Monday morsel: "ideas, impulses, proverbs, and plots"

From the book I'm currently reading:  The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch:

"I remember as a very young child being warned that libraries and bookstores were quiet places where noise wasn't allowed.  here was yet another thing the adults had gotten wrong, for these book houses pulsed with sounds; they just weren't noisy.  The books hummed.  The collective noise they made was like riding on a large boat where the motor's steady thrum and tickle vibrated below one's sneakers, ignorable until you listened, then omnipresent and relentless, the sound that carried you forward.  Each book brimmed with noises it wanted to make inside your head the moment you opened it; only the shut covers prevented it from shouting ideas, impulses, proverbs, and plots into that sterile silence.  What an enigma (a word my young self wouldn't know for years) that such a false sense of quietude should be imposed on this obviously noisy place."

I like the idea of a bookstore full of books that hum; that doesn't seem at all unlikely, considering I know of a bookstore where the books dance the night away.  Visit it here.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my dad!  Love from me, Richard, 

and the two punkins!

read it, reading it, will read it

This post is linked up to Modern Mrs. Darcy's June "Twitterature" post, in which she shares short reviews of books she's read. 

I've just finished ...

.

 ... Booked:  Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior.  In this book the author talks about the significance of books in her life journey and how particular books (from Charlotte's Web to Jane Eyre to Gulliver's Travels, and more) shaped her family, her faith, and her soul.  This book could have used more editing to eliminate repetition and some truly cringeworthy typos (I know, I'm probably overly picky about that stuff); but that ultimately didn't diminish my enjoyment of Swallow Prior's reflections, mainly because she's an honest and thoughtful writer and because she went into such depth in discussing the books and their impact on her.

I'm currently reading ...

... The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch.  (Richard surprised me with this book for our anniversary on Sunday; we don't usually exchange gifts, so this was an unexpected treat.)  Welch and her husband Jack Beck left the fast lane and moved to Big Stone Gap, Virginia, to realize their dream of opening a used bookstore.  This book tells of their experience making friends, making mistakes, and making a home for themselves and their customers in a small town.  So far I'm loving it:  it's funny, touching, and quite informative about the world of book sales as well.

Next I'll read ...

... Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin.  I haven't read Rubin's first and more famous book, The Happiness Project, but I've read her magazine columns so I have some sense of where she is coming from, and I enjoy her reflections.  This book caught my eye at the library, maybe because I'm a homebody.  (Whether that's what the book is actually about or not, I'm not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding out!)

deja vu

Wednesday was a perfect nearly-summer day:  sunny, warm, and breezy, especially lovely after days of cloud and heavy rain.  I was on the deck hanging laundry and trying to decide whether I'd walk to the library to pick up Jonathan's holds before lunch, or wait till after.

The fire and ambulance stations are just over on the next street, so when I heard a siren flare up and glimpsed a blur of flashing lights through the trees, I didn't give it much more thought than I would usually give something that happens many times a day.

Then the phone rang.  I stepped inside to answer it, thinking, "That'll be Rich"; when he's working he always calls at least once to check in and see how things are at home.

Instead, it was a teacher from Jonathan's school -- but, strangely, his former teacher, not his current one.  I knew there was only one reason another staff member would be calling me.  "Jonathan is having a seizure," she said.  "We've called 911."

As I ran to the car and made the quick two-minute drive to the school, I had this strange feeling of deja vu, considering the same thing had happened almost exactly a month ago, at almost the identical time of day.  I drove up to the curb, parking in the wrong direction, then ran across the school's front lawn, my shoes squishing in the wet grass, and up the front steps. The teacher who had phoned met me in the lobby and said Jonathan was in his classroom.  I went up and the hallway was silent, and all classroom doors were closed.  Inside the classroom Jonathan was sitting on a chair in the corner with Yan (the educational assistant who looks after him when "Mr. O" is absent) and a paramedic, who had put an oxygen mask on Jonathan and was pricking his finger to get his blood sugar level.  Jonathan's teacher and the vice principal were also there.

When Jonathan saw me he made a sound of recognition and then yanked the oxygen mask off.  I sat down beside him and he said, "Sad hiding," which is a reference to one of our peekaboo games.  This showed that he was coming out of the seizure.  As with the last episode of a month ago, Jonathan had been acting totally normally and then drifted into an unresponsive state that lasted about ten minutes; then he slowly came out of it, looked around, and started talking and making huge yawns.

The paramedic got my written permission to waive the option of taking Jonathan to the hospital, and he and the other paramedics and firefighters who'd arrived afterward left the school.  We sat for a while talking and letting Jonathan get his bearings once again.

As has been the case ever since Jonathan started at Rideau Public School nearly six years ago, I felt overwhelming gratitude for the support we receive there.  His teacher talked about how concerned his classmates were and asked for my permission to tell them more about Jonathan's seizures so that they would understand what was happening.  The vice principal, who has only been at the school for a couple of months, was calm and reassuring.  And "Mr. Yan" sat with Jonathan, talked to him, encouraged him, and helped me take him out to the car when he was steady enough on his feet.  I knew this was more than just a day at work for the staff; they truly care about Jonathan and make every effort to make his time at school happy and safe.  These episodes have been rare, thankfully, but every time they've happened I've come away grateful that Jonathan has such a supportive environment to learn and grow.

I took Jonathan home and he slept on the couch for about an hour.  While he napped, I called his doctor and left a message saying that he had had two episodes since his last appointment and asking her to let us know what our next step might be.  (I'm still waiting to hear back from her.)

After his nap, Jonathan woke up and was quite disappointed to learn that he would have to wait until the next day to return to school.  Yesterday he was eager to get back and entered the schoolyard excitedly.  Once again Mr. O was absent, so Jonathan went happily up to "Mr. Yan" to greet him, then headed off to the yellow-blue-red to take a few shots before the bell.  I left with a feeling that no matter what happened, he was in good hands.  Another day of learning was about to begin.

Monday morsel: "Do it again"

 My church women's group is studying Beth Moore's Believing God, and last week's chapter included the quotation below from G.K. Chesterton. It was meaningful to me because I find that life can be so much "same same," as Jonathan would say.  We hear so much about God being a God of dramatic miracles and transformation that I can't help wondering at times:  is a life of "same same" really His will? But here Chesterton speculates, in his unique and imaginative way, that God may truly enjoy sameness and repetition and routine. 

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

 - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

heroine

Lately I've been observing someone whom I admire and want to be like ... but I'm not going to tell you who!  Read this description and you 'll see why I like her -- and maybe you'll figure out who she is.

She is fictional, but not in a book.

She has a position of authority, but she also serves.  She knows her place and accepts it willingly.

She is respected both by those she serves and by those under her.

She is thoughtful and considers all sides of an issue before she acts.

She is not afraid to say what needs to be said.

She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, but she can be very compassionate, often showing kindness to those who haven't received it from others.

Unlike her closest co-worker, who sometimes displays an exalted sense of personal importance and an idealism that may not fit the real world, she is humble and practical.

She is Scottish -- always a good thing!

Have you guessed yet?  Click here to find out her identity.

days of small things

It's June, and the rest of the school year is now measurable in weeks (4), not months.  By the end of this month, Allison will have one year of high school under her belt.  Jonathan will get his report card and Individual Education Plan at year-end, and we'll be able to look back at his goals and see what progress he's made toward achieving them.

As I look back on my own life since September, it strikes me that I have not really achieved any major goals -- although maybe that's because I didn't set any.  I didn't go any farther than an hour from home; I didn't stay away anywhere overnight; I didn't attend any conferences or go to any inspirational talks; I didn't take any courses.  It's hard to see any significant accomplishments beyond the everyday, relatively small things.  I did mark over 200 assignments, walk to and from the school nearly 200 times, make about 400 school lunches and 300 family suppers, and do 100+ loads of laundry.  I read more than 20 books.  I wrote two poems and rewrote a few others.  I sent several pieces of my writing out to literary journals and received rejections on all of them.  I revised several chapters of the tween novel I'm working on ... but I still have as many as five more chapters to write from scratch.

One thing I did make progress on since September, however, is this blog.  In that time I've written 98 entries, the vast majority of those being since December, in fact.  When I decided to write an Advent blog series in which I would reflect on a favourite Christmas carol each day, the enjoyment I got from that sparked a desire to write more, and oftener.  I also started exploring other blogs, which opened up a whole new world and has led to some very satisfying online contacts, even friendships.  My own readership is still pretty small and my commenter-ship even smaller, but I'm trying not to worry about numbers and just focus on sharing reflections about things I've read, what's happening with the kids ... just the ordinary stuff of my not-very-exciting life.

The thing I've come to realize from reading other people's blogs, though, is that even not-so-exciting lives are actually pretty interesting.  I enjoy reading what one person bought her kids for Christmas, what another preached about last Sunday, what another discovered while listening to her daughter's prayers. When other writers reveal their challenges, their humbling moments, and their glimpses of grace, I feel with them and sense that what they're sharing is for me, too.

In the Bible, God told Zechariah not to "despise the day of small things":  a reminder that God completes what He starts and has a purpose in even the simplest and most mundane aspects of life.  So I'm happy to have rejuvenated my own writing life and, in the process, entered into the lives of many other writers who are walking the path set out for them and sharing their insights -- small and great -- from that journey.

photo Jeannie Prinsen June 2013

Monday morsels: "truth triumphs"

So far 2013 has been a great year for reading.  I've been enjoying two books lately.  One is Barbara Kingsolver's book of essays entitled High Tide in Tucson.  (We discussed two of her essays for our book study group, which is why I read the book in the first place.)  The other is Karen Swallow Prior's Booked:  Literature in the Soul of Me, which tells about her journey through books that shaped her life at different stages, from Charlotte's Web to Jane Eyre and more.  (I heard about this book through many of my blogger friends and knew it was a must-read; so far it's wonderful.)

Interestingly, almost on the same day, I read a passage in each book about the importance of letting children read widely and not censoring their reading.  (Swallow Prior uses John Milton's phrase "books should be promiscuously read" to characterize this type of free, indiscriminate reading.)  I appreciated these comments because I know my love of books was enhanced by the fact that I was allowed to read whatever I liked, from Archie comics and Tom Swift books to Lucy Maud Montgomery and S.E. Hinton and Judy Blume and .... the list goes on.  In fact, after reading these passages, I am now almost not embarrassed about how many Harlequin Romances I read while babysitting.  Almost.

*****

"Now that I am a parent myself, I'm sympathetic to the longing for some control over what children read, or watch, or do.  Our protectiveness is a deeply loving and deeply misguided effort to keep our kids inside the bounds of what we know is safe and right.  Sure, I want to train my child to goodness.  But unless I can invoke amnesia to blot out my own past, I have to see it's impossible to keep her inside the world I came up in.  That world rolls on, and you can't step in the same river twice.  The things that prepared me for life are not the same things that will move my own child into adulthood .... If there is a danger in ... the works of ... authors who've been banned at one time or another, the danger is generally that they will broaden our experience and blend us more deeply with our fellow humans.  Sometimes this makes waves."

- Barbara Kingsolver, "How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life"
High Tide in Tucson (pp. 50-51)

*****

"It seems to me to be an entirely negative, not to mention ineffective, strategy to shield children from reality rather than actively expose them to the sort of truth that emerges organically from the give-and-take of weighing and reckoning competing ideas against one another.  Discovering truth is a process that occurs over time, more fully with each idea or book that gets added to the equation.  Sure, many of the books I read in my youth filled my head with silly notions and downright lies that I mistook for truth, but only until I read something else that exposed the lie for what it was .... Milton argued passionately in his treatise [Areopagitica] that the best way to counteract falsehood is not by suppressing it, but by countering it with truth.  The essence of Milton's argument is that truth is stronger than falsehood; falsehood prevails through the suppression of countering ideas, but truth triumphs in a free and open exchange that allows truth to shine."

- Karen Swallow Prior, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (pp. 14, 19)

Monday morsel: turtle on a fence post

Just last week I posted about "Rejection" and my so-far unsuccessful attempts to have my stories and poems published.  Then this past Saturday in the newspaper, a local United Church minister, Bob Ripley, had a column on the very same subject of literary rejections.  He gave some great insights about the more general benefits that can be gleaned from something that feels so negative.  One benefit he mentioned was humility -- particularly the need to acknowledge that the success we do enjoy isn't all our own doing.  I liked this paragraph so much that I've decided to use it as today's Monday Morsel:

"Humble people remember their roots and avoid the heady intoxication of prestige.  They know that accolades should not be hoarded, that applause should be deflected.  If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he had some help."

- Rev. Bob Ripley, "In Other Words" column - Kingston Whig-Standard, May 25, 2013
 

"When The Judge Gets Cross-Examined": guest post by Tim Fall

Today I'm very pleased to have a guest post from my online friend Tim Fall, who blogs at Just One Train Wreck After Another.  

To quote from his blog's "About" section:  "Tim is a California native who changed his major three times, colleges four times, and took six years to get a Bachelor’s degree in a subject he’s never been called on to use professionally. Married for 25 years with two kids (one in college and one just graduated, woo-hoo!) his family is constant evidence of God’s abundant blessings in his life. He and his wife live in Northern California."  

What this description doesn't tell you is that he's also a witty person with a love for the Bible and a gift for encouraging others.  I've been following his blog for several months now; I hope you'll take the time to check it out too.  If post titles like "Break Like the Wind, People!" and "Partying With Hookers -- Bring It On!" don't attract your interest, I don't know what will.

When I asked him to be my guest, I suggested he might participate in a Q&A with me about issues related to justice.  Not only did he readily agree, but he sent me the answers to my questions within about six hours of my asking them!  I hope you enjoy this interview (it includes some links to other posts Tim's written on related issues as well).

When The Judge Gets Cross-Examined

How would you define justice in legal terms and in God's terms?

Legally, justice is the pursuit of the best decision allowed under the law. If there’s a better result but the law does not allow it, then the law governs the result and we consider it just even if not ideal. (I wrote a bit on this here.)

God’s justice is complex because it cannot be viewed standing by itself. It must be considered as intertwined with humility and mercy (Micah 6:8), and as leading to the vindication of the few even if it means letting the multitudes off the hook. (Genesis 18:16-33.) Ultimately, that’s what Jesus did. He humbly performed an act of supreme mercy (Philippians 2:8), and did so in order to justify – or vindicate – some. (Luke 13:22-30.)

We hear people refer (sometimes disparagingly, sometimes admiringly) to "American-style justice." As a Canadian I'm wondering:  is there a unique American style of justice?

If we do have one, it is a product of our shared heritage with many other countries that benefit from the English Common Law tradition. This gives rise to many attributes of American-style justice, such as: a commitment to the rule of law and not rule by the whim of those in power; trial by jury for any charge that can lead to jail; public trials in open courtrooms.

You don’t need a vivid imagination to think of countries where these are not the norm. In fact, in some countries if you told people on the street that here in America judges asked citizens to come to the courthouse and make decisions for them, some people in foreign lands wouldn’t even understand the concept. They live in countries where the government doesn’t ask its people anything; the government tells its people what to do.

I’ll take American-style justice. (Here’s something I wrote on this a while back.)

Do you think the general public has appropriate expectations of what the justice system can accomplish? For example, we often hear people refer to victims' desire to "find closure" or "learn what really happened" through the justice process. Are these expectations realistic? What do you think the justice system is intended to accomplish, ultimately?

When I speak to civic groups and in school classrooms I try to get the point across that we have a legal system, not a justice system. If someone thinks that a court case will bring closure, I don’t think that’s any more realistic an expectation from the courts than some other part of life. And if they think they will find all the answers in a trial, I have to say that has never happened in my courtroom; I always know that there is more going on than has come out at trial. I think these shortcomings are functions of the fact that only God knows everything (Hebrews 4:13), including what is in a person’s heart. (Psalm 44:21.)

The legal system is designed to provide a neutral forum for the resolution of disputes, whether civil or criminal. Anything else is beyond its abilities.

I recently heard a speaker talk about punitive vs. restorative justice: as she saw it, the former asks "What crime was committed? Who did it? What punishment should they receive?" while the latter asks "Who was hurt? What do they need? Who is responsible for helping them get that need met?" Do you think this is a helpful distinction, and do you think the justice system has room for both of these perspectives?

Punitive justice is not only aimed at punishing the wrongdoing, but also preventing it by showing others what will happen when a crime is committed. (See Romans 13:5 for Paul’s insights on it.) Likewise, restorative justice has a broader aim than restoring the victim. It looks to restore the criminal to society as well. The truth and justice commissions in post-apartheid South Africa are a good example of how to do this right. (Here’s a piece on fairness from my archives.)

Do we have room for both restorative and punitive justice models? Probably, but I’m not sure society is willing to pay for both. Neither comes cheap separately, and together they would present a whopper of a tax bill.

Can you explain a little bit about the court you're involved with and what its place, and your place, is in the larger legal system?

In California the trial courts are courts of general jurisdiction. That means every kind of case you can think of under state law is filed in my courthouse: criminal, civil, family, juvenile, probate, etc. I’ve handled them all, but right now my case-load is criminal. I hear felonies, from the early stages through trial and on to post trial hearings like sentencing or probation violations. People who don’t like my decisions can appeal them, and above the Court of Appeal is the state Supreme Court. I’ve had cases go all the way up and then come all the way back down to me.

Mine is a small courthouse, by California standards. We have ten judges, and I am the second most senior. When I first started back in 1995, I would spend a lot of time on the phone calling other judges – either here or those I’d met from around the state – for advice on cases. A few years ago I noticed I was getting a bunch of phone calls from judges who wanted to run their cases by me, and I asked myself, “Why are they all calling me?” Then it hit me: “Because you’re an old guy, Tim!”

One of the things I do as a judge besides preside over cases is in the field of judicial ethics and education. I’ve been on a statewide ethics committee for a dozen years now, and teaching judicial ethics almost as long. Our committee operates a hotline for judges with ethics questions under our state’s Code of Judicial Conduct, and we get better than 400 calls a year. In the classes I teach (and I’ve taught hundreds of judges across the state over the years), we cover the types of issues judges face both on and off the bench (because those ethical regulations don’t stop applying when I walk down the courthouse steps). I am glad to serve in a state where judges have such a high commitment to acting right. (I wrote this on judges and ethical conduct.)

Do the people you see day in, day out seem to respect the legal system? Presumably you respect it, but are there ever times you get cynical? If so, how do you deal with that; and if not, why do you think that is?

Most of the people I see in and out of court seem to respect the system. Sure there are those who try to get out of jury duty because they think it’s a waste of time, or others who see the courts as just another way that those in power take advantage of those on the margins. But for the most part I think people get that the courts are part of what makes our society so much better than it would be without a robust judicial system.

I keep myself grounded in my job by staying focused on Jesus. (Hebrews 12:1-2.) Of course, there are times when my gaze shifts elsewhere. I’m glad for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to bring me back on track. I can’t imagine allowing cynicism to rule when I can serve God in my job.

*************

For another Q&A Tim has done on Michelle Van Loon's blog Pilgrim's Road Trip (looking at his work from a slightly different angle), go here.