“ But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the things you want most. Our watches, for instance. We wanted them frightfully; but when I had mine a week or two, after the mainspring got broken and was repaired at Bennett’s in the village, I hardly cared to look at the works at all, and it did not make me feel happy in my heart any more, though, of course, I should have been very unhappy if it had been taken away from me. And the same with new clothes and nice dinners and having enough of everything. You soon get used to it all, and it does not make you extra happy, although, if you had it all taken away, you would be very dejected. (That is a good word, and one I have never used before.) You get used to everything, as I said, and then you want something more. Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; but Albert’s uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs Leslie said some people called it ‘divine discontent’. Oswald asked them all what they thought one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what we wanted was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke. This was in the Easter holidays.
— E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods, 3-4.
“ No human being would willingly wear pants that zipped off at the knee—no normal human being—unless they had rocket-thrusters in place of their detachable feet.
— M. T. Anderson, Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware, 377.
So lately I’ve been missing my old blogger blog…
I’ll probably be posting the occasional (make that VERY occasional) update both places for a while, so feel free to follow the blog of your choice!
“ But here’s the thing. Horace didn’t say that. “Carpe diem” doesn’t mean seize the day—it means something gentler and more sensible. “Carpe diem” means pluck the day. Carpe, pluck. Seize the day would be “cape diem,” if my school Latin serves. No R. Very different piece of advice. What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day’s stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things—so that the day’s stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to a thinness, and a tightness, and then snaps softly away at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap, and the flower, or the fruit, is released in your hand. Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it, it what Horace meant—pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day. Don’t freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it. That’s not the kind of man that Horace was.
— Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist, 127.
“ I looked at the USB cables dangling there, and I laughed pityingly at them, and I thought, Whoever designed the connector of the USB cable was a man who despised the human race, because you can’t tell which way to turn it and you waste minutes of your tiny day, crouched, grunting, trying the half-blocked connector one way and the next.
— Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist, 121.
“ I know a boy (we’ll call him Horbert, though that isn’t his name, thank goodness), and for years he lived in a house where the bathtub had a magical drainpipe that led straight to the lost city of Atlantis! But Horbert was always in such a hurry to get where he was going that he never lingered in the bath. Whenever he got really filthy, and his mother nagged him to wash, he just jumped in and briefly splashed at himself. Then he’d spring right from the tub, and out the door he’d fly, afraid that his older brother Noah was beating his high score on Super-Space-Zombie-4000, his very favorite video game. Though mermaids sang in the plumbing, he never heard their call.
— Laurel Snyder, Any Which Wall, 1-2.
Three weeks ago we retreated with the youth group to Cape Cod Sea Camps. The inimitable Joey Pensak (RUF minister from UCONN) was our retreat speaker, and his theme for the weekend was “Gospel Foundations”. So good for these kids to be reminded (or possibly first-time-minded) of the basic truths of the Gospel - that God is personal and holy, and that this personal holy God died for us. And so good for ME to be reminded.
I’ve been thinking a lot about success and failure lately. I’m so afraid of failing. Afraid of not succeeding at my job - not being promoted, not being recognized for good work. Afraid that I won’t have meaningful friendships. Afraid that I’ll never grow up. Afraid that I’ll never grow up spiritually. And I thought fear of failure would go away when I finally finished with my exams!
Here are some of the things that Joey said that stuck with me:
You are fully known by God. He knows you better than you know yourself.
You think the Gospel - Christianity - is something you’ve committed to and you haven’t been consistent. The Gospel isn’t a promise you make to God; it’s a promise He makes to you.
Jesus loves failures - annoying, embarrassing people.
“I still feel the old clinging dirt of a work’s righteousness” - Martin Luther. [If LUTHER struggled his whole life to understand the Gospel, is it any surprise that we need to be constantly reminded?!]
The Bible is a story of God’s initiative toward a people that are faithless.
How do you try to justify your existence? Why do you matter?
We are trying to order our world: “If I had just done such-and-such…”
Restlessness is the eternal murmur of self reproach.
When you become a Christian you say, “God, I’m done making a name for myself. Would YOU make a name for me.”
Amen!
“ You think the Gospel - Christianity - is something you’ve committed to, and you haven’t been consistent. The Gospel isn’t a promise you make to God; it’s a promise He makes to you.
— Joey Pensak (from my retreat notes)
