Last Night's Concert

C.Z. tuning her orchestra

Last night's orchestra concert went well.  C.Z. had a row of neighborhood kids in the audience. How sweet of them to come!  

We're off to Georgia tomorrow.  After days of rain, snow and sleet, icy lake-like puddles to navigate on every corner, a malfunctioning carbon monoxide detector (at least we hope it's malfunctioning), and periods without heat in our building, I'm really looking forward to those 50 and 60-degree highs.  I am also, of course, looking forward to seeing all the grandparents, siblings, nieces and nephews.  My poor mother-in-law's trip was a victim of Fridays' snowstorm; her flight never made it up here and she had to stay home.  But we'll hopefully we'll see her before midnight tomorrow.  

Merry Christmas!  I look forward to reading your blogs in 2009!

And the verdict is...

Figures from the Neapolitan creche at the Metropolitan Museum.  The bridge with the pig on it is in a different spot this year, and the figures in the foreground are rearranged or different.

They change it!  We're absolutely certain that they change it!  The nativity scene at the Metropolitan Museum, that is.  C.Z. and I went there today, and we noticed right away that the bridge with the pig on it was in a different position than it was last year.  And a young page boy in yellow boots was on a different side of town, and there was a cherub flying out of a waterfall who was cleverly positioned to look like he was grabbing at a cow's horn, and there was a man sleeping on some steps, and another with some cymbals where last year there had only been the cymbals on the ground, and much more...

Phew!  Finally, a ten-year-old mystery solved.  And just in time, too, because the no photography sign was back up and they were enforcing it.  They don't want anyone to know!  

I'm sure you all must be every bit as excited as we are.  

C.Z. and I also had a great time looking at the new medieval wing, including some great artifacts from barbarian days, and a very Lord of the Rings-looking Viking sword with a faded inscription on the blade.

And then, in another exhibit, we found an Amati violin from 1558. It's possibly the first violin ever made.  There are only twenty extant Amatis in the world, which could explain their fabulous price.  C.Z., of course, wanted to know why they kept it in a museum, when anyone could see that it was meant to be played.  

The Amati violin we saw today at the Metropolitan Museum.  Image from Wikipedia.

And then we walked home through Central Park in the sleet.  It was marvelously bleak out, and we saw a hawk eating something (I won't say what) in a tree.  And now it's snowing, and sticking! A very nice week-and-a-day before Christmas, this has been.

P.S.  I've just realized that if you click on the creche picture, it blows up to screen-size.  It's not the greatest quality (I was snapping quickly in low light), but you can see more that way.  Have fun playing "I Spy"!  

The paradox of Christmas

Our own nativity scene.  I know, it sort of makes a double layer with the one above, but that doesn't bother me.

...there really is a difference between being brought up as a Christian and being brought up [in any other faith].  The difference is that every Catholic child has learned form pictures, and...every Protestant child from stories, this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind.  It is not merely a theological difference.  It is a psychological difference which can outlast any theologies...Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars.  His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savour of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God.  

--C.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

I never can resist reading at least a little Chesterton at Christmastime. This morning I read it aloud to C.Z. while I was sitting in our favorite bottle green chair--the one with the ottoman, of course.  She was rolled up tightly in a blue blanket on the sofa, looking like some kind of toppled advent candle. She likes to wake up slowly.

We slept with the windows wide open last night. Yesterday had been particularly warm, and besides, our carbon monoxide detector went off, so we wanted to make sure we had enough air. This morning I awoke to the sudden sound of wind and sleet hitting the screens and air-conditioning units.  I was happy to be under the covers, but eventually curiosity got the better of me. I got up, looked for my other slipper, gave up and put on some old socks, and went into the living room. There it felt outsidish, as though I were in a camp shelter, with all that rain and wind and gaping openness, but I was glad to be there. I got the gaps under control, turned on only the small lamps and tree lights, and got to fixing breakfast in the almost dark.  

After Bob had eaten breakfast, C.Z. woke up, and I had a second cup of coffee while sitting in the green chair and reading Chesterton.  On the radiator were a bowl of clementines (those small oranges that New Yorkers tend to buy at Christmas) left over from a gathering yesterday, and a huge pine bough that we'd serendipitously found a couple of days ago below a freshly pruned tree in the park.  The pine bough looks kind of ridiculous there, sprawling off the narrow white radiator cover and overlooking a relentlessly grey and urban scene below. I like how ridiculous it looks.  I like the Chestertonian sense of contrast, and all the half-forgotten emotions that a paradox, whether pine bough next to grafitti, or God as a baby, can dredge up.

Looks like we're finally going to the museum today--hooray!  With three parties this week, my mother-in-law coming up on Friday, an orchestra performance this weekend, and us leaving for Georgia on Monday, I don't know whether I'll post again before the New Year or not.  If not, Merry Christmas!  I've enjoyed the increased sense of camaraderie and friendship from blogging this year.  Thanks for your comments, but thanks even more for your own blogs.  If we read to know we are not alone, blogs can make us feel that we can poke our heads into doors all over the world and say "hello."  Now...if only we could somehow eat the food there, too!

A tradition that has nothing to do with Christmas

Last night Bob had to go to his office "holiday" party, so we knew he wouldn't be home until late. Well, yes, of course we missed him, but C.Z. and I have developed our own little tradition for nights when Daddy's away.  We make the foods he doesn't like!

Yes, if you can believe it, there are a few dishes that over twenty-one years of marriage I've overdone.  Mostly they are comfort foods involving ground beef and or canned items, easy or inexpensive dinners for which you can keep most of the ingredients in the freezer or pantry. One of these dinners is beef pie, which I made probably more than one too many times when C.Z. was a toddler, Bob was in law school, and I was a bit food-challenged.  

Beef pie is easy enough.  You either buy or make a pie crust (top and bottom), and then chop up potatoes, onion, carrots and celery to put inside.  Add some ground beef (raw or cooked), salt, pepper, and 1/4 cup of water.  Cook at 350 for one hour (or more, in my oven).  And voila, a cheap and cozy meal!

This week when C.Z. heard that Bob wasn't coming home for dinner on Thursday, she immediately started campaigning for beef pie. She spent part of yesterday afternoon making four pie crusts (because we still have a lot of pumpkin to use up, too).  I filled up the shells, she crimped and decorated them, and we had a warm and satisfying dinner alone, in the early dark and on the second day of pouring rain, with our Christmas tree and nativity scene.  

I was amused that C.Z. became so enthusiastic yesterday that she even wrote into the pie crust, "Yumm! Beef pie!"  You can see part of the word "Yumm!" in the piece of pie in the photo above. 

Also, Bob ended up coming home a little earlier than expected, and still a bit hungry, so he ate a piece of our pie, too.  And you know what?  He really liked it!  So, I guess next time we have a "dinner without Daddy" night, it's going to have to be beef chili.  

Dialogue while decorating the tree and listening to Handel's Messiah...

We decorated our tree yesterday.  The following are bits of conversation between C.Z. and me as we decorated.  If you knew which person said what, you might be surprised.

"You mean I've finally graduated to the front of the tree?!" (Maybe that one isn't so surprising.)

"Aren't you glad we've got a good oratorio in English?..."

"...except that every time I hear 'We Like Sheep,' I think of Monty Python."

"Oh, like the Flying Sheep?"

"Yeah.  I know being a sheep is supposed to be a theological insult, but that music is so cute and perky."

"Draping beads has more rules than first species counterpoint!"

(Holding strings of beads) "I feel like a lady in waiting."

"And now the fun part--the ornaments!" (as the "Hallelujah Chorus" unexpectedly begins)

"This little bird is shaped just like a piece of garlic." (Not the one in the picture, actually.)

"I've got a A to a D, but the D is a little high, so it's a tri-tone."  I begin to hear Mary Had a Little Lamb, Carol of the Bells, and then before I know it, decorating is forgotten as C.Z. runs around the tree playing tunes on her bell collection with a pencil.   

We did eventually finish, though!

P.S.  I have no idea what's going on with the color, formatting and underlining in this post!

Why we homeschool

Because if your mom asks you to translate goofy sentences from Catallus about poets, philosophers, girls, and roses, at least you can do it while sitting on a ladder, and decorate the tree afterwards.

What happens when you don't bake your pumpkin soon enough...

The holidays collide and your child uses it as an opportunity to make a statement.

Update:  We baked the pumpkin yesterday!

Boots and bubbly?

Having seen Willa's results on this blog analyzer test, I had to try it.  At first I was surprised:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves. 

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions. 

***

I have been an INTP/INFP (see sidebar) since the first time I ever took a Myers-Briggs, when I was about nineteen. So I have little doubt that whatever and INTP/INFP is, I really am one.  But the sentence below (which the INTP in me badly wants to correct for spelling) seems to hold a clue:

Note: writing style on a blog may have little or nothing to do with a person´s self-percieved personality.

When I started thinking about the disparity between my self-perceived personality and my blogging style, I realized that it made sense.  I am wary of being in my head too much. I also think that what's going on in my head is often way too open-ended and esoteric, and sometimes way too emotional, for a public consumption. (See last post.)  So I wait until I have some thoughts that seem acceptable, and then blog them.  

And as with Willa, the last two letters (FP) are probably correct enough.

But I have two concerns:

I thought I stopped this split personality business in high school.

and

What's with the boots and the bubbly???

***

While I was at it, I tried the blog gender analyzer that I saw in Cindy's sidebar earlier this week.  At least my blog shows that I am a woman--though just barely. Guess I haven't posted enough on cooking, crafts or children lately.

Which brings me to another question:  Just how do these things work?  

Ah, now that's an INTP question.  How very reassuring!

Christmas traditions

I've recently gotten to thinking about what we have done for Christmas all these years, since this year I have discovered the amazing and beautiful Advent blogosphere.  We haven't usually made a lot of special homemade foods or crafts, and don't think the relatives with whom we spend Christmas would particularly enjoy them if we did.  And what we do doesn't look like much of the intentional Advent preparation that I'm seeing elsewhere.  In fact, I confess that I have sometimes thought of Christmas as the sort of last frontier of simplicity--that is to say, I can live the rest of my life simply, but Christmas?  It lives me.

But, we do prepare for Christmas, and these are some of the things we've done:  

First of all, we always, always go to Georgia for Christmas itself. Georgia is, in my memory, the land of plastic nativity scenes, tattered street decorations, plastic toys that require batteries, Jingle Bell Rock, and the Pink Pig at Rich's. To be fair, it's also handbell choirs, carolers, poinsettias and some really nice home tours.  But all of this is more sentimental than faith-building to me.  We enjoy our visits, and are quite ready for them by the time they occur, but there's a definite crowd factor.  We don't really choose what we're going to do. We just do what our families have always done.

So we start our Christmas season in New York.  When C.Z. was small and we were new to New York, we sampled most of the usual events. The first year we went to Midtown to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and have a look at the windows at Saks.  And we poked our heads into FAO Schwartz.  But since no one in our small family likes shopping or crowds, we were happy to say "been there, done that" and move on.  And we never went back.

Someone once gave us Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular tickets. We appreciated them, and we went, but we never went back to that again either.  As Bob puts it, we tend to shy away from anything with the word "spectacular" in it. 

We took more permanently to The Nutcracker.  Though it's a completely secular event, we did find that our little girl naturally enjoyed graceful dancing snowflakes and giant Christmas trees that rise up out of the stage floor.  And she always shook with silent laughter as the purposely-comical dead Mouse King was carted off the stage, pot belly up.  And since New Yorkers inevitably become acquainted with the world of real child performers, we speculated how the little Marie/Clara/whatever-her-name-is felt at having to be whirled around alone on that bed barefoot and with her eyes shut for quite some time.  Did she ever get cold or dizzy? 

One year we even took a small nephew with us, who despite his extreme youth, masculine persona and general exhaustion, stayed awake admirably during the entire performance. Admittedly, he was also quite perplexed about why he couldn't hold his blankie during the show, since it seemed simple enough to him that he should be able to leave it in the cab and get it back after the show.   But I digress.

At some point, Handel's Messiah performances began to overlap with our Nutcrackers.  When the New York Philharmonic began to perform it again after a twenty-year hiatus, Bob wanted to see what that was like.  In preparation, he played the Sir Colin Davis/LSO version every day from Thanksgiving until the performance the week before Christmas.  This tradition stuck, and we went for years, especially after we moved to the same neighborhood as Riverside Church and it became a local event.  And since we only listen to Messiah during December, I still get chills every time I hear it.  I tested it out again last night while cooking dinner, and found myself involuntarily conducting with a wooden spoon.  

And last but not least among the classic New York Christmas observations is the Angel Tree at the Metropolitan Museum. We no longer live in that neighborhood as we did until 2004, but we still go see the tree at least once every season.  This year it coincides with the re-opening of the Medieval section of the main museum, so I'm especially eager to go.  (Next week, I hope.)  

The Angel Tree is a giant Christmas tree decked with real Baroque angels, and surrounded by a Neapolitan Creche.  And of course, being properly Baroque, it's under-lit.  It's blatantly Christian (even if the museum only touts it as artistic), extremely popular with visitors, and they play real religious Christmas music.  I hope it lasts!

  

Detail from the Metropolitan Museum's nativity scene.  Will it look the same this year?

When C.Z. was smaller, Bob would try to prolong her interest in the Angel Tree and Neapolitan Creche by playing "find the..." so that I could admire the scene for longer.  Her attention span is nice and long now, but they still try to memorize the layout to discern whether the curators rearrange the townsfolk of Neapolitan Bethlehem each year or put them in exactly the same spots as before.  The problem is, they never can quite figure out which it is because there are just too many figures to memorize and the museum doesn't allow photos.  At least, they didn't until last year.  Last year the usual forbidding sign was missing, and having of course hopefully packed away my camera anyway, I whipped it out and took several dozen photos. So, this year we're going to study them first and see whether we can solve this mystery! 

And on a couple of occasions, we've gone through the Medieval hall just before Thanksgiving, or just after New Year's, and found the whole tree area enshrouded by folding partitions, and glowing from within. Of course we peeked through the cracks in the folds, and saw conservators carefully brushing off angels and packing them away in boxes, under brilliant lighting.  Oh fun!  I felt like Claudia in The Mixed-Up Files.

And besides the Angel Tree, the Metropolitan is a wonderful Advent resource generally if you just want to go and contemplate the Incarnation.  They have a Duccio Madonna and Child, for instance, and also one of my favorite Madonna and Child statuettes ever (see below). Historian Barbara Tuchman said that Madonna and Child statuettes before 1350 portrayed little maternal affection between mothers and children, because the Christ child was supposed to be separate and the Virgin abstracted.  But one look at this statuette rather blows that hypothesis out of the water.  I don't think Ms. Tuchman cared much for the Medieval Church.

Mid-14th c. French statuette at the Metropolitan Museum (and one of my favorite pieces in the museum)

As for our own tree, since we always go out of town for Christmas itself, we usually buy it early.  We bought one this weekend, in fact.  But the first few years we lived here we only had a table top tree, because we really didn't have room for a bigger one, and perhaps I was also in denial about where "home" was.  Then there was the year that Bob first tried to buy a full-sized tree, from a French Canadian on the corner of 2nd Ave. and 80th St.  "Fiftee(n)?  Non, I said fiftee!" When we got home, we crammed the tree up against our living room storage unit, which also doubled as our dresser, since the living room was also our bedroom.  To get clothes out, I had to reach behind the tree.  Needless to say, I was still finding needles in my clothes until May. But at least they smelled good!

  Some of the shoe ornaments

When we finally started getting a real tree, I started buying those shoe ornaments from the Metropolitan Museum, on sale after Christmas. That's kind of odd, because I'm not a big fan of shoes.  I think, in retrospect, I must have liked the idea of having souvenirs from the museum. (Since of course we weren't going to be in New York much longer).  C.Z., meanwhile, was accumulating a collection of silver bells from Bob's mother each year.  And we have various other ornaments from other museums, or of other personal significance, as well.  We all like the fir smell, and the evening that we decorate, we have cider or hot chocolate while listening to Handel's Messiah or some other Christmas music.

And of course, there's our own nativity scene. My mother started C.Z. on that.  At Christmas time, I would let C.Z. play with the figurines, and they used to be among her favorite toys.  The first Christmas we lived here, she holed up under the desk with them for hours, where I heard her mutter things like, "Once there was Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, a goat, and a donkey.  And it was fine, and it was good, but their only problem was the goat couldn't fit in the barn..."  The next year, she stared and stared at the Baby Jesus figure.  She stared so intently that I finally asked her what was on her mind.  "If I stare at him long enough," she responded, "I wonder if he will become real." Indeed.

And there were books, like Peter Spier's Christmas, and most especially Gennady Spirin's The Christmas Story.  C.Z. was very fond of both illustrators.  

Our latter-day Christmas seasons have been marked by moms' group parties and violin "winter concerts."  At the moms' group (now co-op) parties we've done everything from re-enacting the nativity to playing carols on recorder, but since they're church parties, they're Christmas parties. And since C.Z. originally took violin from a teacher at a nearby parochial school, some of the string concerts were happily religious, too.  But there is always something about a Christmas performance--the last minute rush to get new dress shoes, the jitters right before the performance, going to everyone else's performances, and the mad dash to the airport, usually only a day or so afterwards.  Anyone who has a child who performs knows what I mean.  My friends whose children dance in repeated performances of The Nutcracker really know what I mean.  

Now that C.Z. is in a conservatory program, her string concerts have nothing to do with Christmas except that they're given right before it. I'm just glad that they're not the day after! (This comes to mind because I used to have friends who traveled for college bowl games.) And my mother-in-law, brave soul, frequently flies up from Georgia for C.Z.'s concerts. (How many women do you know who will cheerfully spend four days out of town the week before they serve Christmas dinner for the extended family?) C.Z.'s orchestra concerts now have precluded some of our other celebrations, including Messiah, which has moved back to the much less decorative Avery Fisher Hall this year anyway.

But the "winter concert" will never preclude the Lessons and Carols service at Redeemer.  We try very hard to stay in town until Lessons and Carols, and even go to our old location on the East Side to see the full-dress version.  Not only does it have an orchestra, choir and (need I say excellent?) soloists singing excerpts from Messiah and other oratorios, but native speakers read Advent passages in many languages, including many from countries that are not traditionally Christian.  There's nothing quite as thrilling at Christmas as hearing Luke 2 read in, say, Farsi.

So, this leaves me with an opportunity to arise to the challenge of Advent personally, to prepare amidst all the bustle.  We've done Advent wreaths before, but we rarely remember to start them the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and we're never home to light the Christ candle.  Not a problem--we'll do what we can, even if it's just C.Z. and myself reading Isaiah and singing a carol alone at 7 p.m. before Bob comes home.  But I think we'll limit it to Sundays this year.

Now, I can see how someone reading this post might get the idea that our Christmas celebration is all about tickets we purchase, and in fact, about events we can attend only because we live in New York.  This is possibly true in some sense, but these things always involve trade offs, don't they?  For years we celebrated each New York Christmas as though it would be the last, because we thought it would be.  Because we go visit family, we've never spent a Christmas day at home. We never did the Santa tradition, except to tell the story of St. Nicholas, and never had room (or sometimes money) when C.Z. was young for more than the tiniest and most essential toys. Quite honestly, for many years as I watched the cousins reveling in their Santa bounty, I wondered if perhaps we were too austere.  But I never wondered once we got home.  We are all thankful for how we've celebrated Christmas, even C.Z.  We may not have celebrated with the same traditions each year, and we may not have always been the most diligent with our readings, baking, and crafting but we've always had plenty of Advent expectation in our hearts as we've approached our Lord's birthday.

Notes on reading, with a theme

Ever just go through a period of time where nothing you write seems like the kind of thing you should be posting on a blog?  Or perhaps saying at a Christmas party either?  Well, there you have it--why I haven't posted lately.  But I've been reading a lot, and taking care of little matters closer to home, by which I usually mean co-op or some other neighborly thing.  I've felt very quiet, on the outside at least.

But meanwhile, I've been reading:

I have really been enjoying this series of posts on Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas, at the Beehive.  Leslie pointed them out to me, and then I saw that Cindy has also been following them, too. I haven't read every entry yet, but I've really been meditating on the ones that I have read.  I think I should probably read the whole book, or perhaps even the originals on which the book is based.

This quote from chapter 6, "Cultivating the Quiet: Simplicity," really leaped out at me:

"The difficulty of simplicity is that it will, at times (especially in the early stages as we break our addiction to diversion), lead us into soul boredom, gloom, depression, and possibly even to despair... I would be less than honest if I suggested that one day our lives are filled with diversions and the next day we walk hand-in-hand with God in glorious rapture... We who have been drugged by diversions cannot expect to enter the quiet without a struggle. Our souls will roar for diversion, the fix that saves us from God's presence."

I tried to write about this all week, but it felt controversial to me.  I liked it, but it seemed to pit solitude against service and fellowship, and I'm all too apt to prefer solitude anyway.  But my mind must be creating a false dichotomy.  I think that diversion, not company or complication, is the problem, and we can't look at anyone else's life and tell them when they're too busy. I love simplicity, but I have many friends whose lives are anything but simple.  They have large families, chronic illnesses to deal with, lots of bills, etc.  There's little sense of order, or if it's there, it's a struggle. Some of them only pray on the fly, because there's no quiet in their lives.  I don't want to lay one more burden on such people with my admittedly artistic notions of simplicity. I should be lending a hand instead. 

But for me, these are good words.  They remind me that I don't go into company to be served, but to serve.  They remind me that I'm not supposed to be the wit of the party (which is a good thing, because I'm not anyway!). They remind me that it's good to be alone with God, who isn't there to feed my ego, but to cause my soul to lean on him.

Along the same lines, I've also been reading Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Daybook this week.  I came across this little passage about her friend, Jill, who shared a house with her after their husbands both died.  

"Jill can always take conversation or leave it.  She can talk, if need be, as well as anybody I ever knew, but she never talks if anybody else takes over.  Her ego never seems to need inflating by adding a bon mot to a flashing conversation.  

...Most women, I think, need to feel a kind of security by shining in public, whether it be at a church supper or a cocktail party.  But Jill never!" 

Wouldn't you want to be like Jill?  I would!  Now there's a woman who has learned the art of being content in every social circumstance.

If you're wondering why I'm posting about social conversation, that's because it's Christmas season, and Christmas season always seems to bring more busyness and small talk, and more finger food-toting opportunities, than most introverts feel quite comfortable with.  I appreciate being invited--I really do, but I have to preach to my soul before I go.  "Self, this isn't about you. You don't have to be witty. You are loved by God, and that's enough!"

Anyway, on with the reading:

I read Jane Eyre recently, too.  The chapter in which she decides to leave Mr. Rochester's home, even though she loves him and knows it might drive him to despair, is worth the book in itself.  Probably everyone goes through some form of this dilemma at some point in their lives, though it might not be about a romantic attachment.  Most Christians at some point have to sacrifice their heart's desire for some greater good, and it might mean long and deep mourning. Charlotte Bronte captures the feeling well. In another section of the book, she also captures well the dilemma of someone pressing a duty on you that seems like God's will to them, but not to you.  And it can be just as difficult to resist a false imposition of piety as it is to refuse a desire that threatens to become idolatrous.  I'm sure these contrasting temptations must be part of the point of the book, but I don't read these books to analyze them.  I just read.  

Incidentally, this was the first time I'd read Jane Eyre since I was about C.Z.'s age or younger. Rereading emphasized the point that we probably shouldn't push the classics on our children too young.  (No one pushed Jane Eyre on me, but I did like being noticed by teachers.) I realize that the first time I read it, I remembered the highlights of the plot, and Jane's indignant anger, but I had no idea what huge swathes of the book were about. I think I even got more out of Wuthering Heights than Jane Eyre, which is surprising because I think most critics consider Wuthering Heights the harder book, and Jane Eyre the more conventional one.  But it makes sense to me that I would get Wuthering Heights better, because I think my thirteen-year-old self understood idolatry much more naturally than sacrifice. And contrary to modern opinion, I don't think there's anything particularly daring about letting a strong emotion have mastery of your heart, or anything prudish about refusing it. As C.S. Lewis says, only those who have resisted a temptation have any idea of its strength.  (I can't remember where he says that.  Maybe it's Mere Christianity, but I'm not sure.)

Just for fun, I read Black Hearts in Battersea this week.  Actually, I read it in about three evenings because I couldn't put it down!  I love Joan Aiken's mock-Gothic mock-history, and it's still fun to read as an adult because you can see the influence of the original Victorian writers in her spoofs.  But any child old enough not to be scared by references to wolves will enjoy her fast-paced plots. I think I bought this one because Susan L's daughter Melissa recommended it for C.Z., and I take Susan's kids' recommendations pretty seriously. But eventually I got tired of waiting for C.Z. to read it so I could find out what it was about and so I read it myself.  I'm hoping that C.Z. will pick it up soon after she finishes rereading Lord of the Rings (another favorite with Susan's kids), because I really do think she'll like it.  

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, I've been thoroughly enjoying my church's new sermon series called The Whole Story, or what Dr. Keller calls a "30,000 foot view of the Bible." In one of the sermons, I think the second one on Genesis, he said that a Christian with a proper theology of creation is like a hobbit.  And he quotes from Tolkien's introduction to Lord of the Rings that hobbits love parties and gifts and will eat six meals a day if they can get it, but they can also do without. Now I wish I could remember exactly what portion of Genesis provoked that comment, but it's just like me to forget the exposition and remember the analogy!  I'm sure the point was that God made creation and called it good.  But it's not an idol.  

All this made sense to C.Z. at lunch today, when we were discussing the end of The Return of the King and agreed that as much as a hobbit likes burrows, pipes, fireplaces, and good food, there are fewer things more sacrificial and less cozy than trekking through Mordor to throw an idol-magnifying ring into the Cracks of Doom.  And we've often discussed how Tolkien gives you about as much fear and danger as you can stand, and then lets you rest in some beautiful elven spot until you can get your strength back.  How very like our God.

I think this blog post may have a theme after all...

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By the way, I guess you can see that I decorated my blog for Christmas.  I doubt that I'll keep it this way for long, but this photo of the Neopolitan Creche at the Metropolitan Museum evokes all my favorite things about of Christmas.  It would have before I ever even saw the creche, because it's so like the image of Christmas I carried in my head as a child.  I'm more spare and rustic during the rest of the year, but Christmas brings out my traditional side.  Gold, frankincense and myrrh for the King! 

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And also, I suppose that anyone who reads this blog probably already reads Susan's blog High Desert Home, but just in case someone hasn't read it recently, her father died this week.  Susan is a real life, dear friend, and I had the privilege of meeting her dad (introduced to me by his grandfather name, "Boppy") this summer.  If you think of it, say a prayer for her family, and particularly for her mom.  They are a lovely, close family, and it's the least I can do to pray for them.

The back of my front door

I'm busy cleaning and planning for Thanksgiving today, and no doubt you are busy too, so this might not be a day for long and involved post.  How about a moment of whimsy instead?  

Readers, meet our front door.  Our front door isn't a farm door.  It doesn't have a window, nor does it face a lovely view of fields and mountains.  It faces a hallway with fluorescent lights and a worn and cracked mosaic tile floor.  But it does hold magnets.  So it has become what our refrigerator isn't, the most casual spot in the apartment, a sort family bulletin board.

I really don't pay much attention to what's up there.  I think it had the same items for years, until I cleaned everything off of it sometime this year.  But it wasn't long before things began to accumulate again--invitations, photos, quotes, and other tiny mementos from every day life.  I haven't rearranged them or added things, or deleted them to somehow create a more interesting post; they're almost completely random.

So, what are they?  Hmm, let's see:  A $5 coupon for Duane Reade (a local pharmacy); a postcard from a friend of C.Z.'s who visited New Mexico; a quote I liked from Willa's blog about the value of manual labor; a postcard I picked up in Oregon that shows a bunch of people sitting in cubicles and says, "If you liked school...you'll LOVE work!" Below that is an oil crayon drawing of two fall leaves.  C.Z. and I have a longstanding tradition of drawing a few of our favorite leaves every fall, but I don't know which fall she drew these! Maybe last year? Then there's the "No farms, no food" bumper sticker that I picked up at the farmers' market and put on my door, because I don't have a car. There are some old magnet mosaic and Mr. Picasso-head people that a seven-year-old friend regularly rearranges (latest revision yesterday). Above this is a preview invitation to a Metropolitan Museum exhibit, a freebie magnetic poetry sheet (never used) from Bob's New York City Marathon goody bag, and various photos of relatives.  C.Z. especially likes the photo that includes her grandfather doing a Taekwondo high kick.  The red object in front of the green door in the top photo, by the way, is a tomato.  And the white box in the middle is our peep hole to the hallway world beyond. 

The magnets include one from Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon, Dutch painting magnets that Bob brought back from a business trip to Amsterdam, some tiny high-powered steel magnets, and a whole set of Curious George magnets that my sister got as a retail freebie many years ago and that have been holding up our memorabilia since before C.Z. was born.  

I'm not sure what our door says about us.  Maybe that we like nature, our relatives, and art?  That we like to think about different parts of the country?  That we think a bit outside the mainstream? That it represents the collective unconscious of our family? (Hmmm, that's probably going a bit far.)  At any rate, it's what everyone who comes to visit us sees as they leave our apartment, by which time they hopefully like us well enough to forgive us if our door is messy--which it is!

I hope you enjoyed your visit.  Happy Thanksgiving, and come back soon!  Would you like some pie?  I'm sure we'll have leftovers...