fake smart 8.January.2009

You know, I was going to tell you that I may just take 2009 as a break from blogging.  The pressure of a blog without fresh posts would dissipate just like that.  But that was before I wrote my last post.  I had underestimated the power of writing (and bread dough) to make my world feel right-side-up again.  There is that quiet contemplation of organizing abstract thoughts into words that balances me, soothes me.

Not that I have to blog in order to write.  Justification: (1) my blogging makes you happy (Dude, if it doesn’t, I suggest you stop reading me!), and (2) blogging gives me a little push to finish my thoughts coherently.

Then I read Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”.  One of the first points Carr made was that he (and I, admittedly) read differently than ever, especially on the web.  We skim.  I skimmed Carr’s article before I decided to blog about it.  And then I thought to myself:  do any of my readers really read my posts in their entirety?  It’s kind of a depressing thought that readers don’t savor my every word.

But back to the article.

“[W]hat the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” Carr says.  Many of us have lost our ability to sink into a good book.  A few pages may make us anxious for a change of pace.  I wonder, too, if this skipping from activity to activity and from thought to thought has made us desire everything to be bold and flashy at athletic events, at church services, and on television.  It’s as though if we aren’t distracted, we’ll get bored.

Carr seems to agree:

The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.

When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

Can I just admit that it feels warm and fuzzy to have someone who thinks like me, who is suspicious of this whole technological surge that revolves around the Internet?  But, as Carr says, sure, “you should be skeptical of my skepticism.”  Maybe Google-style research is mostly good.  After all, reading books isn’t a natural, instinctual activity anyway.  Maybe the way human brains process information can just change, and we’ll come out better on the other side.

But then again, I doubt it.

“If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with ‘content,’ we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture…. As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”

the beginning of reading 16.November.2008

We have read Pete’s a Pizza at least twenty times this week.  I have read it quickly, slowly, with voices, without voices.

I’ve read to Isaiah from his birth.  I wanted him to love books more than I had, and, yeah… I love them quite a lot.  In the beginning, I would read my own books aloud, letting him hear the cadence of sentences, the intricacies of the English language.  And then I started reading him his own short picture books because I thought it was the right thing to do.  Once he got out of the habit of gnawing off the corners of all his board books, he loved the colorful pictures.  I couldn’t wait for him to sit still for a whole story.  We read a few books every day, and I patted myself on the back for a job well done.

But then I ran across one family’s homeschooling guideposts, one of which was: “2 hours a day of Reading — especially before they are five.“  That did say before they are five?  Well, Isaiah is not five yet, but… well… when do you start that two-hours-a-day thing?  At birth?  If so, then wow, somebody cared about reading even more than I did!

Isaiah is two.  I can’t imagine how much reading there will be when he is three, four, five.  There are times when I need to take breaks from reading to him, and oh!, the fits my voracious little reader has thrown!  I hate to stop; every moment of those stories, with Isaiah sprawled on top of me or perched on a pillow by my side, is pure joy.  We never aimed for two hours (though I did aim for one), but all of a sudden, I find Isaiah and I spending more time, huddled together on the couch, absorbed in book after book after book.  What time used to be a forced twenty minutes has become joyful hours upon hours.

What made the difference?  Not long ago, I read a book called Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt, and I was intrigued by Hunt’s claim that the quality of books determine how much our children love to read.  She has a wonderful list of books for each age group, and I’ve been snatching up the library’s copies of many of her suggestions.  A few are too dull for him, or too advanced; some are too subtle in their beauty.  But between the covers of most of these children’s stories, I am learning the value of what Hunt calls “living books.”  Books alive with characters, quality illustrations, compelling words and sentences, good stories.

Noticing this difference has made me a bit of a snob about books, I’ll admit.  I would like to burn our copies of Dinosaur Lovables: Stegosaurus and Pepper the Puppy (and his pals Poppy the Pig and Poopy — or what’s-his-freaking-name — the Pony).  Oh, I’m sorry.  Who wrote those books?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  It’s not even worth putting on the cover.  And it’s not worth my time, or Isaiah’s time.  I’ve decided that if you want to make your kid hate reading, you don’t not read to them.  Instead, you read them dreadful books like Dinosaur Lovables (shudder).

And here, I would like to dispel the claim that anyone can write a children’s book, or particularly, if I, Carrie, want to get started as an author, I should try a children’s book first.  I do not claim to have the brilliance necessary to write a book worthy to be read by children.  A good children’s book is a work of art, and it will play like the Pied Piper to your child’s imagination, luring him into a love affair with reading that will be all but impossible to ever abandon.

*          *          *

A few recommendations from Isaiah:

Pete’s a Pizza, by William Steig

The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper (original illustrations recommended)

Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson

Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown

A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, by Mercer Mayer

living with lists 4.September.2008

I have tried FlyLady.  I have tried winging it.  I have sent myself on many, many guilt trips.

The thing is, my dear mom has a housekeeping plan for her house that left no room for failure.  If she planned to clean Friday, she cleaned Friday.  Her follow-through rate is amazing.  Mine?  Not so good.

FlyLady wasn’t so bad.  I have to say, it was motivating… in a cute sort of way.  Attitude and self-image were of high importance; I have a hard time arguing with that.  But the emails.  Ugh.  The emails drained me before I even got started.  I think you’re supposed to forget about the daily missions if you don’t do them for the day.  But I saved them.  I had piles and piles of uncompleted household missions that stared me in the face every day, reminding me that I would never catch up.

I abandoned FlyLady shortly before Isaiah was born.  And, well, the house has been a disaster since then.  I clean, oh, once a month?  I don’t know; I don’t count anymore.  But it stinks (literally, as of yesterday)because, you know, I like a clean house.  But beyond that — way beyond that — I’ve been wanting to seek God’s purpose in my daily life.

I believe one can know the big picture of needing Christ, and maybe even be motivated to love and evangelize those who don’t know about his saving grace, without inviting Him into the everyday.  But what about eating, sleeping, and getting groceries?  What about cleaning the toothpaste-caked bathroom?  What about changing your baby’s wet diapers (I’m not even talking poop; that takes some grace!  Pee is the mundane for me.)?  What about washing the car, ironing, sending the laundry through its cycles?  Where does God come into our lives during those moments?

Ann at A Holy Experience has been blogging about ceremony in recent days.  Read her words from her post “Live a Celebrated Life: the beauty of ceremony”:

If we consider an occasion meaningful, we develop a ceremony to duly recognize it. Simply, ceremony is a repeated action that marks important happenings: always candles on birthday cakes, centerpieces for Thanksgiving, vows on wedding days.

And yet, isn’t every day important? Do not all of our acts warrant ceremony?

Ann goes on to describe God’s way of creating ceremony in our lives: the sun rising and setting in splendor, the stars decorating the night sky.  So, too, we can mark the beginning of a new school year with bright, sharpened pencils; begin a meal with a prayer of joy and thanksgiving for a generous God; grace our ironing time with a blaze of music.

But how can there be ceremony if there is no mundane task to deck out in grace?  We can set out to only enjoy life, throw our work and schedules to the wind, and thank God for what prosperity may come.  Or we can embrace the mundane as opportunity for everyday beauty, for seeing the fruit of labor ripen and bless our lives because we tended it with diligence.

I’m good at imagining diligence.  I can make lists like no one’s business.  Don’t believe me?  Please see the following example.  She is one of (at least) three lists that will guide me in my housekeeping tasks:

Monday

Sweep/scrub floors (Kitchen and Living room)

“Spring” cleaning: Choose task(s) from monthly list (another list for another day!)

Clean out fridge and microwave

Tuesday

Clean bathrooms: counters, toilets, baths, showers

Dust everything

Clean kitchen counters

Plan weekly meals

Make shopping/errand lists

Check grocery store sales

Clean out purse

Declutter top of dresser

Isaiah’s bath night

Wednesday

Run errands: grocery store, post office, library, gifts, etc.

Pay bills; balance accounts

Write thank-you notes and letters (including MOPS)

Go through mailbox

Declutter and organize desk; File papers

Email Mom and sisters

Clean out car

Toss old magazines

Thursday

Vacuum everything

Scrub bathroom floors

Declutter washer and dryer

Hobbies: cards, photo albums, knitting, creating art, etc.

Friday

Sweep tile floors; Spot scrub as needed

Wash car, if needed

Laundry: wash, dry, fold, put away

Ironing

Change bathroom towels

Shine mirrors and glass

Date night

Saturday

Work on household project, if needed

Garage/Yard Day

Clean kitchen counters

Take bath; Shave legs; Wash hair

Isaiah’s bath night

Sunday

Go to church

Rest, worship, play

Write rough weekly to-do list

Empty all trash and put out trash barrels

Whew.  Now that we’ve got that over with, let us all agree that I know the work that needs to be done around a house.  But I also know the guilt of seeing my lack of checkmarks at the end of a day.

I have approached this new homekeeping project asking God to help me keep the beauty — His beauty — in it.  Today, I decided that I may hand-write the entire list in my journal, paste pictures I love beside the daily tasks, and use the list more of a guide than anything.  I will grace the list with encouragement from the Encourager Himself:  “Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans will be established…. The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16.3,9)

More than anything, I don’t want my cleaning of my house and planning meals to rise above my desire to make our house warm and inviting — not only for guests — but for my family.  I want joy and peace, goodness and love to reign here.

That is why I want to add ceremony to our lives.  So to my daily task list, I add:

• One hour of reading with Isaiah (yes, it’s a lot, but it’s so precious and important)
• One hour enjoying nature
• Time with God, early in the morning
• Thirty minutes of reading for pleasure; thirty minutes of writing
• Singing and reading Psalms with Isaiah every morning

These look like more tasks to accomplish, but they give us something to look forward to.  They motivate me for things that would otherwise be drudgery and rigidity.  They compel to me to let myself experience grace and rediscover purpose when all I can focus on is what I have done or haven’t done.  The lists are just for me; God isn’t giving grades.

i am from 28.July.2008

I am from the rolling, foliaged hills.  I am from rows of corn, standing tall and packed together.  I am from empty pastureland, from brome grass, black-eyed Susans, and phlox, from where bumblebees forage for pollen.  I am from cicadas sawing their rhythm into the gathering dusk.

I am from Childcraft books and the big purple dictionary, from orange, deep green, and light green carpet, from painted blocks that smell like wood and dirty fingers.

I am from the farm.  I am from the green lawn with a homemade tree swing and butt-pinchin’ time.  I am from the black-soiled garden where potatoes are dropped into holes beside the cold, narrow spade.  I am from the long lanes and the hoghouses and the warm, dust-coated barn where the kittens live.  I am from pick-ups smelling of sour grain.

I am from loud-talking Germans and plates of Spaetzle and Knoepfle, from the clicking closet and from damp kisses, and squishy, infrequent hugs.  I am from hard, grey cookies, and I am from lusciously chocolaty buckeyes, English toffee, and boob cookies.

I am from lots of laughter, from notebook paper filled with preteen handwriting.  I am from puzzles, crochet, cross stitch, and the Lucky Clover 4-H club.

I am from the church on Virginia, from veiled, calm-smiled women and black-coated, sober men.  I am from church potlucks and crowds that smell like leftover potluck food.  I am from the back pew, where I make tallies of the number of times the minister clears his throat.  And I am from the second pew where I listen for a word from Jesus.

I am from blue crinkled eyes and the biggest callused hands in the world.  I am from nonsense songs in the countryside and “Will you scratch my back?”  I am from “Little Black Sambo” and “The Cookie Monster.”

I am from job charts, shiny hands, rounded fingernails, and Grandmother’s Apple Dessert.  I am from the chair in front of the purple robe, from curling irons, French braids, and breakfasts on time.  I am from a surprisingly soft hug.

I am from the quiet places alone, from sobbing corners, and from conversations with imaginary friends.

I am from a God who sent me Jesus.  I am from a self-prescribed cure, and I am from a pool of grace.  I am from “I am screwed up” and from jubilant heights of freedom.

I am from dust.  I am from eternity.

I don’t know where this meme originated, but ever since reading Mary’s collection of stories on Owlhaven, I have wanted to write my own “I am From” story.  Ann from A Holy Experience reposted a beautiful rendition called “From” on her blog this morning, and I decided hers was too inspiring to wait any longer.

three books 28.July.2008

Drowsiness pushes its heavy shroud over my head, but today I will fight it.  If there’s one thing I learned in reading Don’t Waste Your Life (John Piper), it is that work is not a curse, as I’ve often treated it.  In my work I will have pain and trouble because of the Eden curse, but even without work, pain and trouble will plague me.  They are unavoidable.  And so I try to not fight work anymore.  I’m doing my tasks with my eyes on Father-Creator-God, trying to see laundry and cleaning as neutral tasks that can be transformed into God-glorifying actions.

When I read Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, I started to wonder if, at the root of things, the desire for more and more technology came because of man’s view of work being a curse.  In the book, Eric Brende discovers that in the Anabaptist community in which he’s living and working, socialization comes during the lulls between loading the wagon with hay, and meeting new neighbors comes with a barn raising.  Rejuvenation comes with the morning light, from a body fed with healthy foods and exercised through daily work.

Brende discovers that when driving a car, anxiety levels skyrocket even if the driver feels completely relaxed.  Driving horses and bicycling and walking, however, do not result in such unnatural stress.  This idea fascinates me.  How many things that I have invited into my life in the name of convenience are actually tearing me apart from the inside out?

I enjoyed Brende’s book.  Brende’s prose can get a little dull at times, but the ideas in the book were invigorating for me.  Yes, they do make me want to move to the country to farm with motorless machinery and eat the fruit of my own labors.  Yes, they make me want to get a horse in exchange for a car.  Hey, maybe the horse manure could be my main source of fuel for cooking!  I don’t think there’s anything innately wrong with technology; after all, the horse-drawn plow was once a new invention.  I do think that humans need to create with more ingenuity and thought.  Does our technology make us more holistic individuals?  Or does it take away from our person in the name of ease or comfort?

The third book I’ve recently read is The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule.  It was a natural sequel to Better Off, and it was a much more practical resource to boot.  I didn’t want the book to end.  It is chock-full of ideas to help you and your children be creative together.  Soule recommends using nature and natural materials in play.  Plastic toys need not apply.  Sewing, dressing up, creating art with the best quality materials possible, enjoying nature, journaling, gardening:  these are activities that I want to make thrive in my household.  Had I read this book before writing my post on gift-giving on the Crunchy Domestic Goddess blog, I think my list of ideas would have been twice as long.

Back to Don’t Waste Your Life:  This wasn’t an “ah-ha!” book for me, but Piper did help me direct my focus back to God.  He is constantly preaching that God is to be glorified, and that we are to be joyful in Him.  His sections on taking risks, letting go of materialism and riches, work, and spreading the message of the gospel were the ones that impacted me most.

These three books have been inspiring for me.  They make me want to face my day with energy and enthusiasm for work and creating.  I’m excited to teach my children the wonders of living.  My greatest fear is that through mere habit, my ideas will not be transformed into actions.

the beast is glaring 9.July.2008

Tonight, I loathe the machine that drew me back in to its white-blue glow only to laugh in my face: “No new emails! Mua ha ha ha!” (I have never used the term ”Mua ha ha ha” before.  What a guy thing.)

I started reading Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology today.  I’ve only begun the book, but I’m already so enthralled.  Eric Brende (a Topeka, KS, native and Washburn, Yale, and MIT graduate) and his new wife move to a electricity- and motor-free community for eighteen months.  Brende talks about how technology takes so much energy to sustain itself that sometimes it doesn’t improve the quality of life at all.  I know — we all say we know this.  But why, as Brende did in high school, do we continue to work our jobs to pay for our car… just so we can get to work?  In his year and a half of isolation from the modern world, Brende hopes to figure out what balance of technology is healthy and helpful.

In a way this is tied to our need for the therapy of nature, as Richard Louv talks about in Last Child in the Woods.  Our mental, physical, and spiritual health, our ability to imagine and discern — would these be all the more agile if we worked with entire bodies in the living, breathing world?

When I am sucked back to the computer to feed my checking-email-and-blogs addiction, I hope to gain some new bit of information — perhaps a book recommendation, an idea for dinner, warm greetings from my family.  I guess I’m trying to expand my mind, finding fuel to feed my passions.  But in all the checking and staring at the flashing screens, am I actually damaging my mind?  Am I turning it into a stagnant button-pressing machine?

A couple weeks ago, I wondered how much it would matter if I let my blog go to pot.  No more guilt about not posting on a regular basis, no addiction to the comments from readers.  What if I wrote in a notebook instead?  Wrote a book or a journal?  Maybe someday, I’d still have readers — those who were patient enough to wait for me to arrange and edit and publish any good bits of writing I may have churned out.  Maybe it’d be a better use of your time, too, than to watch me muddle through my questions.