Lent [Day 22]: Excerpts from the Notebook

Originally written Spring 2010. Perhaps just as relevant this Spring.

So, looking back in my collections of ephemeral notes today, I found this on a folded scrap of yellow legal paper:

"When do you realize that someone is going to change your life forever?"

Which is simultaneously deep and introspective and pithy Hallmark schlock.  Let's focus on the former.  It's sort of like the question of when life begins. (After all, relationship is very much a living being.  It also raises more questions than answers.)  Is it at conception?  Once the fetus is viable?  Upon its first breath of air?  When can you realize whether someone is going to make a profound impact on you?  When do you realize you have borne life into a relationship you've created?  At hello?  Later on, once you are clearly invested in relationship?  Is it even you who creates the relationship?  And when can you realize whether you are going to make a profound impact on someone else?  For me, that comes far earlier than the answer to the initial question.

In some Schrodinger fashion, we change each others' lives just by being in them.  Our presence changes the experiment.

I realized this morning, that I am embarking on some new relationships, and that these people will always be mine.  At some future date, they will move out of my immediate presence (or I theirs).  But even so, they will always be present in my life, in some form.  To quote an inappropriate Third Eye Blind song, "I guess I'll always be knowing you."  I don't think of relationships as necessarily having expiration dates.  They don't die, they just sort of go dormant in some form, like seeds in the Atacama that wait years for rain to coax them out to life.  So my recognition today that these relationships are, actually, going to be mine forever is more an acknowledgment than a revelation.  I think this acknowledgment has come earlier than it has in the past.  Or maybe I always somehow knew it, I'm just conscious of it earlier.  It's one of those things that is easy to pinpoint in hindsight than in the present.  It's easy to see evidence when you look back for it, even if the significance of a moment escapes you at that moment.  

Lent [Day 9]: Of Bracelets and Space

Statue of St Peter, The Vatican

Several years ago, I discovered that my wrist had amassed a collection of hand-knotted friendship bracelets from some of my most cherished students.  It was a peculiar claiming of territory, of sorts - as if they'd written "Andy" on the bottom of my shoes.  I wore them constantly - they were tied onto me, after all - quite literally all across the planet, for about two years, by which time they had all fallen apart and even the tan lines they left had begun to fade.  I loved those damn bracelets, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little heartbroken when each of them finally broke.  A tangible reminder that extended their creators' physical presence long after they'd moved on.  The weight of which was perhaps too great for the tensile strength of embroidery floss and hemp cord to bear.

[Young people] seek out professors with whom to have relationships, and we seek them out in turn. Teaching, finally, is about relationships. It is mentorship, not instruction.  Socrates also says that the bond between teacher and student lasts a lifetime, even when the two are no longer together. And so it is. Student succeeds student, and I know that even the ones I'm closest to now will soon become names in my address book and then just distant memories. But the feelings we have for the teachers or students who have meant the most to us, like those we have for long-lost friends, never go away. They are part of us, and the briefest thought revives them, and we know that in some heaven we will all met again. (William Deresiewicz, "Love on Campus", The American Scholar, Summer 2007.)

All this presence and absence (physical or symbolic) naturally calls to mind Henri Nouwen and his writings on presence and absence of God, as well as and the presence and absence of each other in ministry.  All very timely in this Lenten season, as we are preparing, liturgically, for the absence of Jesus.

The great temptation of the ministry is to celebrate only the presence of Jesus while forgetting his absence.  Often the minister is most concerned to make people glad and to create an atmosphere of "I'm okay, you're okay." But in this way, everything gets filled up and there is no empty space left for the affirmation of our basic lack of fulfillment.  In this way the presence of Jesus is enforced without connection with his absence.  Almost inevitably this leads to artificial joy and superficial happiness.  It also leads to disillusionment because we forget that it is in memory that Jesus Christ is present. If we deny the pain of his absence we will not be able to taste his sustaining presence either.  (The Living Reminder)

And...

Discipline is the mark of a disciple of Jesus. This doesn't mean, however, that you must make things difficult for yourself, but only that you make available the inner space where God can touch you with an all-transforming love.  We human beings are so faint-hearted that we have a lot of trouble leaving an empty space empty.  We like to fill it all up with ideas, plans, duties, tasks, and activities. (Letters to Marc About Jesus)

Having recently marked one year in a new job and a new home, I've been reflecting on what that year has taught me (other than how screamingly FAST a year can go), and, well, the meaning-junkie in me has been hard at work trying to ferret out the larger purposes in all the change.  A friend asked me this week about my job, and I commented to her about the amount of free space and time I have now.  Evenings and weekends that were over-capacity with grading and lesson-planning and - let's face it - a good amount of internet ministry, are now wide open.  And I fret about not filling the space suitably, now that I have it - that I might squander it.  I realize I needn't be so swift to fill the space, but that requires a practiced restraint.  The absence here is a gift, so I feel the responsibility to be a good steward of it.  I miss the classroom, the daily collision with students' lives.  I've made known my ability and willingness to pick up an adjunct-professorship in the evenings to satisfy that desire, and I haven't exactly canceled my daily teaching-job-search-agent emails.  But I'm not knocking down doors to rush back into it, either.  It will happen in the fullness of its own time.  Meanwhile, I live in a paradise that is lovely beyond belief, AND I've been given the gift of time and space to enjoy it.  What overwhelming divine generosity!  

Surely I was touched by Jesus's all-transforming love when my physical world was overflowing with people I had such great occasion to love and be loved by.  But presence necessitates absence.  And His all-transforming love can touch my heart in the absence of His holy messengers and recipients and tasks.  Ministry will still take place in and through me.  All I must do is be present with the absence.

Lent [Day 8]: For Jess

Originally written July 2010

I sent one of my favorite people in the universe to San Francisco this week. We were quite a team, at school and elsewhere. Students called us Jesus and Peter. Truth and Love.  Swords and sheep.

People ask me what I'm going to do without my sidekick this year, and I joke that I'm not ready to be present with that. But the truth is, I've been present with it for a while. I knew when she started talking about California this spring that her departure would be sooner rather than later. And while I would love for her to stay, it's not part of the larger call on our lives and the lives of those who will enter our lives very soon. Sure, I get a twinge of sadness when I think ahead to upcoming events at school in which we would ordinarily be involved together. But one thing I've learned is that my imagination is incredibly limited, in comparison to the way my life has unfolded thus far. To say nothing of the ministry of absence, a necessary companion to presence.

So, today I send someone I love to a place I love to serve a God I love.

Time to make room for new favorites. Now accepting applications.

Lent [Day 2]: A Sermon on Love

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  The red and pink, the hearts, the flowers, the chocolate, the celebration of love in so many forms.  When I was teaching, I was able to indulge in a fair amount of Valentine silliness and frippery.  Science-themed valentines for all my students ("we attract like opposite charges" or "you're the net force that makes my heart accelerate") and heading up the rose and candy-gram fundraiser.  Teaching was a labor of love, and I like to believe most of my students experienced that love from me, whether manifest in my time spent tutoring them, encouraging comments on a test, my attendance at their events, or innumerable treats.

It's the romantic love, eros, that gets all the hype this time of year, but why should other forms get the short shrift?  Familial love admittedly gets some of its own days (e.g. Mother's Day, Father's Day), but what of friendship?  Of affection?  These are the loves that don't get the kind of attention from the floral and greeting-card industry, which is unfortunate.  Yes, the cynics may say that they don't need a specific day in which to tell their loved ones what they think.  And they're right, to an extent.  But, if we don't need the corporations reminding us to love generously on a mid-February day, why are we so stingy with our love the other 364 days?  What if we loved our coworkers, our neighbors, our students, our teachers, our friends, and strangers with such abandon and recklessness and extravagance every day?  

It is the greatest commandment, after all.  And an extremely lofty one.  It's scattered throughout the Gospel, but the translation that resonates right now is found in John 13.  "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."

We are leading up to a celebration of the ultimate expression of the ultimate love.  The self-sacrificing love that God expressed - nay, that God is - in sending His own Son to atone for our transgressions.  And that is the model we are commanded to follow.  So let us, this Valentine's Day, be challenged to accept a love beyond measure, and to express a love that exceeds our own capabilities.  

Motherhood of a Different Kind

I was sifting through one of my commonplace books this morning, and I came across this pearl from C.S. Lewis:

'She seems to be... well, a person of particular importance?'

'Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things...' 

'And who are all these young men and women on each side?' 

'They are her sons and daughters.' 

'She must have had a very large family, Sir.' 

'Every young man or boy that met her became her son - even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.' 

'Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?' 

'No. There are those that steal other peoples' children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives. ... It is like when you throw a stone into a pool and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? ... But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.'

I am often asked about (not) having children of my own - it's usually one of the trifecta of small-talk topics when meeting people:  Where are you from?  What do you do?  Do you have any kids?  Especially after someone learns we've been married for more than a dozen years.  As a woman who runs in some evangelical Christian circles, it's assumed that I would have had them by now.  And that it's something I'm supposed to do, despite my body.  Frankly, I've never had a huge drive towards motherhood - I've looked at it more as merely the next logical milestone.  I'm not hostile toward the idea, either; I'm not militantly anti-children.  It just hasn't happened for us.  I choose to be satisfied either way - with or without.  We essentially gave the decision over to God; I never wanted to be so desperate that I would steamroll forth with my plan and overlook the one He has designed for us (and designed us for). A constant struggle that is hardly exclusive to child-bearing. 

One way I usually respond to the question - mostly to fill the conversation space that would have otherwise held a description of my family - is that as a high-school teacher and mentor, I've been busy shepherding others' children.  Which raises a question: Must I justify our lack of children with some substitution or place-holder?  Sometimes, yes, because I've been made to feel I am somehow less of a woman for it.  Comments from a doctor and also from some well-meaning friends in a position of spiritual authority.  Defense does spring back from that kind of thing.  Surely God demonstrates His love for us through parenting.  There are things about God's relationship with us you begin to understand once you have children of your own.  I get that.  But He also doesn't call everyone to live out the same story.  Creation and community do not support homogeneity as the rule.  He calls some to remain single all their lives.  He calls others to marriage late in life.  He calls others to be parents of one.  He calls others to be parents of many.  He calls others to be parents of none.  But He also demonstrates His love in ways too numerous to count.  

Flipping through the same book, I re-read Donald Miller's words: 

After all, the metaphors - love between a father and a son, between a man and a woman - didn't have to be exact.  They were only supposed to make a motion, to grunt toward the inexplicable.  And we don't all get to experience all the metaphors.  A person who never leaves China doesn't get to appreciate God's handiwork in Yosemite National Park, but he will have his own versions there in China.  This was important to me, because it meant that even though I didn't have a dad, I still knew about love, and from plenty of places.  So while all the metaphors weren't firing, some of them were.  I could still understand God was loving and kind, because I knew about love and kindness.

I don't need all the metaphors.  I have some.  And, in this lifetime, I'll barely scratch the surfaces of the ones I do have.  "Some" is still an embarrassing surplus of riches.

A Good Day

I had a great day!  Not for any big reason - it was just full of little delights.

My morning bus driver remembers that I grabbed a newspaper once last week and now always saves me one and hands it to me when I board.  I take for granted that I might be rememberable, but I suppose I can't help but stick out in the ethnic and age mix of Hawaii bus riders.  I always like to think I can blend into a crowd, but I think I'm just kidding myself sometimes.

I got downtown with enough time to pop in to a cafe/roaster downtown and get a latte.  And mine had a heart in it today.

After those two shots of espresso, I was totally wired.  I described myself to a friend as "barely containable"... and was only half joking.

I had a handful of appointments today, including an easy graduation audit, a double-major advising, and a degree plan and general advice.  Most appointments are solo - not much shadowing any more.  I routinely think that I'm not ready for the training wheels to come off just yet, but my mentor advisors think I am, and they let me take the lead.  I find myself pleasantly surprised with what I am capable of, more often than I am confronted by the things I don't know.  I don't know when, exactly, that ratio turned around, but I'm glad it did.

I'm so glad to be into advising now - it was so much of what I did on any given day that it's nice to make it my primary job description.  But recently I've been ... concerned about what I've been brought here to do.    I know it's still early - it hasn't even been two months at my job yet! - but most of my appointments have been very quick graduation audits.  I just make sure students, who are in their last semester, have completed their degree requirements - and it's not surprising that it's difficult (if not impossible) to forge relationships with them.  It's not the point, really.  I haven't yet had many degree-planning meetings with students, in which I will actually start to get to know them.  I understand that relationships need time to be cultivated.  But I've been concerned with the change in rhythm from teaching and the comparative ease with which I could speak into students' lives.  You can't help but forge those relationships when students barrel into your classroom on a daily basis. And how would that ever happen when I don't teach now?  But I also know that all I have to do is be available; ministry can't help but happen (1).  So I've been struggling with thoughts I know better than to dwell on - I just need to trust and be patient.

My last appointment of the day was counseling a student about finishing her undergrad degree, getting into education and teaching high school.  PERFECT.  She had a bundle of questions and was really personable.  She'll be back for several more appointments concerning graduation and her grad program.  It was exactly the glimpse of my career to come that was the exact antidote to all the prior concern.

Midway through the morning, an email arrived in my inbox, inviting me to this year's AP Reading!  And it's in the midwest, where I have family and friends.  I LOVED the reading I attended a couple years ago.  Completely unlike any conference I've ever attended (plus the stipend isn't shabby).  So, a nice professional-development opportunity, a good excuse to return to the mainland - even if briefly - this summer, and it might overlap with some of my former colleagues!

I had a lovely online conversation with a friend in which I quoted one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books.  Last night, the very excerpt popped into my head while I was sorting laundry.  The Holy Spirit knew we'd need it the next day.

A midday appointment cancelled, so I decided to push lunch back so I could attend a weekly campus chapel service in the building next door.  We're still looking for a church home, still trying to figure out what the search should even look like (that deserves its own post later), so I thought a mid-week service on a college campus might be worthwhile.  Particularly since it's the beginning of the reflective Lenten season.  But lunch today, instead, brought a phone call from a dear friend, and I decided to stay at my desk and converse with him . I like to think I chose the better part.  I'll aim for chapel next week.

All these joys kept me in a great mood right up through closing time.  At the end of the day, I walked out to catch the bus, only to catch this rainbow first.  The rainy season weather has returned, with fresh trade winds and mauka showers that bring gentle rain and subsequent afternoon rainbows.  I can't believe I get to live here.

(1) Thank you, Frederick Buechner

Teachers and Teaching

I've been involved, or privy to, at least four separate conversations today about learning and teaching and just what it is we've each learned from one another. And another conversation about how shamefully neglectful I've been of my blog. So, here you go, dear reader. Some (largely unedited) thoughts.

As a teacher, I like to think I teach my students plenty. Well, some days more than others, of course... But I also know I don't teach my subject matter in a vacuum - and I've been aware of that for a while. No, I mostly teach what it looks like to be a grown-up. What it looks like to know God and follow Him. How it's okay to be a nerd. That one's worth is not determined by a figure on a paycheck. Et cetera.

But the influence totally goes both ways. My students affect me - profoundly. Sometimes it's been delightfully unexpected; sometimes I ask God for it. I doubt they could know just how much I learn through them. Not necessarily from them - they usually don't explicitly teach me things. But, rather, I am taught things through them. As much as I believe myself to be a conduit (rather than a source) for understanding, I suppose they are the same, though completely unaware. I learn so much of God's love, patience, and mercy through my interactions with them. The nature of grace, existing only in its extension. The deeper meanings of service. Of selflessness. Of sovereignty. The commonality of the human experience and the singularity of it all.

I'm just really grateful for this venue for an education that surpasses my wildest imaginings. I can only marvel at it, for I cannot wrap any part of me around it.

More tangibly, however, their influence is most easily seen in the music on my ipod. Lately, a peculiar mix of indie-hipster and glowsticky house.

A 2007 Kind of Week

Wow, it's been too long.

As has this week. Normally they fly by, but this one sure took its sweet time. I remember thinking on Wednesday morning that it had to be Friday. Thursday, at the very least. But no. The week's journey was an interesting one. Went swimming into others' spiritual storms and found myself in a pretty dark place by midweek. Where the work seemed far too big. And it is, for me. But not for God. Prayer and meditation, plus a restorative phone call with a friend helped turn the week around, and I was back to being a real person again by Friday. So, all's well that ends well.

Meanwhile, the frippery machine is in full swing - soccer and basketball games, senior speeches and shirts, plans for prom. I adore it all! As a teacher, I get to enjoy all the trappings of high school, but with an older, wiser perspective above all the teenageriness. And with the precious opportunity to speak into the lives of students whom - despite what I thought four years ago - I love dearly and celebrate with a special pride I haven't felt in several years. And if there's one thing I do, it's celebrate! I just wish it wasn't already November. There is still so much to be taught and learned.

I also made the executive decision that it's time to put Christmas music in the playlist.

He sends His word and melts them; He stirs up His breezes, and the waters flow. 1

I don't know how long I'm gonna have you for, but I'll be watching when you change the world. 2

That Time of Year

It's that time of year, again (already). Late spring - marked by an acceleration to the finish line, exacerbated by a late spring break.

As we ready ourselves for the season, some Kahlil Gibran:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they do not belong to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Though manifest not of our physical selves, our arrows are just as much a part of us as we them. We are bows, built to bend, but not break. We flex in His hands, entrusted to do that to which He calls us. Designed to launch, yet retaining some resonance from the shot. May we trust the Archer's eye, and trust the Air to carry those arrows toward their targets.

Unfinished

Three weeks ago, I stumbled into a conversation with my last-period philosophers about the nature of teaching and why I choose to teach when I could make (and have made) way more money doing something else. One student asked me how much money it would take for me to leave teaching and return to research, and I told him honestly that it would take a lot - if not an infinite amount. Because I certainly don't teach for the money. I left it at that, that afternoon, and we got onto another topic, but I felt like I was hardly scratching the surface. Then, that very evening, not 3h later, I'm reading Colossians 3 in a discussion about work as worship (avad in Hebrew), and there it is. The fundamental underpinnings of my teaching philosophy.

23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Exactly one week later, as I'm driving in my car, something reminded me of another conversation I've always felt was left unfinished.

Three years ago, someone very dear to me asked why, as a Christian, I would want to be bound by rules, to be subservient to God, when I could be free to do as I please. And I don't feel I gave him a sufficient answer. I said something about the importance of the relationship, and to honor that relationship, to please our Creator, I do as He asks. Because a faith in God isn't about restrictions and rules - He gives us some because He's a loving Father who cares for His children and wants the best for them (the same way our parents would tell us not to touch the hot stove) - it's about Love. Following the rules doesn't achieve salvation, after all. Our mutual love with God does. And our response to His overwhelming love is our obedience to His commands - the greatest of which is love.

I choose to live within boundaries and there, paradoxically, is where I find my greatest freedom. Because living according to God's will and commands, I find, increasingly, affords us freedom from the broken trappings of this world. Instead of freedom to do whatever I like, I am free from so much more - and spared the heartache and want and separation and regret and ramifications that come with the freedom to do whatever I please. Sure, I can do anything I want. I choose not to. Sin enslaves us, not God's commands. God could have easily designed humans to be mindless drones that worship and serve Him at His control, but He instead gave us the freedom to choose Him and His ways, contrary to our very flesh and nature. Even if we are sloppy with it, how much more meaningful is our decision to love Him, then, when the option not to is on the table?

1 Peter 2:16: Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

In Exodus 21:5-6, the slave is given the choice between "freedom" or remaining in the service of a loving master. And in doing so, he is adopted into the family as an heir. Galatians 4:3-9 puts it into the context of Jesus.

So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now what you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

And thus, my choice gives me an eternal inheritance far beyond worldly wealth.

Well. As time goes on, I feel strangely shy about trying to resume these conversations. I don't know why - it's admittedly silly for someone so prone to non sequitur! Instead, I feel some strange need to throw it all out into the universe, on a blog - I don't even know who reads it - partly for my own closure, partly to atone for having left them unfinished in the first place. But mostly, I suspect, for reasons I may never know.

No Audience

...the world requires no audience, no witnesses...

(Conor Oberst, I Must Belong Somewhere)

At sundown, I often think it strange that the waves continue crashing, the mountains keep on standing, even after they dissolve into inky black. All the beauty on earth is routinely hidden.

The mere fact that I can't see it doesn't keep it from happening. Which immediately feels extraordinarily self-absorbed; I know that these things don't exist exclusively for my pleasure. (Sure, they do, to some extent.^{1 ,2})

Hearing the ocean - but not seeing it - always reminds me of my size in the universe. And the beauty in the promise of a sunrise.

Commencement

Graduation is today.  I adore graduations, as I do most ceremony.  (Okay, partly because there is costuming involved!)  The symbolism of academic regalia.  The families and the accomplishment and the transition.  The pomp.  The circumstance.  

The tears I shed are from an overflow of feelings, not exclusively sadness.  I never fail to find myself swept up in a tempest of emotion.  Sure, there is sadness for the loss of the everyday presence of some very special individuals.  But it's tempered.  By excitement for students concluding this chapter and outlining the next.  Pride in some students' extraordinary stories and the joy of participation in them.  Love.  

In the words of Dr. Seuss, which will inevitably be used in commencement addresses worldwide: do not cry because it's over - smile because it happened.

Congratulations, Class of 2009.  Go, and take flight.  Travel lightly, but keep some souvenirs of these four years tucked in your suitcase hearts.

Sunflowers

Shoulder to shoulder,

preened and ready,

necks craned for

their first glimpse.

Suffocating clouds.

Delayed arrival.

Love's threadbare clothing

goes unnoticed.

Could they ever think

he might not come

to court again

tomorrow?

April/May

Industry tripped by a collection of artifacts,
letters, papers, bytes, forms,
poetry by colleagues -
one former, one current -
awash in some kind of nostalgia
and marvel at this,

this occupation,
this vocation,
this craft,

I seem to have found myself
in with little training
and even less warning.

This long parade of lasts
to borrow a line
comes and I'm still
sweeping up the scraps
of confetti and ribbons,
still picking fragments
of ticker tape from the carpets,
after the last one.


The marching cadence, it grows louder.

He is Risen

Isaiah 53.

Summer Reading

I had an ambitious summer reading list (to say nothing of the teetering stacks and bowing shelves of books -yet-to-read here at home) that I wanted to finish during summer, when I actually have time to read. During the school year, my reading-for-pleasure consists of rereading the same paragraphs night after night as I barely finish a page before falling asleep.

So, my (hedonistic-scale - I loved it! I hated it!) reviews:

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
I liked it - plain and simple. I like books that plop you down in the middle of another culture and just let you experience it through the text. This was one.


Wonderland, Michael Bamberger
A quick read about a year in the life of an American high school. Interesting, but nothing terribly fascinating. Best lines:

"His career had spanned eras. When he began teaching, the role of the teacher, as Mr. Cunningham saw it, was to get inside the lives of the students and shape them. Now the job was all about, he said, 'covering your ass.'"

The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
This was a re-read for book club. I hadn't picked it up since high school, and was antsy to read it now that I'm (almost) a grown-up. A lot of ladies did not love it. I thought it was great, still. I'm sure I had more profound things to say about it two months ago.


A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Also a reread for book club. This and Catcher were my favorite books that I was ever assigned to read. I wound up reading A Separate Peace twice during high school. And so I was looking forward to re-reading, particularly since I teach at a boarding school now. I still like it, but I was expecting much more from it. It has given me a wonderful quotation, something I want to devote an entire blog entry to someday:

"...when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love."

Actually, I want to do an entire series of posts on the nature of love. I have a lot of scattered writings to condense into some posts. Maybe it will make a good school-break task.


Notes on a Scandal, Zoe Heller
I loved this. It was such an easy read, and really fascinating. A total bait-and-switch. It's billed as a story about a teacher who has an affair with a student, but it's really about the predatory friendship that the teacher suffers at the hands of another teacher. Which is a far more captivating story. There were some passages that made my commonplace book.(1) Maybe I'll get up and grab it. Maybe later.

Okay, it's later.

"I keep staring at things, willing myself to remember them. [snipped] Of course, memory is not really as obedient a faculty as that. You can't consciously decide what is going to adhere. Certain things may strike you at the time as memorable, but memory only laughs at your presumption. 'Oh, I'm never going to forget this,' you say to yourself when you visit the Sacre-Coeur at sunset. And years later, when you try to summon up an image of the Sacre-Coeur, it's as cold and abstract as if you'd only ever seen it on a postcard. If anything unlocks the memory of this house for me, years from now, it will be something - some tiny, atmospheric fragment - of which I'm not even aware at the moment. I know this, and yet I still persist in making my little inventory, trying to nail down my recollections."

"What is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left. That's the thing about people who believe in God, isn't it? The love they have for Him never ends. He never lets them down. I read some writer once who said that love - he was talking about romantic love - love is a mystery and, when the solution is found, it evaporates."

"Talking to him is rather like attempting to converse with a school play."

"Any break in my routine - any small variation in the sequence of work and grocery shopping and telly and so on - tends to take on a disproportionate significance. I'm a child in that respect: able to live, psychically speaking, on a crumb of anticipation for weeks at a time, but always in danger of crushing the waited-for event with the freight of my excessive hope."

All Loves Excelling, Josiah Bunting III
Exceptionally predictable. A decent beach-read, which is exactly where I read this. One portion made the commonplace. Again, later. Maybe. It's not as good as the other quoted text here.


The English Teacher, Lily King
A used-book-sale find. A pleasant read, interesting characters. A bit slow in parts, but enough character development to keep my interest.


Only Child, Siegel and Ulviller
I've already described my thoughts at length. Enjoy them.


Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science, David Lindley
I'm so enjoying this book, but I've made it my bedstand book for six weeks now (thank you, OCPL online renewals...), which means that I collapse, exhausted, into bed and reread the same paragraph or half-page three nights in a row, like I reference up there^. Not a great way to read a book; I don't recommend it. I'd like to make it a point to finish this one, in one swoop. Maybe tomorrow, but that's highly unlikely.


There were many I didn't so much as even think about. Actually, that's not true. There are a few books that I at least obtained, even if I didn't read them:
- The Headmaster, John McPhee (2)
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (A re-read; my husband and I had BNW inside jokes at the beginning of our relationship. Maybe that's too geeky for public release...)
- Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, Donald Miller (A treasured birthday gift, it was to be the first thing I read this summer, but I put it off. I don't know why. I should crack it open.)


There were several others I didn't so much as investigate the availability at the library. Still, I think I did some serious work on a pretty lengthy list. What with traveling and whatever else it was that I did this summer. It feels like ages ago already.


(1) I have sucked at writing in my commonplace book. It needs a more prominent home, and I might actually remember to write in it.

(2) I strongly encourage the reading of any John McPhee. Florida readers will enjoy Oranges, though it is somewhat dated, having been published in the late 60s, if I recall correctly. Rock-heads (geology, not death-metal) will enjoy his Annals of the Former World. The Control of Nature is worthwhile. Or if you want a sampling, The John McPhee Reader. On my McPhee short list are The Curve of Binding Energy, the aforementioned Headmaster, and Common Carriers, his latest.