reached over and pressed the doorbell.

After a few seconds of waiting, the door opened up and there stood my mother, wearing fifty-seven as if it were a new fashion trend.  She would always be that beautiful.

“Well hey!” She exclaimed with that motherly Tennessee tone.  “Look, everybody!  Rebecca and David are here!  Y’all come right on in.”

She ushered us in to the living room where I was nearly tackled by Elizabeth.  “Becca,” she spoke into my ear as we hugged tightly, “it’s so good to see you.”

As Elizabeth grabbed my hand and led me to the sofa, I looked around at the living room: it still had the same wooden floors but with new wine-colored shag rugs, the same coffee-and-crème-colored walls but with more pictures of grandkids and rediscovered snapshots of the past hanging up, and the same high ceilings that somehow added to the emptiness of the room when I would find myself alone in this room.  Except now I felt more alone than I ever had in here.  I looked over to the soft brown recliner in the far corner.  No one was sitting in it.

                Dan and Charlotte were already in the love seat, their girls, Jessica and Faith, running throughout the house.  I could see back in the kitchen, and it sounded like she was sending Enrique to the store to pick up a few more items.  Their two-year-old, Miguel, was pulling the tail of Simba, Mom’s golden retriever.

“…and I was worried that the pumpkin pie would get cool before y’all got here, but it just came out of the oven!” Mom announced to David and I for everyone else to hear, and I hoped she hadn’t noticed I wasn’t paying attention.

                The afternoon continued on, with Mom pulling Elizabeth, Charlotte, Stacey, and I into the kitchen, and David being pulled into whatever football game was on TV.  Dan and Charlotte’s two little girls insisted on helping me make the dressing and cranberry sauce, so I swallowed hard and spent the next two or three recipes fighting the feeling that someone had punched me in my gut.

                It was good being around the family again, though.  It really was.

                Mike walked in the back door while taking off his Home Depot apron just as we were seasoning the vegetables and pulling the turkey out of the oven: a perfect golden-brown.  He and Mom set the table, and I was making my way back to my husband when I heard someone call my name.

“Becca!”

I turned back around and was looking into the eyes of a quirky little Hispanic baby.

“Becca, could you please take Miguel and change his diaper?  I’m sorry, but I’ve got to put the mashed potatoes in the crock-pot for another ten minutes and now slide a frozen cheese pizza into the oven, as well.  Apparently Faith has decided that she doesn’t eat real food anymore.”

What was I supposed to say?

That’s how I found myself in an upstairs bedroom, changing a poop diaper and getting baby powder on my blouse.  After scrubbing the white powder off and attaching a new diaper, I looked down to find the baby staring up at me, eyes just as big as they could be and a smile that spread his chubby cheeks to the sides of his face.

I carried him downstairs and found Enrique in the living room.  After handing him off, I walked quickly to the half-bath underneath the stairwell and wiped the running mascara off my face before taking a few breaths and stepping out to the sitting room in the front.

In here was the most beautiful window of the whole house, so beautifully framing the scenery out front.  I noticed the McGuires moseying across the lawn with a casserole in hand to come join us.  They were our neighbors when I was ten and, to this day, they still lived next door.

Mom answered the door when they knocked, and then moved the three of us into the dining room.  It was time to eat.

As we all sat down around the table, the kids seated at the bar in the kitchen, Mom stood up and looked at us all with that warm, stunning smile of hers.

“Before we begin eating this wonderful meal before us,” a small cheer went out from some of the men, “I wanted to take time to say thanks for all our many blessings.”

That was when I started feeling a little hot.  I gaze accidentally slipped to the head of the table, where Mom was sitting.

Mom began to give thanks for us all being here, but it was a lie.  All of us were not.  She gave thanks for all of our health, but it was a lie.  Sickness has a way of tearing a person’s life up.

And when she went to go say the prayer, I don’t what came over me.  I was sweating on the outside, and crumbling to pieces on the inside.  My palms felt clammy and I wanted to hide my face in David’s shoulder, to beg him to hold me and make the pain go away.  To pick me up and carry me.  To run until everything was truly well and there was nothing but happiness.

There was everything but happiness, though.

I tried to focus on Mom’s prayer, and that was when it happened.

“…and Lord, please remember little Harrison on this day-”

“Mom!” I looked up and yelled.  Hesitantly, I noticed, everyone began to lift their heads to see what was surely a heart-wrenching expression on my face.

“Oh, I’m sorry sweetie,” she offered gently, seeming genuinely apologetic.  “Don’t cry, sweetie.  Don’t cry.”  But I couldn’t stop the tears that were already cascading down my face.

“Well it’s not like he had much of a chance, anyways, with that name,”  Mike offered as a joke to lighten the mood.  But that crude, inconsiderate joke was the very thing that broke me.

I threw my chair back and ran through the hallway, through the living room and into another hallway, and then finally into the master bedroom before slamming and locking the door shut.  I collapsed onto the bed and then curled up into a ball and heaved.

Why me, God?!  Why!!! I yelled in anger and desperation and loneliness and emptiness.  Why can’t it be the way it’s supposed to?!

*****

I really don’t know how much time passed before I felt the hand on my shoulder.  But it eventually registered in my mind and so I pulled my head up to see who it was.

It surely couldn’t be, though!  …Could it?

“Dad?” I asked reluctantly.

“Hey, Carrot.  Did you know that every time you cry, I swear those freckles of yours just get brighter and brighter?  Well I think they’re absolutely adorable,” he smiled and said.

I sat up and embraced him for a few special moments, gripping his shirt and smelling the scent of the cologne he always wore.  I buried my head in body and just let him love me for those special moments, and then I sat back.

“I’ve missed you so much, Dad,” I whispered through my choked up voice.  The tears were coming back again.

“I know, Carrot.  I know,” he offered back as he took out his hankie and dried my tears.

“It’s just…It’s just that it’s not fair, losing both you and…” I stopped, honestly not knowing whether or not I could go on or not.

“Heyyy, sweetie.  You listen here.  You know what’s not fair?  Right now, me and Harrison are up in heaven with no worries, no responsibilities, and y’all are still stuck down here,” he chuckled and winked at me.  “Did I ever tell you that I love his name?”

“Stop it, Dad.  Just stop it!  You died!  There’s nothing comforting about it!”

He looked at me for a moment, and I must have looked a mess, as low and awful as I felt.

“No, no I suppose it’s not…for y’all.  Carrot, I’m going to ask a favor of you.  I’m going to ask you to stop being so selfish.”

He had no idea how much that hurt to hear him say.  I started crying again, so confused and feeling so alone.

“See, you think you’re all alone, that everything is just going against you.  But Harrison and I are in heaven!  I’m here with God and life is great!  I know it’s hard on you, sweetie, but you act like my leaving this earth is the end of my soul, entirely.”

I thought about it for a second and knew that he was right.  But I didn’t want to admit it.

“I miss you,” I whispered yet again, fighting back the tears and not even making eye contact anymore.

“I know, Carrot.  I know.” He paused for a few seconds before he spoke again, “ Say, you remember that place, that fancy shmancy place you used to drag me to, this time of year.”

I chuckled through the tears and wiped my eyes.  “The Hartford Hotel.”

“Yea, that one, the one that had the father-daughter dance and banquet around Thanksgiving every year.  You remember that one time I almost tripped?”

“Almost?  Dad, you did trip?”

“I did?” he played innocent, with a half-smile on his face.

“You fell on top of me, and your face was so red with embarrassment I died laughing right there!” I giggled out, before I realize the disgusting metaphor I had just used.  But he just kept smiling.

“It’s alright, Becca.  You don’t have to be so somber every time you used the word, death.  It was a very funny time, you’re right.”

His words brought me to a place of ease and peace, just like they always did.

“I loved every second we ever spent together, Carrot.  And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“I know, Daddy.  I know.”

Just then I heard the door unlock and I turned to see it cracking open and David’s face poking in.

“I was getting worried about you so I kind of picked the lock,” he shrugged his shoulders and smiled that same warm smile.  “Is it alright if I come in?”

I turned around to where Dad had been sitting, but I had already guessed he would be gone.  It was alright, though.  I wiped my eyes and turned back to him.

“Yea.  Come on in.”

He came in and sat down behind me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me and pressing his face into my hair.  We fought and had our disagreements, there were days where I said things that really hurt him and he would say things that really hurt me, and then with my miscarriage with Harrison, our marriage just about didn’t make it.

But there were times like these, times when he would wrap me in his arms and I knew that we truly loved each other and that God had given us each other, not so that we would face hard times, but because we would face hard times.  And God knew that there was no hope of me surviving without him, without David Landon Shores.

I needed him.

*****

I returned to the dinner table without looking one of them in the eye.  Mike apologized deeply, much due to Mom’s insistence, I’m sure, and we ate the rest of the meal in relative normalcy.

The next day was Friday.  Black Friday to be exact.  This was the number one shopping day in America, because crazy families would load every last member up into vehicles and drive to every strip mall and shopping center within a twenty mile radius.  Ours was no exception.

We finished the day at half an hour to midnight, but not for lack of Mom’s trying.  She wasn’t satisfied until she knew every last store looked like a hurricane had hit and left only the things not worth buying.

When we finally made it home, everyone crashed and slept until twelve o’clock the next day.

As the day went by, the guys played a few backyard football games (the snow had melted considerably).  Mom and Stacey had us back in the kitchen, trying to do “fun” and “creative” things with all of the leftovers.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” was on reruns all day, and eventually Charlotte popped in the DVD of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for Jessica, Faith, and Juan to glue their eyes to the TV for half an hour.

It was when I went to take out the garbage after an early dinner that I found Mom outside by the backdoor.  Smoking a cigarette.

I dropped the bag on the doorstep and walked to the oak tree in the back yard, my hands gripping my head.

She had quit.  She had quit.  I know for a fact that she had quit.  I wasn’t handling this very well.

I sat down at the roots of the oak and just let the tears come in a gentle stream.  My mind went back to last Thanksgiving, where I stood at the table and announced that David and I were having a baby to the whole family.  The tears kept coming.

I remember looking to the head of the table and seeing Dad’s face light up as bright as it could be.  The tears were getting stronger now.

Dad would only be alive for another month before he was hospitalized.  His heart disease would get worse and worse.  Those times where the pain would keep him up at night, groaning and crying and helpless to stop the burning inside his chest were the worst.  He died three days before Christmas.  No one felt like celebrating on December 25^th or like welcoming a new year.

When David and I went looking for names, we wanted something special.  We wanted to honor my father by giving his name to our baby boy on the way: Harrison.

My water broke in March, with a month to go, still, in my second trimester.  David rushed me to the hospital but it was too late.  We lost my baby boy.  I lost my baby boy.

Mom sat down on the old swing set beside the old tree, I could see out of the corner of my eye.  I tried to wipe the floods from my face, pushed myself up, and walked over to the set and sat down in the swing next to her.

We sat there like that for a couple minutes before I finally worked up the nerve to say something.

“How dare you,” I muttered.

I heard her sniffle and, when I looked up, I saw that she too was crying.

“Oh Mom,” I suddenly felt awful for having said something.

“No.  No you’re right, Becca.  I had promised.”

“It’s alright, Mom.  Don’t cry.”

She looked me in the eyes, and I instantly felt awful for her.  In my time with Dad (or whatever that was), he had been right.  I had been selfish.  I never once stopped to really think how hard this must have been on my mom, losing the love of her life.

If I lost David…

And then for us to have named her grandchild after him, and to have lost him, too, well that just left her with an empty home and a broken heart.

They say that it’s nearly impossible, as it is, for a smoker to stop smoking.  They say that stress and worry and depression are like catalysts for dependency and the nicotine is the crutch.  By making my mom promise, had I yanked the crutches out from under her?

“When I made that promise to you, Sweetie, I wanted so badly to keep it.  I’ve been trying my hardest to keep serving the Lord, Becca, I promise I have!”

“I know, Momma, I know.”  I was crying again, too.  But now it was for her.

“Becca…I am sorry for letting my pride get in the way.  I am going to find help and I am going to quit once and for all-”

“Mom, you don’t have to-”

“No, but I want to!  Becca, it won’t be quick and it won’t be without it’s hardships, but I am going to quit… Will you pray with me?  For all of that, and just for God to give me strength?”

I looked into her weepy eyes with my weepy eyes and couldn’t help but laugh.  “I would love that, Mom.  I really would.”  We hugged each other and began praying.

That day, even with all of the stuff going on in our lives, both my Mom and I rededicated our lives to God, right there on that little old swing set.

*****

After Mom’s spiritual renewal that afternoon, she sat the entire family down that night and explained to us that, even though we had all planned on getting on the road first thing the next morning, that we would be attending church together, first—as a family.

We would be going to the one we had gone to as a family all those years ago, she said.

So the next morning we all ran about crazily, trying to get ready for the morning: getting into our Sunday Best, straightening my hair and tying bows into my nieces’.  And as I helped David slip into his coat, I thought about my own relationship with God.

Stacey and Enrique had been strong in their relationships with God, I was pretty sure.  But the rest of the family, as far as I knew, had had our ups and downs.

For a while after Dad’s death, Mike had stopped believing in God at all.  I always knew He struggled with his self-esteem.  He didn’t think a girl would say yes to him, he didn’t think he could make it on his own, and so at twenty-five, he was still single and living with Mom.

But, lately, he had been growing as a person, you could tell, and he had announced this weekend that by this time next year he would be moving into an apartment.  I was so proud of baby brother in that moment.  It had made me so happy to see his face light up as he announced it.

We sat in church, that morning, singing those old familiar hymns and listening as the Preacher’s message wrung in each of our hearts.  He spoke of being thankful for the things that God had blessed us with.  He said that life would get hard and there would be times where we would get to feeling alone.  But all we had to do was remember those people who loved us.

My mind went to my little sister, Elizabeth, who had been my best friend growing up.  And I thought about my older sister, Stacey, and her wonderful husband and child.  I thought about Dan, my older brother and loving guardian.  I thought about Mikey, my baby brother, who I had fought with growing up but loved so much.

I thought about my Dad and Mom.  They had their moments, like David and I, and they weren’t perfect.  But they loved like champions and lived like servants.  Who could say a thing against them?

We stepped out of the church doors after the service to falling snow, and we stopped first to say our goodbyes.  Each of our eyes were misty as we reminded each other how much we loved one another, and that it wouldn’t be long before Christmas came, and then soon it would be Thanksgiving again.

Eventually, David and I parted from the group and made it to our car.

We each opened our doors, but neither of us got in just yet.  I looked around at this little town that I had grown up in, about all the memories, both sweet and bitter, that had brought me to where I was in my life.

“I want to try again,” I heard David say as he, too looked around.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He took a moment before replying, “A baby.  I want to try having a baby again.”

I turned to look at him, with that loving face of his.  “Yea…yea, me too,” I replied.  And I meant it.  I really meant it.

David climbed into the car and started the ignition, but I kept standing there, trying desperately to remember what it was I should remember.

“Are you ready?” David leaned across my seat and asked.

“There is one more thing I need to do,” and I knew, as I felt my face grow into a smile, what it was.

*****

As the sun sat on the horizon of Crystal, Tennessee, bidding farewell to the world, my husband sat out in the running car for a small amount of time: it was all I asked.

I stepped up to the door as he watched, brushing the snow on my shoulders.  Though it was old and, from the looks of it, abandoned, the door was open and I stepped in.

The entire roof was made of glass, so the golden light of the sunset, casting shadows of the lightly-falling snow, poured into the Hartford Hotel as I found the ballroom.

I walked in, memories flooding back to me has my heart swelled.  I noticed a corner in the room, in particular, that we used to sit at a lot.  I walked up to it and ran my fingers across the spot where only some stubborn old man could have defaced the elegant wooden table.  Etched into the top on the side were the words: “Daddy and Carrot”.

This nearly sent me into tears, so I left that spot and walked to the center of the room.

And, if for only that small amount of time, I imagined I was in my father’s arms once again.  And then we danced.