Practical Joke

On a Monday morning, this is the gate security officer's idea of a practical joke.

"Mam, You've been selected for a random car inspection."

(mouth open, confused look on face, wonders what she'll have to do to make up for being late to work)
"uh, ok."

"Just kidding. Have a nice day."

Hey Jen.

Sometimes nice things happen and you forget, well, I don't want to forget this.

Background: This last summer I attempted to practice Spanish in a playful manner with my friends little boy who is three. After a few failed attempts we gave up (he preferred his mom to me. understandably so.) I let his mom know of some resources that she might enjoy using with him, cds and books from the library- so that whether it was from me or not, he learned Spanish.


So fast forward 6 months.....I went over to my friends house the other night and the child came up to me and said, "Hey Jen. say uno in Spanish."
"Uno."
"Hey Jen. Say dos in Spanish."
"Dos."
"Hey Jen. Say tres in Spanish."
"Tres."
"Hey Jen. Say cuatro in Spanish."
"Cuatro."
Hey Jen. Say cinco in Spanish."
"Cinco."
Hey Jen Say ocho in Spanish."
"Ocho."

and then he got distracted by something his brother was playing with. Even though he skipped from 5 to 8, and then quit, it was incredibly ADORABLE. I think my favourite is that he added "in Spanish." to every command, like we didn't know which language we were practicing :)


P.S. Happy Epiphany. Yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas.

Books Read 2009! 67

Last year, Sue did a post recounting the books she read. So I kept track. In her honor.

I also started keeping track here

I can't believe I read this many books this past year. My goal was one a week. I surpassed it. Some of these were short, but some were long, so I figure it all evens out. Quite a few were *audiobooks, whose ease of listening to in the car or while wandering about the grocery store greatly augmented the number of books I read. I would love to give any feedback you might want about a particular book. Let me know! Hope everyone had a Happy New Year!



PENDING->Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II (I've got 300/525 of the pages I wanted to read, read. I decided to not read the 130 page introduction. Maybe some other time. I got this for Christmas last year so I was trying so hard to finish it before Christmas, it was that book that I took everywhere with me, but never cracked. Mom was like, "really? you're going to read that on vacation?" and I didn't. :) )

Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

*Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

*The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love by Fr. Homan and Pratt

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (this book made me soooo uncomfortable.)

Prayers for the Domestic Church, a Handbook for Worship in the Home by Edward Hays

*The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

*The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

How Proust Can Change YOUR LIFE: Not a Novel by Alain De Botton

*Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

*Ida B:...and her plans to maximize fun, avoid disaster, and (possibly) save the world by Katherine Hannigan

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry

*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton

So Far From God by Ana Castillo

*Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken (sooooo good.)

Reclaiming Our Roots: An Inclusive Introduction to Church History by Ellingsen

*The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

*When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

*Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt

*The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman

*Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

Thousand Cranes by Kawabata

Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson

*Carry On Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Schaum's Quick guide to Writing Great Short Stories

Veronika Decides to Die by Coelho

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens

Mother Teresa: Come be my Light by Mother Teresa

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown by Roberts

*Interior Castle By St. Teresa of Avila

*Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife by Irene Spencer

101 Things I learned in Architecture School by Frederick

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Reilly

*25 Things to Say to the Interviewer by Hawk

The Maytrees: A Novel by Annie Dillard

Till We have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis (extra-large print while on the treadmill!)

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton

On Love by Alain de Botton

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by L'Engle (sooooo good.)

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's semester at America's Holiest University by Roose

Operating Instructions by Lamott

Cold comfort Farm: A Play by Doust

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack by M.E. Kerr

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a language fanatic by Little

Reunion by Uhlman

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

*Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

*Lilith by George MacDonald

Persepolis 1 & 2 by Satrapi (twice)

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our hidden life in God by Dallas Willard

American Gods by Neil Gaimen

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Steward

Posers, Fakers, and Wannabees by Brennen Manning

The Twenty-One Balloons by Pene Du Bois

The Curious case of Benjamin Button by Fitzgerald

The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell

67 Books
19/67 Audiobooks



Books that were on my shelf that I never quite got to:

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

The World Is Flat by Friedman

Outline of an Anglican Life by Louis Tarsitano

Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus



A book that I can't count as part of this list because I read it today:

Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit

My personal audio book fails.

Listening to an Audio Book on shuffle. (wow, this author really is a bad writer, and all the jumping around isn't effective for telling this story. oh! I've been listening to it on shuffle. sigh.)

Listening to an Audio Book thinking there is only 10 minutes left of the story. (How is the author going to resolve what's going on so quickly? and they haven't found all the kings yet? *looks for roommate's print version of the book* Hey! There's twenty more pages that I didn't download. sigh.)

:)

Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

These are the quotes I found the most impactful from Wendell Berry's book Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community. I wish I wouldn't have waited this long to read his essays. Pretty easy reading, but some hard ideas. I would like to read more of his stuff. I may have included too much material. The ellipses denote places I left stuff out. I edited out as much as I could. Let me know if you'd like the rest of what I typed up.

Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community by Wendell Berry

On the Outdoors.

Pg 28 The love of nature that limits itself to the love of places that are “scenic” is implicitly dangerous. It is dangerous because it tends to exclude unscenic places from nature and from the respect we sometimes accord to nature.

Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread...The turning of water into wine- was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.

On Peacefulness.

Pg 84 There is one great possibility that we have hardly tried: that we can come to peace by being peaceable.

Pg 86 Peaceableness has been too little tried by individuals, much less by nations. It will not readily or easily serve those who are greedy for power. It cannot be effectively used for bad ends. It could not be used as the basis of an empire. It does not afford opportunities for profit. It involves danger to practitioners. It requires sacrifice. And yet it seems to me that it is practical, for it offers the only escape from the logic of retribution. It is the only way by which we can cease to look to war for peace.

Peaceableness is not the amity that exists between people who agree, nor is it the exhaustion or jubilation that follows war. It is not passive. It is the ability to act to resolve conflict without violence. If it is not a practical and a practicable method, it is nothing. As a practicable method, it reduces helplessness in the face of conflict. In the face of conflict, the peaceable person may find several solutions, the violent person only one….Of course, as the Amish know, peaceableness can get you killed. I suppose they would reply that war can get you killed, too, and is more likely to get you killed that peaceableness—and also that when a peaceable person is killed, peaceableness survives.


On Being Man.

Pg 106 Dualistic minds conclude that the formula for man-making is man =body + soul. But that conclusion cannot be derived, except by violence, from Gen 2:7, which is not dualistic. The formula give in Gen 2:7 is not man = body +soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath. According to this verse, God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust then , by breathing His breath into it, He made the dust live. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul. “Soul” here refers to the whole creature. Humanity is thus present to us, in Adam, not as a creature of two discrete parts temporarily glued together but as a single mystery.


On Sex.

Pg 134 A skin lotion advertisement displayed a photograph of the naked torso of a woman. From a feminist point of view, this headless and footless body represents the male chauvinist’s sexual ideal: a woman who cannot think and cannot escape. From a point of view somewhat more comprehensive- the point of view of community- it represents also the commercial ideal of the industrial economy: the completely seducible consumer, unable either to judge or to resist.

The headlessness of this lotionable lady suggests also [our culture's...] gravitation of attention from the countenance, especially the eyes, to the specifically sexual anatomy. The difference, of course is that the countenance is both physical and spiritual. ..Looking into one another’s eyes, lovers recognize their encounter as a meeting not merely of two bodies but of two living souls. In one another’s eyes, moreover, they see themselves reflected not narcissistically but as singular beings, separate and small, far inferior to the creature that they together make. …Sexual love is thus understood as both fact and mystery, physical motion and spiritual motive. That this complex love should be reduced simply to sex has always seemed a fearful thing to the poets.



Pg 139 Our present sexual conduct has forsaken trust, for it rests on the easy giving and breaking of promises. And having forsaken trust, it has predictably become political….We are attempting to correct bad character an low motives by law and by litigation. “Losing kindness,” as Lao-tzu said, “they turn to justness.” …..The difficulty is that marriage, family life, friendship, neighborhood, and other personal connections do not depend exclusively or even primarily on justice- though, of course, they all must try for it. They depend also on trust, patience, respect, mutual help, forgiveness- in other words, the practice of love, as opposed to the mere feeling of love. As soon as the parties to a marriage or a friendship begin to require strict justice of each other, then that marriage or friendship begins to be destroyed, for there is no way to adjudicate the competing claims of a personal quarrel….The proper question, perhaps, is not why we have so much divorce, but why we are so unforgiving. The answer, perhaps, is that, though we still recognize the feeling of love, we have forgotten how to practice love when we don’t feel it.

The phrase “sexual partner” which denies all that is implied by the names of “husband” or “wife” or even “lover.” Denies anyone’s responsibility for the consequences of sex. With one’s “sexual partner,” it is now understood, one must practice “safe sex” – that is , one must protect oneself, not one’s partner or the children that may come of the partnership.


Sexual liberation ought logically to have brought in a time of “naturalness,” ease, and candor between men and women. It has on the contrary, filled the country with sexual self-consciousness, uncertainty and fear. Women, though they may dress as if the sexual millennium had arrived, hurry along our city streets and public corridors with their eyes averted, like hunted animals. “Eye contact,” once the very signature of our humanity, has become a danger. The meeting ground between men and women, which ought to be safeguarded by trust, has becomes a place of suspicion, competition, and violence. One no longer goes there asking how instinct may be ramified in affection and loyalty; now one asks how instinct may be indulged with the least risk to personal safety….Women must look on virtually any man as a potential assailant, and a man must look on virtually any woman as a potential accuser……We presume to teach our young people that sex can be made “safe” by the use, inevitably, or purchased drugs and devices,. What a lie! Sex was never safe, and it is less safe now than it has ever been. What we are actually teaching the young is an illusion of thoughtless freedom and purchasable safety, which encourages them to tamper prematurely, disrespectfully, and dangerously with a great power. Just as the public economy encourages people to spend money and waste the world, so the public sexual code encourages people to be spendthrifts and squanderers of sex.


On Sexual Harassment.

If men and women are merely animals, it is hard to see how sexual harassment could have become an issue, for such harassment is no more than the instinctive procedure of male animals, who openly harass females, usually by unabashed physical display and contact; it is their way of asking who is and who is not in estrus. Women would not think such behaviour offensive if we had not, for thousands of years, understood ourselves as specifically human beings- creatures who, if in some ways animal-like, are in other ways God-like. In asking men to feel shame and to restrain themselves which one would not ask of an animal- women are implicitly asking to be treated as human beings in that full sense, as living souls made in the image of God. This kindness cannot be conferred by a public economy or by a public government or by a public people. It can only be conferred on its members by a community.

Quotes from Operating Instructions.

A while ago I read a book by Anne Lamott entitled Operating Instructions. Since I've moved, whenever I'm back at my parents I try to clean up my room a little bit. This is a book that wasn't in my closet with the other "already read" books, and I didn't take it to my new place on my bookshelf of "to read" books. Upon opening it, I realized that I'd read it, but never typed up my favorite quotes. So this afternoon, I had a few minutes and typed things up so that I can put it away until I need it again. Enjoy.

Pg 48 Every time I say yes when I mean no, I am abandoning myself, and I end up feeling used or resentful or frantic. But when I say no when I mean no, it’s so sane and healthy that it creates a little glade around me in which I can get the nourishment I need. Then I help and serve people from a place of real abundance and health, instead of from this martyred mentally ill position, this open space in a forest about a mile north of Chernobyl.

Pg 155 Tonite Sam (the author's new born baby) and I took a friend of ours out to dinner, a young man in his late twenties who is badly strung out on booze and Methedrine but who is also a very sweet, bright guy. We went to McDonald’s and got Quarter-Pounders and fries, and we were sitting in a booth with Sam on the table in his car seat, babbling. I was talking to the young man about recovery, which he was starved to hear about- I think it must have been like hearing about the sun during an ice age- and then Sam made a loud spluttering noise, so I said jokingly, “Shh, honey, be patient, I know John plans to share his food with you,” and I went on blithely with my recovery pitch, eating at the same time, not particularly paying attention. Then I looked up and noticed that my friend had torn off about a third of his burger and was holding it tentatively in his left hand, and he said to me, “Is that about right?” and I said, “Is what about right?” and he held out the small piece of hamburger and said with exasperation, “I just really don’t have any idea how much he eats.” I mentioned this story to Pammy later, and she said, “Boy, scratch him off the baby-sitting list.”

On making good choices--If we’re not careful, we’ll spend our whole lives blowing on sparks and trying to turn them into embers, when all along they were sparks that should never have been ignited. In that capacity, I’ve looked like Neptune, cheeks filled with wind blowing on the sea.

On making good choices--One thing I know for sure, though, is that when you are hungry, it is an act of wisdom each time you turn down a spoonful if you know that the food is poisoned.

On her newborn son's face-- In the morning when he first wakes up and looks at me, it’s with such joy and amazement that it’s like someone had told him, before he went to sleep, that I had died.

Divine Patience

God scatters light across the world to the just and the unjust, he allows the earth to yield fruit to the worthy and unworthy, he bears the sins and wrongdoing of men, he restrains his wrath as evil men go about their life oblivious to God. The most visible sign of God's patience, however, is the Incarnation. For God allowed himself to be conceived in the womb of a woman and waited patiently for the months to pass before the birth of Christ. When God is born as a human being he patiently underwent the various stages of childhood and adolescence leading to maturity. And when Christ reached adulthood he didn't rush to be recognized and even allowed himself to be baptized by his own servant....Impatience becomes the primal sin, and the chief example of impatience is the devil. "Who," says Tertullian, ever committed adultery "without the impatience of lust?"
For Tertullian the singular mark of patience is not endurance or fortitude but hope. To be impatient, says Tertullian, is to live without hope.

-Excerpted from The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Wilken