April 2006 Archives

Tell me - is it possible for someone to be addicted to her bedroom? I mean it in the purest, most literal sense. I can't stop thinking about my light blue quilt cover and sham, shiny yellow desk, soft rectangular lamp (all from Ikea) and cheery file organizer (from Target). I think about them all day. I want to spend all my time with them. Is this the weak-minded materialist or the beauty-lover showing its face? Sigh. Probably a mixture of both.

In other good news, Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter are once again living up to their reputation as the oil in the Cardinals' well-oiled machine. I think I'm the only one besides my sisters who cares, but no matter. It's not every year you get to watch the MVP and Cy Young winners play together, guns blazing, blowing us all away.

Listening to Mos Def, sitting at my yellow desk, pondering a blue sleep....

Oh oh, P.S. I've decided to write a hymn, and might post it once Hope butchers it up a bit.

"We cannot have it both ways: our twentieth-century metropolitan economy combined with nineteenth century, isolated town or little-city life....People gathered in concentrations of big-city size and density can be felt to be an automatic - if necessary-evil. This is a common assumption: that human beings are charming in small numbers and noxious in large numbers. Given this point of view, it follows that concentrations of people should be physically minimized in every way: by thinning down the numbers themselves insofar as this is possible, and beyond that by aiming at illusions of suburban lawns and small-town placidity. It follows that the exuberant variety inherent in great numbers of people, tightly concentrated, should be played down, hidden, hammered into a semblance of the thinner, more tractable variety or the outright homogeneity often represented in thinner populations. It follows that these confusing creatures - so many people gathered together - should be sorted out and stashed away as decently and quietly as possible, like chickens on a modern egg-factory farm.
"On the other hand, people gathered in concentrations of city size and density can be considered a positive good, in the faith that they are desirable because they are the source of immense vitality, and because they do represent, in small geographic compass, a great and exuberant richness of differences and possibilities, many of these differences unique and unpredictable and all the more valuable because they are. Given this point of view, it follows that the presence of great numbers of people gathered together in cities should not only be frankly accepted as a physical fact. It follows that they should also be enjoyed as an asset and their presence celebrated: by raising their concentrations where it is needful for flourishing city life, and beyond that by aiming for a viably lively public street life and for accomodating and encouraging, economically and visually, as much variety as possible."
Jane Jacobs
The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Make that, rather, rising before the morning sun. I was dreaming about Muslims being arrested and dying, when Hope bursts through my door at 4 am to announce, "Laura, did you know that..." (at which point I expected only bad news in my rudely awakened state) "Christ is risen!" Ah, good news. Stupid Laura, you knew she was going to do that! JB very kindly phoned us at 4:30 to make sure Hope and Keri and our friend Caroline and I were out the door. Hope was still brushing her teeth with her power toothbrush. Still, we were a good ten minutes early - arrived before everyone else except Basil the exuberant Asian director. Our choir consisted of whites and Asians, and despite extremely minimal amounts of practice, and an even smaller amount of soul, we pulled off a respectable sound. Most of all, we had fun, the early hour making everything more hilarious. Kirk Franklin ain't got nothin' on us...well, maybe he does, and so does Lauryn Hill, but we were still 'bout it 'bout it. Afterwards, an extravangant free breakfast inspired much excitement in the three of us and Tami, as we literally broke a two day fast. Keri and I have never cooed and danced over dry mini-biscuits so much.

One thing fasting taught me, though I admit it was only a short while: isn't it amazing that it can cost us so much to survive temporarily, but the hope of eternal life is given to us freely?

And another enlightenment: I have never wanted something so much that I couldn't have for two days. Today, when I could finally have it, and I was overjoyed, it struck me - how much more amazed should I be that I can always possess the eternal food and the living water, and it is the ONLY thing that will ultimately satisfy me, and I will never be refused it?

During the sermon at the later Easter service, tears formed when I heard, "The power that enabled Christ's resurrection is the same power that is in you." What kind of radical, unrecognized reality is this? At the end of the later Easter service, we were about to celebrate the Lord's supper, and I turned to Hope and wondered, "Oooo, I wonder who gets to distribute communion on Easter?" (Every week the pastor fences the table and offers the words of institution, then hands the elements off to two predestined couples, who then hold them for all the partakers. We take this job very seriously, since if you happen to be selected with someone of the opposite sex, you will very likely marry that person. Either marriage, or a broken heart. It's a crucial step, friends.) As soon as pastor Rick gave the elements to two men on the other side of the sanctuary, he bolted over to Hope and me in the first row and thrust the elements into our hands. Surprised, we took our cue and stood at the front. The church was more than full. I repeated the words "the blood of Christ" about a thousand times, until my mouth became the Sahara. We almost ran out of bread because there was only one loaf. To quote Linnea, "There's not enough of the body of Christ for the body of Christ!" Oh no! But we made it out all right. As soon as I was about to run out of wine, I would turn and suddenly a hand would appear, full of reinforcements. We sang "Morning Sun" at the end, and I was happy.

For lunch we ate with some people from church and discussed George Herbert's "Easter-wings" poem and various paintings of the crucifixion. The Herbert poem is honest, succinct, restrained. We laughed and ate "redeemed" deviled eggs and angel food cake with fresh strawberries.

We capped our Easter afternoon off with a raw egg toss on our street. Hope lost and got all messy. Bwahaha. Actually, Keri and I messed ourselves up too. Don't worry, John, your car was unharmed during the festivities.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind us of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

T.S. Eliot

The whole fiasco over Barry Bonds and his imminent record achievement has me thinking:

In the past when people told me that a game was "just a game," I believed it at the time because I knew that another point in the win column wasn't ultimately that important (here my memories speak of my history with basketball, but my thoughts are certainly not that exclusive). Such mantras, in addition to little press write-up phrases like "God doesn't care who wins a basketball game" – chew on that bit of theology for a while – took the pressure off as much as they could.

But in my heart, I knew then, as I know now, that there was no way the game was "just a game." It had to mean more.