Talking Rocks

Recently completed from my summer book list was N.D. Wilson's Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, a staggeringly beautiful yet sober look at human nature, God's existence, and our place in this carnival of a world. Wilson speaks the truth with clarity and interest. As a former English teacher, I was struck most by Wilson's image of Christ as a perfect Shakespeare, the author of a grand story who decides the course of man and has ordained an ending to each man--and to take it further, how balmy it is that the Author actually lowered Himself to become part of that story--so low, in fact, that He slumbered with pigs and horses on the night He was born. Crazy? YES. But wondrous.

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is Wilson's attempt to capture just a snapshot of what the Psalmist David speaks of here, in Psalm 104: 24-30:

24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
25 This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great.
26 There the ships sail about;
There is that Leviathan
Which You have made to play there.

27 These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
28 What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide Your face, they are troubled;
You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the earth.

~~~~~

Read it, and enjoy.

Best Marriage Proposal Ever.

I have to share. Watch every minute of this.  A bit of joy for your Thursday evening.

Eats shoots and leaves.... ?

Poor Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, will forever be heckled for her courageous commentary on what might possibly be the nerdiest sphere of academia: grammar. And by extension, those who dare to read the book and actually enjoy it might also receive that same heckling. But that's okay. I will step out from the minority of obsessive grammarians and say I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found myself at times laughing out loud. She declares in the introduction that her point is not to write a "book about grammar", but instead to "give us permission to love punctuation." Haha. I'm still laughing about that one. If there's a way to make grammar hilarious, Truss has done it. She is both level-headed and self-deprecating about her fixation on proper puncuation, and the book is filled with various anecdotes to help prove her point that proper punctuation is indeed important, especially in the techno-culture we currently find ourselves in. Here are just a few of my favorite quotes... and hopefully I cite them correctly.


".... the world cares nothing for the little shocks endured by the sensitive stickler. While we look in horror at a badly punctuated sign, the world carries on around us, blind to our plight. We are like the little boy in The Sixth Sense who can see dead people, except that we see dead punctuation."

"One might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the puncuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burning out from all the thankless effort."

"The big final rule for the comma is one that you won't find in any books by grammarians. It is quite easy to remember, however. The rule is: don't use commas like a stupid person. I mean it. More than any other mark, the comma requires the writer to use intelligent discretion and to be simply alert to potential ambiguity."


And my favorite of all....

"In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets over-excited and breaks things and laughs too loudly."

For Carrie, any other teacher of English who reads this, and anyone who is a closet punctuation lover, grab a copy of this book at the library and enjoy!

The Story of a Bad Boy

In my world growing up, life centered largely around girly activities like pretending to be Ariel as she sings on the rock, waves crashing strategically around her ruby red hair. Other girl activities included playing with Barbies and improvising on Barbie's furniture by wrapping a VHS cover with a washcloth--voila! Barbie's bed! Little did I know I was putting my "hand to the spindle" even then. I could turn virtually any activity into a game of "house."

In other words, I had no clue what being a young boy was like. Couldn't relate. Didn't want to relate. They were messy, dirty, and I wanted them to just be still. I wanted to poise myself elegantly on that Ariel rock and sing, and my male friends wanted to heave themselves off of it, grunting victoriously on the way down.

As the mother of a son, I've gotten to experience the birth of boyhood, the first vestiges of proof positive that God has designed boys and girls to be different. I don't even try to "build" something with Eli's blocks without knowing he'll King-Kong it before I can finish. Obviously, this is a whole new world to me, about as foreign as Oz was to Dorothy. How does he not find the utmost glee at seeing a beautifully symmetrical stack of bocks?

The Story of a Bad Boy, apparently one of the first books to chronicle American childhood, taught me a great deal about what it means to be a boy. It's a semi-autobiographical tale of Thomas Aldrich's childhood, although he changes his name slightly in the story. Even though the title didn't personally resonate with me, I knew I was in for it when I read the second paragraph of the book:

"I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub...in short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a story-book than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry."

Aldrich later, in his description of a childhood arch-enemy with whom a playground "fight" was inevitable, quotes from what he calls "one of the best books ever written for boys." (Tom Brown's Schooldays at Rugby). Two years ago I would have read over the quote cursorily, not unlike you do when you read the exhaustive genealogies of so-and-so in the Bible (it's okay to admit it). But since I have a boy whom I desire to actually be a boy, I thought I'd read carefully.

"Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. Not one of you will be the worse, but very much the better, for learning to box well. Should you never have to use it in earnest, there's no exercise in the world so good for the temper and for the muscles of the back and legs.

As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to say "Yes" or "No" to a challenge to fight, say "No" if you can--only take care you make it clear to yourself why you say "No." It's a proof of the highest courage, if done from true Christian motives. It's quite right and justifiable, if done from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger. But don't say "No" because you fear a licking, and say or think it's because you fear God, for that's neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight it out; and don't give in while you can stand and see."

This is a lesson I'd like to Eli to learn--to be open and honest in his dealings with other boys, to be courageous and honorable, and if necessary, fight to the end and refuse to be "licked" by someone else. He'll have his own stories to tell, and chances are they'll be a lot more adventurous than my games of fake grocery shopping as a 6 year old.



"MINE!"

In a series of sermons given a few years ago, Doug Wilson uses the analogy of a clean house versus a dirty house to illustrate the importance of prompt and habitual confession of sin. The longer one waits to deal with a messy house, the more difficult and tiresome the task of cleaning the house becomes. But for the person who tidies often, confronts the mess, and moves on with his day, the job is far less overwhelming. Both homes need to be cleaned, just like the hearts of the people who take care of these homes. But one person procrastinates, offers excuses, and lazes about. The difference when it comes to confession of sin is a matter of length of time--we ought to confess sin promptly and often to avoid having bedraggled hearts heavy with sin.

Imagine that same home, but only one room (let's say the living room, since it's frequented most often) stays immaculate. Not one picture frame is out of place. The hardwood floors shine. Dust is nowhere to be found. Wow, you might think. This person's really got his act together. But walk upstairs and imagine there's what could be a certified case of "Hoarder's Disease" (there's an official help group for them now, you know). Spider webs crawl up the corners of every room, cups half full of some questionable liquid litter the furniture, and the shower has turned that lovely pink color of mildew. Something is clearly not right with this picture, and it's not just that you're uncomfortable that your house does indeed look like this sometimes. There's an inconsistency here.

If you haven't caught on quite yet, my point is that holiness applies everywhere. It isn't good enough to claim saving faith in the big places, the places that are most visible to outsiders. It isn't good enough to wish  you could keep your whole house in order but fail miserably at it all the time. In the same way, Christ requires us to think and behave Biblically about everything. Holiness requires absolute, sweeping submission to God everywhere. In the corners. Under the bed. Along the baseboards. In the bedroom. When we hear a song on the radio. When we deal with a cheeky grocery store cashier. When we spend money frivolously.

This is what it means to adopt a Biblical worldview; we have to avoid the sin of believing worldview is just philosophy--it has feet and hands, and how we behave in every situation is affected by our worldview. This is what Christ meant when He commanded us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Wisdom (versus knowledge) is the ability to apply Scripture to all those obscure situations about which Scripture isn't explicit. Just like every room of our houses ought to be generally clean (and again, the word generally can be interpreted in many ways), so every minute of our lives ought to be in submission to Christ.


At Free University's inaugural address in 1880, Abraham Kuyper uproariously proclaimed,

"There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ,

who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

In our current postmodern world where worldview, even among believers, is fragmented and detached from everyday behavior, Kuyper's words make even more sense. Will we listen, and do?



High School Sweethearts

As hard as it will be for our children to imagine, we were indeed their age once. The struggles, anticipations, and thrills of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood are, as Solomon reminded us, “nothing new under the sun.”  One day, when our children are grown, Michael and I will want some record of “our story” to remind our children that we were 18 years old once. And even then, God was working for our good and preparing us for one another. In many ways, we pray that God will work differently in our children’s lives (sparing them from petty heartbreak and unnecessary relationships). Hopefully they won’t be so presently minded that they develop this hazy and distant idea that our marriage was arranged or that somehow, one day, we were just married, and that is page one of the Cranford family history.

So here’s a bit of self-deprecating background to begin. One was in the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers, competing with rival Baptist churches for the most talented and creative puppet shows in Stanly County, and the other was in 4-H, pledging her “head to clearer thinking, heart to greater loyalty, hands to larger service, and health to better living,” all of which culminated in the creation of a homemade navy floral vest worn proudly for years to come. Apparently we were meant to be.

Michael joined the ranks of the modest Covenant Classical School in the 9^th grade and began playing basketball, the scene where we first met. He was good at basketball and I was not. Just as well could have been rugby for me (is that the sport where you take the ball and run with it? No dribbling? Yep that's it).  We crossed paths that year without much notice from me. I was far too preoccupied with schoolwork and other boys, one in particular who developed a close friendship with the man at hand. Oh, and he began dating my best friend. Yes, all those things kept him off the radar.

During the summer before our senior year, Covenant nearly closed its doors, ties were cut with said friend of Michael, and upheaval characterized my life—at least as much upheaval as a 17 year old with nothing to really complain about can experience. The school did carry on, but barely, and our senior year was spent soliciting CCS parents, who served as “janitor” that year, for money in exchange for doing their job of cleaning the school. That fundraiser allowed us to go on our senior trip, and the parents appreciated it, too! But I digress.

In our small graduating class of 12, my exposure to Michael seemed to close in, much like two people trapped in a room with walls that get closer and closer together. Months before he had broken up with my friend, so I was just the best friend who got to hear the traumatic breakup story.  Nearly a year later, during volleyball season, my coach and most of my teammates began teasing me about M’s increased interest in me, but I paid little attention, mostly because I didn’t believe them. I finally had no choice but to admit they were right. After a weekend in Tennessee for a volleyball tournament, we arrive at the school to be picked up by mom or dad, and who is there to pick me up but M himself?! “Seriously?” I ask myself. “What kind of conspiracy are he and my parents operating around here?” As cordially as I could, I thanked him for the ride, a tad annoyed at the presumption.  But I still thought of him often, and I was truly thankful for his creativity and well, let’s just be honest, his attention. He had matured in the three years I had known him, from the tall, lanky 9^th grader who once referred to me as “Medusa” after a perm gone wrong, to this: a polite, thoughtful, and Godly high school senior.

We began “dating” (sort of a date-ship if you will) on February 18, 2003, four or five months after we had both decided separately to attend Wingate. Having grown up Baptist, Michael was in for quite the awakening as he began attending our Reformed Presbyterian church with our family. It didn’t take him long to figure out why I wasn’t gaga over The Purpose Driven Life, one of his gifts to me early in our relationship. We laugh about it now. At the time I remember feigning appreciation but wanting anxiously to sermonize him on the bogus theology of Rick Warren.  Thankfully, the moment came later when we could talk openly about it.  Michael buckled down and made theology a serious study for him, something I continue to respect about him.

Once we began college, God provided us with an incredible foundation of friends who loved the Lord and shared much in common with us. We had a wonderful time that year.  When the end of freshman year came, I panicked and broke up with Michael, claiming that we were young, I didn’t know what I wanted, it’s-not-you-it’s-me type stuff. I was devastated and questioned my decision, he called often and still graciously gave me my space, and I questioned whether I really wanted more space. We got back together after the summer and all was good until the end of our junior year, when it happened again. We both had plans to spend a semester in London the following fall, and the walls felt like they were closing in on me again—walls that I now know were self-built and self-suffocating.

That summer, we parted ways intermittently. With M working at Razzoo’s and me at Carrabbas, we saw each other occasionally but it was usually strained. I was excessively reflective, always second-guessing my choices, and he was growing (I thought) indifferent. Not sure when it happened, but by the time we arrived in London in September of 2006, we were somehow a couple again. So much a couple that he had bought a ring, picked it up the day we left for London, and stashed it in his suitcase for our three month vacation, er, semester abroad.

Alas, I never saw the diamond in England because I made a comment early in our trip that I would want to be near family whenever we got engaged, a comment he took to mean there’s no way I’d want to be proposed to on the Tower Bridge, or in Kensington Gardens, or on the lawn of Westminster Abbey. Otherwise, I found the time abroad with M to be rejuvenating and eye-opening. I grew to love him there, in a way unlike the previous 3 years. I had seen him forgive, forget, love, protect, and cherish me before, but so much of it became new when we were away from our homes and our communities. Some of my fondest memories there are of the two of us venturing around the city together, touring Westminster Abbey or eating at Rainforest Café (no, not an authentic British restaurant… go figure.)

True love wouldn’t be true love without obstacles, would it? Nope, and that’s what I told myself when we came home and over the following few months leading up to graduation. Excluding details unnecessary to our “happily ever after,” M and I hit some snags in the way of a certain woman with the inability to keep her feet at home. After a short crisis that put our relationship to the test, all was put to bed (no pun intended) and Wingate became just an experience in our rear view.  We were engaged in February and married in December.

 As Michael and I approach our five year wedding anniversary on December 1, I can reflect back on both Michael’s and more astoundingly, God’s goodness, to me in preparing me for marriage. Michael’s retelling of the story could include verbiage a bit more scathing and bitter, given my whimsical nature as a young girl. Any normal onlooker would have warned him to get out while the getting’s good. But with time comes an incredible sense of perspective of “our story,” an ability to laugh at the triviality of it all and an incredibly grateful heart that Michael was so persistent. In a culture where girls are encouraged to initiate, pursue, and claim responsibility for the status of their relationships, how sweet it is to tell of my husband who never permitted me to behave that way.

We trust God to bring spouses to our children one day. We hope their stories will tell of even greater faithfulness and commitment to pleasing God. In the meantime, thank goodness my chief worries right now are limited to teaching Eli to, you know, talk and stuff.

If you're looking for a summer book read...

And you've never read The Hunger Games, I'd recommend it---but only if you're willing to think Biblically about it, and also to read this wonderful review of the book from N.D. Wilson (100 Cupboards, etc.)

I enjoyed the book but was uncomfortable with it for a few reasons, none of which I could articulate. I found myself fascinated but simultaneously squirmy at the premise Collins operates under. This review is what it means to filter everything we do through the framework of Scripture, even down to reading books or watching films. Enjoy!