The Circle of the Blogful

And I fell asleep, and I dreamed.

And in the dream, my guide showed me a great, luminous screen. Those who sat before it were unable to remove their eyes from it, though they said, I should turn away my face. Those who sat behind it saw an inverted image but were equally devoid of the power of movement. And the images shown were of those who sat, but in the images they were talking to each other.

And my guide said, Here are those who have inverted the good of community, and known their fellows only through the great screen.

And in my terror I awoke. And I said, Such a blog post will this make!

This linguistics stuff? It works.

Or, why I am able to help kids with their Spanish homework when they know more Spanish than I do.

I'm not kidding. The official word at the tutoring center where I work is: if a child comes in specifically for help with Spanish, a tutor proficient in Spanish will be assigned to them. If a child brings in Spanish homework once in a while unexpectedly, well, help them as best you can and ask someone else for help if you can't figure it out.

But what I'm finding is that a knowledge of Spanish isn't the primary requirement for tutoring Spanish (at least the beginning levels). The kids may know more particulars about the language than I do, but I know more about how language works in general. They have the detailed knowledge; I ask the right questions and teach them where to apply it. They have the pieces, and I show them how the puzzle goes together. The system works beautifully.

I find, however, that as satisfying as it is to know how language works... I miss language learning. I miss the joy of actually finding that you can communicate (however haltingly) with someone in their language. It's a profound thing to realise "The reason one would learn a language is to speak with the people." The purpose of language is communication. That's a harder thing to teach than the completion of homework assignments.

Brrrrr

I'm cold.

Ye who read from Manitoba, laugh not.

On my birthday, it was still warm enough to go barefoot (although I suppose we would still have called it cold in Bamenda, being as it was slightly less than 75 degrees). Then it snowed up in the mountains all around us, and we had a cold snap, and now it really feels like December. At least as much as Southern California ever does.

Part of me wants to savour my first experience of winter after two years of more-or-less summer. After all, my fingers haven't gotten numb from cold since 2003. And the rest of me (in the morning, this is the far larger part) wants to curl up shivering in a fleece blanket and hibernate till spring.

Maybe, if we take this slowly enough, I'll be able to make a snowball again by 2010.

Metaphorically Speaking II

'Blogs are the college dorm halls of cyberspace.'

I have an opinion (I think)

I've been on a Lewis kick for two or three months now, due mostly to the once-a-week taped lecture series we've been a part of for Jim's continuing education credits. It's been interesting reading (most of) the Lewisian canon again, all in a short time. Some of the books were so foundational in my intellectual growth that I'd never really caught their distinctive "flavour" before (that is, if every one of the Western great books "sounds like Lewis" to you, you'll never be able to discover what Lewis himself sounded like). I suppose my thinking is still very Lewisian in some respects, but having now read some of the books he had read, I enjoy being able to see Lewis in dialogue with other works-- as opposed to using his works as a context for everything.

When the time came to read Narnia again, I was perhaps unduly influenced by a chance comment from Douglas Gresham, made during a question-and-answer session at Biola a few years ago. He was asked if he had an opinion on the question: in what order ought the Narnia books to be read? Should we preserve the order in which Lewis wrote them, or allow publishers to rearrange the books in chronological order? His expression was classic: slight annoyance mixed with great patience... the sort of expression that says "I will refrain from telling you outright how often I've been asked this question and how insignificant I think it really is." He did, however, express taciturn approval for the chronological re-ordering... perhaps, now that I remember, only to make the point that he didn't approve of preserving everything Lewis did, in the exact order in which Lewis did it, merely because he was Lewis.

So, with that in mind, I decided to read them through chronologically. Why not? And, having done so, I now have an opinion. With no disrespect intended toward Gresham, I prefer the original order. I say this not (as I might once have) out of misplaced reverence for Lewis, but because I think they flow better that way.

In being introduced to the world of Narnia-- especially for the first time-- I would prefer to read four books in a row that establish a continuous story and develop character arcs, than to start with three books that feel disconnected and are all about different characters (even if they are set in the same world). Moreover, the chronological order makes the Narnian world feel much more incomplete. Many of the questions raised by reading The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe back-to-back aren't even partially answered until The Last Battle-- and that's a while to wait. I'd rather read MN and LB back-to-back. (Granted, some of the questions aren't answered at all-- and I suppose there's a debate as to whether that was intentional or not-- but the chronological order seems to make those omissions a lot more obvious.)

I suppose it could be said that I missed Gresham's point, and that the question of order is so piddly that it should just be dropped in favour of actually discussing the works themselves. But what is a blog for, if you can't express potentially insignificant opinions? :-) Let me just reiterate, then, that in whatever order, the Chronicles are worth reading and re-reading...

And can anyone tell me what, exactly, happened to the descendants of King Frank and Queen Helen?

On the linguist at home

"It be fine."

"Sharon speaks pidgin!"

"Truncated future tense! It's a truncated future tense!"

"I make no value judgments. 'There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.' "

Greeting cards

We went to Hallmark a while back to look for cards.

We found cards we weren't looking for.

Did you know that there are Hallmark cards for losing a first tooth? (Is this in lieu of cash under the pillow?)

And-- even better-- for finishing potty training?

Somehow it strikes me that those cards might be appreciated more by the parent who gives them than the child who receives them.

One year ago today...

at approximately 11:00pm, I had the best early birthday present ever.

That said, I'm awfully glad that engagement didn't stay engagement. :-)

Hurrah for marriage!

Midnight murmurings, part II

Having finished the brushing of the teeth and the washing of the hair, I finally slid under the quilt, accidentally nudging my sleeping husband as I did so. (I occasionally take longer than he does to make it to slumberland... ask my former roommates how probable this is.)

As I settled myself, he mumbled one word soporifically under his breath: "Faaaaan."

"Aw, how cute, he must be dreaming," I mused, not without some ill-timed triumph at the thought that I wasn't the ONLY one who mumbled incoherent things in my sleep.

At this point I became vaguely aware of a noise which had been droning for some time. It was the bathroom fan, which I had forgotten to turn off.

How is it that he is more lucid than I am, when he is asleep and I am not?

I turned off the fan and went to bed a chastened soul.

Don't you wish you knew?

"This is my interpretive dance of the Anglican Communion in T. S. Eliotesque style." -who do you think?

She had a ball

And quite a ball it was. Blue, rubber, about the size of a large grapefruit; filled with sand, which made it rather heavy; and with the word CARNEGIE inexplicably printed in large white block letters on one side.

But the best part was when she handed it to me and I responded, "Toothbrush, hairbrush, BIG BLUE BALL!"

And her father instantly said, "Ah! In a People House!"

I looked surprised. He laughed. "Hey, I have a toddler."

Maybe I'm biased toward the book, but Adam S. gets my vote for best obscure literary reference recognition of the day. (Considering the eclectic group gathered, there were quite a few...)

Day after Thanksgiving: sales or adventures?

We saw the advertisements for stores opening at 5am on Friday and rolled our eyes. How addicted to consumerism do you have to be to brave huge crowds before sunrise? Sure, the sales must be good... but we were going to stay well out of stores. It just didn't seem worth it.

But then it turned out to be the sort of day where one is in the mood to do something daring and unconventional. Adventures were in order. Given that we are hobbits at heart, this still didn't mean shopping, but it did end up getting merged with plans for lunch. Why not explore a part of town we'd never seen, find some inexpensive and preferably foreign hole-in-the-wall cafe, and try to locate the offices of the C. S. Lewis Foundation of Redlands (which, by the by, owns and has renovated The Kilns)?

An hour later, having found the C. S. Lewis Foundation (in an unassuming storefront) and also what must be the biggest scrapbooking store in the Inland Empire, if not all Southern California, we were still looking for lunch. We had just climbed out of the car to wander around yet another plaza in search of the right cuisine, when a woman with two small children in tow asked us if we were going to Jo-Ann's Fabrics. (It was a reasonable guess; Jo-Ann's was the nearest big store.) Without seeming to hear my startled confession that no, in fact, we hadn't been planning on it, she handed me a 50% off coupon and said kindly, "I'm not going to use it, but I was hoping somebody could." She herded her little ones toward a nearby minivan as I called my thanks after her.

We looked at each other, shrugged, and decided maybe we could look for Christmas decorations after all. Thanks to a stranger's random act of kindness, we braved the crowds (which weren't actually all that bad inside Jo-Ann's, seeing as it was now afternoon) and found ourselves a Christmas tree for under $20. I wish I knew that mother's name; I would dearly like to thank her.

To finish our adventure, we finally found Rosie's Cafe, whose sign advertised

Homemade "Authentic"
Mexican Food

(quotation marks and all). It was rather a late lunch, but worth the wait. And they offered horchata, which, thanks to slowlane, is one of my favourites.

Adventures: not always nasty and cold, but occasionally late for dinner-- er, luncheon. But when luncheon is enchiladas, guacamole, taquitos, and horchata (which must be the SoCal equivalent of tea, biscuits, poppy-seed cakes, and mincemeat pies)-- well, I think that ranks as a happy adventure. Eh, Mr. Bilbo?

On the probable duration of authorship

Me: I woke up this morning with a great desire to try to write a fantasy novel.

My husband: You can do it. You've got the day off!

Neuroses

Last night, I apparently contracted a form of evangelistic and neurotic insomnia. I must have awakened three or four times between 1am and 3am, utterly and urgently convinced that it was my duty to wake my husband, feed him breakfast, and send him off to school. Despite the fact that it was completely dark. Despite the fact that the alarm clock was unarguably silent. Despite the fact that he sleeps very soundly between 1am and 3am.

For some un-reason, it was apparently very important that we both get out of bed and start the day at that hour. Until the voice of reason spoke (very kindly and patiently, I might add).

"What is it?"

But all my confused neurosis could find to say was "Uh... I don't know." And go back to sleep. And try it again less than an hour later.

All I can say is... I've got one amazing husband, if he can still have kind words after the fourth time of being nudged out of a sound sleep, for no reason, at an hour when no one should be up (let alone waking others)...

Graduating... to decapitating chickens??

According to a knowledgeable friend, one who watches anime has been elevated from being a "nerd" to being a "geek."

Who was it that decided bookish obsessiveness was hierarchical?

Anyway, we are apparently now "geeks." Except that knowing obscure derivations of words is apparently a "nerd" characteristic. Maybe we're some kind of weird hybrid.

And if the title of this post makes no sense to you... try this, or ask my original source...

Digital liberation

Walking barefoot can be dangerous.

Perhaps you will say that I should learn this truth by gazing upon two toenails, reproachfully and translucently displaying their respective spots of dried blood.

The only problem is that both injuries occurred while I was wearing sandals.

Come to think of it, the time they pain me most is when I put my work shoes on.

Free the toes!

Trafalgar Square, Blogosphere

Does anyone else get the impression that blog posts travel in flocks? Suddenly, after not having anything to write for a week, you are beset by one fluttering at eye level, another trying to land on your shoulder, a few perching on your fingers, and several nibbling at the back of your head. It usually happens that this is the part of the week you have the least time to spare on the computer.

Metaphorically speaking

"That's not just living in a glass house.

"That's living in a house made of stained glass in 1640s New England. With a picture of the Pope and Charles the First. Hand in hand. Dancing. On top of the Geneva Bible. And spitting on it."

-the historian from Connecticut

I love autumn

Given the title of my blog, this post probably ought to have been written some time ago. :-) But autumn really is just starting in Southern California...

There are so many things I had forgotten about the changes in seasons. Not, I suppose, forgotten intellectually... but this is my first autumn in three years, and there are just some things that you have to experience again to really remember.

The delicacy of the sunshine, such that a gust of wind or a shadow can nullify its warmth in an instant. The way the leaves turn colour from the end of the branch inward. The sharp, dry feeling of drawing in air that is significantly colder than your body temperature. The soporific comfort of being warm when everything else is cold-- preferably with a blanket, a book, and a cup of tea. The changing colour of the sky-- not only from day to day, but from zenith to horizon. The gradual darkening of each morning, almost noticeable from day to day but impossible to miss from week to week. The sound of dry leaves scudding across the sidewalk.

I love the tropics. But I savour this chance to rediscover autumn and winter.

Animation and literacy

Long ago, in a faraway literacy class, we read a book by a David Olson who is not my brother, and discussed the reason for punctuation in writing. This is the sort of thing you do in linguistics classes, and it's great fun.

The human voice is amazing. It communicates all sorts of meaning in a fluent stream of sounds. Writing, however, artificially separates some aspects of those sounds from others. The easiest thing to record, of course, is a string of words; but that leaves some of the meaning out. The meaning that is expressed by (e.g.) pitch, volume, tone, speed, cadence, or enunciation is more difficult to represent in writing. In fact, it cannot be represented perfectly. Let any two people read the same passage to you from a book, and you will see this indisputably. Neither is necessarily "wrong" in their interpretation; but the meanings they give the text are subtly-- or even radically-- different. Not all the meaning is there in the written words.

It's true, however, that (being an extremely literate culture) we have developed conventions that reduce this difficulty. We represent pauses and intonation patterns with various kinds of punctuation. We represent word breaks with spaces. We set off quotations with quotation marks. When we see italics, we know they are linked to higher pitch and volume. All these things add meaning to the string of words; well-developed symbols, widespread conventions, but still imperfect ones-- as all symbols are imperfect when dealing with reality.

Having been recently introduced to the world of anime (thanks to my husband, and to Marcy and Joi), it seems that much the same thing happens with animation. Life is primary, the representation of it is secondary. One can't possibly represent life in a lifelike way; somewhere in the process, some of the meaning gets lost. So, just like in writing systems, animation comes up with conventions to symbolise what actually happens in life.

And-- here's my real point-- different cultures have different sets of conventions for their animation.

The American system relies on a visual one-to-one correspondence in many ways. Things like computer-generated layers of facial muscles, or varying the type of reflection on surfaces according to texture and composition, are typical of the amazing strategies for making two dimensions look like three. Pardon my layman's description here-- I don't know many technical details, but the "realism" of American animation is daily increasing with our technology. We reproduce life the way life looks... that's our system for supplying the missing meaning.

By contrast, the Japanese animation looks two-dimensional, simplistic, and intentionally inconsistent. (Hold on, anime fans-- I'm not criticising!) The "sets" or backgrounds often seem more elaborate than the characters. Fluidity of movement is much diminished. Yet-- it reproduces the way life feels, in a way that American animation barely begins to address. The moments of intense emotion where time stretches, the standing back and looking at yourself as if you were on TV, the exaggerated reactions, the words hanging in the air that everyone can see but no one says... none of it is visually lifelike, but all of it is intuitively lifelike.

Now I want to know if there's a connection between type of writing system and type of visual representation. Is the difference between anime and American animation comparable to the difference between a logographic and syllabic writing system vs. an alphabetic one?

Because my husband said I should post it...

... and because maybe someone else will laugh at my long list of new names.

Two bare feet
Out in the street
Rosie Toes.

Curl up small
Or stretch up tall
Rosie Pose.

Long brown skirt
Embroidered shirt
Rosie Clothes.

Frost does nip
The little red tip
Rosie Nose.

Falling asleep
Slumber so deep
Rosie Doze.

So much to do
Where is my shoe?
Rosie Goes.

Car keys were lost
Groceries cost
Rosie Woes.

SoCal is chill
Draughts on the sill
Rosie Froze.

Jim has a wife
Marriage for life
Rosie Rose.

Contagious cleansing

'...the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai: "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Ask the priests what the law says: If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?' "

'The priests answered, "No."

'Then Haggai said, "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?"

' "Yes," the priests replied, "it becomes defiled." '
-Haggai 2:10-13

Uncleanness can be 'caught.' Holiness, however, doesn't seem to be catching, according to Old Testament law. Our own society echoes this in our maxim: 'Bad company corrupts good character.' We don't have a corresponding maxim for good company. That's just the way things seem to happen in our world; one rotten apple in the barrel may spoil the whole lot, but one good apple simply won't undo the rottenness of the others.

This is why a leper in Israel had to go around crying 'Unclean, unclean.' If you expand this into a phrase, the warning is not simply 'I am unclean'; what would that have to do with the hearers? It is 'If you touch me, I will make you unclean.'

In this light, the leper's words to Jesus in Mark 1:40 are positively shocking. He does not say 'If you touch me, I will make you unclean.' He says the opposite: 'If you are willing, you can make me clean.'

Jesus' answer is matter-of-fact-- and perfectly parallel. 'I am willing. Be clean.' And, as if to prove that in Him the maxims of fallen human nature are being reversed, he stretches out his hand-- and touches the man. Cleansing passes from the God-man to the unclean man... not defilement from the unclean man to Him.

Somehow, the leper got it. Somehow he realised (however dimly) that this conversation was utterly different from a conversation with any other 'clean' person according to the Law. He was talking to the One for whom the Law was not a schoolmaster: talking, in fact, to the very source of the Law's holiness. 'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle' was merely a faint reflection of that positive cleanness and purity, so positive that it could be contagious.

This, too, is the Christ-life in us. If we are in Christ and He in us, as He prayed in John 17, then we have been vouchsafed a positive, radiant, living holiness; not the absence of uncleanness, but the presence of the Holy One.

Hegemonic hedonism

If your menu for the week includes learning to cook:

Hungarian,

Mexican,

Italian,

Dutch,

West African,

Chinese,

British,

and Indian cuisine...

or any combination of more than five of the above...

you must be an American.

Gotta watch that Apollonarian milk

my brother: Sometimes I think my allergy to milk is half-psychological.

my mother: Well... my dad was lactose-intolerant, too.

my brother: Is it heretical?

Eugene and Katrina, on:

...grating orange peel:

"I am invoking the law of diminishing returns."

"To justify the cessation of your efforts?"

"Precisely."


...doing dishes:

"Outsmarting gnomes is my worldview."

"Last time, blaming gnomes was your worldview. Now you're outsmarting them?"

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."

A word to the wise

Check carefully the amount of oil you pour into the wok before stir-frying.

If you neglect to do this, at least do not heat the oil to smoking before stir-frying.

And if you neglect even to do this, please, please, do not carelessly toss in wedges of onion at close range.



It is, at least, interesting to take one's hot shower bath with one arm perpetually in the air: like the Statue of Liberty, or a tiresome schoolgirl who always has the answer to someone else's sum.

The First Tradition

I suppose every married couple must have a First Tradition. You know, the ones that spring up in the midst of transition, while you are unpacking boxes, trying to live on apple juice, bagels, and take-out Chinese food, and finding that each of you has a slightly different method for doing everything.

Suddenly, there appears a thing that you do exactly the same way, because you've never done it apart. That's the First Tradition.

Four days after we moved into our apartment, we realised we had an important anniversary to celebrate. August 4, 2004, was the day of that momentous conversation in the park (a week before I left for Cameroon) when Jim first told me he loved me.

Alas, we had not even a table nor any chairs in our dining room on August 4, 2006. So we decided to have a picnic, in honour of our memorable picnic. On the carpet. With an old blanket. And two beautiful Chinese place settings given to us as a wedding present.

Of course, if you use Chinese place settings, you have to cook Chinese food. So we pulled out a wonderful cookbook for the first time, and a wok (both wedding presents also) and tried the recipe for Lo Mein.

The Lo Mein has very quickly become a favourite, along with several other Oriental dishes (and some obligatory jokes about Orientalism, in deference to Jim's time at Fullerton). Although a table and (two to five) chairs now grace our dining room in place of the old blanket, we still use the delicate Chinese dishes and chopsticks every Saturday night. And thus a First Tradition has come about.

Vive la Tradition!

Feeling garrulous

There's a conversation that happens almost invariably when we meet people here. It goes something like this.

"So, yeah, we just moved to this area about a month ago."

"Oh? Where did you move from?"

"Uh... well..."

It's meant to be small talk, but you see, it's really a difficult question. "We" didn't move from anywhere. The answer usually goes something like this:

"Well, I moved from La Mirada, only I'm from Connecticut originally, and my wife's family is in Fresno, but she's been in Africa for the last two years..."

Then we have to explain that we are newlyweds, because people start looking at us rather strangely for living in two different places.

By this time, people always look a bit bewildered, not of course having expected anything other than a one- or two-word answer (to which they could respond with something conventional like "Oh, that's a beautiful area, I love the mountains!"). It feels a bit like responding to "how are you?" with a recital of the events of the day, when all that was required was "fine."

Except we have not been furnished with an answer that is both short and true.

Maybe, given the Victorian novels we've been reading lately, we could just look mysterious and whisper, "Oh, that's a long story, a very long story indeed..."

Parsimony redeemed by insight

Jim reached for a napkin, to catch his cookie crumbs before they had a chance to pollute the carpet.

"Oh!" I said quickly, "here, use a plate; we don't have to use up a napkin for that."

He looked at me quizzically. "You really don't like using napkins, do you?"

Before I had time to frame a weak excuse, trying to cast my stinginess as thrift, light dawned on his face. Dawned, I might add, before I had any clue to the solution of the riddle.

"You're still operating in Cameroon mode!"

He was right, of course. Napkins in Cameroon (and by that I mean paper serviettes, not the other kind you might encounter in a former British colony) are hard to find, and when you do find them, expensive. They are worthy of only the most festive occasions: birthdays, parties, holidays.

Hence, choosing to wash a plate rather than throw away a napkin.

Someone really needs to remind my subconscious that I can buy paper goods-- of nearly any kind-- at a myriad of stores just minutes away from our apartment... for not much more than half a cent each.

We are tolerant! We are culturally aware! We are...

...duped by clever marketing.

With the value our culture currently places on both authenticity and multiculturalism, it's somewhat surprising to find so much inauthenticity in the very merchandise that is supposed to have a cultural flavour. This is trendiness at its best: mass-produced stuff that is neither domestic nor foreign... produced, not because it is actually laudable in itself, but because it gives the elitist impression of being "other."

Having lived overseas, I occasionally find this phenomenon so hilarious as to be overwhelming.

Take the broom that we found by accident the other day, while window-shopping. Of course, it wasn't labelled "broom." But it was a sort of flimsy version of the brooms that schoolchildren make and sell in Big Bekondo to earn pocket-money; a bundle of palm fronds tied at one end with a particularly pliable frond, and quite useful for sweeping dirt floors.

This one, however, was plastic, or some synthetic substance. It was bright green. It was labelled "standing grass bundle." I don't think it would have swept even a linoleum floor. And it was priced accordingly.

Ah yes. We have taken the "other" and-- not made it ours-- but deprived it of any meaning besides "other." To me, this smacks vaguely of a new and more insidious kind of paternalism... Kipling, at least, had the decency to admit the common humanity of what he patronised.

The new face of enthusiasm

We have met the Bapto-Catholics, and they are us.

We embrace the paradox.

It happened in Bakersfield

(another one from the archives)

Bakersfield has a longstanding aversion to me.

I don't know why. I don't know what aura I emit that happens to annoy this particular municipality. I just know that an absurdly large percentage of my trips through Bakersfield involve broken shifting mechanisms, miscommunications, lost luggage, missed directions, cancelled flights, or smoking, malodorous steering wheels.

Which is why I was skeptical at best when it seemed that we needed to apply for our marriage licence in Bakersfield.

But, there it was. Due to travel schedules, county clerk hours, and the fact that my fiance and I would not be in the same place again until the day before the wedding, we had to stop in Bakersfield that day and try.

Really, the whole process was rather anticlimactically tame. Aside from running into several dead ends, one-way streets, and unprotected lefts in our attempts to get back to the freeway, we didn't even get lost. We applied for a marriage licence, received it, and went on our way rejoicing. We even stopped at the local Bakersfield Starbucks to celebrate.

And thus it is that, in expiation for its many attempts to thwart my plans, delay my progress, and otherwise annoy me... Bakersfield is now the place of residence for a document which may plausibly claim importance over any other document I have ever signed.

Truce?

From the archives

I wrote this before the wedding. For some reason, I didn't post it then. But now that I am out of reach (five hours out of reach, to be precise), I might as well. For the edification of the masses. Or the jollification of the brothers. I forget which.



Having TWO brothers around is fascinating. With one, you get monologue. Maybe even harangue. But two gives you dialogue. Consider:

David: "I think women understand men better than men understand women."

Nat: "Yeah, all you need to do for a guy is give him food and a hammer, and he's happy."

David: "But if you give a woman food and a hammer, she hits you with the hammer."

It's very enlightening, I tell you.

The Silencing of the Son of Timaeus

Did you never wonder, in the dark hours of the night?
--Or never see
The spectre of what may or may not be
And cower from the sight?

To what avail are protestations of incensed shock?
Is doubt a sin,
The which if we are prisoned deep and in,
You lose the key and lock?

Or are you tainted by mere auditing of such,
So that if you
Do not repudiate it through and through
You suffer from its touch?

Panic seems to give the lie to truth. Let truth be bold,
A Knight who takes
All comers, be they gentlemen or rakes
Or blind belief turned cold.

An education

One learns many new things during the first month of marriage. As Julie Andrews notes pensively, "Gone are the old ideas of life, the old ideas grow dim..."

Old ideas, for instance, that had no place for

role-playing games,
anime,
comic books,
or
video games...

The advent of a husband (at least a self-identified nerdy one, and I wouldn't have any other kind) seems to require an expanding worldview in these areas.

Much to the consternation of certain of my friends, my working vocabulary now includes the following:

plus-six dragon-slaying sword of doom
Miyazaki
Eight-Bit Theatre
Ogdru Jahad
Trigun
D-10
Grand Theft Auto
skree!
Hellboy
GM
giant worm gollum

I suppose the only way to improve on this education would be through actual experience of the material at hand. Nevertheless, for now I am quite content with the vicarious method. Since my husband happens to be particularly verbal, this is rather effortless...

"It is time. It is High Time,"

as my husband would say-- except that he informs me this favourite phrase is actually (one English version of) Nietzsche's battle cry. Oops.

But it is not time to argue whether man is a thing to be overcome. It is high time for me to reestablish my sadly neglected blog... in a new location and a new state of life.

After two years of separation, Jim and I finally get a chance to be together. All the time. It's like an extended honeymoon, only at home... a full month of planning a home, arranging, hanging pictures, reading aloud, laughing at cooking blunders, exploring the Redlands area, without either of us needing to go away to work. We feel incredibly blessed.

Teacher meetings start next week, so our idyllic "settling-in" phase is almost over. And perhaps, with this return to everyday life, my blog will begin to look more interesting.

But for now, the most profound thing I have to say is this: We are very happy.

identity old and new

"The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered. ...there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I (D. V.), --or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, on the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, "Mrs. Rochester, ----- Hotel, London," on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A.M. ..."

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Someone knows me well

Had I known what a bachelorette party involved, I would have worried about it.

Had I known I was having a bachelorette party, I would have worried about it.

Being as I knew neither, I simply had to react to things as they happened. I much prefer my embarrassment sans anticipation. It turned out to be a glorious afternoon...

Ok, so I was wrong

Over the years that my friendship with Jim was developing, I repeatedly insisted that I "don't throw things." Why? Well, who knows how it came up in the first place... how do things like that ever start?... but it duly passed into the annals. I don't throw things.

Until last night.

But only scrunchies, and only when I am provoked by heresies worthy of the great Vanaukenive in their prime.

Another shift in perspective

As an adult American female, I probably ought to begin inuring myself to a bothersome but seemingly ubiquitous custom.

Meaning makeup.

It's a little more obvious to me, having just come back from Cameroon, that this is mostly an issue of cultural competence. It's like wearing a brightly coloured kaba when I'm in Cameroon, not sitting on the ground when I'm in Russia, or learning the proper word for that thing you wipe your hands on when I'm in Britain. Makeup is part of American culture if you're a woman, so I might as well be as culturally relevant as I can.

Except-- there's more to the decision than that.

I've read about women-- and they seem to be not uncommon-- who have wrongly concluded that they aren't pretty, and therefore use makeup to try and make themselves pretty. Usually this means being afraid to appear anywhere without carefully applying it.

My reaction to makeup, in high school and university, was the opposite. I don't think it reflected any less insecurity; it was just different. Makeup terrified me. If I wasn't pretty, then I didn't want to fool anyone into thinking I was... because then I would always feel as though I were hiding behind a mask, with the potential that people liked my "makeup mask" better than they did the real me. And that was unthinkable.

Acting the role of Athena in the Oresteia, my junior year at Biola, seemed to confirm my worst fears about makeup. Of course I had to wear makeup on stage... but the attention it garnered me offstage scared me nearly witless. Why, oh, why did people have to think Athena was so much prettier than Sharon? That was the weekend, incidentally, that I remember telling myself emphatically, "Anyone I marry has to think I'm pretty WITHOUT makeup."

Enter the playwright (yes, the one to whom I am now engaged to be married-- almost four years later). He saw me at every rehearsal: grubby, exhausted, even in tears.

And the next semester, when I was wearing no makeup, he told me I was "gorgeous."

Somehow, between then and now, I have become much more willing to put up with this American cultural phenomenon... even if it is a nuisance.

My daddy

When I was very small, I thought my dad must be awake all night. When I went to sleep, he was there to pray with me and tuck me in and turn off the light. And no matter how early I woke up in the morning, the light was always on in the living room, where he was praying. I knew that whenever I had a bad dream, I could pitter-patter down the hall and bury my face on his shoulder till the monsters went away and I could go back to bed.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad. Thanks for showing me that my heavenly Father loves me and cares about me-- and even though I know now that you need sleep, :-) He doesn't. I love you!

Why wedding planning is stressful

Opinions? No, I'll just rent some, thanks. I have so much trouble properly processing other people's that it seems very dangerous to have any of my own.

The debate continues

In the midst of scattered organising, planning, and working, I decided that a cup of tea would be a nice thing.

So I got up from the computer, stretched, and went to the kitchen in search of tea.

When I picked up our container full of many kinds of tea, I smelled something lovely. I couldn't remember which kind of tea it was-- but whatever it was, that was the kind I wanted today.

It took me a minute to realise that the lovely aroma was actually my mother's coffee, brewing in the coffeemaker next to me.

Bother.

More opinions of my illustrious brother

(probably originating in his primary source document, Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes):

"People are like Slinkies. You really can't figure out what they're for, but you still laugh when you see them tumble down the stairs."

Yes. I missed my brother. :-)

Oh, yeah... Starbucks

I guess I've been in a former British colony too long.

I really, honestly thought that tea and coffee were sort of interchangeable; that some preferred one, and some the other.

Then I suggested serving both tea and coffee at our wedding reception. Oh, that would get too complicated? Ok then, how about just tea?

Judging from the incredulous looks I received, I guess tea and coffee are NOT coequal in status here.

Second Law of Thermodynamics... well...

We beat entropy last night.

Ok, so maybe not quite. Like my dad said, "That would be a cosmic event."

But this was close. We started with stacks of invitations, stacks and stacks of two different sizes of envelopes, and lists of names and addresses. Oh, and peel-and-stick stamps.

(Not to mention cookies, which were stolen and recovered twice. Who could live without brothers?)

We ended with 154 beautifully addressed invitations, neatly stacked in a box, all facing the same way, stamped and ready to mail.

And all we had to clean up was a few coffee cups.

Honestly? It was the most fun I've had in a while, and it's still hard to believe that we mailed the invitations this morning...

Thanks, everyone!!!

Paradigm shift

"Was there a great harvest before you left?" David paused expectantly and waited for my answer.

I never know how to answer this sort of question. Talking about missions in metaphorical terms always makes me a bit nervous. After all, how do you reduce thousands of daily contacts with people, moments that are mostly very ordinary, to one sweeping metaphor? What are people looking for when they ask about "a great harvest"? The equivalent of a Billy Graham crusade? Rapid and dramatic and obvious change? That's just not how it works most of the time.

Nothing this articulate came out of my mouth, however. I stuttered a moment. Then I realised he was holding out a piece of bread that smelled lovely.

No, David. I didn't even know there existed a bread store called "Great Harvest." But thanks for the peach and pecan streusel loaf. :-)

No green cookies, please

Before making cookies, it's always a good idea to check and make sure you have all the ingredients. My mother and I were engaged in this laudable activity when I asked if we had any Crisco.

"Yes, but you might want to check it and see if it's still good," she advised. "I don't know how long it's been in there."

She pulled the can from the bottom shelf of the pantry and opened it. "Well-- looks good to me."

I looked over her shoulder. "Yup. I sure don't see any mold."

Judging from the look she gave me, I'm guessing mold doesn't grow on shortening here.

Consistency, overheard

Opinions of my illustrious brother:

"I'm an eternal optimist. People make lots of money off people like me.

"I'm just hoping that they don't."

Depleting the reserves

Cultural adjustment is a process of living off stored reserves until you figure out how to replenish them in a new environment.

At the physical level, that's what jet lag is. If you are well-nourished and well-rested before travelling, your body finds it much easier to draw on its stored resources until you adjust to getting the appropriate rest and nourishment in your new time zone.

But the same thing happens on multiple levels. I am adjusting back to my "home" culture, and I feel as though I am living off my reserves in almost all areas... spiritually, emotionally, mentally, socially, even verbally. This is chaos, and chaos never nurtured growth or provided refreshment. There is a sort of panic that goes along with this-- not knowing whether the replenishment will happen in time to prevent utter loss of functionality.

My ability to bring order out of chaos is directly related to my ability to survive culture shock (or reverse culture shock). Thanks be to God that He is the great bringer of order from chaos. Thanks be to God that He has made me in His image.

Honesty is the best policy

Conversation with a five-year-old today:

"Do you need an extra napkin, hon?"

"No. My tongue is a napkin."

Internal culture wars

For the past two years, I have carefully trained myself to use only my right hand in interaction with other people.

This conflicts with a sudden unaccountable desire to keep my left hand as prominently displayed as possible.

guest blogger

Sharon's Ghost Writer... (written Friday night just before Sharon
flew to the US. Due to trouble finding an internet connection
this is only going out on Monday, but that is still before most
of you will see Sharon.)

Sharon says she doesn't do blogs during transition times, which
she's already reported to you all. However, I thought it was
worth telling everyone what her last week has been like, I think
many of you will see your prayers answered in all this.

Last Saturday the Oroko song book that Sharon and Hans had worked
so hard on finally arrived. The middle page was still put in
backwards (song 7 appeared before song 6), but 15 minutes of
unbending staples, flipping pages, and rebending staples, and the
3 of us (Sharon, Hans and I) had the printer's error fixed.

Sunday morning Hans handed out all the books and tested out some
of the songs with the congregation. It was fun watching people
following along and trying out these old songs in their own
language.

Now most of you know Sharon even better than us, so you'll
appreciate the courage of this next event. After announcements
Sharon popped up and said she had something to announce - that
this was her last Sunday and she was thankful for the fellowship
they had extended to her. She did this all in her very best
pidgin - which was pretty good at that!

Monday Sharon finished going through the entire English-Oroko
index to the Oroko dictionary she has been working on. This index
had been basically a haphazard offshoot of our Oroko work, and
benefitted very much from Sharon's editing. She'd been working on
this hard the last few weeks, and it was great to see her make
her own target.

That same evening Sharon finished a Hebrew research project Lisa
had given her - to list all the Hebrew "emotional" language in
the first part of the story of Joseph in Genesis (37,39,40) and
cross reference it to the Oroko that Lisa listed. This will help
us create a corpus of expressive language in Oroko and translate
the Hebrew more accurately into Oroko. Great work! She even
managed to do this by about 8 pm and therefore get to bed at a
reasonable time.

Tuesday she began the dreaded packing. Now packing is one of the
things that totally stresses Sharon out (except when Jessica was
around to lend some help). Sharon managed to finish all her
sorting and packing before 5 pm. Shortly after that the youth
group arrived for their pre-arranged sendoff. I was curious what
they would do. Whether planned or not, in the end they decided to
sing through the entire translated songbook! In a couple places
she and Hans had to sing through parts to get the syllable timing
correctly. Needless to say she was pretty pumped at the end.

Wednesday we went to Kumba and Sharon got another of her wishes -
roasted African "plums" by the side of the road. We'd only had a
couple before we left Bekondo, so it was nice to get a last taste
of one of these plums that has become a favorite of Sharon's.
Wednesday afternoon we drove to Mutengene for a couple days of
R&R before her departure. She got to say good-bye to Irene (our
landlord's daughter), another of her wishes. She got a bit
carsick on the windy, bumpy drive, but the instant we stopped,
she felt fine - another answer to someone's prayers I'm sure.

Thursday morning we got mangoes for breakfast - a fruit that we
saw only briefly this year in the village and Sharon had really
hoped to have more of before leaving.

Thursday afternoon we went to the beach and enjoyed a wonderful
day in the surf and ... horseback riding. The hotel had a couple
horses available to ride, and we all took advantage of it.

So, now we're ready to head to the airport, and I can't really
think of a better ending to Sharon's time here. Now for a short
vignette from Lord of the Rings before turning Sharon back over
to her family and friends in the US.

When Lisa and I watched Lord of the Rings, there was one scene
that really impacted us as a parallel to what we sometimes feel
as missionaries when we think of returning to the US. Remember
that scene when the 4 hobbits are back in the pub in the shire
and they are all looking at each other. It is like nobody around
them has a clue how the last year of their life has impacted
them, and have merrily continued on in their life without
realizing all that was happening somewhere else (This is the
movie version - not the book version - I know). Sam made his
choice to continue where he left off, although different inside.
It is now almost 8 pm and we have to eat yet before sending
Sharon off to the airport for her 11 pm flight, so I'll have to
end my reminiscing there - but I'm sure each of you will pick up
some more parallels between Sharon and Sam. I didn't know Sharon
before she arrived in Cameroon, but I do know that she is a
different person than when she came - and I trust it is for the
better.

With that, we send her off with our best wishes for her future,
and pray that God would continue to work in her life and guide
her and Jim's future.

God Bless
Dan Friesen

Official Posting Holiday

I have five days left in the village.

I have seven days left in the country.

Motivation to do many things has left me. Packing is the most
notable of these unfortunate things.

Posting on my blog may not happen to be one of those unfortunate
things, because it is not on my to-do list and therefore I don't
HAVE to be motivated to do it.

Nevertheless, I am taking an official posting holiday of
undetermined length.

Hart Upper Even, #240

I slid the CD into my computer; I'd just borrowed it from a
friend here, never heard it before. Suddenly, I was back in a
second-floor dorm room... three lofted beds, three desks, three
computers, and five bookcases, decorated in dusty rose, burgundy,
and sage green, with the "Shakespeare's Thoughts on Love" poster
on our door. The same room where one night in a fateful gesture
I threw my Aeschylus against the wall and proclaimed that I
didn't know why anyone would want to read it.

My roommates introduced me to Loreena McKennitt my freshman year.
The music is beautiful. But the very sound of her unique voice
and style and instrumentation also brings back a certain tension
in the pit of my stomach. It brings back the turmoil and
insecurity of being a freshman, adjusting to living with
roommates, establishing an adult identity (or failing to), and
entering a constantly changing community of 18-22-year-olds. It
was, if you like, the sound track for my freshman year.

Somehow, though, it also underlines for me the fact that I am not
that 18-year-old any more. It's good every once in a while to
realise that you've grown-- even that you've outgrown. That the
becoming is there, even when it's slow.

It gives me hope as I end yet another known life, enter yet
another unknown, another uncertain place with uncertain
expectations. It gives me hope that even though God continues to
bring me back to that place of being "a freshman" over and over
again, I'm not going in circles but in spirals. He really is
teaching me. Thanks be to God!

'Well, this is Africa.'

That's the catch-all answer to an indignant Westerner's demand
for justice as he sees it. Those who have been here long enough
to find themselves saying it, know that 'justice' means something
totally different here.

Some of the most frustrating situations (for a Westerner) involve
the question, 'Who pays?' I honestly don't think this is because
all Westerners hang on to their money like misers... I think it
has more to do with our concept of personal responsibility.
Consider the following situations.

A motorcycle taxi driver runs into a legally parked truck and
dents it. The truck owner (who was not present) pays for the
repairs to the motorcycle (and the truck).

The court gives a release-on-bail date for a prisoner awaiting
trial, but on the stated day they refuse to release him, giving
no reason. His wife has to pay his taxi fare back to jail.

A neighbour borrows a bicycle and brings it back with a broken
axle. The bicycle owner pays for the repairs.

A print shop takes a job to a nearby photocopy shop, who mix up
the pages. The resulting booklet is unusable and parts of it
must be re-printed. The client pays for the extra paper and ink.

The Western instinct in these situations is, "You break (or
inconvenience, or mess up), you pay." That seems right to us.
Individuals (or corporate institutions) should take
responsibility for their own actions. That's just how things are
supposed to be.

Except that in Africa, they aren't. It's every bit as obvious in
African culture that the one who has more, pays; or the one who
is most closely connected, pays. If YOU are rich enough to own a
bicycle and lend it to me, then obviously it is not right to make
me pay you for repairs when I don't even have a bicycle. If it's
YOUR relative who is in jail (or in the hospital, or anywhere
else) obviously you are going to care for him, not the
institution. Community (resources are shared based on the
closeness of relational ties) and 'leveling' (the one who has
less is entitled to receive from the one who has more) trump
individual responsibility.

The scary thing is that, despite my visceral sense of injustice
in
these cases-- some of this is actually starting to make sense.

Indices

Using an index is pretty straightforward.

Do you want recipes for chicken soup? It's probably under both
"chicken" and "soup" in the cookbook index. Want to know where
to find the motion equations in your high school physics
textbook? "Motion" is a good key word to check first, but the
index may even have a list of key equations as subentries of
"equation." Where in Whittier is Santa Gertrudes Ave.? The
index on the back of the map should list the name of each and
every street...

Writing an index, however, is not straightforward. Especially if
it refers to dictionary entries in a different language.

This is because you have to guess what word people will want to
look up in order to find a certain concept. Given the fact that
concept-word boundaries don't match in different languages, and
given the general unpredictability of people (and the existence
of many different English dialects into the bargain) this can
be... difficult.

There are the Oroko words that just don't have an English
equivalent, and require a long explanation... for example,
"ground cocoyams wrapped in leaves of plantains or cocoyams."
It's a favourite food here, but how in the world do you put it in
the English index?

Then there are words that don't even have a conceptual equivalent
in Western culture, like "someone becoming a bird to steal
cocoa."

And then there's my personal favourite hard-to-index word: "the
sound of hitting something." This is a real word in Oroko. But
honestly, now, would you ever look up the English equivalents
"whump," "whap," or "thwack"-- in an index?

Musing

Is it because time is a distension of the mind that three weeks
seems so very much shorter than four weeks?

Midnight musings

Or 3am, to be more precise.

My eyes flew open at the thunderous clatter on our tin roof. It
was not St. Nick. It was the tropical rainstorm that had been
brooding over us for two days in suffocating heat, finally
breaking in all its fury.

I did not wake up simply because my sleep was disturbed, however.
Thunderstorms mean action, and I was the only adult in the house.

Therefore, at 3am, I moved all of the tables and desks in the
house away from our east-facing windows.

Then I went back to bed.

When several brilliant flashes, followed by deafening claps of
thunder, woke me again, I unplugged the radio antenna.

Then I went back to bed.

The cat desperately wanted attention, and when I discovered that
he had sneaked into my room to sleep on my bed, I was too tired
to do anything about it.

Until he woke me up by a violent fit of hairball coughing, and I
got up and put him off my bed and outside my door.

Then I went back to bed.

At 5am the other cat came to my window and insisted that it was
time for me to get up and let him in.

I ignored him and went back to sleep.

Unedited

"Therefore, I'm being a good, kind husband and letting my wife
push the car... Sharon, where in the world will you get blog
material when you aren't around us any more?"

Context

My peers' favourite line for a while, in university, was "Context
is overrated." I admit to having used it a few times myself.

Perhaps it is overrated, when your concern is to make Abelard say
what you really want him to have meant in the first place. But
have you ever tried to recognise an acquaintance in the wrong
context?

These situations happen a lot in the missionary community. I
mean, you may have a brief conversation with someone in the SIL
office in Bamenda while waiting to meet with a consultant, and
then a year later see that person playing volleyball at a North
American Baptist field conference in Kribi. That's when you
rack your brain, trying to figure out why this person looks so
familiar and where you met them last time.

Being on the receiving end of this can be even funnier. Dan,
Lisa, Rachel, and I visited a dinner, attended by mostly SIL
missionaries, when we were in Yaounde last week. Dan commented
that he knew most of the people in the room, from one context or
another... after 8 years in the country, he has had reason to
make connections with just about the whole breadth of the
missionary community here. One woman at the end of the table
greeted Dan and Lisa, whom she had met in French school nine
years ago, and then gushed to her neighbour, "I knew these two
when they were babies."

It suddenly occurred to me that she was gesturing at Rachel...
and me.

Um... at twenty-four, I'm not sure whether I ought to be
insulted, nonplussed, or pleased at being mistaken for less than
half my age. Maybe I'll just hide and say that context is
overrated.

Do you ever say, "I laid on the couch?"

My theory: the distinction between the English verbs 'lie' and
'lay' will be completely obscured in about 15 more years.

However, it is still assiduously taught by prescriptive language
arts textbooks, fighting a losing battle to maintain the language
the way it was 50 years ago.

This is language change. Contrary to popular opinion, language
change is not bad. It is not necessarily careless (though one of
the core principles of linguistics is 'people are lazy'). It is
not deliberate languicide. It is, in fact, inevitable.
Eventually, the prescriptive language books will change their
then-archaic charts of the distinction between 'lie' and 'lay' to
reflect the usage that has then become standard (i.e. whatever
was 'natural' 50 years before that unknown day).

The funny thing seems to be that in literate cultures,
prescriptive efforts at preservation (however fruitless) seem to
be as unavoidable as language change itself.

At least there are a few left...

Our stapler is now a single-fire machine, requiring inefficient
reloading after every discharge.

At least until we get a new box of staples.

Is there a cultural value to be learned here...?

Early in my time here in the village, sometimes I would write
home that I was "practicing my greetings." I'm not sure this
always made sense to the recipient. After all, how much can
there be to learn? "Hi," "hello," and how about "good morning,"
"good afternoon," and "good evening." That should pretty much
cover every situation, right?

Well, not exactly. One afternoon, I decided to count how many
different greetings I used in my short walk to church and back.

First, I greeted someone on our front porch with a common evening
greeting.

Then I met two men coming down the path beside the bunye tree.
So I used the evening greeting for more than one person.

The next person I met was carrying a load of firewood on her
back. So I greeted her with the greeting for someone who is
carrying something heavy.

A younger woman was working in her egusi patch in front of her
house, and for her I decided to use the pidgin "ashia" (commonly
used for a greeting to acknowledge that someone is working).

After I had waited at the church building for a little while,
someone else came. I greeted her with one of the "welcome"
greetings.

Then, on the way home, I greeted someone inside his house, and
used the afternoon greeting for someone inside.

And that doesn't even include the common greetings for morning
time, for people eating, for people celebrating, or for someone
who has stayed home from the farm that day. Not to mention that
each greeting has two forms: for one person and for more than one
person.

Now here is a further dilemma: how do you greet a woman with a
sleeping baby tied on her back? Is she singular or plural?

One month

Since it is officially one month from today until I will be
standing in the LA airport, I thought this would be a good time
to let people know when I'll be coming in-- just in case anyone
in the area happens to have the chance to come to the airport.
:-) I realise it's smack dab in the middle of a work day, but if
anyone is free, I'd love to see you...

So-- I'll be getting into LAX on Wednesday, the 24th of May, at
10:56am, on United flight 193V from Philadelphia, arriving in
Terminal 7. Moreover, I will probably be over the worst of the
jet-lag, as I'm spending a few days first in Warrington,
Pennsylvania, at the World Team office. :-)

One month. It doesn't seem possible.

A bad day for the disciples

I was reading through Mark and came to the story of the feeding
of the five thousand again. It really hit me this time, from a
very human perspective, how hard it must have been for the
disciples to appreciate the miracle.

They're exhausted, having just returned from their "ministry
tour" (NLT). But they don't have time to rest-- they and Jesus
don't even have time to eat, because people are constantly coming
and going, wanting Jesus' attention and help. So Jesus says,
"Let's get away from the crowds for a while and rest."

But the crowds ran ahead and followed them. Can you imagine the
sinking feeling in the disciples' stomachs as they pulled up to
shore and saw the crowds waiting for them-- again? I probably
would have been muttering under my breath, "Just go away. We're
tired. We can't deal with you right now. Can't you give us ANY
time alone with Jesus?"

But Jesus stops. He has compassion on the crowds, because they
are "like sheep without a shepherd." He teaches them until late
in the afternoon.

Now, I don't know this for sure, but I imagine the disciples
weren't too happy about being flexible when the plans for a quiet
retreat got changed into a busy afternoon with the crowds. I
don't think they were too kindly disposed toward the insatiable
crowds, either. Sending them away to buy food-- because this was
a "desolate place"!-- was surely an unanswerable reason to
finally get the peace and quiet they'd been waiting for.

But Jesus said, "You feed them."

Huh?

What the disciples said was, "Where and how are we going to get
all that food??" But I wonder if they weren't thinking, "These
people got themselves into this mess. We sure didn't ask them to
come all the way out here to meet us and delay us. Why should we
be responsible for feeding them?"

Did the miracle change this attitude? I'm not sure. Because in
the next story (after they've been caught in a violent storm on
the Sea of Galilee-- a non-restful ending to their non-restful
day), "they still didn't understand the significance of the
miracle of the multiplied loaves, for their hearts were hard and
they did not believe." Ouch.

Is it possible that I can miss seeing God's miracles simply
because they are not in my plans and expectations? Open my
heart, Lord.

On Coconut, Flaked

In North America:

1. Buy 4 oz. bag of flaked coconut at grocery store.
2. Take home.
3. Open bag.
4. Dump contents into mixing bowl.

In a rural village in Africa:

1. Haggle with child about price of coconut. Offer one-fourth
of original outrageous price and eventually settle on something
slightly above market value.
2. Stare at coconut and regret the absence of Dan's
pocket-knife.
3. Select a paring knife and pretend it is a drill bit. On the
third attempt at a hole, listen with satisfaction to the hiss of
escaping pressure.
4. Drain coconut water into cup. Save some for cooking rice,
and divide the rest for immediate enjoyment.
5. Stare at coconut again and regret the absence of Dan.
6. Resolutely take a hammer, place coconut on cement floor, and
strike hard.
7. Watch unbroken coconut go bouncing across floor.
8. Repeat steps 6-7 several times.
9. Watch in satisfaction as crack widens in coconut shell after
repeated blows.
10. Break coconut into several pieces.
11. Pry coconut flesh from shell, using the paring knife as a
wedge and a kitchen knife as a lever.
12. Nurse wounds sustained from contact with kitchen knife.
13. Rinse coconut pieces successfully wrested from coconut shell
in filtered water.
14. Grate coconut pieces into bowl.
15. Nurse wounds sustained from contact with grater.
16. Measure one cup of flaked coconut and dump into mixing bowl.

On classes we'd rather not take

Sign on closed door in internet cafe:

CLASSROOM FOR CRASH PROGRAM
DO NOT KNOCK

I guess I'm a prodigy. I learned how to crash programs all by
myself.

mixed-up posts

Email problems again! This is just to explain why a) there has
been another big gap in posts and b) my Holy Week posts are both
out of order and exceedingly late. :-) (Normally, they'd be
late. One or two days. But not this much.)

Oh, and if you happen to get an email from me twice, or some
reply to your email is really late, that's due to the same
problem. Please forgive the inconvenience...

But we think it's fixed now. Hurray!

Blessed Easter!

'Tis the spring of souls today;
Christ hath burst his prison,
And from three days' sleep in death
As a sun hath risen;
All the winter of our sins,
Long and dark, is flying
From his light, to whom we give
Laud and praise undying.

~St. John of Damascus

Holy Week and Good Friday

In thy most bitter passion
My heart to share doth cry,
With thee for my salvation
Upon the cross to die.
Ah, keep my heart thus moved
To stand thy cross beneath,
To mourn thee, well-beloved,
Yet thank thee for thy death.

~Paulus Gerhardt, 1656

O to know the power of your risen life
And to know you in your sufferings,
To become like you in your death, my Lord,
So with you to live and never die.

~Graham Kendrick, 1993

Holy Saturday

Sepulchre

George Herbert

O blessed bodie, whither art Thou thrown?
No lodging for Thee but a cold hard stone!
So many hearts on earth, and yet not one
Receive Thee!

Sure there is room within our hearts good store,
For they can lodge transgressions by the score;
Thousands of toyes dwell there, yet out of doore
They leave Thee.

But that which shews them large shews them unfit:
Whatever sinne did this pure rock commit
Which holds Thee now? who have indited it
Of murder?

Where our hard hearts have took up stones to brain Thee,
And, missing this, most falsely did arraigne Thee,
Onely these stones in quiet entertain Thee,
And order.

And as of old the Law by heav'nly art
Was writ in stone; so Thou, which also art
The letter of the Word, find'st no fit heart
To hold Thee.

Yet do we still persist as we began,
And so should perish, but that nothing can,
Though it be cold, hard, foul, from loving man
Withhold Thee.

News Flash

Missionary Admits Being "Power-Hungry"

In a question-and-answer session early Wednesday morning,
missionary Dan F. admitted his hegemonic view of power usage in
Cameroon. "We've been a bit power-hungry these last few days,"
he is reported to have said. Meters show that his solar system
had been bringing in as much as 17.5 amperes since Monday, when
the panels were adjusted after the vernal equinox.

Despite the large amount of incoming power, the power consumption
of the household has apparently outstripped it recently, draining
the system's batteries little by little. This phenomenon is
thought to be related to the amount of technological hegemony and
computer usage in the household.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday was beautiful.

We weren't sure anyone would be at church. There were two
conferences scheduled for the same weekend: a youth rally in
Ekombe Bonji (which I couldn't attend because Dan and Lisa were
away at a Literacy Committee meeting through Saturday, and I was
in charge of the house-- and honestly, I don't think I was quite
ready for another youth rally yet), and a church Bible conference
in Small Ngwandi.

But there were still about twenty or thirty people there for Palm
Sunday. And the service was just incredibly encouraging.

Levi thanked God for all the people who weren't there, instead of
scolding the people who came to church for not being at the
conference.

He preached in the language, not in pidgin, and very engagingly
told the story of Palm Sunday, and asked for discussion and
questions at the end.

And they were interested, and the discussion was lively. Many of
the old men, who know the language very well but don't know
pidgin all that well, were valuable contributors instead of
having to just sit there. What, exactly, is a donkey? Is it
like a horse (the Mbonge name for horse, by the way, means "cow
of white man"-- which tells you how common horses are in the
rainforest)? Why did Jesus ride one? The people were giving him
honour and respect, and that was really good. But we don't like
knowing that these are the same people who are going to want him
killed on Good Friday. Why did he go away to Bethany instead of
staying in Jerusalem?

Please pray for the church in Bekondo during Holy Week. More
storytelling and discussion is planned for Good Friday and Easter
Sunday, and copies of the Easter story in Oroko have been
distributed for use in other churches. May the glory of the
Resurrection be more understandable to the Oroko this Easter than
ever, ever before!!

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills

I'm very familiar with the little round bubbles. With the
instructions that say to use only a number two pencil, and to
make no marks in the test booklet, and that you WILL NOT finish
the mathematics computation test. (I got within one problem of
finishing when I was in sixth grade... but I digress.)

However, I have never, ever seen the results of an Iowa Test.
Until this week. It always seemed a huge, mysterious secret.

Rachel did very well, and I'm proud of her. But it still seemed
a little risky to be looking at a paper that carried such an aura
of clandestine grown-ups-only-ness...

I guess I'm a grown-up now, if I'm qualified to be initiated into
the inner circles of Iowa Test results.

...and his ways past finding out

My best isn't good enough.

I often forget that, in a culture where I can be competent: where
my wholehearted efforts can bring acknowledgment, approval, or
even praise. Here, where my best efforts are often stupid,
laughable, and humiliating, even cause for rejection, it's hard
to forget. My best simply isn't good enough.

I was still smarting from the youth rally this weekend, when the
lectionary said I should start Exodus. All of a sudden, Moses
was taking words out of my mouth. "God, I'm not good enough.
You don't want me, honest you don't. Send somebody else." I
can't help but wonder if Moses was thinking of past failures and
humiliations. "Look how badly I mussed it up last time." Maybe
he wasn't, but then again, maybe he was.

" 'Who makes mouths?' the LORD asked him. 'Who makes people so
they can speak or not speak, hear or not hear, see or not see?
Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, and do as I have told you. I
will help you speak well, and I will tell you what to say.' "

My best will never be good enough, but who am I to think God
doesn't know that? ...or that my weakness is going to somehow
prevent him from accomplishing his purposes?

And even when Moses still resists-- even when God becomes angry
with him because of his unbelief-- God still sends him the help
that Moses thinks he needs.

And thus begins the defining event of Israel's entire history.

What grace!

The sun and the moon

A quick acknowledgment that I was HERE in Africa to experience
the 80% solar eclipse on March 29. Very cool (although the sun
was behind a cloud half the time... hazards of rainy season).
The most dramatic part was watching the sunlight fade without
changing quality. It was still there, still direct, still
intense, but there just wasn't as much of it. It was a little
bit bizarre.

Can anyone tell me why punching a hole in an index card and
letting the sun shine through it onto another one-- i.e.
attempting to watch the progress of the eclipse indirectly--
didn't work? I remember it working last time there was a solar
eclipse in CA. Is it because we're almost on the equator?

A child of the computer age, part II

During school one day, I assigned Rachel to read an excerpt of
'The Magician's Nephew' from a book of various excerpts.

Later that day...

"I think we should go back and read 'The Magician's Nephew'
again, Dad," Rachel commented. "I haven't heard it in a long
time. And I'm interested because I just read the demo of the
book today."

Rain, rain, don't go away

It is now officially rainy season. I think I can pinpoint the
exact rainstorm that started it: the one that woke us all up at
3am with a torrential downpour and violent explosions of thunder,
and then (this is the key) kept raining steadily until the next
morning.

Gone are the intense flash storms of transition season. The dust
of dry season is now soggy, slippery, sloppy mud. Rainy season
is upon us, with its cloud cover, long soaking rains, slow email
speeds, cool breezes, power shortages, 80% humidity, and cold
showers.

But also with its smorgasbord of fruit. We have a whole stalk of
bananas sitting on our floor, about to turn ripe all at the same
time. A green papaya is reposing on the table until it starts
turning yellow. The neighborhood kids come to the door with
oranges (which, by the way, are green even when ripe) and
avocados for us to buy nearly every day. And it's just starting
to be mango month... mmmmmm...

This is why I like rainy season. :-)

Posting in large amounts...

...may be hazardous to your internet connection. At least if
it's in an internet cafe in Kumba.

But I'm going to try it anyway. Our email has been down for 3
days, and it's going to be down for another three. So, while I'm
attempting to download firewall updates and virus software
updates, glance at a couple of blogs, and check my hotmail and
bubbs accounts, I'm also going to post several things that have
been waiting for several days.

If the internet connection survives my attempts, enjoy. :-)

Impressive

I discovered a new ego booster today.

Dan and I were searching for my (cleverly hidden) email address
book file, in order to back it up. When several efforts had
failed, Dan suggested that we make a slight change in the address
book, and then search for any files that had been modified on
today's date.

The results? As of 3:50pm, my computer tells me that I have (so
far) modified 265 files today. I now feel productive.

Oh, and we found the address book.

I Cor. 14:19

Today was a prime example of why I come home from youth meetings
frustrated.

I came in to find bits of the Great Commission and Acts 1:8
written on the chalkboard, in some version vaguely reminiscent of
King James-- but not quite-- and interspersed with the following:

"Chorus: The sing to my soul, my Savior God to thee, how great
you are, how great you are."

Then someone said, "That is not correct," and rubbed out "you
are" and wrote in "thou are."

Then someone said, "I know another verse to that," and wrote:

"O Lord my God, when I'm in handsome wonder
Consider all the world thy hands have made."

Then, after they had practiced singing the Great Commission and
following to the tune of the first half of the verse of "How
Great Thou Art," and were beginning to practice the above two
lines, a church leader popped in and said, "That is not correct.
The verse does not end there. And the chorus repeats itself.
But unfortunately I do not have the rest of the words."

Ok, sure, I did end up speaking up, and volunteering my own
knowledge, in every place I could appropriately do so. But it
was with rather a hopeless feeling, and all the time suspecting
that I was doing it more for the sake of the hymn I love than for
the benefit of the people who were there. Correcting the archaic
English may make it more correct, but not more understandable.

And I'm not sure what to do to help change this. As long as
learning songs is about "making a good showing" at a youth rally
or a Bible conference, it's not likely to change. Please pray
that someday, the Oroko youth will "sing with the spirit, and
sing with the understanding also."

"Bot e di fain mi na sei fo insaid choch meik A tok faif ting weh
dem min som ting dan fo tok ten tasen ting dem fo tok weh man no
fit hia."
-De fest leta weh Paul bin rait-am fo Corinthian pipul dem 14:19

Point of view

...do you suppose cats ever walk by our beds at night, on their
way to do all the prowly things on their to-do lists, and say,
"Goodness, human. You live a rough life. Sleep away the whole
night. I wish I could do that." ?

The Saga of the Stinky Fish

One Monday, which is a market day, ten good fish were purchased
by the women of church A. These women had agreed to prepare a
meal for the translation teams on Wednesday.

The women, being prudent, brought the good fish to the house with
the refrigerator, where it might reside until such time as it
could be cooked.

On Tuesday, by mistake, the women of church B prepared for the
translators, not one meal as arranged, but two.

Therefore, in the interest of practicing the virtue of
flexibility and eschewing the vice of waste, the second meal was
saved and reheated for Wednesday. The women of church A
graciously agreed to postpone the cooking of their meal for one
day.

On Wednesday evening, the good fish began to stink, through no
fault of the refrigerator.

On Thursday morning, which happened to be another market day, the
stinky fish were thrown into the freezer and designated "no
longer fit for human consumption." The women of church A were
given money to buy good fish once again. They cooked these good
fish in an excellent fashion, and after lunch the good fish were
no more.

The stinky fish caused its odour to permeate the entire freezer.

The first time the stinky fish was cooked and fed to the animals,
the animals devoured it quickly.

The second time the stinky fish was cooked and fed to the
animals, they devoured it quickly the first day and sniffed it
suspiciously the second day.

The third time the stinky fish was cooked and fed to the animals,
it caused its odour to permeate the entire house. The human
inhabitants of the house pronounced that it stank prodigiously.
The dogs eagerly devoured double portions while the cats turned
up their noses.

In the final debut of the stinky fish, its powerful odour mingled
in the air with the odours of blue paint and baked mud. The dogs
rejoiced that they were allowed to eat all of the stinky fish
immediately. The human inhabitants of the house could only
rejoice that the saga of the stinky fish had come to an end.

Reverse culture shock

When Dan brought the groceries home from Kumba last night, one of
the first things we did was fill up the sink with bleach water.
After all, fruits and vegetables need to be soaked for twenty
minutes before they're safe to eat.

This suddenly gave me pause. Is it really true that in the
States, I used to give my apple a cursory rinse under the tap and
then bite into it? How can that be healthy? And dishes. I
don't think bleach used to be a part of routine dishwashing...

I have this premonition that I am going to feel compelled to use
copious amounts of bleach, despite the apparent cleanliness of
the States, in order to feel safe and sanitary. How awry...

A child of the computer age...

Rachel proudly showed me her coloured-pencil drawing.

"Look at my chameleon. I only had one picture to copy it from.
And it wasn't even the same size! I had to maximise it!!"

A little help, please

Recently, I've been reading J. I. Packer's "Knowing God." It's
definitely chewy theological meat. I prefer to imbibe my
theology through narrative, poetry, and image... but it's
probably good for me to plow through some straight analysis once
in a while. --Perhaps Lent is a very good time. Anyway, though
I disagree with Packer on a few points, I have generally found
the book thought-provoking, helpful, and challenging.

What I read last night, however, completely floored me. I can't
figure out how an author as well-read as Packer seems to be can
make this statement (this is in a section discussing the
consequences of choosing to ignore God's severity and concentrate
only on his benevolence):

"It is no accident that when belief in the 'good God' [referring
to what Packer calls the 'celestial Santa Claus'] of liberalism
became widespread, about the turn of the century, the so-called
'problem of evil' (which was not regarded as a problem before)
suddenly leaped into prominence as the number-one concern of
Christian apologetics."

The problem of evil hasn't been "regarded as a problem" before
the twentieth century?? Can anyone help me understand what he
means by this? Job spent an entire book of the Bible (probably
one of the oldest) struggling with seeming injustice on the part
of God. Augustine wrote a ponderous tome on the subject after
the sack of Rome, asking (in part) what the purpose and the
origin of evil could possibly be. Boethius' "Consolations" is a
cry for help in understanding why bad things happen to God's
people. Calvin's "Institutes" wrestles with the question of
whether God is the author of evil.

I could continue right up to C. S. Lewis, but it has always
seemed to me that "the problem of evil" is one of the questions
we will never have a full answer to until we see God face to face
(cf. the end of Job)-- and thus, one of the questions that
Christians have always struggled with. If anyone has an insight
into why Packer might have said what he said, I welcome it.

Enculturated... just differently

The math book said, "A $1 bill weighs about 1 gram. How much
would a $5 bill weigh?"

Logically, but incorrectly, Rachel answered, "5 grams."

It's difficult to reason myself into counting points off for this
answer. After all, she hasn't handled United States currency
since she was four. Which is more than half the life of an
almost-nine-year-old. Moreover, in Cameroon, 1000cfa bills are
actually larger than 500cfa bills. Not twice as large, but
still, larger...

It's amazing, the amount of cultural knowledge required for Saxon
math.

Woo hoo!

My hair is finally long enough again that I can twist it up on
top of my head (and maybe, just maybe, it will stay there of its
own accord). This is a happy milestone. :-)

Mathematics

If you have:

One sack,

Fifty pounds of flour,

At least a hundred little stitches holding the bag closed (which
don't seem to want to pull out all at once like they should),

Three people working on the problem,

And approximately fifteen weevils crawling around on the rim of
the sack at any one time,

How many weevils are in the sack when you finally get it open?

Public Service Announcement

It looks like the email is fixed now. I'm still not sure what
the problem was, exactly-- something to do with forwarding,
probably on the Cameroon end.

Anyway (this is where the announcement part comes in), if you
sent me anything between Mar. 3 and Mar. 9, it may have been lost
and I'd greatly appreciate you sending it again. Sorry for the
inconvenience!

Radio Thoughts: Or, Back in the Village

It's very odd, how the prickly sounds coming out of a
medium-sized black plastic box can evoke strong emotions.

A sharp, punctuated buzz means connectedness, expectation,
anticipation, and happy thoughts.

A weak fuzzy static means disappointment, frustration, and
hope deferred.

If this email actually makes it to my blog, thank God with me for
the sharp, punctuated buzz...

Leaving Bamenda

Debi asked me, as we were packing the vehicles at the end of the
conference, to write down my email address. "Do you have
something to write on? Oh, wait, let me get my address book.
That's even better."

She returned a couple minutes later with her address book.
"So... do I put you under 'B,' or under 'H'?"

Forget packing to go back to the village. I am suddenly
confronted with the very odd sensation of packing up and moving
to a different position in the alphabet.

Other highlights of FES

~Watching Rachel perform a piano piece for the first time in
public!
~Watching her pull off T. S. Eliot's "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"
(her choice, not mine!) with flair and drama, and her own special
"mischievous cat look" at the end
~Skipping around the circle with Ahava and realising that
skipping with a little girl is ever so much more satisfying than
skipping by oneself
~Jumping around to happy music with preschoolers, pretending to
be birds, elephants, sharks, rabbits, fish...
~Helping with the older kids' music class, where they were
learning to play African rhythm instruments (teachers can sneak
some learning in there, too!)
~Throwing myself wholeheartedly into wedding planning via
internet (which resource was amazingly cooperative, considering
that last time we were in Bamenda, it worked for a total of maybe
4 hours)

but especially

~IMing almost every evening (!) with Jim, my family, and/or
several other friends in the States :-)

Linguistic epiphany

(This may be interesting only to those of you who enjoy analysing
sounds and the difference between them, and why we say what we
say. But I thought it was fun.) :-)

It's been nearly two years, but I've finally figured out the
major difference between a Cameroon English accent and an
American English accent. Sure, people here pronounce their r's
differently, and their vowels are purer. But I think the major
reason that the two dialects have trouble understanding each
other is actually related to rhythm.

In American English (and most natively-spoken English, I think),
the stressed syllables are placed approximately evenly. This
means that some of our syllables (think "and the" or "of the")
are reduced to the minimum sound possible, and also means that we
ventilate our speech with brief pauses. This causes the
"lilting" feel of English.

Many other languages, instead of spacing their stressed syllables
evenly, space all syllables evenly. To Americans, this tends to
sound very rapid (think what a stream of Spanish sounds like to a
non-Spanish-speaker), and also occasionally gives the impression
of staccato regularity.

Cameroon English, borrowing its pronunciation from African
languages, uses the second system and not the first. Every
syllable receives its proper modicum of time. (For example: in
Cameroon English, "evening" has three syllables, all of the same
length.) When Cameroonians hear normal American English spoken,
they actually call it "rapping" because it sounds to them like
we're just rushing through our words without saying them
properly. Meanwhile, American ears that aren't used to Cameroon
English find the unexpected stress on (formerly!) unstressed
syllables distracting, and have their own difficulty in
understanding.

I may not be bilingual yet, but I think I'm at least becoming
bidialectal. :-)

Superwoman isn't here

After dinner, here at our missionary homeschool conference, the
ladies (read: 'the moms' and Sharon) have a tradition of walking
around the compound together.

It is there, more than any other time, that you may learn the
reality of what it is like to be a woman on the missionfield-- if
you keep your ears open. House help and homeschooling.
Isolation and transition. Making Cameroonian friends and craving
ice cream. Illness and sending high schoolers to boarding
school. Language learning and being the "white man" (yes, women
are "white men" too). Fielding pleas for money and finding time
to exercise without an audience. Exhaustion and home assignment.

These are the women I want to be like. Scarred and hurting,
laughing and compassionate, strong and independent, frustrated
and wondering if they are really making a difference. And
willing to risk it anyway.

Awake yet?

Yesterday was Crazy Hair Day. (This is the sort of thing that
missionaries and their kids do when they get together in large
groups. All the silliness that isn't allowed you, when you are a
stranger in a strange land, comes out when you are among people
of your own culture again.)

I'm not always good at this sort of thing. But when my alarm
went off at 6:30am, jolting me unpleasantly out of dreamland, I
had an absolutely brilliant idea.

My mother always told me I had enough hair for three people. Now
I think I've proven it.

I always wondered what good a four-minute snooze button did.

And the preschoolers simply loved banging on my hair to make it
stop beeping.

Hearing normality

You know that you're beginning to grasp the edges of useful
language skills when you realise that the people around you are
saying, well, normal things.

To be sure, somewhere in my head I've always known that language
is used to communicate about normal, daily life. But when you
hear a fluent volley of sounds you don't understand, it feels
exotic, mysterious, strange. Surely there must be some great
secret contained in that flow of eloquent nonsense.

And then, one day, it occurs to you. They're saying really
normal stuff.

"It might rain-- you should take in the laundry."

"Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you something."

"Is Rachel finished with school yet?"

"If you eat any more of that, it will come out your ears."