Shortlist (Part 1)

For some reason, I actually remember a few things from my high school government class. 1. Robert Gates is the U.S. Secretary of Defense (although I hear that’s soon to be untrue). 2. I should vote, and I should feel extremely guilty if/when I don’t vote. 3. Egg McMuffins are delicious. 4. The list of people the president considers nominating for the Supreme Court is referred to as “The Shortlist.”

Everything else I know about our government is from West Wing. Gosh, Rob Lowe is attractive.

Instead, my topic of expertise is recreational reading (specializing in middle grade novels) and, although I’m sure the reporter’s in C.J. Cregg’s press room will have a field day, I’ve decided to leak my summer shortlist. 

          1.      The Book Thief (Zusak) “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”

 

As millions of Jews and Germans alike die, Liesel—who learns to steal books early, kisses her love too late, and befriends the Jewish boxer living in her basement—learns about life, death, and guilt under the Führer. Appropriately, Death narrates her story with both whimsical lyricism and dirty realism.

          2.      Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (Koertge) “I’m just going to fool around a little, see what’s what poetry-wise.” 

Kevin has been benched by mono so instead of baseball, he starts messing around with poetry. Told only through Kevin’s journaled poems, Shakespeare Bats Cleanup is a clever introduction to the power of poetry in confronting troubles with friends, girls and a house left hurting after his mother’s death.

 

          3.      Okay for Now (Schmidt) “Mr. Powell thought I was pretty good. And Lil thought I was pretty good too. I tried to remember the last time anyone told me I was pretty good at anything. You know how that feels?”

With one part empathy and two parts snark, Schmidt tells the story of Doug Swieteck, the new kid dealing with his father’s fast fists, brother’s light fingers and mother’s broken smile. Doug’s chance encounter at the town library with green-eyed Lil Pricer and James Audubon’s Birds of America changes everything.

P.S. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to write up and endorse a book in 50 words. This shortlist is longer; other books soon to follow.

John21

Seven of them sat around the table, their scant meal long since finished. Nathanael tapped his fingers against the wooden table in the silence. James and John exchanged a look of exasperation at the noise as Thomas shifted in his chair. Philip and Bartholomew stared out the window at the sea of Galilee, glittering in the evening sunset. Simon stood up.
            “I’m going out to fish,” he announced.
            John sighed. He was sure that Jesus had not come back from the dead to have them retreat to Galilee and take up their old occupations and yet what else could they do?
            Simon started toward the door.
            “We’ll come with you,” John said. The others followed him. Sometimes you’ll do anything not to be alone.
            But the sea bore no fruit that night. They worked in shifts, first three—James, John and Simon—then four—Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Nathanael—while the others rested. But although shoals of musht fish could be seen teeming the sea, not one of them founds its way into their nets. It was so odd on such a perfect night for fishing that Thomas was sure they had been cursed.

As the deep black of night paled into grey, they saw a figure on the lake shore. But the mist and the distance kept them from recognizing who it was.
            “My friends! Haven’t you any fish?” the man called.
            “None!” James yelled back in his booming voice.
            “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some!” the man called.
            They waved their thanks but only James and Simon moved to put the net over on the other side of the boat.
            “It’s not as though one side of the boat is better than the other. It’s the difference of two cubits!” Bartholomew said.
            “Forget two cubits,” Thomas muttered darkly. “We have bigger problems than two cubits.”
            Simon shrugged. “One more try is no trouble,” he said.
            The sun slunk into the horizon, little bits of molten red glowing in their eyes and clearing the mist away by an infinitesimal amount.
            “Besides,” James added, “it would be discourteous to ignore the man’s advice right in front of him. He could be a friend of ours.”
            John nodded his agreement, and watched as Simon skillfully tossed the net into the sea. It rose high into the air and landed in a perfect circle. It hovered for one instant, and then the lead weights sank down, pulling the net with it. While the others retired to the bow, James and Simon leaned on the rail side by side and watched the sun rising as they waited.

John eyed the slump of Simon’s shoulders, his elbows on the rail and his spine pushing up against weather-beaten skin. He envied Simon’s passion and he missed Simon’s wild declarations of loyalty. It seemed as though all of enthusiasm had disappeared since he had fulfilled the prophecy the Rabbi made about him. Denials stayed with you.
            Then Simon’s shoulders tensed and he looked over at James with a wonder in his eyes that John hadn’t seen since their last dinner with the Rabbi. James shouted and the other four ran towards them from the bow. The net was full and bursting with hundreds of musht begging to be taken up into their boats.
            “The harvest is plentiful,” he had said. “But the workers are few.”
            John joined his brothers in hauling at the bulging net. But they would not come over the sides, so full they were with gaping fish. Simon laughed wildly, too close to John’s ear, but he smiled in response. The swollen net and that light in Simon’s eyes was enough for him. He felt tears start in his eyes and the burning in the back of his throat.

“It’s him. It’s the lord.”

As if he’d already known from the beginning that this night wasn’t about fish and this morning wasn’t just the end of a fruitless wait, Simon grabbed his shirt and jumped over the side of the boat and began swimming to the shore. John laughed outright and wished he could follow suit. Instead he turned to the others.

“Hold the nets,” he said, tears of joy mixing with splashing water on his face. “We’re going to pull to shore.”

They were only a hundred yards where Jesus stood and hard on Simon’s swimming heels. John steered the ship while the others held the nets steady until they were back on the bank. John leaped off the boat, but was not immediately followed by the others. They were focused, trying to pull the nets to safety and retain most of their catch.

Then Jesus pulled John into a hug. Finally the other disciples stopped working and noticed who it was standing with Simon and John.

“It’s him!” some of them whispered. “It’s the Lord.”

Jesus smiled at them. “Bring some of the fish you just caught.”

He turned and walked toward a nearby fire, but not before Simon-Peter heard as if an echo, “Follow me. And I will make you fishers of men.”

On the fire of burning coals lay a single fish and some bread. Jesus and John sat down together and spoke with one another. Simon, too overwhelmed, joined his fellow disciples on the boat to pull in the fish. When they had finished securing them, Jesus gestured.

“Come and eat!”

They came and sat around the fire where Jesus passed around the fish and bread. They ate in silence and devoured his very presence. They ate and all were satisfied.

When everyone had finished his meal, Jesus turned to Simon.

“Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” He gestured vaguely around them. Nathanael was wondering what Jesus meant to ask: did Simon love Jesus more than he loved fishing? more than he loved the other disciples? more than the other disciples loved Jesus? more than fish and bread?

Who do you say I am?

But Simon did not hesitate.

“Yes, Lord. You know that I love you.”

            You are the Christ.

“Feed my lambs.”

Peter nodded and accepted the commission without comment. The others sat stunned and quiet. It was Jesus broke the heavy morning stillness just a few moments later. He held up two fingers.

“Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?”

Again, Peter nodded. “Yes, Lord. You know that I love you.”

He had always loved him, even as he denied him a second and third time.

“Take care of my sheep. Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter blinked, hurt.

“Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.”

Jesus smiled because he did know all things and did know that Peter loved him. “Feed my sheep, Cephas. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Everyone there recognized this as a prophecy of how Peter would die, not the least of which was Peter. Jesus again smiled at Peter and Peter heard, as if in an echo, “The gates of Hades will not prevail against you.

“Follow me.”

Sudden Impact

In the beginning there was a giant gumball machine. It was halfway full of gumballs of all different colors, sitting comfortably—passively—on top of one another. As if responding to a silent summons, a hand reached up and put a quarter into the slot. Then it turned the metal handle. A metallic chick-chick-chiiick and quite suddenly, every gumball began to fly about its glass prison. They whizzed back and forth, bouncing violently off the transparent walls and colliding into one another with great cracks and sudden chipping of the colored surfaces. Then even the chips continued this frenzied, unstoppable sprint. For a time, all of the pieces ricocheted back and forth, chipping at one another and doing damage until not one was left unharmed.

The most recent gumballs I’ve collided with are Yujin and and Joonyong Um. They are a Korean couple I met through a class at Calvin this past semester. Despite Joonyong’s rigorous academic schedule as he completes his Master’s degree in education and Yujin’s broken English—and their two young children, one of whom has not yet stopped moving since leaving the womb and has a terrible sense of balance—they have taken me under their wing and begun to teach me Korean. Already I’ve been to their house twice, and both times Yujin cooked me dinner and Joonyong explained Korean history and culture to me.

This new friendship has come swiftly on the heels of hurtful times, during which I’ve surely damaged people and they’ve done the same to me. It’s inevitable, in this finite little gumball machine with such energy pent up inside, to chip off one another’s paint in painful ways. Collisions are a fixed part of life. In each of us unending potential to hurt others lays dormant, waiting for a collision.

Even chickens look to positively affect those around them

So it seems as if there’s nothing for it but to do our best to make each collision a good one. I feel certain that Yujin and Joonyong are chipping off my paint, and sending those pieces flying about my future. But they’re good pieces, pieces that have been imbibed with humility and generosity, and they are sure to collide positively with others. I regret the bad pieces I’ve chipped off of others in the past, pieces filled with bitter resentment and prideful remarks that are now sure to collide with others and cause still more damage. But ultimately, it’s nice to know there’s still plenty of time to bounce around in my glass cage and slam into people for the better.

Mrs. McDuff

Real Magic

Mrs. McDuff was sixty years old and she still loved magic—not that Wiccan voodoo crap or Ouija board nonsense, but the real kind that makes sentient vines creep into your bedroom and announce in the existence of fauns and fairies; that the old stories have come true; that legends have come to life; and that adventures are afoot to make your blood boil with all the best kinds of emotions like courage and wit and freedom—while ignoring the jeers and eye rolls of the more mundane folks about town who read their newspapers and drink their beers (or wines or rums or what-have-yous) in the peace and quiet of normality without once considering that crazy old Mrs. McDuff might not really have lost her marbles when her husband left her back in ’62 for his secretary, but instead lost the one thing that was keeping her back from true magic of the sentient vine sort, and created a new way for her, one in which she was free—when the sky was clear and the moon and stars just right and the breeze slipping between grey strands of hair—to smell the possibilities in the air and turn her face to the east.

Toska

knock, Knock, Knock!

“Come in?”

No one comes in. Buddy, the fluffy white cuddle terror of the neighborhood barks, warning passersby that he’s ready to give them a cute puppy smile and curl up with them until their souls are filled with puppy love.

“Coming! Quiet, Buddy.” I pat his head and grab the dog’s collar so he’ll quiet down. From my bent position, I glance out the screen door. Since only half of the door is screen, I can only see the nappy head of our little neighbor, Sean.

“Kin Budshau?”

“No, I can’t come outside right now and watch him. Sorry.”

He turns and scuffs off down our front porch, and I give Buddy another pat.

The resident Cuddle Master

The first time Sean said, “Kin Budshau?” I had to ask him to repeat the question at least six times. He patiently did so, but it wasn’t until I stopped thinking about his words and about what he always wants when he on our door that I made the linguistic leap to “Can Buddy come out?”

From then on, Sean and I have understood one another for the most part, although I think he finds my constant refusals to let him drag Buddy around the neighborhood without supervision a little onerous.

Now that I’ve moved out, on to a new apartment for the summer, I realize why I thought this little snippet was important enough to write down.

“God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of humankind; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Luckily a lot of books and movies are variations on this Ecclesiastes theme. They have prepared me for what the Russians call “toska.”

The closest word in English is “angst.” But of course, this word has traveled far from its German roots and has become more than a little cliché in describing the woes of wealthy teenage girls.

The opposite of toska. Apparently sea otters hold hands
to keep from drifting apart while they sleep.
The cutest thing in life just got cuter.

As Vladimir Nabokov says,

“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

God has set eternity into our hearts, but the life we live is ephemeral, cyclical. We meet new people; we settle into a comfortable friendship; then maybe we run up against a little contention. By the time we finally figure it out and learn to speak their “Kin Budshau” language, it’s time for another goodbye.

How unfair. How beautiful. How toska.

A Shout-Out

The string section can start swelling because I’m pretty sure this is going to be a sappy post.

I have finished college. And all it took was:

     ·         four years

     ·         unnumbered papers

     ·         a large chunk of cash

     ·         a forced cross-cultural engagement experience

     ·         many overpriced books

 

But there were some perks, too:

     ·         amazing professors

     ·         brilliant fellow students

     ·         Calvin College cookies (pretty sure they have crack in them)

     ·         a competitive soccer team

     ·         5 jumps into the seminary pond

     ·         Several rain dances and mud-frisbee sessions

Unfortunately, I never learned how to procrastinate. I never felt what 3 a.m. is like when you have a paper due in six hours. I never pulled a single all-nighter for the sake of a test (I did pull a most-of-the-nighter before a test, but I definitely wasn’t studying).

Gaps such as those aside, I still have managed to scrape up a degree. But I dread graduation weekend where it’s all about the young’uns accomplishing things and getting degrees. It’s always seemed to me that I’ve only ever accomplished exactly what has been given to me. For me, graduation should really be a bigger and ritzier Mother’s Day and Father’s Day rolled into one.

Because for starters, I didn’t pay for my college. Also, I didn’t drive me and my suitcases to and from college. I didn’t give myself good study habits or a healthy, competitive mindset. I didn’t answer my tearful phone calls about shameful B pluses on papers. I didn’t drive all day and night to watch a bad soccer game or a boring concert. For that matter, I didn’t drive myself to anything in high school and I wouldn’t have had a car for college if it weren’t for a couple of music educators in northwest Indiana who raised me.

So thanks, mom and dad. Graduation’s great, but I’ll keep working on what I know you really care about.

Proverbs 23:24-25

Quoth the raven: "Honor thy father and mother."

The father of a righteous woman has great joy; he who has a wise daughter delights in her.

 May your father and mother be glad; may she who gave you birth rejoice!

After all, I have some great, Biblical motivation.

Proverbs 30:17

The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.

A Creepy Sort of Peace

“Patience is a virtue!” Rachel Weisz tensely mutters as she fiddles with some ancient mummy artifact.

“Not right now, it isn’t!” Brendan Fraser rejoins, having seen an army of mummies break through the door.

Is it sacrilegious to tell God I think he sounds a lot like Eve and I’m Rick O’Connell in The Mummy? It seems while everyone around me is mourning the end of their undergraduate studies, I’m praying that God will 

end this year of patience-training.

And yet I've felt like this a couple times today.

This year’s theme?

Wait. Wait. Wait, and—oh wait—wait some more.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not much of a fan.

And yet God does enable his people to wade—and wait—through it all with an inexplicable form of joy. For some reason, I’m happy. It’s not because:

·         My novio is coming home this weekend (he’s not)

·         I don’t have homework to be doing (3 tests, 2 papers by next Monday, whoo)

And like this, sometimes!

·         I have a summer job (I don’t)

·         I have a fall job (I don’t)

·         My friendships are stable (The girl I’ve slept next to, cried with, hugged, punched, and skinny-dipped with and who drew Calvin and Hobbes on the inside of our door and the gateway into Moria on the outside freshman year—Elvish script and all—is moving across the country the day after graduation and I’m leaving the rest of my friends behind in three months.)

But I’m happy. Content, even. Even as my being aches for some sense of stability it rejoices (about something) in the fluidity of things.

And this is my favorite feeling.

Not having a job is not fun, but knowing God will provide the best situation for me is a pretty good second best, I suppose.

No Man Is an Island

Ignoring the gender-discrimination of John Donne’s little aphorism, I like the quotation. Unfortunately, it contradicts every fiber of my nature and nurture. I was raised to be independent. I like to make my own choices, keep my own schedule, go where I want to go, and say what I want to say.

But some things are so much better than that. All of my favorite books are former recommendations from someone else, books I often was reluctant to read (The Thief). Same thing with favorite movies (The Lives of Others or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog). The tv show I’m currently wrapped up in has me captivated partially because I know one of my best friends would absolutely love the main character. Some of the best days of my life have happened on someone else’s whim. And most of the best decisions I’ve ever made are the ones God already made for me.

People are tiring sometimes. They let you down and let things separate you. Maybe that’s what relationships are: collapsing, colliding, contorting. Constant circling around until you realize that despite the bumps, the contortions were the best part of it all. At least I hope so. I’m still pretty young, for a hobbit.

Hilary and I know about co-dependency

No man is an island, entire of itself

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

if a clod be washed away by the sea

Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were

as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls

it tolls for thee

A Little Inspired

Today I taught two different plot workshops as part of the Calvin College Youth Writing Festival. Honestly, my own plots have always lacked a certain luster, more like scared and scrawny fur-ball ferrets than proper weasels, twisting slyly beneath the reader’s eyes. But these kids were wizards with it all.

“We write in wonder and because we wonder,” says Richard Peck. And I wonder at how creative middle school kids are. Is there any way my mind was that agile 10 years ago?

The workshop informational sheet gave me some tips to pass along such as “Be willing to change a plot line that seems too limiting or uninteresting.”

These kids needed no such advice. I got a magical melons, lover-clones taking refuge on a Canadian houseboat, and—maybe my favorite—a magical rock which split into a thousand pieces and then floated in a circle above a boy’s head, crowning him prince of some magical land. Yeah, not bad.

We all remember Eustace from Voyage of the Dawn Treader right? “His name was Eustace Clarence Scrub and he almost deserved it.” But I, for one, had never noticed that five times Lewis’ narrator says that Eustace’s problem was this: he “read the wrong kinds of books.” College sometimes feels a little like that.

At the end of my second session I had the kids write down books I ought to read over the summer, books they thought were good. It’s a treasure trove of a reading list and I intend to make good headway into it this summer.

A Quafftide of Words

Do you remember when spelling and vocabulary were classes? How quaint! In middle school (a decade ago!!!), our vocabulary assignments often went something like this:

Write a sentence for every vocabulary word. Each sentence must use the word in proper context giving some clue as to its meaning. This last stipulation usually led to some of the most pathetically redundant sentences ever written that would make even Dickens roll his eyes at the extensive clauses rolled into one sentence such as this one.

Thus this little beauty using 23 words that didn’t make it to modern English:

“That dress looks absolutely abracadabrant on you,” Charles said. “Simply stunning.”

I twirled in front of the mirror. “Thank you, Charles. But you don’t think I look a little too dressed up?”

“Of course not?”

“Do you think I might be talked about? That people might think I’m a flamfoo?”

He raised his eyes in surprise, utterly blutterbunged. “Of course not!”

“Thank you, Charles. I’m just so used to mobbling these days, you know. Dressing in jeans and a sweatshirt when I’m at home.”

“Just mind Louise doesn’t have someone poosk you.”

“Charles! No one checks for hidden vermin on a lady’s person anymore. Besides, I think this new rabbit scarf is great!.”

 I croodled into the soft fur, rubbing my cheek and finding myself warmer than ever.

            I will look finer than all the outcumlins at the party. No stranger will outshine me tonight, no matter how much Louise thinks foreigners have such style.

            “What was that dear? Your lips were moving, but I could hear nothing.”

            I blushed red, caught at my (unconscious, of course) liplabours.

            Next we kissed our ruly children good night—such good little girls who always do as their told. Then we were at the party. And what a dream! Eattocks as far as the eye could see—cookies, cakes, pastries. And because everyone had a great big drink in his hand it was certainly a great quafftide. Just ten minutes in, Charles, having drank too much wine already, gave an obnoxious kelk.

            “Charles! Manners!”

            “A man’s got to belch sometime, Isabelle!”

My reference

            I watched as the gallywow—he hasn’t been able to bear children since that accident, you remember—and some nizzertit foreigner—really! I didn’t know people of stunted growth dared show their faces in society today—scaum back and forth. The same insincere banter of every year, as always.

            “Look at your physician!” Charles pointed at I saw Elias, my old iatromathematique, explaining some archaic mathematic principle to a dear friend.

A sudden draft whispered through the hall and I hurpled against the cold into my scarf. I knew something was wrong.

In the corner, the violinist tootled a few notes in an undertone before breaking out into a rousing jig. The spell was broken and most people broke into a dance. Even the soldier, disillusioned after the war stopped his disquixotted talk about the failing world and did a few steps. But I knew nothing had changed.

I felt unky. Alone. I reached for Charles’ hand but he had commenced his usual vagation, wandering about the room. Not that it mattered, I had no idea how to wordify what I was feeling even if Charles would have listened.

Then I knew who the culprit was: a xanthodont, a yellow-toothed woman skulking in the corner of the room. I took a yeepsen of cookies, filling both hands with the delicious food and screamed my challenge cry.

The woman winked and suddenly a heavy stupor fell over me. In my zwodder, I didn’t see how she escaped, but it haunts me to this day.