Trying to Write

February has been a hard month. There have been moments of brilliance and beauty and fun, and I have tried to share them. But there has been a lot of tension, analysis, conviction, and busyness. What I feel, what I know, what I think, and what I have to do are always coming in conflict with each other.

Every day goes by so quickly, and yet every day feels like I didn't do anything profitable. But I can make a list of what I have done. I journal arguments with myself and for my beliefs, only to realize that my foundational presuppositions were all wrong. So I have tried to re-write only to find that now I don't know what I believe.

I painted the other day. Then I did some origami. I did some more last night. I think those will be my hobbies. You know, those things that you never will be amazing at, but bring you pleasure and contentment while doing.

Thomas played the piano while I prepared dinner. I realized that something amazing happens when I listen to live music. My over analytical brain shuts off just for a little while, and I can relax. Just listening to recorded music doesn't work. It has to be live music; I experimented. It was nice to sing along with music, and pleasant to just listen to others, and it was good to make music, but none of those things made my brain turn off. There must be something profound to be said about that and the way the brain works, but I haven't discovered what it is yet.

Tonight I am going to bake a cake. I will post pictures of it because I hope it looks amazing. That is the plan at least.

Next year I am giving up February for Lent... It will make Easter come faster. I need some resurrection joy.

And Spring Will Be Here

And as far back as I can remember

The promise has always been clear

      

And the cold fresh days of December
Will soon go away

 

 

And spring

Will be here.

~James Ward

City Snow Poems

City Snow I

Falling on the
Dirty, slushy
City snow
The world becomes
Lovely, white
Beauty

But then it must be
Shoveled, cindered
Making more
Dirty, Slushy
Piles of
Yuck

And in spring all the
Nasty, yucky
Slush
Turns to
Dirty, Slushy
Mud

But once the snow is gone
Vibrant, green
Leaves
Can sprout
And spring will be here

City Snow II

My face, like
City snow
Covering the
Dirty, slushy
Self
With a lovely, pure
Beauty

But the dirt
And mud
Are only hidden
Until a new layer
Of ash and cinders
Corrupts the perfection
I have worked so hard
To achieve

And when Spring melts
The vestiges of my beauty
Nothing is left but
Mud, ashes, and
Ugliness

But once the snow is gone
Green grass can grow
And new life can be seen

-CJW 2/11

Funny Story

I got chained up again today. This time I made an escape, but got taken in again and was force to build my own chain. They didn't like it when I was singing, but they did feed me sushi this time (raw meat instead of stale bread).

When I asked if I would ever be able to go free, they responded, "We will keep you in jail, forever and ever, Amen."

Teaching again

This week I am teaching Kindergarten. They are some of my favorite lessons - the beginning of special sounds, China, after numbers, and lots of review. But the fun parts of teaching are outside of the lessons.

I have five kiddies. They are all adorable and loving, full of hugs and smiles, and so concerned about other children making mistakes. The three boys are naughty little wiggle worms and the two girls are a mix of bossy-ness and affection. I loved teaching them music, but I love them even more now that I get to spend all day with them.

Today, during art, their teacher made them masks. Instead of being bandits or ninjas, they were superheroes. They thought of it themselves after I said they may not really hit when they were fighting. Superheroes zap, bang, and pow without touching each other so it worked out quite well.

After we learned about China, they decided to build the Great Wall with their building blocks. It turned into a castle, and no grown-ups were allowed. So I put on a mask too, and tried to sneak into their castle. Unfortunately they were not fooled by my clever disguise, and instead kidnapped me and chained me to the bookshelf with counting-chains.* They only fed me stale bread and water, but when they packed up to go home, one of the girls sneaked away and rescued me. I wish I had a picture to show because it was absolutely hilarious.

I am reading one of my favorite short, chapter books, Fu-Dog, rather than the one their teacher started with them. It is about a little girl who is given a little toy Fu-dog by her great uncle. She then tries to go visit Chinese Great Uncle in London, but nothing goes quite as planned. It is a great story, and very well written and illustrated. These kids have been sitting in rapt attention while I have been reading. You can see their little brains picturing the story and making connections. It is amazing to me to see these little wiggle worms so fascinated by this story, but I am very glad. We saw a drawing of a little Chinese girl during our Social Studies class, and they wanted to know if she was Li-la.

It is good to teach Kindergarten again, but I will be glad for a not full-time week. My house is less than clean and orderly and I don't like getting up at 5:45.

Doing Something

Sunday I talked briefly to a friend who in the course of the conversation said, "Sometimes I envy all your free time to pursue things you want to do."

Then I talked to my older brother about drama - he is directing this year, and he mentioned how getting to know your character is a lot like getting to know God. You have to use the script to help you define who you are, and where you fit in the world.

This morning, Daddy sent me a quote in response to my blog posts. It is from Chip Ingram's book Good to Great in God's Eyes."

I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up half the night thinking about some questions that had been bothering me. Is it really wrong to want to be great? Is it self-centered to want your life to really? make an impact? Does ambition indicate a spiritual problem? Am I "carnal" for thinking such things?

After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I got up, made some hot tea, found my wife's rocking chair, and stared into the fireplace, mentally reviewing all the things God had been teaching me lately. One idea in particular seems to capture my attention: what does "greatness" in God's kingdom look like?

I had recently spent some time in Luke 22, a passage that raised this question. Near the end of Jesus's earthly ministry, the disciples argued about which one of them was the greatest. Surprisingly, Jesus never rebuked them for their longing to be great. He gave them a completely new paradigm about what greatness is, but he didn't condemn their desire...."

Then it all came together. I am longing to DO something with my life, of course. But that doesn't necessarily mean I need to do something different. It means I have to do what I do with significance, with deliberateness, with purpose. One of my first lessons in theater was that everything - every action, every prop, every character - needs to have a purpose or reason for being there; if it doesn't have a purpose, you either give it one, or get rid of it.

That is what I can do with my life now. I can DO everything I normally do, but do it with a purpose. I can take care of my home and be responsible with my gifts and use my talents now. It is a change in perspective, not a change in action. The time may come when I need to change my place and my action, but I am pretty sure it is not at this moment. And perhaps the more purposeful I am in doing my "little" tasks, it will become clear what my "greater" tasks will be.

I got a snow day

Not today. Today is Saturday. But on Tuesday, I did not have to go to work because of ice and snow. And Wednesday was pretty nasty too, so Thomas got to stay home too. It was really good to have two very profitable and relaxing days, but now I am all mixed up and can't quite get it into my head that it is the weekend.

However, because of the snow days, or should I say ice days, yesterdays activities involved chopping away at 2-3 inches of ice in the walk around our house. We live in a half double, but we cannot access the sidewalk around our side of the house because of our deck. So we use the walk around our neighbor's side of the house. It had not yet been shoveled, but I heard our neighbor, Mrs. Helen, out there chopping away at the ice. So I went out. I started at the back, and she at the front. In the front part, there was mostly snow then ice, making it very heavy. On my end... and inch or so of ice for about five feet, then about two feet of of 3 inch ice. We chopped and hacked away at the ice, getting rid of it layer by layer with the help of ice-melt. There is still a patch about the size of a dinner plate that must have dripped from her gutter that we gave up on. My back, legs, and arms were sore; I can only imagine how exhausted she was, poor lady. But we had a pleasant time talking with one another.

I also practiced my voice piece for a bit yesterday. It is "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" from Carmen. The chromatics and breath control are difficult, but the French is definitely the hardest part. I love it, now that I am beginning to understand the phonics of it, but it is so hard to remember how to pronounce everything on top of the timing and chromatics and breath control.

I realized again how much I love languages. See, this is my problem with considering further schooling. I love theater, but if I were to go back to school, I would want to study languages to become an interpreter or translator or just someone who could speak, like millions of, languages. It is so amazing that a combination of sounds mean something to those who speak that language, but mean absolutely  nothing to me. And it is so beautiful the way languages tell you so much about a culture. And if I could speak other languages, think how many more people I could communicate with.

This "communication" is at the center of all my loves. I love to teach; why? because of the communication and relationships that form, the knowledge that is shared, and the wonder that is instilled. I love theater for similar reasons, and I love languages for their ability to do the same thing. Beauty through words and movement and relationship...

One of my favorite children's stories is Miss Rumphius written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. In it a little girl says she wants to travel the world and see many things, but then come home and live by the sea.

"That is all very well, little Alice," says her grandfather, "but there is a third thing you must do."
"What is that?" asked Alice.
"You must do something to make the world more beautiful," said her grandfather.
"All right," said Alice. But she did not know what that could be.

And she does. She does a simple thing that makes the world more beautiful.

"'All right,' I say. But I do not know yet what that can be."

Macbeth Review

Artistically, Macbeth, performed by the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble, was excellent. Because it was abridged from the original, they had to be deliberate with what they chose to show and the way the chose to show it. Although at times it felt like you were put down in the middle of a scene, it had a flow that made sense and kept the action moving. For those unfamiliar with Shakespearean language, some things could be difficult to follow, especially actions done off stage and then told about. And for those unaccustomed to the actors playing multiple roles, the multi-casting could be confusing. However, Shakespeare did both of these things, and BTE could not be faulted for the confusion they might have caused.

My biggest complaint was the omnipresence of the witches. In this interpretation, the witches not only triggered Macbeth’s treacherous thoughts, but also goaded on the action of the play. This complaint does not stem from my dislike of witches, but rather my appreciation for the debate between fate and choice. That discussion never happens because of this interpretation. The performers answered the questions for the audience, rather than having them have to do the work of asking the questions themselves.

In reading the play, we have to deal with these questions. Was Macbeth fated to do all these things? Would he have become king by honest means if he hadn’t taken things into his own hands? Are the witches watchers, or participants? Or did Macbeth hear the witches’ prophecies and make them come true for himself? And were the consequence because of his choices or because of the witches’ later prophecies? I would like to see a performance that motivates the audience ask these questions.

When I asked the director why she made the witches so important, she told me that because they are trying to make Shakespeare accessible to the next generation. Because the current youth generation has a fascination with witches, wizards, vampires and the like, it made sense to present the play in “their language.” She also said that because you never find out what happens to the witches, the questions of fate and choice can still be asked, for example, Do the witches still affect the world, or have we moved beyond the reach of spiritual forces? I can understand that perspective, and appreciate the fact that although they were trying to use ideas familiar to the youth generation, they also presented another perspective. These witches were evil and impersonal beings, not ones that could be manipulated or befriended, contrary to the representation of their contemporary literary representations. They are more dangerous though, because they have very close connection to the spiritual realms, also contrary to their contemporary representations.

On the whole, I liked it. I think it was beneficial for our high school to attend the play, and I hope they begin to ask questions about what it meant.