Seeing with New Eyes

 

I had cataract surgery done a week and a half ago. I chickened out last year–something about a knife near the eyes bit! But I was getting desperate, so I did not read any contraindications and just went for it. I had not been able to drive at night for over 2 years, and even daily activities were becoming a strain. I probably should have asked more questions, though, because rather than a piece of cake, this “routine” surgery was more like liver and onions–more uncomfortable than I thought it would be.

I am very chemically sensitive, so having gotten through the procedure with fairly minor and endurable hiccups, the worst part became the reaction to the steroid drops which are needed for speedy healing. This is a five-week process, and I have quite some time to go, but I hope the worst is over.

That was the bad and the ugly. The good part is that somebody turned on the lights! Whites are whiter and colors are brighter, not to mention that everything has distinct edges and not fuzzy, ever-changing ones. The green in the traffic light is . . . well, green green! It is almost like a different color. It is not preferred by me to undergo any surgery, but given the positive change in my sight, I think it was worth it!

My eyes are blue blue again. Haven’t been like this since forever! You don’t think about it because the discoloration and hardening happens slowly over time. Even my own photographic work is brighter and more colorful. And I have discovered I am a much better photographer than I thought. 🙂

We don’t become aware of the hardening process that alters so much of what we see because it happens bit by bit, year by year. And only when it cannot be ignored any longer do we even recognize it is something to be dealt with. I am thinking that is kind of like what happens with our hearts. If betrayals and loss, disappointments and disillusionment build up, then over time the hardening becomes something to radically deal with. It interferes with our ability to prosper and see life and mission clearly. But it starts small, and it builds layer upon layer. I am not sure how to prevent that from destroying my joy, but my desire is that I would become aware of the hurts that bind and settle down into my spirit.

May I hold lightly to pain and hold tightly to renewal is my prayer.

Renewal

Renewal always sounds bright and shiny, like a beautifully restored vintage car or a vibrant blossom in the spring bursting from what had looked like a lifeless branch. But the problem with renewal is that something has decayed in order for it to require a new life. So restoration is a good thing. Right?


But renewal comes with a hitch. What is new is chained to what is old. When I walk in fresh ways, my past self is not dismissed like a cast-off piece of clothing. My past is the chain tied around my ankle, reminding me that whatever lies ahead, whatever bright, polished penny-of-life has brought new life and vision, I am only separated from what has gone before by my willingness to step intentionally onto a new path.


Sure there are helps in people and programs. There is spiritual renewal that comes from the supernatural. But as long as I walk in this skin and bone, my whole story is part of me. Deaths, accidents, betrayals, and sufferings, both physical and mental, do not suddenly and totally disappear in the presence of some mysterious regeneration of self or circumstance. Glass-half-empty does not of its own accord morph into glass-half-full. Renewal is the gritty process of intentionally looking to what is ahead. It is the planting of one foot in front of the other, heading toward a brighter prospect. It is the recognition that what is really real will become actually real when faith becomes sight.


In faith, I may be a new creature and all things may become new in some spiritual sense; but in truth, renewal here requires the commitment to press on in weakness, not forgetting the other chapters of my story, but putting them in the grander perspective of the whole story.


“Now I know in part; then I shall fully know, even as I am fully known.” ~I Cor. 13:12b          

Tips for the Writing Impaired

Posted on April 2, 2012by apronheadlilly

 

1. The number one tip is to not plagiarize. Even if it is a dark and stormy night or the best of times and the worst of times, never use another’s idea and present it as your own work. Just because you purchased it off the Internet does not mean it is truly yours!

2. Put air in your text, either by using short indented paragraphs or by putting an extra space between paragraphs that are placed flush margin left. Preferably, that air is unpolluted, cloudy, and even stormy.



If you write in one continuous, dense, sentence-thick block of text, your reader’s eyes glaze over and the weight of the words forces the reader to either skim or give up on your brilliant, innovative writing.



See, now doesn’t all that air make you feel better?

3. Only write with narrow margins, big font, and with really short chapters if you feel like the only readership you can snag are the contemporary semi-literates with short attention spans and a thirst for gladiatorial combat. Blunder Games may make you an easy million, but your readers will not be prepared for something more mind-bending, like Oliver Twist or even Cat in the Hat.

4. If u r riting 4 a formal audience (lol), drop the colloquialisms and text speak. (If you didn’t notice anything wrong with that sentence, you are in deeper trouble than you thought!)

5. In formal writing, avoid slang, nonstandard English, contractions, ostentatious language, and regionalism. “Pitchin’ a fit” may mean something to a homemaker in the South, but your broader audience will be as lost as a coon in a quarry.

6. Clichés are overworked words and phrases, that were once as right as rain and as comfortable as a worn pair of slippers, but now they are simply redundant. If you can’t think of a fresh way to say something, then, yo, get a life!

7. Sexist language is supposed to be something to avoid, but it can get awkward for the reader if she / he / it has to wade through all those slashes to get his / her / its grasp on the content. Better to reword and avoid some of the unnecessary pronouns and possessives.

8. Revise, revise, revise. Edit, edit, edit. And never trust your computer’s Spell-check function. Form it’s beginning, it has knot bin able to distinguish be tween good end proper con tent. So stretch a brain cell and do the work yourself!



Whew, I needed more air!

(For more tips, see this previous blog: “Lilly’s Top Ten Writing Tips.” And I would link this if I could, but I am link deficient.)

ID Help

Posted on March 28, 2012by apronheadlilly

3 '12

I know most of you immediately thought I needed help with Intelligent Design info, but I really need help identifying this new bird that came to my feeder.

I do not see her in any of my bird books. Any ideas?

Alone . . .

Posted on March 30, 2012by apronheadlilly

 

Today I passed you on the road. Our eyes didn’t meet through the tint, but I caught the outline of your face as you whisked by. What thoughts were you thinking in your shiny new car? Are you a real person like me, blood and bone, or only an actor in a Truman-type world—a prop for the life I think I’m living? Did you go home to your cozy suburban two-story where laundry and dirty dishes await? Just like me? I wonder if you care about me. This “other” that shares your space, approximates your life, almost touching but not.

My house is on a street with about twenty-five others. Every one has a sycamore out front and a dog in the back. My house is in a neighborhood with about two hundred others, in a city of many more, street upon street, warp and woof. We are many but alone. We are community but not communal, living in isolated bubbles, protected from anything real and vital. We share common roads but no common history.

We shop at the same markets and buy the same goods. Our flesh glides by each other granting slight neighborly smiles, but distance is maintained by inches. A force keeps us apart, repelled like same ends of a magnet. How can we be so many, so close, yet so alone?

Once in awhile real contact is made—a brief moment of connection, a fire flicker. But more often than not the circle closes in, the fire extinguishes, and we go our own ways. But what is the value of our own ways if we live our days in Solomon moments, meaningless steps on a treadmill, caring less and less about those around us and more and more about our protected space.

A neighbor almost died last year. I didn’t know. She had alienated us over the years with unkind words and tall fences. When I heard, we had a talk. I took her some homemade bread. Another neighbor tried to commit suicide. I didn’t know. I heard through the rumor mill months after the fact. She still doesn’t know that I know.

We use city water that’s pumped into our homes—a shared resource. But we seem to suck up our own private wells of comfort in times of suffering. I wonder if it’s enough?

In my house, we have a thriving ant community. They mysteriously appear from nowhere to plague me with their sheer numbers. I spray and kill, yet their presence never seems diminished. What’s strange about these ants is that they carry off their dead. What do they do with fragments of bodies?

Sometimes I think they must be cannibals, and in taking home fallen brothers slathered in lemon fresh cleaner, they guarantee a feast for the folks who have kept the home fires burning. Other times, I wonder if with their strong sense of colony and community they take their dead home to honor brave fallen foragers complete with little markers, tears, and eulogies. Do they feel the loss of one as the loss of all?

In faraway places, there are tribal communities whose lives are interconnected because of their dependence on one another for life itself. Their survival depends on community. They live and move together and share a common story passed down to wee ones. I wonder if our wealth and technological advances are such an improvement to their quality of life. We might have fuller bellies but emptier hearts.

It’s not that they are the noble savages and we should wear loincloths and adopt all their ways. They have other deep dark needs, but their lifestyle imposed upon them by geography and physical poverty has put them in a position of needing one another. Even with our bank accounts and cars and houses, we need one another, too. Just as badly. But in our affluence, we have lost that critical sense of need. There are just too many fences.



Today I passed you in the aisle. Our eyes didn’t meet. You glanced beyond and through me, intent on something else. Are you a real Christian like me, or merely a prop in this body-life I think I’m experiencing? I wonder if you care about me—this “other” that shares your pew, shares your worship, shares a ritualistic hug, almost touching but not. Are you afraid of knowing who I really am? Or are you afraid of being known?

We are called brothers and sisters, family. But it feels like there’s been a divorce. We walk as aliens—not only as aliens in this world, but also as aliens in Christ’s church. We are community without communion. We worship in isolated bubbles, protected from real and vital fellowship. We share a common history but no common roads. We are many but we walk alone. As it is in the neighborhood, so it is in the church. We are alone in a crowd.

People need people. There is a sickness in isolation that infects the mind, the body, and the spirit. There is a weakness, a degeneration, in self-centered individualism. If we have no vital connection to the church, how can we grow in strength of faith and character? How can we embrace the joy that comes with a sense of belonging? If we have no genuine connection to our community how can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves? How can we earn the right to offer them life in Christ except in desperate kamikaze runs that put “spiritual” notches on our belts?

If we continue, out of fear, to build more fences instead of tearing down old ones, if we do not risk rejection by expanding the borders of our lives, we will continue to walk in longing and loss. Alone.

The Effects of the Fall

Posted on March 27, 2012by apronheadlilly

'11

(Now if you believe in Adam and Eve and the fallen nature of man, you got that title and thought it was ever so clever . . . or not. If you don’t believe, pretend it’s a seasonal piece.)

I thought perhaps I’d humored out on broken rib posts, but given that the pain meds were giving me too many side effects, and given that I hurt more than ever, I figured I better milk it a bit longer before the little white shooting lights come back.

The following are painful observations:

• If there is a 50-50 chance of hitting the trash can with your rubbish, you will always miss, simply because it hurts too much to lean over and pick it up.

• If there is a 100 % chance of hitting it, the same rule applies. See above.

• If you are gimpily trying to put some food together for a raw, organic, nutrient dense lunch (That last part was propaganda.), you will undoubtedly drop most items on the floor because a broken rib somehow makes brains and hands impotent. If the item is edible, call the dog. If the item is inedible and unimportant in say anything short of contributing to world peace, kick it under the stove.

• If in the tiniest of print under “Contraindications,” you notice that 1-2% of test subjects experience swelling, Bubonic plague, cramps, bleeding, headaches, Tourette outbursts (but only in euphemisms), and those little shooting lights, be advised to return it to your pharmacy. A broken rib uses the new math where 2% = always.

• Breaking a rib is like the Butterfly Effect and will set off all manner of weird occurrences from leaking pipes in the wall to neighbor’s car alarms repeatedly going off to rising gas prices to earthquakes. (Somebody tell Mexico and Chile I’m sorry!)

• My friend recommended fresh parsley tea to help with one of the side effects that will remain nameless; and I must say, it is right up there with lemongrass. I envision a whole grass section at Starbucks in the not too distant past.

• Since I can’t take the heavy-duty brain, liver, and bladder destroying narcotics anymore, I’m trying a homeopathic remedy, which seems to be helping some. Problem: You must take it a half hour after having eaten or drunk, and not eat or drink for another half hour. Take 12 to 24 to 480 times a day. Now you do the math. I’m hobbling for the hormone-free ice cream because if I want that miniscule relief in my pain quotient, I need to do it now!

So there you have it: Another installment in “Lost—the Next Generation.” I already have the tea (parsley), now for the sympathy . . .

The Battle of Wounded Me

Posted on March 24, 2012by apronheadlilly

(Tonight's sunset: I may be injured, but not so much I can't hobble out and capture cool skies. It's like the Hubble Telescope, only with a Hobble.)

Consider:

1. A hiccup is as painful as a sneeze. Not that you could stop either even if you wanted to.

2. Right turns in the car are the worst, so have husband only turn left. It could be a long ride home.

3. Find out why time passes slowly when you hurt or are in the dentist’s chair, but quickly vanishes on vacation. Ask a scientist or a philosopher.

4. Dismiss any kid from class who has an injury worse than yours. It will diminish your sympathy quotient.

5. Find out why the meds given to help with pain inflict more pain in the way of migraines, not to mention acute liver failure or dementia probably sometime down the road. At least, I’ll know who to blame, if I can remember. Ask a friend. Do not ask a doctor.

5. Find out why when you go to the doctor because of an increase in pain, she hounds you about your LDL. As if I care when I’m dying. Do not ask a doctor. Ask a lawyer.

6. When you are already in a deep whine, do not share said whine with husband. He will try to cheer you up with jokes when all you need is a good cry. If you get the jokes, you will still get the cry because laughing hurts–almost as much as hiccupping and sneezing and burping and moving and living.

****************************************************************************************
The title is meant to be a clever allusion for humor’s sake and is not meant to disparage Amerindians or Kevin Costner’s role in Dances with Wolves, so leave me alone. Venting is a form of homeopathic health. At least, that is what I am telling myself. And don’t ask the husband. Ask me!

(This was taken this morning on the way to work--sacrificing for art y'all! Notice the cool circle rainbow.)

Mr. Septic Skeptic

Posted on March 19, 2012by apronheadlilly

I saw you on Youtube—
so cocksure,
convincing,
and controlled. (Notice my alliteration to stress the point!)
So sure, Mr. Skeptic, you seem to be–
but of course,with the absence of a fact checker to catch you up
in your rapid fire propaganda!
You pollute the airwaves (Or is it web waves?)
with your poisonous words,
your articulate particulates—breeding cancer for the soul, Mr. Septic Skeptic.
(Okay, I know the metaphors are a little strong.)
Your rehearsed rationale, your belittling barbs
are amazingly entertaining through your sardonic smile—
entertaining if you don’t stop to think
and just suck in all that
utopian,
we are the world,
human solidarity,
evolutionary morality drivel,
well-framed comebacks and proud propositions,
hell-bent on disfiguring the face of the God you don’t believe in.
Crafty, your well-turned phrases and arrogant arguments.
Is this it then?
Not content with eating the fruit yourself, you must push it pell-mell on others
so that they too may enjoy this rapid descent to nihilism?
If I am in err in this lofty faith that gives me purpose,
I will have lost nothing, having lived a meaningful life.
You, however,
have wagered everything on this golden fruit,
this wormy fruit of disbelief,
and you stand to lose it all.
Oh, I know that doesn’t sound mushy lovey,
and the love card is certainly the tender underbelly of us faith-talkers,
but I’m still working on that one, okay? And you’re making it really difficult!

A Day in the Life . . .

Posted on March 18, 2012by apronheadlilly

 

'10

As I made the important decision this morning between Frosted Mini-wheats and egg and toast, you sobbed quietly in your hospital bed. Your tiny wisp of a child died in the night—born early. Your arms were empty.
While I perused the early morning aisles comparing prices, checking off my list, mentally mapping out the week’s menu, you hid in the rocks and bushes from rebel troops. Desperate mother hands tried to shush little mouths as men with guns threw your meager treasures about.

At lunch, I fixed my special fresh vegetable salad and diet soda, intent on being faithful to my weight-loss plan. You sifted through the dumpster in the alley for that one morsel that might relieve the silent gnawing—even for a moment.

I filled up with regular unleaded at 2:00, complaining all the while at the ridiculously high price of gasoline. I thought about writing a letter to the editor while you shifted sore and cracked feet along hot dirty paths. You were on your way to a refugee camp with so many other victims of the bloody civil war.

At 4:00, I berated myself for not having thawed meat for supper. What was I thinking! I decided to blow both the diet and the budget and go get burgers and fries. As I hopped in the car and popped in a blues CD, you made funeral arrangements for your young wife—mother of your three children, another breast cancer victim.

We slipped a comedy into the DVD player at 7:00 and laughed till we cried. We air-popped popcorn and refilled our sodas while you frantically performed CPR on your toddler. Minutes before, you had found him in the pool face-down, still wearing his Big Bird pajamas.

I gave myself a facial and dressed for bed. When I picked up my Bible for a few minutes of devotions, my eyes fell on the young lawyer’s question in Luke 10:29: “And who is my neighbor?” Mmm. Lord, I am to love You with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. That seems a difficult enough task. But to love my neighbor, too, just like I love myself? Well . . . I’m not sure how to do that. Who is my neighbor, Lord . . . really?

I highlighted the passage, then placed my Bible back on the nightstand. As I switched off the light, you paced your prison cell—back and forth, back and forth. Fingering the seeping bandage, you wondered if you’d live through another day like this one, long enough to make parole.

. . . I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me.
(Matthew 25:40 NIV)

'10

The Write Stuff

What is it that motivates you to write?  What is your process?

I write in several ways.  If it is an assignment or project that I'm not particularly excited about, I still just dive in and try to give it my best, though I may procrastinate for a bit.  I have strong opinions about a lot of things and love to create with my words, so I am seldom stuck for ideas.  When I do run up against a wall, I walk away from the piece for awhile and get a different perspective.   Then I come back to tackle it afresh.

A lot of my best ideas come as flashes of inspiration.  If I don't get it down then and there, or at least the core ideas, the flashes often fade.  That's why I keep journals and am the post-it note queen.  I also write ideas down on napkins and checks or whatever is handy.

I think sometimes people stumble along in writing because they do not have a basic grasp of grammar and punctuation or perhaps even an adequate vocabulary.  I read grammar books for fun.  Obsessive, I know.  So that aspect of writing does not slow me down.  The hardest time I have, however, is with the re-write.

When I complete a piece and I feel happy with my product, it is hard to look at it dispassionately and start slicing.  Even if I make radical nixing (like just automatically dump the first 3 pages) as some suggest, I have a hard time not keeping those pages in a drawer.  It is rather like those cultures who feel like you have captured their souls when you take their pictures.  That is kind of how I feel about some of my writing.  If I sincerely put myself into those pages, I just can't pretend they never happened.  They are in some way a part of me.  Sick, right?  The same is true of songs.  They end up in a file or in a drawer, waiting to be reworked and re-born. 

My kids are going to have so much fun sorting through the detritus of my life! 

So what motivates you to write?  What is your process?  How do you re-write?  Is it painful?

Azure Skies and Diggin' It

Sometimes a phrase comes along and articulates in a fresh new way something that we just need to say.  But it is only fresh for a time before it is overworked and irritating. 

For example, azure as a descriptive was totally awesome and prodigious in its day, but reading “azure skies” today smacks of teen romance novels.  Gag!

The following ones . . . well, I am just so done with them.  Dig it?  . . . Not! 

(Assume there are probably exclamation points after each one!)

1.      Whatever

2.      Duh

3.      No-brainer

4.      Big time

5.      You go, girl.

6.      Awesome, dude

7.      Totally awesome

8.      Quality time

9.      All my ducks in a row

10.  I’m just sayin’.

11.  I need closure.

12.  Like . . . yeah . . . like . . . like

13.  Yo

14.  Hooking up

15.  Take a number.

16.  Your call is important to us.

17.  It is what it is!  (Okay, I’m really not done with this one.  It slips out all the time because it is suitable in so many circumstances.)

18.  And cool and gnarly are forever!  So get over it!

Do you have any pet axioms that are starting to get under your pelt?  (Don’t you love using the synonym function?)  J  And while I’m thinking about it:  What would life be without emoticons!

Okay, fill in the void:  I hate the phrase _________________________________. 

Blogspot sounds like a disease . . .

Blogspot sounds like a childhood disease, and Wordpress sounds like it should produce some sort of gourmet espresso.  What is this fascination with blogging that turns academics and everyday housewives, factory workers and retired grandparents, to poets and essayists?  What intoxicating bit of technology is this that reawakens dreams in faltering souls—that even they may have something worthwhile to contribute to a wide world that is glutted with information, entertainment, and trivia? 

What if while walking in the mall a stranger came up to me, pressed a finger to my head and said, “Like,” followed by a few more random strangers and a few other slightly familiar faces.   What if others shared something personal about their lives that seemed to parallel mine, ending with a smiley face firmly planted on my back . . . pat, pat, pat!  I would call mall security! 

If in that same mall, I held up one of my treasured photographs for the approval of myriad strangers, they would think me odd and much too self-obsessed.  Or they may think it was to attract attention because what I really am selling is Amway.  Yet what do we do every day—we who populate this teeming trafficked web? 

With all our technology, with all our education, with all the potentiality, our culture muffles authentic communication.  The music, the video games, the radio, and the TV fill us up and drown out the slightest whispers.  And there is no more room even for comfortable silences.  There is no more room for responses to crafted words or appreciation for our thoughts and prayers.  We who rub shoulders with so many in virtual and unvirtual ways still experience isolation.

So in this strange way, we risk exposure in a sometimes scary world because blogging gives a voice to the voiceless and sends bread out on the water to see if anything will come back.

Are we searching for empty affirmation from strangers or is it a reach for community?  Is it because we really do need each other that we stretch toward the unknown to share that aha moment?

"Portrait on the Wall"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otwZkoiqWsE

Lilly's Top Ten Writing Tips

First of all, spit your gum out, please.  I know it helps you cope with your lack of concentration, but a rule is a rule!  Not under the chair!  In the trash can, please!

Okay, let’s get down to business:  This is a writing class, and I expect everyone to give me their best effort; after all, I will be holding your grade hostage, and if you want to graduate, you must accommodate my every writing whim.

Rule #1:  All assignments must be written in MLA format.  I know it seems a bit OCD to be so picky about particular spaces, indentations, and headings, but c’est ce que c’est!  And if you don’t know what that means, you can sign up for French I next year.

Rule #2:  If I assign a personal essay you can I, I, I, I all over the place; but in every other formal essay, I don’t want to see personal pronouns.  I also don’t want to see contractions, text speak, or slang.  Be professional. 

Rule #3:  Open with a strong introduction:  a startling statistic, an anecdote, a quotation, or an applicable example.  Do not begin with a question unless you are famous.  And if you are famous, you can do what you want as long as you keep me on your Christmas list.  The last sentence of your introduction should state your thesis and preview your main supporting points.

Rule #4:  Don’t preach to me at the end, don’t give me a happy-sappy-ever-after ending, and don’t dribble away to nothing.  Re-state your thesis, but not in the exact same way; review your main points; and don’t introduce new material.  End with a strong declarative sentence with a general application that your reader can take away.  Don’t end by stating your desire to work for world peace.  That’s been done and failed.

Rule #5:  Don’t use clichés or overused phrases.  If it sounds like a lyric to a song, it probably is.  Think of a fresh way to say what you want to say because some phrases are as old as the hills and leave me cold as ice!

Rule #6:  You are not Hemingway, so you don’t need to cut adjectives and adverbs to the bone, but think about every modifier you include.  Read your sentence with it and without it and see what incredibly illustrious form is best for your undying, world-changing purpose.  Get the idea?  The bulk of your text should be short words that you can dredge up from your childhood and not the fifty cent variety that you learned from skimming “Word Power” in your grandfather’s bathroom copy of Reader’s Digest.

Rule #7:  After you’re done writing your essay, stand in front of the mirror and read it out loud.  If you can’t stand it, I probably won’t like it either, so revise before your initial submission.

Rule #8:  If you are having trouble starting, cluster, brainstorm, or freewrite to get the ideas flowing.  If you are still stuck, write down all the things you thought you’d never tell anyone.  Write about who really broke your mom’s favorite lamp and about the time you set fire to your neighbor’s poodle.  Once you get a groove going, destroy the incriminating part or rewrite it and blame it on your brother. 

Rule #9:  Use proper grammar and punctuation.  “Let’s eat, Grandma” is addressing Grandma; whereas, “Let’s eat Grandma” will put you in the Hall of Fame with the Donner Party.  So punctuate properly so the reader understands what in the world you mean.  And please, no run on stream-of-consciousness sentences.  This is not the 60s and drugs are illegal.

Rule #10:  Last, if I get an email at 11:00 p.m. the night before the assignment is due, asking what the assignment is, you get zero on principle alone.  Plan and execute your assignments plenty of time in advance because computers hate you and your dog is really waiting for that chance to eat your homework.  It tastes just like chicken. 

I’m looking forward to a great year, and remember I can be bribed with coffee and chocolate!

Reading, Writing, and Isolation

           

Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and selectiveness peculiar to himself. . . . We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.  We are not content to be Leibnitzian nomads.  We demand windows.  Literature . . . is a series of windows, even of doors.  One of the things we feel after reading a great work is “I have got out.”  Or from another point of view, “I have got in”; pierced the shell of some other nomad and discovered what it is like inside.                                           

C.S. Lewis1

In the movie Shadowlands, one of C.S. Lewis’ students quotes his father when he says, “We read to know we’re not alone.”  I’m not sure if that line flowed from the mind of some philosophic scriptwriter or whether it has biographical basis, perhaps even from Lewis’ own writings, but it is a truism nonetheless.  There is within all of us a desire to link minds and hearts with others—to know we are not alone in this vast world of like and unlike. 

Sometimes I read well-crafted words that put into one succinct thought an impression that before only floated round the edges of my mind, without form. Those words give exact shape to my thought—help me say what I could not say, only feel.

Sometimes a truth leaps off the page and finds a roosting place in my receptive mind.  I have never thought this way before, but it suits.  I embrace the truth as a companion.  I own it.   It is at home—a part of other thoughts that are making me.

Sometimes I read words that parallel exactly how I think about things.  The author and I are walking in matched steps—no hitches, step for step.  I feel kinship, a knowing that this person has walked where I’ve walked, is standing where I stand.  This human heart resonates with the beat of my own, and I am not alone in the universe.

Books go back on shelves, but many sing a siren song, calling to be read again and again.  Such is a friend to finger and cherish over tea—live, pithy food.  Words labored over in a far off cloister by some lonesome wordsmith have found a broader world in me. 

*  *  *  *  *  *

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.  When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader.  He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation . . .

Anne Lamott2

            I write to know I’m not alone.  I am a fisherman sending out hooks with thoughtful bait.  Line upon wriggling line skims the water, sinking deep; then, the long finger-biting wait to see if anything comes back.  Did I hook someone? 

            It’s not, did I sell meaningless page fillers to the constantly hungry monster of consumerism that skims and scans and tosses aside?  It’s not, did I make a few dollars to add to the coffers that fund my Starbucks addiction?  I write to send a distinct call to like-minded intellects, passionate hearts, and hungry souls.  Do you see what I see?  Can I show you what I’ve learned?  Do you feel the longing to connect—to share in the “ah-ha?”  Can you see through the window of my nomadic soul and be changed as I am being changed?  

Word on word, line on line, strong words on lifeless fragile pulp—essence poured into the mold of pages.  Letters inconsequential yet sequential, rearranged, deleted, retrieved over and over till the message reads clear—time looking over my shoulder.

Fear of criticism causes pause—rejection sniffs around the corners of my self-confidence, and I’m tempted to hide.  I could safely file things away and wait for yellowing brittle papers to be discovered posthumously in dusty drawers—a romantic thought.  But I am no aesthete.  I love the creation, but not for creation’s sake alone.  I want my words to rub shoulders with someone; to sidle up and get comfortable with someone; to nourish someone’s soul hunger.  Perhaps valued, perhaps not—that’s the great risk. 

As in a small room of a small house, I read to view a life that is larger than my own; I write to know that I do not breathe and move in isolation.  I paint a canvas of words not just to decorate a shelf but to make meaningful difference—to reach out fingertip to fingertip to unknown pilgrims in a fallen world.

 I read to know. 

 I write to be known.

 To know that I am not alone.

           

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1 The Quotable Lewis

Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, editors

Page 397

2 bird by bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott

Page 225-6

High School English Gone Green

This week, your assignment will be to write a three-page compare and contrast essay.  Typically, I have made this an open topic, but I have received as many dog and cat comparisons that I want to see in my lifetime; and by the way, dogs rule!

As a refresher:  A compare / contrast essay should compare two or more things.  You will be comparing the similarities and contrasting the differences.  This essay should not only inform the reader—that’s me—but should also evaluate the items you are using.  Give me specific, concrete examples to support your points.

As I mentioned, this is not an open topic.  As Americans, we share this North American continent with Canada and Mexico.  I want you to compare and contrast two aspects of the culture of each country.  That could be education, family life, religion, immigration, language, art, or politics, etc.  If you have any questions as to the appropriateness of what items to choose, please ask me.  Canadian rap has not really taken off, so it probably should be stroked off your list.

You may set up your document in either of the following ways:  subject by subject or point by point.

Subject by subject sample outline:

1.      Introduction

2.      Body:

A.      Canada:

i.                    Politics

ii.                  Language

B.      U.S.

i.                    Politics

ii.                  Language

C.      Mexico

i.                    Politics

ii.                  Language

3.      Conclusion

Point by Point sample outline:

1.      Introduction

2.      Body:

A.      Education

i.             Canada

              ii.           U.S.

iii.             Mexico

B.      Family Life

i.                    Canada

ii.                  U.S.

iii.                Mexico

3.      Conclusion

Choose whichever outline you prefer, but the point of this essay is not just to practice the compare / contrast format, but to think about what our neighboring cultures experience in day-to-day living, which might be a different or similar experience to your own. 

How many of you think that snow magically appears as soon as you cross the Canadian border?  And do you know the significance of Prince Edward Island?  Big hint:  It’s not just where Anne of Green Gables lives.  Does the 49^th parallel sound in any way familiar to you; and no, it has nothing to do with gymnastics.  It has more to do with good fences making good neighbors.  Not all Canadians rub noses; not all Canadians ski or eat Canadian bacon; and, trust me, they are not all nice!  So what are they all about, these grand neighbors to the North?

How about our Southern neighbors?  How many of you feel that when speaking English to a Spanish-speaking person if you just talk a bit louder, you will make them understand?   Do you think as soon as you cross the border, Mexico is one hot desert?  You are mistaken:  That’s Palmdale!  Mexico has varied landscapes, including pine forests and snow at higher elevations.  When they get too much snow, they ship it to the Canadian border so it’s the first thing American tourists see.  Mexicans are not all drug dealers (Haven’t you watched Tony Soprano?); they don’t all have tortillas with Mother Mary’s face in it; they don’t all salsa dance; and most hear . . . perfectly . . . fine.  Take the time to find out who your neighbors are.

In order to write this essay and make it replete with concrete examples you will need to do some research.  Here are some notes about that:

·         Wikipedia is not considered an academic site.  If I see it on your Works Cited page, your paper just made the bottom of my bird cage.

·         If your site has anything in it about Bubba from Montana, it is probably not credible.  Save that for creative writing.  Instead, prefer sites with dot gov or dot edu at the end of the URL.

·         If you plagiarize your source, I will know it.  Even though I do not have Turnitin.com, like the great community college down the street, Google is an amazing search engine.  If you plagiarize globally, as a patchwork, or incrementally, you just failed my course.  Come by my office; I have applications for Jack-in-the-Box.

·         There are other credible sources other than the Internet.  They are called books.

Plan ahead and as always submit your essay in MLA format.  I hope you enjoy this chance to study the other cultures that share your continent.  Next week, we will be starting the poetry section.  Extra credit is available for those successful in suppressing groans.

Class dismissed.