The Impossibility of Thirteen Clocks Chiming Simultaneously

A belated nod to our nation's birthday, from Walter McDougall's awesome Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585-1828:

[T]he American republic was not the product of a spontaneous uprising of instant democrats against tyranny, nor the product of bourgeois versus proletarian class conflict. Otherwise, contemporary historians agree the colonists' anger over taxes, restrictions on commerce, colonial assemblies, and new western settlements, and perceived threats to religious liberty were all necessary conditions for revolt, but none by itself was sufficient. Nor do any of the historical theories answer two mysterious questions. The first is why colonists, especially some of the wealthiest, risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor over a thrup'penny tax or mere point of principle. The second is how the colonists managed to set aside their provincial, religious, and social divisions so that--as John Adams put it--"thirteen clocks were made to strike together." 

Those questions cannot be answered by reference to material or legal interests alone. Or rather, they can be so answered only if one grasps that most Puritans, Quakers, Cavaliers, and Bordermen, Old Lights, New Lights, and rational skeptics, invested their material and legal complaints against Britain with moral and spiritual meaning. Was the American rebellion caused by conflicts over wealth or ideology, a backward-looking Whig mentality or a future-oriented American dream, a secular discourse of human rights and equality or an evangelical discourse of corruption and virtue? The answer is all of the above, because the whole experience of the colonists dating back to 1607--and the twin vocabularies they used to interpret that experience--made self-government, religious freedom, economic opportunity, and territorial growth inseparable. Almost everyone from Massachusetts to Georgia could agree that: civil and religious liberty went hand in hand; liberty could not long survive without virtue; an exploding population could aspire to no liberty at all if its territorial and commercial expansion were artificially choked. 

And a nod to James Thurber, who shows us in a fantastic unique tale of romance, chivalry, whimsy, and better-than-Seuss tongue-twisters how inseparable [the] Time is from impossibility. Here, two of our heroes try to start the frozen thirteen clocks:

"I cannot start the clocks," the Princess said.

They heard the sound of fighting far above. "He faces thirteen men," she cried, "and that is hard."

"We face thirteen clocks," the Golux said, "and that is harder. Start the clocks!"

"How can I start the clocks?" the Princess wailed.

"Your hand is warmer than the snow is cold," the Golux said. "Touch the first clock with your hand." The Princess touched it. Nothing happened. "Again!" Saralinda held her hand against the clock and nothing happened. "We are ruined," said the Golux simply, and Saralinda's heart stood still.

She cried, "Use magic!"

"I  have no magic to depend on," groaned the Golux. "Try the other clock." 

The Princess tried the other clock and nothing happened. "Use logic, then!" she cried. In the secret walls they heard the Iron Guard pounding after Zorn, and coming close.

"Now let me see," the Golux said. "If you can touch the clocks and never start them, then you can start the clocks and never touch them. That's logic, as I know and use it. Hold your hand this far away. Now that far. Closer! Now a little farther back. A little farther. There! I think you have it! Do not move!"

The clogged and rigid works of the clock began to whir. They heard a tick and then a ticking. The Princess Saralinda fled from room to room, like wind in clover, and held her hand the proper distance from the clocks. Something like a vulture spread its wings and left the castle. "That was Then," the Golux said. 

"It's Now!" cried Saralinda.

A morning glory that had never opened, opened in the courtyard.

Jellicle Time

Aside from the normal excuses I give about not blogging regularly, another event has cut into my typing time, and it involves fabulous feline fun. Disclaimer here: I'm not a cat person. I'm not even much of a dog person. We have no pets--which probably isn't that surprising, given the number of kiddos we have--and if we do ever get a pet, it will be years from now, and it would have to be the absolute right time and right dog. I've pretty much ruled out getting a cat for many, many reasons.

All that being said, I don't dislike cats. I've taken care of them before--our neighbors had my sister and I take care of their five cats when they were gone on vacation, and they were pleasant enough when they weren't hiding (the cats, not the neighbors). I pet them if they'll deign to allow it when I visit friends or family. But cats tend to be distant. They're particular. They don't lend themselves to blind loyalty or random snuggling with the nearest human unless they really want and need some love (see Socks when baby Charles shows up). And now I have a reason to possess a renewed respect for these aloof-yet-sophisticated animals.

T.S. Eliot wrote a wonderful little book called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats in the 1930s, and Andrew Lloyd Webber used it to write the blockbuster musical CATS, which premiered in 1981. Our local theater organization, the Calumet Players, decided last fall to tackle this gigantic show, and it's currently completed its first weekend run.

And who's involved with this production? Well, many awesome and talented people. And me.

Yes, I'm actually playing a cat (her name is Jemima). And would you believe it? It's been amazingly fun!

If you're available next weekend--like, within fifty miles of here--you should come see the show. Not because I'm in it but because you'll love it. Even if you don't fancy yourself a friend of cats. Trust me--I know!

Quite the transformation is an understatement.

Newsworthy Rats

So Papa and I decided a few months ago to begin a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. We've done so in the past, but stopped them due to major, major delivery problems (like the paper not coming three days out of six) and budget issues. We love the paper; we just like getting it when it's not too much of a budget crunch or when we, you know, actually get it. We'll determine in the next few weeks if the current delivery practice of our unknown paper carrier continues (he or she lies to drive onto our front lawn to leave the paper on our porch. And in Minnesota midwinter, the tire tracks on the front lawn are a little, um, obvious and presumptuous. In other words, WHO DOES THAT?! We've tried to report him or her, but still the tracks remain. So it goes in rural America, at least here, with us, with this newspaper saga).

Now that this post has included so many parentheticals that you're wondering what the point it, it's this. One of the reasons we love getting a physical newspaper is because we can share it with the kids. Yes, they're young, and most of them can't read. But they like looking at the pictures and discussing them, and it's far more enjoyable to hold a paper newspaper than to read it online (or at least Papa and I think). So last week, when I read this article about rat-throwing at a local festival in Spain, I knew we had a winner. The boys loved the article, Little Professor so much so that he proceeded to read it out loud several times several days later. There's innocent glee when a five-year-old snickers as he reads, "Despite animal-rights activists' objections to the practice, locals last year once again threw caution to the wind—along with rodents." If this encourages my children to read and learn about the world, then I just might be able to tolerate the tire-tracks on the lawn--for a little while, at least.

One Thousand--Ahem--Boons

No, really, Sister--thank YOU. Nice hat, too.

Maybe you've heard of or read Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. It's a beautifully written read--thought-provoking, lyrical, laughter-inducing and certainly tear-inducing. It also, from my obviously Lutheran perspective, ultimately ends up heaping law upon law on Voskamp herself and her readers by concluding that we have to give thanks in all circumstances. Period. So DO IT, good Christians! Always! No excuses! What I began reading with so much hope and delight ended with me slinking back to the library dropbox, wondering what went wrong.

And what went wrong, of course, is that we can't actually give thanks in all circumstances all the time or even act like doing so is some act of penance or some act of works-righteousness contributing to some partnership-with-Jesus contract deal. And since we can't, because we're poor miserable sinners and we generally know it (thanks for this, Adriane!), this book that tries to emphasize the good ends up shackling us with more impossible expectations rather than giving us the Great Thanks-giver Himself. Because ultimately I need to know that Jesus could give thanks all the time because He was God, and Jesus loved me even unto death, and His vicarious atonement isn't conditional on any merit on my part, like giving thanks always. Otherwise His work wouldn't be, well, a something-for-nothing gift. I realize the hyphenated adjective there is superfluous, but it's amazing how many people think of "gift" as more like the beginning of a bartering deal. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. By the way, I've got an ingrown hair problem, but you're cool with that, right?" Thanks, but no. I'll take my birthdays and Christmases and back-scratching and Jesus without the sides of conditions. 

All that being said. Here I give you One Thousand Boons, my list of decidedly less--no, significantly less--than one thousand benefits that I* never, ever list when I'm coming up with things I'm thankful for. Enjoy, and go about your blessed life with all of its gifts and boons.

(*or anyone else, unless she's--or he's--crazy or warped. Join, please!)  

• The Friends of Meinders Community Library Annual Book Sale.  
• A room in which to lock myself into for five minutes of privacy. 
• That my belly button isn't in the middle of my head (that would be awkward).
• Angelika, who came up with those last two while 1) yelling at her kids through the locked bathroom door to give her some peace for five minutes and 2) explaining how truly awkward a belly button on the noggin would be. Yes, she's joined. She's actually probably a charter member.
• Accidentally dropped M & Ms under the kitchen table. That I find days later. (Surprise chocolate!)
• Bath salts and a sleep aid. Not used simultaneously but in tandem.
• And a glass of Riesling.
• The flip-down mirror by the passenger seat for mascara-application, hair-fluff-checking, and last-minute blotting of baby-stained clothing. Better than a personal stylist, IMPO.
• Bedtimes. For small children.
• Natch that. Sleeping children. 
• Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Sister Carrie. To remind me that my life is actually pretty s-ah-w-eeeeeeeeeet.
• Ear plugs.
• Ice packs.
• Three-packs of kid underwear.
• My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less Than Jesus' Blood and Righteousness. And that's a for-real boon.

Quasi-Resolution: Let's Ditch the Wimpiness

Otherwise known as "Tough It Out, Wimps."

I've realized that, aside from my typical blogging chagrin, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions. They bespeak a kind of subtle laziness: "Now that the calendar's changed, I resolve to take charge of my health, my finances, and my life!" In other words, I couldn't act like an adult, i.e. make hard decisions and actually do the hard work to carry those decisions to fruition, without an arbitrary time marker to kick my rear into gear. My issue isn't with resolutions, you see; my issue is with resolutions time-stamped, as though the other 364 days of the year aren't fit enough opportunities to act decisively about healthy eating habits or exercise or actual penny-pinching budgeting or resolving differences with a friend or setting boundaries with family or whatever things there are that we can reasonably change in our lives.

Now that I've had that little rant, let's get on to this recent Wall Street Journal interview with Julian Fellowes, the creator of the period drama "Downton Abbey." Fellowes makes a point of criticizing "our lack of personal discipline" and how it begets vulnerability and weakness. Unlike early-twentieth century Britishers, like the characters on the show, we lack a certain toughness. "Some pain was the lot of every human being alive," he says. "It didn't matter if you were the King of France. We don't have that." Then the interviewer asks these intriguing questions, which prompt Fellowes to really open up about modern society:

So we've become a bunch of wimps?

We think we can go from cradle to grave without any pain at all. As a generation, we can be rather feeble about toughing it out. Even the people who were working in those households, I don't think they were all miserable. It was a tough job but if you had a good employer, like anything else, there were worse places to be. It was a hard life—you had to get up early, work very hard. They had a more realistic expectation of life.

Do you think people's expectations these days are unrealistic?

With marriage, our generation thinks that we should all be incredibly happy all the time. The moment we are not incredibly happy, something's wrong with the marriage. Well, nothing's wrong with the marriage! You've signed up to live with someone for a half a century, and as long as you still have stuff in common and are still close, it's fine. But you see people getting divorced and you think "What do you think is waiting out there?" I kind of liked that [the generation that grew up in the interwar period] would have laughed at this idea.

I really appreciate Fellowes' analysis of us because, ultimately, I think most of us are wimps. I include myself in this. Most of us have had pretty easy lives, and when hardship has come along, we react as though it's an anomaly to life. Like Fellowes implicitly points out, expecting painlessness all the time isn't merely unrealistic; it sets us up to think we can be "incredibly happy all the time." Both expectations are laughably infantile. And who wants to go through life with an infantile view of life?

Aside from the huge number of people who actually do want to cling to this way of thinking and living, I think many people want to ditch the wimpiness embedded in our coddled culture. And I'm one of them. With Fellowes' words in mind, I'm resolving to approach the problems and struggles and crosses that will inevitably occur in my life with at least a modicum of perspective; that is, that while pain is hard, sometimes terribly hard, it is temporary. True Christians will understand this. In fact, they're still celebrating the end of waiting for the ultimate Defeater of pain, suffering, and loss (that's "Merry Christmas!" in vernacular-speak). And billions of people have weathered far worse tragedies than mine and still managed to be thankful for the good things that come. If they can do it, and God Himself took on the worst of it, then I at least can strive to keep a stiff upper lip, come high water and whatever else comes--for Hell isn't coming for me.

On Marriage: Why 'Clarity and Mindfulness' Is Not Enough

So I just watched "The 20-Something Marriage Divide" on WSJ.com. The brief summary of the interview was this: "Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute asserts that women in their 20s should seek stability in marriage before childbirth. WSJ's Wendy Bounds asks why." (You can watch the entire video here.)

The fascinating study "Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America" that Hymowitz and three others co-authored came upon a startling, problematic pattern: while fewer teens are bearing children out of wedlock (a good thing), more twenty-something women are bearing children out of wedlock. And many of these women lack a college education and thus the opportunities to pursue middle- or higher-income positions. The typical pattern, as Hymowitz puts it, is that these women have a child, usually while they're cohabiting with the father, two years prior to the parents' marriage (if that even happens). Two-fifths of these relationships end in the first five years of the child's life. Then the parents typically move on to other relationships, involving the child in the myriad confusion of step-parents and step-relatives, including half-siblings, sinking the already low-income child into a hard-to-escape life of upheaval and usually poverty. Hymowitz explains that long, long, long studies of children's social, emotional, and educational development have shown that children benefit from stability, namely the stability of one father and one mother who are married to each other.

Bounds pounces on Hymowitz with series of anecdotal comment-leading-questions, from the extreme conclusion "So you're saying women should get married young and have children young, even if they don't really know the man they're marrying?" to the weirdly defensive "I have many twenty-something friends who have no desire to be married" (I'm paraphrasing quotes here). And Hymowitz has to respond with comments like, "No one would want women to get married just for the sake of getting married" and "Well, eighty percent of twenty-something women we interviewed said they'd like to be married someday." Bounds throws in a few comments about how families now are varied and ultimately makes a common, relativistic statement about American families, insinuating that no one can judge any non-one married father and mother family as problematic in any way. Hymowitz didn't get to respond to Bounds' last comment.

While all of this speaks indirectly to the topics so prevalent at the moment (SCOTUS, anyone?), I was first riveted by how intent Bounds seemed upon criticizing the Knot Yet conclusions. She didn't realize that so many of her anecdotal comments inherently excluded the very population that the study authors noticed, namely, the non-college-educated "Middle America" woman.  Bounds' responses weren't unique, I don't think; she seemed to be saying what any successful, educated, urban American woman would have said in response to Hymowitz's comments. I sensed that Bounds chafed at the criticism inherent in the study's conclusions, mostly because they showed how when people choose to have sex out of wedlock and a child results, the child inevitably suffers from the parents' choices. Even though the study stayed pretty far away from criticizing well-educated, middle- to upper-income women and parents--even going so far as to saying the later marriage age for college grads has helped women--the sting hits close. No woman wants to think that her choices, particularly her sexual choices, can be negative in any way. Even if the consequences of her choices, like children, are hypothetical. She knows, deep down, that children are a natural result of sex, and any criticism of her non-marital coitus is ultimately a judgment on her.

Our culture is idiotic when it comes to children. We hold up children as possessions, thinking we can trash them when they don't fit our lives or that we can manufacture them the way we manufacture toothbrushes when we want them. And any reminders that children result from a very basic, yet very mysterious biological union apart from our controlled circumstances--from faulty contraception to even perfectly-executed but failed fertility treatments--just remind us all the more powerfully that children are a gift. But we don't want to believe that. We want to believe that we can decide and choose in what instances children can be borne and raised, and then we believe that we can decide and choose that whatever instances in which children result we can deem good and successful (and immune from criticism). We have distanced sex and marriage so far from childbearing that we honestly get really confused and riled up when real people connect the three. And it's particularly difficult when the real people are children, stuck in real, chaotic, hybrid family situations. We typically ignore marriage altogether in those situations. Even Hymowitz, specifically studying marriage, could only retreat to a hollow definition of how a young woman should approach marriage if she's "serious" about having children: she should use "clarity and mindfulness" when considering and entering into marriage and think of her future child's best interests first. And who knows what a young man should be thinking.

And isn't that the problem? People cohabit for many reasons, and I'd venture a guess that precious few of them have "seriousness about my future child" or "my future child's best interest" as one or either of them, let alone words like "clarity and mindfulness" as they apply to potential children. People want sex. They want lower rent or mortgages. They want companionship without legal hurdles. They want to do what they want to do without getting "serious," which is a lazy way of saying they want to have a relationship their way, without sacrifice. Of course children in these situations would get the raw end; they're unwelcome, uninvited intruders to inherently selfish lifestyles. Parenting and sacrifice go hand in hand, and if parents of a child have never committed to sacrifice to, for, and with each other in the life-long bond of marriage, itself an institution about sacrifice and submission, their child will certainly be the one that does the sacrificing--socially, emotionally, educationally, you name it.

Where does a child fit in this picture?

The original descriptor of the interview, "20-somethings should seek stability in marriage before childbirth," only begs the question "why?" when we think marriage is ultimately and only about two people. Otherwise, the study's conclusion seem so obvious as to be ridiculous: one plus one equals three, not two. Even most of the conversations about same-sex marriage seem to miss this point. People get that marriage is important, perhaps even sacred (whatever that means to you). People even get that marriage as an ideal concept is a relationship to be desired, notwithstanding Bounds' friends. But marriage is about two people, a man and a woman, bonded together in the only relationship known in human history to be the most consistent, healthy way for children to live. Once people pretend that marriage is wholly separated from childbearing (and homosexual couples by default contend this), child-rearing, and child-maturing (even adult children of recently married septuagenarian parents are affected, after all), then of course marriage can mean whatever two emotional people want to make it. 

Any close reading of my comments here obviously indicts heterosexual couples who are married but who adopt the me-centered view of marriage. Even a couple biologically designed to enter into marriage can and--news flash!--does mess it up. So where does that leave us?  

Marriage requires philia and eros. Even more, it requires agape, the kind of love that foregoes self and unconditionally forgives. Of all groups, Christians best understand marriage because we see and confess how Christ loved us first. By recognizing our sin and our need for forgiveness, and by repenting and receiving Christ's forgiveness, we can connect Christ's love for His church to marriage. He loves us and forgives us, and then we can love and forgive each other, particularly our spouse and any children we receive. Vague, even well-intentioned clarity and mindfulness about marriage, and pragmatic choices and emotional decisions, aren't enough to make or define or sustain marriage. Sacrifice and forgiveness between husband and wife, and Christ received by both over and over and over again, are.  

Losing Fiction

Oh, how I've missed this.

I'm pragmatic. I love non-fiction texts--biographies, social analyses, theology (duh), political theory, all types of history. I think all people, particularly young people, should spend more time immersed in history. But this article raises the hackles on my knowledge-loving soul. In short, it reports that almost all states will require at least 70% of classroom texts to be non-fiction by 2014. Here's the terrifying ending quote from the article: "Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare."

God help us all. Besides the fact that public education in our country is incontrovertibly failing (case in point: how many high school graduates do you know who can sit down and write "concisely and factually" about, say, how the printing press affected the Reformation or three causes of the American Civil War? Really, anything historically, politically, theologically significant that happened before 1990?), since when did usefulness in the workplace become the definitive educational purpose?  I know that liberal arts education has long been out of vogue, but I suppose I hoped most educators at least pretended to embrace knowledge for knowledge's sake, not just because they could draw a direct line from addition to clean accounting books.

Some years ago, Wendell Berry, the agrarian philosopher and author of some amazing novels, succinctly put our educational quandary this way:

The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.

"First things first." And what are first things? Truth and that which sheds light on it: great art (and, I would argue, science can shed light on Truth, too). But if first things are passé at best and rejected outright at worst--and it would seem we're reaching for the worst--then we're all in serious trouble. For if usefulness in the workplace more than any other reason drives our education for our children, then they--and we--will lose a lot more than fiction. 

A Vocation Reminder: Your Family Comes First

Lately, I've been puzzling--again--about how best to balance my vocations of wife and mother with that of teacher and tutor. Then I stumbled across this article in Tabletalk by Gene Edward Veith that discusses how our culture and our families are pitted against each other. You should read all of it (it's not long), but here's a teaser that helped me rethink my professional vocations in light of my familial ones.

Work is set against the family. The Reformers spoke of the “three estates,” the three institutions God established: the family, the church, and the state. We, in turn, have callings — or vocations — in each of these realms, where we are to love and serve our different neighbors and live out our Christian faith. 

When we think of “vocation” today, we often immediately think of the particular work we do. But the word “economics” originally referred to “the management of a household.” For the Reformers, the various callings that constitute economic activity fell under the estate of the family. 

In our work, we make a living for ourselves and our families. Our vocations are not a matter of our own self-fulfillment or self-aggrandizement, but for the sake of our neighbors: the customers we serve and the family-members we are supporting.

But today, work is thought of as being about the self. Our work isolates us rather than brings us into service to our culture and especially to our families. Thus, we often neglect our families in favor of our work. When fathers are so busy at work — or commuting back and forth — that they spend less than five minutes a day with their children, as is common today, their callings are seriously out of whack.

I would add that when wives and mothers spend their energies and time focusing primarily on their professional duties rather than their husbands and children, their callings are seriously out of whack. And while there's no metric that differentiates a professional vocation from being a "well-understood calling" from a "seriously-out-of-whack calling," I think that any professional vocation that isn't intentionally, constantly sidelined as secondary to the needs and support of the family is one that's problematic. And I say intentionally, constantly sidelined because vocations always overlap, and one's job will always, despite the best intentions, intrude on one's life now and then. But when it does, the paid worker--whether husband, wife, father, or mother--needs to remember what is most important.  

Remembering Elwood

In honor of Veteran's Day today, here's a little thing I wrote in September 2007, about an experience Papa and I had before the premier of Ken Burns' documentary The War.

***

We drove down to Luverne in the late afternoon to meet up with dear friends and their four children. When we arrived, the kids were checking out the vintage cars parked in front of the courthouse, where locals were scheduled to speak before a parade to the Palace Theater where the showing would be. Their youngest wondered how the convertible owners could get the hoods on fast enough should rain appear, as the gears were manual. The sky overhead misted with gray clouds and threatened to test his theory.

We went to dinner at the Pizza Ranch two doors down from the newly renovated Palace. Our meal was a quiet, happy time—our friends asked their kids to eat salad along with their pizza, a teenage waiter brought us fried chicken since the buffet was out, we laughed and caught up on news since the last time we had visited—until the evening news, broadcast on a largely ignored big screen in the middle of the restaurant, turned to a segment on Ken Burns’ visit to Luverne and the film’s premiere. All of a sudden the conversations stilled and everyone turned to watch. But it was only a moment, and the sound was low, and we soon resumed our conversations and our laughter.

 

The rain came during dinner—we watched it evolve from glistening sheets to half-hearted pitter-patter—and by the time we emerged, mints in mouth, the sun was trying to break through the still ubiquitous clouds. We walked back to the courthouse to find the presentation had been cancelled (and the cars with their hoods up), and we returned to the Palace, fearful the “red carpet” processional would be cancelled too. That would be our big moment, the chance to see Ken Burns for a fleeting moment. The kids and I strategized as to how to get Mr. Burns’ autograph for my long-distant sister—perhaps the youngest daughter could trip in front of him and after he asked what he could do—because he would be unfailingly polite—she would smile winsomely and whip out the little pad and pen.We giggled at our plans.

Some great kids and I, excitedly waiting.

 People milled here and there, as forties era music played over loudspeakers. Most were dressed casually; the American Legion members who had the honor of holding the flags at the entrance of the theater tried to figure out what order to be in as onlookers tried to figure out the best place to stand. I saw a man with a World War II veteran hat on, standing nearby. 

I love meeting veterans, especially ones who've lived long and seen much, whose young adult-hoods were consumed by sacrifices I, now a young adult, can't even begin to comprehend. So I approached the man with the hat and thanked him for his service. He smiled and said, “Thank you for thanking me.” I said something, protesting politely, about he was the one who should be thanked, and his face grew serious and he looked me close, and said, “Young lady, there’s only one thing you should remember. Four hundred and seven thousand boys just like me went to war, and they never came home. It is because of what they gave that we can live the way we do.” His eyes were misty.

The man told me his name—Elwood, from Chandler, Minnesota. He served as a junior officer in the Navy —“not anything real important”—in the south Pacific, and he served on a ship for over 700 consecutive days. No leave. “It was one month shy of two years,” he said. His daughter came up and he showed me her shirt—on the front was his name and a picture of his 21-year-old self in Navy whites. On the back was the ship on which he sailed and the places he landed, the last being Okinawa. Reverently, he told me how they landed there on Easter morning, 1945.

He spoke of how little young people know about the war and about the world generally. Not disparagingly, but sadly. “They must learn about what happened,” he said. Not to honor him, but to remember and understand the sacrifice of all the young men who never came home.

One of many memorials we saw.

What a terrible burden it is, to live proud of the service you gave, and every once in a while to be honored for that service, but to know that you are honored because you lived, and loved and worked, and so many others—your friends, your neighbors, your cousins and brothers—never left the far-away places of war. They never reaped earthly joys of cherishing wife and children, friends and neighbors. They never experienced the daily, simple toil of farming on land long held by kinsmen, of growing old and going out for cups of coffee to commiserate about the price of soybeans. They never came home.

As I listened to Elwood, I blinked to stop my sudden tears and my eyes caught the top of the Hotel Manitou, one built by dedicated hands early in the twentieth century. I thought, “We live such comfortable, leisurely lives, without even thinking of it.” Standing on a dusky street, smelling the wet pavement, watching the excitement of people who have lived comfortably because of others' service—these are priceless times of privilege that we take for granted. Elwood's story reminded me, shocked me really, of the quotidian things that those boys that never came home relinquished freely. Their sacrifice is both awesome and terrible. 

And their sacrifice enables us, the living, to laugh over pizza, to debate over rainy weather predictions, to gather together for civic events with loved ones. Ironically, their awful sacrifice often means we forget them as we move along, ahead. We even forget the ones who did come home, like Elwood. But we shouldn't, and we can't. It is because of what our veterans gave that we can live the way we do. And the living veterans deserve our honor and our thanks, just as we remember their brothers buried far away, for what they have given us.

***

We ended up seeing the premiere and Ken Burns, which was a great experience. But I am more grateful that I met Elwood that day, who reminded me then, and today, to whom I and my children, and all Americans, owe immeasurable thanks.

Yet In Its Depth What Treasures, Part II

In a private letter written in 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, ''You are now in London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow at once is deaf and loud, and on the shore vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. Yet in its depth what treasures!'' These words in no way conjure up the dignified, even majestic image (re: NBC entry shots) we desire for London. And yet they fit sport, and especially the 2012 Olympics, in London, metaphorically well.  (We don't really want to talk, let alone think, about vomit, do we?)

It's been an exciting two weeks, these Olympic Games. Swimmers, shooters, gymnasts, runners, divers, tennis players, volleyball players, basketball players--amazing athletes all, and we Olsons had our favorites. Phelps made tremendous history (though he began disconcertingly sluggishly), and we will always be glad we witnessed his historic achievement of twenty-two medals. Unfathomable, really--I don't think we'll really be able to appreciate it until years have passed. He's truly a legend.  Lochte made his mark (in more ways than one--wink and YIKES); Schmitt, Vollmer, Soni, and Ledecky pulled off big, happy wins, too (and Brit Adlington showed super class). The US women's gymnastics team won a stellar gold team medal, and Douglas scored the all-around (impressive feats!), but Aly Raisman gets our biggest nod for peaking--and pulling off awesome performances--AND being such a great team leader for the women's team. We were thrilled Usain Bolt won again, but we were inspired by gentle David Rudisha, who won the 800 meters in world record time. The trifecta of golds in forty-five minutes for the UK was moving--and hearing ten thousands of people sing "God Save the Queen" at the top of their lungs was tear-inducing. So beautiful.

And how about that Allyson Felix getting her gold in the 200 meters? You go, girl! And those relay finals were spec-tac-u-lar. The beach volleyball win by May-Treanor and Walsh was awesome; here they come, Rio?! We watched most of the match between Murray and Federer, and that was a tennis final to remember! Awesome Murray win! (Okay, yeah... we cried during that medal ceremony, too.) The US women's soccer team pulled it out again, as did the men's basketball team in a relatively close final with Spain. And David Boudia squeaking out a gold on the men's platform diving? WOW. All these and many more really impressed us.

And no, we didn't forget her. Yeah, HER. Missy Franklin, the sparkly, smiley teenage swimming phenom, wins our family gold for most bright, positive, sportsmanship-like behavior, and a girl whose attitude we hope can inspire our boys and our little C (who, literally as I typed this, pulled herself up to a standing position! At eight months! Inspired already!). Missy, we hope we get to watch you swim--and smile--for many more Olympics.

Missy, you gave whole new meaning to "in its depth what treasures!"

P.S. Our silver goes to Bob Costas, whose prose and poise always impress us. Watching him interview Missy Franklin was one of our favorite parts of these Olympic Games.

P.P.S. And we've got a tie for bronze--Kayla Harrison, who is a fighter in the best sense of the word, who won the first US women's medal (and gold at that!) in judo; and in the spirit of British excellence, Mohamed Farah, the 5000 and 10,000 meter winner, who Papa can't talk about without getting emotional. Truly amazing.

Innovate, Motivate, Impact, Yada, Yada, Yada

I generally enjoy tutoring college writers. I can deal with the early hours, the sometime monotony of assignments, even the predictable grammatical errors. But what makes me crazy is the downright predictability--nay, the inevitability--of students in certain professional fields to fall hook, line, and recycled terminology for the allure of buzzwords. For instance, I just read an analysis by a business student that purportedly showed how a particular business utilizes innovation. Except the entire ten pages said nothing. Literally nothing. And worse than reading ten pages of nothing is reading them at six a.m. and knowing some poor shlub is actually forking over hard-earned money (or going into ridiculous amounts of debt) to write such meaningless pulp. I could rant about how colleges, not-for-profit but especially for-profit institutions, take advantage of unprepared students by admitting them, taking their money, and sending them into the world with a piece of paper but no more skills to attain and retain gainful employment than I could send my four-year-old into a realtor to successfully discuss home inspectors as a negotiation detail, but I'll pass on that. I could rant about how fields of study in institutions of higher education ("higher"! Hahahahahahahaha!) like business become so encumbered with generic language that students can master the code but can't actually say anything meaningful whatsoever. Please note that I'm not anti-business; I'm anti-jargon.

But there's hope. When I googled "weasel words," this gloriously refreshing site came up, with the following descriptor on its homepage: "This site is for people who have silently wept into a crumpled copy of their company's mission statement, for teachers who want to work in classrooms and not customer service points, and for all those who have been underpinned by an innovative, value adding, creative, sustainable, diverse and optimised framework."

Thank you, Don Watson, for saving my sanity this morning. 

 

In Its Depths What Treasures, Part I

Watching the Olympics take place in London and vicinity has been a real joy for Papa and I. When the Williams trumpet chorus begins as glorious vistas emerge of rolling, brilliant green hillsides with ancient ruins; of sailboat-dotted waves nestled close to seaside villages; of regal Buckingham Palace and stately Big Ben; even of drizzles misting the "wilderness of steeples peeping," as Lord Byron put it; all these images make us happily nostalgic for our brief time, as they say, across the pond.

A little sweet, romantic history: ten years ago this fall, Papa and I met in Cambridge (England, for those of you who weren't reading closely above) while we both studied abroad. Papa and I visited London separately during our time there, but we also went to the grand old city together one lovely Saturday. We took an early-morning bus through the ubiquitous drizzle, which dropped us off in the shadow of Big Ben. We wandered through Westminster Abbey, saw My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, popped into the National Gallery, and ate some below-average steak and potatoes at a Trafalgar Square steakhouse before heading back north that evening.  (Side story to our little history: In a miracle of circumstance and twin intuition, my sister--studying in London for the semester--found us in a ticket queue. She spotted the back of my head as she peeked into the kiosk and pulled on my purse to get my attention. I thought I was being mugged, and then I nearly went into cardiac arrest when I saw it was her. I hadn't been able to reach her by landline phone that morning, but she remembered that we might go to a show during our visit, and the stars aligned. Okay, so maybe it wasn't completely circumstance. But hey--this was before we owned cell phones, before we had "smart" anything and had to figure out maps, times, and rendezvous all beforehand and hope nobody got lost or delayed. So it was pretty cool that Mil found us, and we had a nice picnic lunch all together. Um, guess that wasn't so much a side story as a big chunk of it.)

Anyway, we loved our time in England, and the Olympics has given us a chance to vicariously enjoy London's treasures again. As we watched the women's marathon twisting and turning through the city, pointing out places we had been and picturesque sights we never witnessed firsthand, P piped up, "I want to go to London." We will go there someday, God willing, little man!

Scrubbing

Only in artwork and staged sets.

To other wives and mothers, in between scrubbing pots and pants and little peanuts:

Only in our "new is best" culture would scrubbing and cooking and baking and the myriad of daily tasks seem onerous. Why? Because immediately upon unwrapping whatever product/item/idea, life smacks it in all of its natural aging and wear and grossness, and then we spend our time trying to keep it livable (or make it palatable, as kitchen arts go). Our products and homes and recipes never look perfect (even if they seemingly did the first time--remodeled bathrooms come to mind). And so we bemoan all the work it takes to produce livability, when much of what we do while we live barely evokes notice, let alone grumpiness. Case in point: we don't normally lament our need to imbibe several times a day; we don't even think about using the can or relieving ourselves as anything but a matter of course. When did taking care of our homes, the very spheres that we inhabit, become things of burden? We should reject the deceptive "new is best" mentality, but we should also guard against falling into the trap of thinking that our duties as mothers and keepers of the hearth are somehow meritorious by their very repetition and drudgery. Yes, they are. But not because we have made them so. They are because God deems serving the hungry and the thirsty and the naked so, and because He served and serves us so infinitely every moment that we breathe.

On the Twelfth Day

In the car today, in an effort to distract from an impending meltdown, I asked the boys if we should sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which has been one of their favorite Christmas songs this season (along with the hymns "Joy to the World," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Of the Father's Love Begotten"--also known as "Evermore and Evermore" to P--and their favorite, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"--also known as the "Mommy, Mommy! They Sing This on Charlie Brown Christmas!" ditty). Anyway, after the first verse, P decided we needed to change the words.

So we did, just for fun.

Apart from the third day, which was my contribution, and the twelfth, which was S's--always thinking about food, that one--P came up with the rest. And you'll notice that in his version, your true love ends up with a lot fewer birds.


Kudos to Grandpa E for introducing P to this phrase, which made the cut, as P thinks saying this is just hilarious!

Hope your twelve days of Christmas have been lovely!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me...

12 Pretzels

 

 11 Bulldozers

 

 

10 Barns

9 Ramones

8 Yummy Brownies

7 Chocolate Bars

6 Tow Maters

5 Doggy Cash*

4 Vacuum Cleaners

3 Olson Kids

 2 Vietnamese Dong

1 Partridge in a Pear Tree

*This is P's phrase, which I think is a combination of Dong and cash. He thinks it's hilarious, and he usually follows it up with "I need some Vietnamese Dong." But this is what he says, so I had to get creative with the pic.

HOW many kids did you say?

Thanks to Rebekah for her post "Six" on a blog I read frequently (see CSPPon the right). It's short, so I'm shamelessly reprinting the entire thing here.

Here is how I understand family size (with the caveat that among Christians who have given no indication to the contrary, I am so mired in my own reality as to consider non-contraception to be the default practice. Terribly naive of me, I know, though I mean for it to be charitable):

1=small (may indicate fertility problems)

2=Normal! Way to go!

3=trying for a boy or girl, or a "mistake"

4-5=bigger than normal (indicates mild or moderate parental zaniness, or twins)

But six is where it gets serious. Six kids doesn't happen by accident. Six kids is beyond zany. Six is full-on crazy. Six kids very likely means a weird vehicle. Six is Big.

Six is also where some people (not all) seem to begin considering themselves major parenting experts and get real annoying. I promise I'll try not to do that. (It would be hard to come off as a parenting expert when my oldest kid is eight, anyway--lots of critical stages still not even touched.)

I think six will have some advantages, though. No odd box of raisins left to fossilize in the cabinet. That's been a huge problem with five.

I don't know about you, but fossilized raisins are definitely my motivation for having more kids.  :)

C'mon! What more reason--raisin?--do you need?

I've been ruminating lately on the differing attitudes between people on "appropriate" numbers of children. It never ceases to surprise me when I hear people ask about non-relatives' reproductive intentions. Pregnancy just seems to bring out the tell-all in people, doesn't it?

That aside, I think most people probably accept the norms they're surrounded with. My great-grandparents were in the "crazy" category; several of them had ten and twelve siblings. My grandparents were in much smaller families, either from family disruption or fertility problems or the Depression or any number of things, even a combination. My paternal grandparents were only children. My maternal grandparents had two other siblings (three total). That being said, my dad has three siblings, my mom has four; my father-in-law was an only child, and my mother-in-law has two sisters. Maybe the slightly higher numbers of kids in my small example reflect the post-WWII boom. Who knows?

My parents had three (twins first--that's me and my sister) and then my brother; my in-laws had two (Papa and his sister). In my very unofficial opinion, I think these numbers probably reflect the norm for the times. Of all the hundreds of kids I knew growing up, I only knew a handful who came from families with more than three kids. I was always fascinated by families with four kids or more. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that most of those families that have more kids are mixed; that is, the parents were married before and their children aren't biologically related. Maybe that phenomenon partly fuels the fascination of families with more than three biological children. One mom! One dad! Many babies! (+ a little reproductive technology) = Perfect Recipe for Reality Show Success!  

In our rural area, people in my generation seem to be having, on average, three or four biological kids. In fact, I read in a recent novel that "four is the new two" with kids. I don't know if this is true, but it seems to be, at least with those younger-ish people I know who are old enough to have been married and procreated quatro times. At any rate, there's several people in our congregation who came from or have had families of six, eight, nine, twelve children. When there's a lot of examples of "big" families around, it doesn't seem so weird to have more than three.

No one's asked us--yet--if we're "planning" on having more kids. I'm thinking that day is coming...soon. Especially because now we know we're expecting a girl.

But doesn't a girl need a sister? :)

Deconstruction, personified.

From Peggy Noonan's latest Wall Street Journal editorial, July 30, 2011.
(Sidebar: I guess Noonan's already accruing online flak for calling Obama a "loser." I actually thought her assessment prior to that comment--excerpted below--was more noteworthy.)

Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly—really, perfectly. The nation and the Democratic Party were tired of the Clinton machine. He came from nowhere and dismantled it. It was breathtaking. He went into the 2008 general election with a miraculously unified party and took down another machine, bundling up all the accrued resentment of eight years with one message: "You know the two losing wars and the economic collapse we've been dealing with? I won't do that. I'm not Bush."

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

Annoying (and Some AxE-murdering Weirdness).

So today we've had a few annoying things happen. Nothing earth-shattering--just out-of-the-ordinary stuff that deserves a blog post (for those of you bored enough to read about it).

First, I've been working through an issue with one of our savings accounts. I got an unidentified deposit in May, and being the good Christian that I am--insert guffawing laughter here--asked the bank to do some research as to where the funds came from. Long story short, some bureaucratic underling at USD made the stupid mistake of looking up my name instead of cross-checking social security numbers, so some student worker missed out on $200 while I--three years from the last time I worked for the South Dakota Board of Directors for SDSU, a completely different school--got magic money. So, she finally asked them where the dough was, they looked, realized they screwed up, and--oh! they needed my written permission to take the money back.

I love how mistakes work.

So today, after conversations and emails with the bank, I called the USD Human Resources chick, then emailed her and the bank what they wanted, and Papa and I decided to close the account and open another one just so the SDBOD can never, ever make this mistake again. They can't delete my info--my precious, identity-stealable-info--due to "record retention regulations" (how's that for alliteration?), and they can only "put a block on my profile," so we figured this was the next best protection we could take. So... somebody in government makes a mistake and someone else spends probably three hours fixing it? At a full-time government salary with benefits, how much did that $200 mistake really cost? And that doesn't count the bank worker time or my time being all altruistic and honest. I mean, don't I at least deserve a medal or something for being so cooperative?

Ha. Hahahahahahaha.

Second, Papa can't find his wallet. This happens fairly frequently, but he looked for an hour and still can't find it. Update: he found it at church. Under some papers. After going and looking there twice, in between telling me how annoying it was that he couldn't find his wallet, thus couldn't go get some stuff, thus couldn't mow the grass... well, he's mowing the grass now, and all's well that ends well. Especially if you end with your wallet in your pocket.

Third, I got a text this afternoon from someone telling me how they're probably going to sign soon on a house and be homeowners again by August 19, and thanx for all my support!!! Um, no problem. Because I was sitting at my computer while I told Papa about this, I decided to do a reverse phone lookup, even though I figured the message came from a cell phone. It did, but the free service identified the town where the number (or the owners of the phone?) came from was Villisca, Iowa.

So I did what any God-fearing American would do and googled Villisca, expecting a map to pop up first--and I got the website for the Villisca Ax Murder House. Um, yeah. In 1912, in said house, the Moore family (two parents, four kids) and two other kids were brutally slaughtered (I'd say "axe murdered," but that's pretty self-evident, and then it brings up the whole debate as to whether ax should be spelled with an "e" or without. The "e"s seem to win it, but maybe those folks who run the House get dibs on correctness). No one ever solved the mystery, strange things take place on the property... and the house looks like the major tourist destination for central Iowa. Talk about information I did not expect to learn today.

I was hoping this guest would be wearing the "Where Skeptics Become Believers" shirt, but no luck. I like the overalls, though.

On the bright side, the temperature dropped back into the mid-80s and, most excitingly, our living room furniture was delivered this morning! Post soon about that non-annoying, non-weird stuff.