Author Archives: Amy Jane

“Held”

Posted on by

I’m pretty sure this song is well known (for such an un-descriptive title I was interested to find it was the #1 in relevance at iTunes), but, for the sake of this “discussion,” here are the lyrics.

In itself the song makes very little sense. It’s been called a “tearjerker” by at least one reviewer, and, while it’s never made me cry, I can understand how it got the label.

Having just lost my grandmother, I am learning that all those movies that never affected me before might have lacked potency because I had no resonating event.  It is taking less and less to trigger a resonance now.

The lyrics begin as if they are going to tell a story, introducing a tragic event, and some thoughts about the situation. But rather than offer a resolution you hear the chorus:

This is what it means to be held
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

This is what? That question is not answered anywhere in the song. It is very dream-like and full of images, but no answers.

I’ve decided I like the song (it intrigued me before, since I only heard it on the radio, and kept wondering if I’d missed some key line, hearing no resolution). And I think it is the sorrowing people who are the “answer” to the This is.

I am exhibit A.

This is what it means …
How it feels… This is what it is to be loved
And to know…

My analyzer-side really likes that chorus. I’ve sat, quietly and alone (during nap-time) and listened to those words, feeling what I’m feeling and musing, So this is how it feels, hmm?.

…The promise was
When everything fell we’d be held.

It’s simple, nothing new or earth-shattering, but still, it resonates.

And that works for me right now.

What’s so bad about a crutch?

Posted on by

More from Kreeft’s The Angel and the Ants.

…But it is a stronger answer to say that faith is not a hypothesis at all. It is more like a crutch. People used to accuse religion of being a crutch. The answer is: Yes. That’s exactly what it is. What’s more necessary for a cripple than a crutch? And if you don’t think you are a cripple, you must have been on a long vacation from the real world for the past few decades.

From the chapter Some Common Christian Sense about Suffering

Let’s see, now what do I do.

Posted on by

Last night was 23-days since my Grandmother died. Time keeps crunching along. I finally picked up a novel again. Inkheart. (I first read it a few months ago.)  And it felt like chicken soup.

Should that be embarrassing?

It was familiar, it whet my appetite and satisfied it too. A completely different “flavor” than the first time I read it. I wasn’t too impressed with the beginning chapters before, but they had the context of the whole story this time, and I was able to appreciate the author’s efforts to give them more meaning.

Tried a little too hard, maybe, but it was okay this time.

For the first time in more than 3 weeks I thought I might return to my own work.
Three weeks is a long time to wonder what you’ll do next.

Had to Copy this over here

Posted on by

When I laugh as hard as I did, I can’t not-share.

This is from Mental multivitamin, and she has all the correct credits there.

Dorothy Parker was born in New Jersey. Challenged to use the word horticulture in a sentence, Parker, a literary figure known for her “instant wit and cruel humour,” once quipped:

You can drag a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

I was in fits. Of course, it might not have been quite that funny if I’d read it before I should have been in bed. But I laughed again this morning, so it’s still pretty good.

Better than I thought

Posted on by

I added it up today, and I guess I do read an hour (or more) to my kids most days. One more thing from my wish-list. Pretty cool.

And (small hallelujah) Jay’s agreed I can start looking for a dog in the spring. Specifically on my birthday. That will give us more time for deciding just what we’re looking for, and praying to find just the right one. And for Elisha to get bigger.

And if I can find an EOW (every-other-week) babysitter for Monday mornings I’ll be able to take a piano class at the U. (One woman has already agreed to do EOW, so I just have to find an alternate.) I figure the pressure of weekly lessons will be good for encouraging more consistent progress; I’ve been treading water.

I was debating between this and voice lessons for a while there, then found I have to be somewhat proficient in piano as a prereq. for voice (I have to be able to teach and drill myself on my own). So that solved that dilemma in a hurry.

Baby Steps

Posted on by

When you (or, at least I) take a good hard look at yourself and your “spiritual life” (for lack of a better term) you will inevitably find somewhere you fall short.

The catch-22 of course is that if you don’t (have this disappointing epiphany), there’s another type of trouble brewing, and I hope you don’t find out too painfully.

I won’t bother making a list of my shortcomings here (NOYB, and having more people know them won’t help me anyway), but I do want to set up an “Ebenezer” for what I am beginning as a result.

Jay and I have started the Navigator’s Topical Memory System. It’s given me more focus for what I teach the girls, and it gives Jay and me some structure (a plan) for our own memorizing.

It was a “random” find during an alone outing at the Christian book store. Once I saw it (a little package with the plan and a fat book of perforated cards) the appropriateness of the project really grew on me.

Jay and I have been talking about our respective shortcomings and what we should do about them (only our own– we’re not picking at each other). We knew what we aught to do, of course; the trouble, as it always is, was doing it.

Or, rather, doing it ALL. It’s very easy to say: I need to pray more, read the bible more, wait quietly (HA!) on God more, etc. The difficulty is the same as that of trying to start every self-improvement project on January first:

This year I will eat five fruits and veggies daily, make one new dish a week, exercise aerobically for 45-min at least 3 days a week, pick up and put away everything I’m using before I move on to the next project, wash the evening’s dishes before sitting down to relax after dinner, read to the children at least an hour a day, implement Flylady/SHE/organizing strategy of choice. Oh, and brush the dog/cat/squirrel at least once a week to cut back on the amount of hair culled in my daily vacuuming sessions.

Believe me, if I could do all that, I would be sooo happy…

But I can’t, so I work on having dinner ready when Jay get’s home, and making my house a no-yell zone.

Those two things go a long way toward making home a peaceful place.

And starting with scripture memory is a natural and appropriate step toward more consistent and scriptural living. One problem with growing up knowing “everything” you’re supposed to be doing, but not necessarily how to do it all, is that you know how far you have to go, rather than celebrating how far you’ve come.

I have cleared my kitchen counter for nearly a week now. I feel so together.

I have reminded myself that the old has gone the new has come, more times now than I remember. It is an encouraging thought promise.

So now what am I?

Posted on by

“When a child loses his parent, they [sic] are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they [sic] are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them.”

–President Ronald Regan

 

Words are powerful. Having a word describe where you are gives you something of a handle. A connection to your culture (if you will) acknowledging you exist by identifying you. Allowing you to identify yourself and identify with others of the same name. The same category.

When there is not a word, when “there are no words,” someone like me is left fumbling in the darkness. Looking for a foothold, trying to figure out where I (should) stand.

I have had three grandparents die now. (Technically that leaves one parent an orphan now; or is that word only used for children? I’ve always wondered.) Each time my emotion/response and sense of loss was very different. I’ve sometimes wished for an identifying word I could use for myself. I wish for a way to say, “This one was particularly devastating/impacting/significant.”

I haven’t found it yet.

“Good” is the enemy of “Best”

Posted on by

I’ve almost made up my mind not to try out for this season’s FLOT production. I’ve been praying about whether it is appropriate to do this (Sound of Music. Something I know, even!), and keep flopping back and forth.

And then I found this quote; kind-of felt confirmed my reluctance: “We [must] say ‘no’ not only to those things which are wrong and sinful, but to things that are pleasant, profitable, and good which would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work.”

It is footnoted, but then the footnote says “Source Unknown,” which I found amusing.

My “grand duties and chief work” right now do not (I believe) include singing for the community at large. I have a much smaller selected audience.

…And maybe if I don’t go, some other young woman will have an opportunity that will mean more to her than it will for me… I like that idea. I’ll pray for her.

Boredom

Posted on by

I’ve started reading Peter Kreeft’s The Angels and the Ants again (didn’t finish it the first time). I’m not Catholic (Kreeft is), but I like the way this guy thinks; this is the most useful book about combining sanctity with daily living that I have ever found. One chapter is entitled, How to Become a Saint While Changing Diapers. I’ll probably share some excerpts from that one later.
I started typing this excerpt to respond to another blog, and decided to include it here (in a more complete/expanded form), since I was writing it up already.

~~~

From the chapter entitled:

Boredom.

Every serious social problem that is tearing our society, our families, and our lives apart today– drugs, promiscuity, violence, infidelity, divorce– can be explained by this motive…

Here is an amazing fact: “The word boredom did not enter the language until the eighteenth century. No one knows its etymology,” according to the acclaimed novelist Walker Percy in Lost in the Cosmos.

Almost the same thing can be said of atheism: it hardly existed at all before the eighteenth century.

The relation between the two is evident: Only God and the attributes of God– Love, wisdom, beauty, joy holiness– are infinite and inexhaustible; therefore, without God everything is eventually boring.

Weren’t people bored before the eighteenth century? They got tired of cutting wood for ten hours, but they didn’t get tired of everything. That’s what boredom means.

The only possible explanation for this modern madness is this: It is not the world that is boring, but the self. Since it simply isn’t true that everything real, everything in objective reality, is boring, therefore the source of boredom must be within. The bored self projecting it’s own inner emptiness onto reality…. It reduces the big world to a small world by projecting its own littleness onto its world…

Heaven is not boring. In fact, only heaven (and heaven’s colonies on earth) is not boring…

The alternative to boredom, the cure for boredom and the cure for all the ills of the modern world that are rooted in boredom– is sanctity.

Sanctity– a relationship with God– is essentially letting God be present, letting heaven rule its colonies, establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth, in human hearts and human lives. Sanctity is essentially “the practice of the presence of God,” as Br. Lawrence put it in the title of his little classic.

Saints “do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Sanctity is not only willing to do God’s will, it is also thinking God’s thoughts. We are to love God with our whole mind as well as our whole heart (Mt 22:37). Sanctity means seeing everything has a purpose– in fact, that everything has the same purpose, that “all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28); and that that purpose is the most joy-filled, glory-weighted purpose any heart has ever imagined: receiving and giving back infinite, absolute, unconditional divine love forever.

~end of excerpt~

This is definitely a challenge to examine ourselves before we complain of our environment.