fear of art

About a month ago, I purchased a used sewing machine on ebay. I've been thinking about buying a sewing machine seriously for a few years, though I really knew I wanted one when I was just tall enough to peek over the edge of a yellowed wooden table to watch my mom sew beautiful things with her new gleaming Bernina.

I've always been envious of confident artists: poised, self-assured as they make bold strokes across a piece of canvas, voraciously write paragraphs of exquisitely strung-together sentences, or decisively press down the button and hear the shutter close with satisfaction. I watch hopeful their artistic certainty will rub off. Fear paralyzes me.

Fear of art not measuring up to self-imposed standards, of it not being interesting enough, perfect enough, inspired enough. So I think about stories I'd like to write, photographs I'd like to take, and fabric I'd like to sew...and sit on my hands for fear it will not be enough.

"don't cry over spilt milk"

Many a childhood family dinner was spoiled by spilt milk. Despite parental chiding to move our glasses farther away from the edge of the table--and subsequently out of our clumsy reach--, we played a game of milk-spilling four square each week. I swatted my hand across the table to my older sister, who then knocked hers sideways to the foot of the table in the lap of my older brother...and on and on. I think my parents had to buy an extra gallon of milk per week, anticipating the liquid waste on our plates, on our chairs, and on the floor.

I finally understand their frustration--empathize with it, actually. I've lost track of how many milk spills I've been sanctified by these last several months. At first, my gasps of surprise scared my boy to tears; next he cried when I disciplined him for his carelessness; then he sensed my brewing anger and tried to atone for his guilt without putting up a fuss over whatever food graced his plate. Now he says, "No-noh, noh-nah" and pushes the offending cup away from his tray as I cringe at what my responses have manufactured. I reassure him, "It's okay, sweet boy; you just need to pay attention to what you're doing," and I shuffle to the laundry room to fetch another towel for soaking up the white in the carpet.

Spilt milk has brought out my best patience and my worst anger. I recall a recent lunch when I soaked up 3 separate milk spills with as many towels. I almost cried after the second accident; I laughed after the third. Parenting has bolstered my forbearance...and my sense of humor.

a prayer for john irving

I recently finished reading A Prayer for Owen Meany on a friend's recommendation (thanks, Anna). Because of the holidays, I picked it up and put it down too many times to appreciate it as fully as I would have in a more focused context, but it was an interesting read. One of the overarching subjects of the book is faith, and I was intrigued by Irving's portrayal of belief as a product of coercion. Here are a few quotes from the book:

It seemed to me that Owen Meany had been used as cruelly by ignorance as he had been used by any design. I had seen what God used him for; now I saw how ignorance had used him, too.

This is what a self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.

At times I envy Lewis Merrill; I wish someone could trick me the way I tricked him into having such absolute and unshakable faith. For although I believe I know what the real miracles are, my belief in God disturbs and unsettles me much more than not believing ever did; unbelief seems vastly harder to me now than belief does – but belief poses so many unanswerable questions!

Curious to research why Irving wrote this book and his religious convictions, I found this New York Times interview where he discusses a fascination in miracles as faith generators:

''I've always asked myself what would be the magnitude of the miracle that could convince me of religious faith,'' Mr. Irving said, identifying the kernel of philosophical curiosity that generated this latest book. He said that as a regular churchgoer during his youth, he himself had numerous religious doubts and ''an on-again, off-again faith'' [....] ''And yet,'' he said, ''so much accumulated churchgoing had an effect, even if, when I was a teen-ager, the pompousness of it, the self-righteousness of it irritated me. [....] For someone who was interested in telling stories, they [ministers] were among my first contacts with seizing someone's attention, telling a story and convincing you, not on intellectual grounds but persuading you, emotionally and psychologically, to believe something.''

This novel has made me consider the generation of my own faith--how someone like Irving might deem it "parental brainwashing" or "youthful indoctrination" which ignorantly loitered into adulthood. It grieves me that pondering the miracle of God's creation, incarnation and redemption is insufficient for Irving. Though many suppress the truth, God is still glorified through their work--whether they recognize it or not.

coffee snobbery

It's official: I am a coffee snob. The label materialized this morning when I ground my Vienna-roasted Capanna beans and attempted to make a strong cup of joe for myself and for a chocolate mocha cake using my undistinguished Braun coffee maker, the one we received as a wedding gift five-and-a-half years ago.

My French press has been glass carafe-less for a few days after it fell prey to a pair of busy little hands, and the coffee has been awful since. This morning I resolved enough is enough--I'm buying a replacement glass carafe online, and I don't care if I'm eligible for free super saver shipping from Amazon. Actually, I better make sure there's nothing else for $8.06+ we need first. [sigh] Can't quite take the Dutch out of this woman.

humble commission

On Sunday a guest pastor, a missionary in The Czech Republic, preached a sermon entitled "Every Christian Has a Commission" over Isaiah 6; it was a convicting sermon as I often wrestle with whether life is too "normal" or too comfortable for me. One of the questions he asked us to consider is, "Where does God want you to be salt and light?" It's a self-posed question almost weekly as I wonder if my role as a stay-at-home wife and mother is a suitable fulfillment of God's calling in my life.

When I taught at a public high school, I had built-in contact with people bereft of hope and served in a capacity to engage, question, and encourage young people and colleagues in a meaningful way. I love staying home, but I miss those spontaneous intellectual conversations about truth, total depravity and original sin the language arts curriculum afforded.

One of the encouraging applications the guest pastor made during the sermon was discussing first the fulfillment of our commission in the home, then at work, in our church family and in our local community before he mentioned the international scene. I think missionaries can default to the global and burden Christians with some heavy guilt, and it was refreshing to hear him value the everyday work followers of Christ do in their homes and communities.

Because I often forget. I forget that cleaning up messes, laundering diapers and clothes, preparing meals, and disciplining my child for a repeated offense repeatedly is part of my commission--it's not a matter of being too inwardly focused as I often convince myself or a selfish endeavor fit for chiding. It's a pouring out of myself as an offering to the Lord, and I hope it is sweet in his sight.

genesis revisited

I've been rereading the book of Genesis since the new year. I'm about halfway through, and it's much different than the Sunday school version I remember. Some observations so far:

1.) Scandalous stories: Lot's 2 daughters getting their dad drunk to have sex with him for posterity's sake; Abraham and Isaac pretending their wives were their sisters to protect themselves from harm and subsequently offering up their wives to foreigners (that's the sacrificial spirit!); Sodomite males wanting to have sex with angel visitors (presumably God the Son and God the Holy Spirit who had just come from a visit with Abraham).

2.) Concubines galore! Those Old Testament men and women took the whole "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" cultural mandate seriously, often at the expense of family harmony.

3.) God's personal relationship with his people: remembering Noah and his family and not destroying them in the flood; visiting Hagar in the desert when she felt like she and Ishmael were left for dead; listening to Abraham intercede for any righteous in Sodom before it is destroyed.

4.) God's sovereignty: God uses sinful people to accomplish his purpose in the metanarrative.

Favorite story so far: Abraham sacrifices Isaac. After waiting decades for a son and trying to help God along with his promise, Abraham is finally blessed with Isaac only to give him back to God--how frustrating! And then how joyous for God's provision of a ram and the perfect Sacrifice!

let it snow

I've been craving a good snow fall lately--not a piddly dusting, but a bona fide 7-to-8-inch-get-out-the-snow-shovels-and-hot-cocoa kind of snow that shocks you awake when you peek between the blinds in the morning. A few weeks ago I came across this quote from Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter:

A wet snow comes in the night and covers the ground and clings to the trees, making the whole world white. For a while in the morning the world is perfect and beautiful. You think you will never forget.
You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind.

I don't know how many times I've woken to a feathery comforter of snow, but I can never quite get the picture clear in my head of those beautiful mornings. I know part of my propensity to take pictures stems from this lack of clarity. I remember furiously taking pictures of a particular glen in Scotland as the fog lifted, revealing green tufts springing through the gray monotony. To no avail. I try hard to recall the scenery, the angle of the hill, the smell of the dense, earthy air, but memory fails. Even looking at my photographs doesn't do justice; they don't feel authentic somehow.

The feeling of those snow-covered dawns lingers inside, and I want to relive that moment, bask in the radiant morning, knowing full well my mental picture will eventually fade despite my efforts to remember it exactly. It makes me wonder if our capacity for remembering beautiful scenes will improve when we are glorified and made whole. I hope so.