Can Do, Can't Do

Arden built with Wedgits this morning while the older kids worked on their math lessons. His self-imposed goal was to complete each of the cards with photos of increasingly difficult structures. Of course, about two thirds of the way through a "meteor shower" struck and after that is was less about accomplishment than about destruction. That's okay. I don't expect him to have an attention span beyond that of any other six year old.

When a new card was turned over, while he contemplated his first action, he would whisper to himself, "Okay, I can do this. I can do this." Then I tested him. I would gently tease that the next card might be too hard. Brimming with confidence every time: "I can do it." I would have hedged. Maybe. Probably. This amazing, confident, self-assurance isn't something he learned from his mother.

I also have an amazingly, confident, ready-take-on-the-world friend. I'll call her Amy. Right down to her email address, her personality is 100 percent consistent. "Amycando." I laughed out loud when she sent the first email. If I were to do something similar mine would read,

"Briacantdo@mynewemailaddress.com"

I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself. I'm tempted to think thoughts about God creating a useless person, and choosing a useless Christian. But listening to Arden this morning I thought maybe God just made us different. Different the way an optimist and pessimist are different. Or a spender and a saver. Or someone who is goal-oriented and someone who is people oriented. Left-brain, right-brain. You know, it's who we are and God uses all types. What if some of us are can-do people and some of us are can't-do people? Not that we're actually incapable, just when faced with a new problem or challenging situation, we wilt. Anyone else like that out there?

And think how differently these two opposite people would read Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Slacker?

My brother tells me I've been slacking lately on this blog. I know. I'll whine...it's hard for me. I almost always have something to say, that's not a problem. No, the problem is every post takes a long time. If you are an English teacher, a grammarian, or even literate, you will find what I write hard to believe. But this is true, entirely true.

I sit down to type, and begin right away. When you don't know how to start just start, right? I finish a paragraph, then think it could be said better. I begin to edit. Type, edit. Type, edit. Strive for clarity. Be concise, how many words can I eliminate? Rewrite. Read the entire post. Edit. Hit "preview," begin to tally on my fingers how many changes I should make. When I hit five (the limit of my memory) I come back to the post and...edit. Preview, edit. Read, read, edit. When I think I've finished I let Bryan read my post, but I read over his shoulder. I drive him crazy.

By the time I am done, I am in a frenzy. You see, it is hard for me. One post takes a long time. My body twitches. My finger hovers over the backspace key. From beside me Bryan blurts out,

"Just stop."

I have a lot of things to do with my life. Continuous proof-reading isn't one of them. I have made a choice to save time, to be a slacker, to aim for three posts a week. Imagine: what if I didn't have spell check?

Pilgrim's Progress at Auction

     John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was first published in 1678.  Although he was largely uneducated he wrote over 60 books in his lifetime and preached to crowds, earning himself about 12 years in a dark and dank prison cell.  Bunyan was a simple man, but wholly captivated by the Word of God.  Even John Owen, an Oxford dean and very learned indeed, said to Charles II,  "May it please your Majesty, if I could possess the tinker's abilities to grip men's hearts, I would gladly give in exchange all my learning."  Bunyan's books did grip people's hearts, so much so that Pilgrim's Progress went through eleven editions in Bunyan's own lifetime, and countless since.  People love to say it is second only to the Bible, though after searching online (for quite a while) I'm not sure how any sort of number could be finally calculated.  The first editions were cheaply printed and bound in brown sheep leather.  They were loved, not by the wealthy and the nobility, but by the common man.  They were read and reread and passed on to children as a treasure.  Those early editions of Pilgrim's Progress were worn and tattered and today there are only four known copies of editions published during Bunyan's lifetime.
     Only four known copies, you would think they would fetch quite a price at auction.  No doubt it's a figure entirely out of reach for someone like me, with an ultra-budget friendly version of the book on my own shelves.  I can't find a dollar figure, but I found an article by an antiquarian bookseller in the UK, who states one sold in 2004 for less than a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (or Sorcerer's Stone).  The previous auction record for Potter was $10,750.  The Leaky Cauldron (a Harry Potter site) wrote in 2009 that a first edition was expected to sell for $15,000-18,000 and ehow says one sold for $40,000.  The recession doesn't hit some of us quite as hard as others, does it?  Those are my numbers, numbers as a small indicator that the world today doesn't love a tinker's simple tale quite as well as it loves...well, Harry Potter.  But, you already knew that, didn't you?
     An aside: the world's "most expensive book" as of December 7, 2010 is a first edition of John James Audubon's Bird's of America predicted to sell for 9.5 million dollars (found this here -scroll down).  While I do love Audubon's birds and animals, lifelike and in motion, I'd still choose Pilgrim's Progress first.

A Marvel

     Is this really worth spending your life on?  That's what I was asking myself as the show began, the show Bryan took me to see over at the college this weekend.  We would have loved to have taken the kids, but doing almost anything with all six of us is prohibitive.  It was The Masked Marvel.  It was Michael Cooper, a one man show, behind a wide variety of handmade masks.  Masks made of brown paper grocery bags and Elmer's glue and a "little" paint.  Michael Cooper made it sound so simple.  In a hurting, hungry world, filled with Hollywood movies and 24 hour news is there a place for these simple pleasures?  Is there a place for a $10 ticket to see one man's art?  The very idea that I would ask myself that question is no doubt anathema to some of you.  You can see, I'm not an artist nor a serious patron.  Remember, I'm so very ordinary.  But I reserved my judgment and in the end left delighted.
     The first aspect of the show that delighted me is how very, very unexpected it was.  As I was washing up lunch dishes before the marvel, Bryan asked if I was excited.  "Well, I don't know.  I don't know what to expect."  Which really means I didn't know if I would like it, I didn't know what a masked man might do up on stage for an hour or two.  I am the girl that finds a dish she likes at a restaurant and orders it the next 100 times I go there.  It's boring, but I always know what I'm getting.  (I don't cook like that though!)  Even when the marvel began, you couldn't predict what would come next, a series a vignettes with music, humor and beauty all mixed together.  Even movies get boring, plots are so predictable you almost know what's coming next.  I've read they've done this to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, added seven swords and a green mist, to give it a plot and move the story on the big screen.  Read the book!  We've made it required reading for all members of the family before we go see the movie.  The beauty of Narnia isn't just in the story lines, or even Lewis' theology, it's the whole package tied with a ribbon of words and finished with a bow.  The Masked Marvel was unexpected, new, an expression of the artist himself. 
     The other genuine delight of the show was the joy.  I'll grant that "joy" may not be the best word for it, it's not a lasting joy based on hope and eternity.  It's a joy based on a spirit of friendship, kindness, humor and love of simple things.  Is it worth giving your life to something that makes someone smile?  That makes a dad come home and give himself over to playful silliness and non-sense with a four year old?  That makes the whole family goof around in the living room, competing to see who can move their body without moving their head? 
     The Marvel said, "Buying things is good, but making them is ten thousand times better."  There are many good things in the wide world, but there are some that are better.  And it's not always what we expect.
    

Musical Saw

     This afternoon I was looking for a quote on billboards by Hendrik Van Loon in the prologue of his book The Arts, published in 1937.  I ended up reading the entire prologue, taken in by his wit and style.  I could have given you any one of a dozen humorous or relevant quotes from the material I read, and have vowed (for the second time) to read the entire book.  But I laughed out loud at the idea of the musical saw, I knew the truth of it, and have been mulling it over all evening.  After speaking of good and bad art he writes,

     "Enters the word 'genius,' which has lost a great deal of its old meaning and which today in the hands of our critics, may describe anything from a Mozart sonata played recognizably on a musical saw to the products of a not overbright young woman of sixteen who has managed to fill several hundred pages of innocent wood pulp with far from innocent sentiments.

     I shall therefore stick to the definition of that word which I remember from my childhood days when we could count all our geniuses on the fingers of one hand.  It read as follows:

     Genius is perfection of technique, plus something else."

      Gone are the days when geniuses could be numbered.  Today we have an infinite number of them, "beyond" as Arden would say.  Then we qualify and make allowances until all of us are geniuses or could be if we only applied ourselves.
     In today's climate you can get in trouble quoting The Incredibles, "If everybody's special, then nobody's special."  (Or something like that.)  Someone is sure to take offense; haven't we been told everybody's special?  Who would have the audacity to suggest someone is not?
     I'll begin with myself.  I am not special.  Sure, Bryan loves me and I'm irreplaceable in the lives of my children.  But put me in a crowd, or on the stage of human history, and I'm nothing special at all.  I'm no genius either.  "Perfection of technique."  The very idea is foreign to my life, and I don't bring anything "else" to the table.  I am ordinary.  Super ordinary.
     You know what, that's okay.  I don't need to be a genius, famous, powerful, or important.  I don't need to shine at all. 

  "'But let him who boasts boast of this, that He understands and knows Me,  that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth for I delight in these things,' declares the LORD." (Jeremiah 9:24)

Election Reflection

     I realize it might be nice to find a place free from election news today, but it what's I'm thinking about today too.  I'm opting for a little non-partisan encouragement.  First, Agatha Christie:
     "Politicians don't have time to look at the world they're living in.  They see the country they're living in and they see it as one vast electoral platform.  That's quite enough to put on their plates for the time being." 
      Or, at the risk of sounding jaded, no matter the results of the election today, "People never mind spending a great deal of money.  It impresses them.  It's when you want to do things nice and economically, they won't play."  It's not all death and mayhem in Agatha Christie's mysteries.
     Are you proud of your candidates, how much money they've raised and spent?  Or do you feel all the money spent is billions of wasted dollars and your discouraged?  Freakonomics offers a good perspective.  (Am I allowed to love this book the way I do?  I don't always agree.  The book makes me ask questions and, even better, it makes me laugh.)  According to Levitt and Dubner, Americans spend no more per year on democratic elections than on chewing gum.   Which do you love more, democracy or gum?
     And God?  Last night at Bible Study we were discussing Isaiah 10 and Assyria's pride in their accomplishment.  God says, "Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it?  Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it?"  Let's put our pride in American exceptionalism to rest and remember God is the Master Craftsman using men and governments as tools is His own hands,  according to His own wise counsel.
     Psalm 2 tells us God sits in the heavens and laughs as rulers take counsel together against Him.  He says, "I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain."  The reign of Jesus Christ is the unchangeable plan of God, and He directs us to show discernment and reverence.  And He closes the Psalm, in verse 12, "How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!"
     I bore that in mind as I cast my ballot.  And, yes, I did read far enough in Freakonomics to know that my vote doesn't matter.