Thinking Cosmically

When I was in high school, one of my favorite series of books was Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a trilogy of four books). It has been at least ten years--maybe fifteen--since I read one of his works. No matter how long the span, however, Adams' words stick in the recesses of my consciousness like mental LDL. So I knew after seeing "DON'T PANIC" on this window in the DC airport that I was in for a treat of reminiscence:

[For those with less-than-optimal resolution, it reads, "It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words "DON'T PANIC" in large, friendly letters on the cover."]

I am thrilled that someone in the Dulles administration is well-read enough to see the value in printing a Hitchhiker quote for travellers to enjoy. It's especially fitting for someone returning from a glorious Colorado vacation to the duties of pastoral ministry. We need more DON'T PANICs in large friendly letters in our lives.

~ emrys

Cutting for Stone

Physicians who are worth their salt recognize that the practice of medicine is an art rather than a science. The complexity of the human person overflows categories defined by anatomy and physiology; to treat a patient is to treat body, mind, and soul. Neglecting one results in misdiagnosis of the other two.

Authors worth their salt recognize that the individual is a microcosm of the world, and the world reflects the struggle of the individual. To tell the struggles of a single person is to tug on the vast web of relationships that make up families, cultures, and societies. We can tell when a story does not tell the truth about a person, because it does not ring bells across the tangled skein of the cosmos.

Abraham Verghese's 2009 bestselling book, Cutting for Stone, reveals its writer to be a physician and author worth his salt. The premise of the novel--conjoined twins whose struggles of discovery span from Ethiopia to the Bronx--might be enough to attract any avid reader. But the real wonders of Verghese's work lie below the surface of nation and history. Verghese describes human relationships with the skill of a practiced surgeon: far from repeating rote anatomy, he handles human complexity as a veteran familiar with both disease and healing. He lays open before us the conjoined twins of physical pain and heartbreak, of sutures and reconciliation. Within the matrix of brotherhood and family, Verghese deposits wonderful descriptions of the surgeon's art. Though brutally clinical at times, the florid poetry of these descriptions will entrance even the most medically-averse reader.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Cutting for Stone, to me who is on the cusp of a journey to East Africa, is the interweaving of Ethiopian culture and history with the tale of Marion Stone's family. Verghese brings out such fascinating detail about life in twentieth-century Addis Ababa, then sets it alongside a picture of an immigrant physician's life in New York City. This comparative taste of world cultures only sharpens my desire to taste injera for myself in the heady richness of Ethiopia's capital city.

Whether you are an aficionado of medicine, a connoisseur of foreign culture, or a gourmet of the complexities of the flesh, you will be rewarded for picking up Cutting for Stone. I do warn you, however, you may not be able to put it down.

~ emrys

Memorial

I took Gwendolyn today to the graveyard which is under the care of our congregation. We walked among the tomb stones and took note of all the flags--US, firefighters, and one New York State flag for a member of the State Police. I remembered with her the few that I have buried in my six and a half years here pointing to names on glossy head stones. I remembered for her that her Grandpa George is buried in a cemetery in Pennsylvania, and that she won't get to see him in person until we get to glory. In her sensitive four-year-old way, she told me that she "missed him very much," even though she never met him. We remembered in prayer all those who have lost to war, and the Prince of Peace who we hope will arrive soon to put an end to our self-inflicted suffering.

In spite of my own ambiguity toward nationalism and national pride, I want my daughter to remember, among so many other things, those who have departed this world in theaters more strange and dangerous than most Americans will encounter. So today we remembered.

In Memoriam:

George Tyler, MD

1939-2005

Vietnam 1970-1971

Army, 1st Cavalry Division

and

all The Boys he could not save

who lost their lives

out in the boonies

far from home

~ emrys

Spontaneous Creativity

Gather a bunch of high school students together in your home, and fascinating things will happen.

Invite anyone over the age of ten to play with wooden blocks, and they will take offense. Blocks are for little kids, their faces will tell you.

Invite kids over the age of ten to hang out in the vicinity of an open container of blocks, and they will inevitably begin to build things. As long as they have not been asked to do so.

Last month we had some high schoolers over for brunch during their spring break. Here's one of the many constructions that grew out of our living room floor:

Note the four-year-old spectator on the left, dressed in pink fleece. She wasted no time including herself in the engineering work.

Let's hear it for creativity and the most basic of toys.

~ emrys

Anti Monkey Butt

During my chaplaincy internship I was paired with another woman from my seminary. The work of our internship included in-depth examination of how the stresses of chaplaincy revealed our strengths and weaknesses as pastors. These revelations came to us in many and varied ways, but usually within interactions with other people.

At one particularly stressful point in our work together, she and I gave each other nicknames which allowed us not-so-passively to express our consternation with the circumstances. The nicknames stuck long after our internship ended. Since that week, I have called her Freak Show. And she has called me Monkey Butt.

Imagine my glee when, a few months ago, I came across this product in the hardware store:

Here's to you, Freak Show!

~ emrys

Creative Learning

 We purchase an annual membership to a national association of children's museums and science museums. Ever since we encountered the Discovery Center in Binghamton with a toddling Gwendolyn, we have discovered great joy in spending quality time in these paragons of civic effort. During this week's vacation in Durango, Colorado (our home away from home), we found that our membership pass gets us into the newly established Durango Discovery Museum.

Discovery Centers, Science Centers, and Discovery Museums have the twin goals of hands-on education and fun for kids of all ages. I do mean all ages; here is Jill climbing up a stylized tree house, finding her inner contortionist:

 As part of a promo weekend, the Discovery Museum had a set of Imagination Playground blocks--imagine Kinex magnified and fashioned from blue foam--of which Gwendolyn availed herself for about an hour.

 She systematically collected blocks from the scatter created by other kids' work; I did, on occasion, need to remind her that cannibalizing blocks from other children's projects-in-process was not allowed. She was quite determined to include every possible block in her architectural wonder. She required little help except to learn how twisting a foam noodle helps to thread it into another block.

 I took great joy in watching her creative vision play out on the sunlit patio. I also took great sobriety in watching the young children interact and noting that without parental intervention our offspring would have played out a version of Lord of the Flies. There was lots of enforced sharing and rebukes for stealing blocks. But aside from one meltdown among a group of twelve or thirteen kids, the afternoon's activities went off without serious incident. And a foam city brought concrete expression to the heart of my four-year-old daughter.

If you ever have the opportunity to engage the joy and learning of a children's museum . . . engage!

~ emrys

New (Wow!) Horizons

I understand naming stadia after the fan-attracting teams that play in them (for instance Giants Stadium in the northeast). I understand naming stadia after the companies that funded their construction (Staples Center, for instance). I do not yet understand what I saw in Louisville, Kentucky this week. Here is a photo of a stadium's name above a digital rolling advertisement screen positioned in view of both ticket-buying fans and Main Street Louisville:

The name is also stamped in story-tall letters facing the bridge across the Ohio River, on the opposite side of the building.

It's not Cardinal Stadium, though the name of that mascot figures prominently--that's the red C in the right of the photo. It's not simply the KFC Center. It appears to be the KFC (Yum!) [I don't even know how to represent it properly in text] Center.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the onomatopoetic ejaculation when verbally naming this facility. Is the (Yum!) there for purely visual appeal, so the uttered name is "KFC Center"? Or is the bubble pronounced, as in "KFC Yum! Center"? And if it's pronounced, does one indicate the exclamation point with inflection and pause ("We're going to the KFC Yum! . . . Center, kids!") or does one say the three words in one smooth phrase ("There's a long line at the KFC Yum Center today")?

I should have asked someone from Loouhvul while I had the chance. (Sigh!)

~ emrys

Enduring Value

Last week I finished my first reading of The Odyssey by Homer. Alas, I do not read classical Greek, so I had to settle for reading this ancient epic poem in translation. I chose Robert Fagles' work (1996).

The book had occupied my shelf for several years. I glanced at it occasionally, both drawn to its epic reputation and terrorized by its thickness. I vaguely recall that I had to read excerpts of the poem in high school English class. I feared that one third of the way through the Homeric opus I would feel the same as I had about so many other English assignments: that getting to the end would be a chore.

I was pleasantly surprised. To be clear, Fagles' translation is loose. He does not hold to the dactylic hexameter of Homer's work. He does not try to "translate" the poetry in conformity to modern convention with, say, rhyming lines. He does not attempt to bind his translation to a rubric which results in an overwrought product. Like Odysseus our hero, Fagles' work is clever, intriguing and manipulative, drawing the reader sympathetically into his own narrative.

The book was a page-turner for me. Though I often do my leisure reading late at night before sleep, I was always at pains to put this volume down. The character of Odysseus, the twists and turns of his fate, the vicissitudes and irrationality of the gods, and the tension of Penelope's resolve all held me rapt for the next reading. In short, all the reasons why Homer's work has survived the test of time rang true in my heart as I read it. The narrative so enthralled me that I felt cheated by the ending--as many do, I found out later--which seems much too abrupt given the scope of Odysseus' adventures and personality.

Not for its reputation, but for those enduring foundations on which the reputation is based--journey, hospitality, nobility of heart, fate, justice, perseverance, hope, and the destiny of coming home--get yourself a copy of Homer's Odyssey and read it. Again, if necessary.

~ emrys

Sticky Fingers

More than a year ago we received The Toddler Cookbook as a gift. It's a cookbook with simplified recipes that parents can do with their pre-schoolers. The directions for each recipe are written as if addressing someone who's not qualified to handle a kitchen torch (lots of "Ask an adult to . . ." and "Wash your hands" after every handling of raw meat). But the book also assumes that toddlers can use a cup to measure sugar and stir ingredients together (which, of course, they're quite able to do, even if a little more wobbly so at times).

Annabel Karmel is the author; she seems to specialize in parent/child books, as our two baby record books are both authored by her. One thing that I found impressive about this book was the representation of different people groups in the illustrating photos. Boys and girls, men and women, whites and blacks are making these recipes. As someone who lives in a solid white-bread band of country with old-school values, I appreciate opportunities, no matter how passive, for our children to observe that there are many folk who look different than we do. And I appreciate cookbooks that do not assume all cooking and baking will be done by those with double-X chromosomes.

Gwendolyn and my first adventure with Ms. Karmel was the recipe for "chicken dippers": fried chicken strips with different dipping sauces. Here are my daughter's fingers dousing the chicken before breading:

 We run a high-end kitchen in our home. We ask even the sous-chefs to come dressed in formal silk dresses and gold angel wings (though shoes are optional):

The meal was delightful. We finished off every bit of those chicken dippers:

 Gwendolyn and I had so much fun that for my birthday supper I requested we do another recipe from the book. In fact, we did two: chicken satay skewers, and peanut butter bears (no-bake cookies with rice puffs as the base, pictured here):

 I am discovering that the vast majority of recipes are in fact toddler/pre-schooler-friendly, with a little adult help. Karmel's book is little more than an illustrated cooking guide with fun fonts and encouragements. But I must admit that sometimes a book with a couple of gimmicks is necessary to open up new possibilities for me.

The Toddler Cookbook by Annabel Karmel (2008): a reminder of how wonderful it is to have multiple generations in the kitchen, and another reason to love DK books.

~ emrys

Hidden Worldviews

I continue to be fascinated by the gifts that come to me from the members of my flock. These presents often reveal--as perhaps all gifts do--as much about the giver's perception as about the desires of the receiver. I receive gifts that seem like they came from the "Gifts for Your Pastor" shelf at the local Christian store; there are those that fall into the "I liked this, so I'm sure you must, too," category; there are those that clearly answer my expressed preference; and there are those that serve as catch-all (like money).

I get a good number of books from members of the congregation. The books fall into the first three of the above categories, probably in equal measure. Occasionally, however, one will start in the "I liked this . . ." category and, upon my reading of it, will move into the "right up my alley" category. Hidden Worldviews by Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford (2009) turned out to be such a book.

Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives observes eight ways that twenty-first century Americans view their world and critically evaluates how those views line up with Christianity.

One of my last courses in seminary was a teaching on worldview, and it opened up my eyes to the power and richness of worldview over against simple points of faith doctrine. My introduction to worldviews gave me a holistic way to view faith and life. Typical of my generation, I was interested in the complete web of connection between personal narrative, metanarrative, ethics, and faith doctrine. I prefer to deal with the big picture rather than any of these in isolation. Wilkens and Sanford step back to look at the big picture of how we make meaning of and live in the world.

Hidden Worldview strikes a beautiful balance. It thoroughly evaluates each of the eight worldviews (for instance: individualism, scientific naturalism, and salvation by therapy), noting both positive and negative features. It refrains from pedantic lecturing, maintaining a graceful voice throughout. It speaks with both gravity and levity in due season. Its conclusion encourages the reader to develop a Christian worldview, naming particular helpful considerations. And it does all these things in 218 pages.

Here is a thorough, useful, and accessible introduction to the possibilities and problems of worldview. Unlike so many books that find their way under my nose, this one won't be given away quickly. Loaned, perhaps, but not surrendered.

Thanks to Steve for this good gift!

~ emrys