A Spell for Refreshment on Hiatus

Think of this post as the Wood Between the Worlds. As it says in The Magician's Nephew, "it was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine....not the sort of place where things happen.........."

That is how it will be here for most of 2009, I think, though I hope things will happen here again before Christmas. I love the topics in his blog and hate to set it aside temporarily, but I have some pressing business to take care of in several different worlds. You can visit these worlds by diving into the various link-pools below:

Through the pool that leads to St. Herman's Church: it's almost Lent, which means singing in the choir at extra services every week. And in Holy Week things will get even more interesting, as I have a second grandkid due to arrive.

Through the pool that leads to 9th Century Northumbria: I have just signed my contract with Conciliar Press for Bearing the Saint, so I will be buckling down and aiming to have a presentable, close-to-final draft by end of summer.

Through the pool next door to that one: I hop still further back in time, to the 7th Century, as I consult with my editor about my Saint Cuthbert picture book, The Ravens of Farne.

And next to both of these....A new pool to the world called HALIWERFOLC, which will only open magically to

the world of Saint Cuthbert on his feast day A.D. 2009 March 20th

I hope you'll come explore these worlds with me while Storyspell sits here quietly for a little while.

Anonymity=Cowardice, Honesty=Refreshment of Spirit

This poster visualizes the spread of anonymous gossip as the production of destructive monsters. Designed by Alex Godfrey for Ownwhatyouthink.com. Download Poster PDF.

The latest fads in our society almost never produce refreshing news. On the other hand, sometimes, like in the post from before Christmas about the guy who overcame disability to build a useable Viking Ship from popsicle sticks , you'll get somebody that says "You can't take me down!" to evil, tragedy, pain or disaster. Or to a current fad.

Remember the Magician's book in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?(Sure you do, without it I wouldn't have the premise for this very blog! :-)

It exists. Or at least, one of the spells from its pages does. That's the spell that Lucy tried out to see what her friends really thought of her. Lewis-as-narrator of Voyage of the Dawn Treader remarks of the words of this spell "nothing will induce me to tell you what they were."

But people today can find it --on the internet, of course. I guess we should have expected that, eh?

Blogs, e-mail lists, social networks, forums.....all of these have potential for damage. Writers may be indiscreet or even malicious as they slip into careless remarks about friends, or in a passive-aggressive way announce on their Facebook update or Twitter "Marjorie Preston (the girl who gossiped about Lucy) was getting pretty tired of some people by the end of last term."

But there is a site even more egregious than these, that exists for the very purpose of saying all sorts of things, without any social constraints at all. I'm not linking to it. It's called Juicy Campus, and it's a gossip cesspool like we've never seen before, where college students come to write the kind of stuff that used to only appear on washroom walls. Classmates may find themselves hounded, outed, harassed, labeled and slandered-- and unlike Lucy's friends in the Magician's book, the perpetrators get to remain anonymous.

But it's all in good fun. Well, fun like running with scissors, that is, until somebody gets an eye poked out.....

But hang on. This evil website has a noble twin.

Started by students at Princeton, Own What You Think.com "seeks to unite people and bring personal accountability back into the ways in which we communicate and interact with each other. It is about encouraging individuals to voice their opinions respectfully and constructively while refusing to participate in anonymous and malicious character assassination. It is also about taking a personal stand for something and encouraging others to do the same. "

Among the initiatives of their campaign for civil discourse, these students have created a "love wall" in which they write positive things about others; T-shirts that declare "anonymity=cowardice" and a petition/pledge that begins:

We, the undersigned, commit ourselves to taking a stand against anonymous character assassination, a culture of gossip, and all other acts of ethical and intellectual cowardice.

Bravo, Princeton and other colleges that have joined the campaign. Call it prissy and Pollyannaish if you like...when you see the stuff they are taking a stand against, ownwhatyouthink.com is what I call good magic.

Viking ship sails to give, not loot

...and how spiritually refreshing is that?

A Viking ship made totally from ice cream and lolly sticks!

The ship called Thor was built by a man who was injured badly as a child but would not listen to the naysayers and was determined to do remarkable things with his life.

Now the ship is sailing up the Thames to deliver Christmas toys to sick kids. Saint Nicholas, the patron who gives gifts to children in need as well as the patron of sailors, must be thrilled-- a ship named for a pagan Scandinavian god coming to England to deliver gifts, not to loot them, as the Scandinavian invaders did once upon a time!

Links to more Christmas material below, in previous post.

Give the gift of Story

It is that time of year.....and rather than create yet another Christmas post at the moment, I'm going to ask you to consider giving the gift of Story this Christmas. If you're reading this blog, of course, you probably already have books on your gift list for your nearest and dearest.

But I'd like you to also consider giving a book for older kids or teenagers to your local Christmas bureau. These older kids in need are often forgotten at this time of year. Chances are, these kids are not from bookish homes, so the challenge is to present something that will grab them.

Obviously, The Chronicles of Narnia are one of my own favorite suggestions. Packaged to tie in with the films, they are appealing to a whole new generation of kids. And of course the Harry Potter phenomenon has made reading a bit cooler than it was before-- film tie-ins are good here too.

CDs and films that tell or tie in with good stories are also good bets for this purpose. A recent underappreciated film that I hope to blog on at some point is Penelope. This one is wonderful for girls.

Please do chime in and offer your own suggestions, particularly of stuff that's currently widely available.

Meanwhile, if you came here looking for a seasonal read, click on one of these:

"Cold Hands, Warm Heart"-- what could make Jack Frost decide to rebel against the Winterfolk and join the side of Summer? Short fiction from my archive of previously-published stories.

"The Refreshment of Generosity: A Christmas Carol" -- a post about the Dickens classic

"Silent Night and War Game: The Refreshment of Christmas"-- post about the WWI Christmas Truce in No-man's Land.

Fairy Tale endings and Kingdom beginnings

My husband said it was like a Hollywood fairy tale ending.

For several years now our church, the Orthodox Church in America, has been agonizing over a financial scandal of vast proportions. We have been leaderless, our membership wounded and divided as we approached our most recent “All-American” Council in Pittsburgh. This gathering of clergy and laity from all over North America had as its most important goal the choosing of a new Metropolitan.

Many people have been praying for many months or longer, both individually and corporately, for God’s mercy and guidance. True, a great deal of progress had already been made before the council in removing problem people from office, sorting out as much of the financial mess as possible, and setting up new Best Practices procedures to prevent such things in future. But the wounds were still raw, and the way ahead unclear. Many approached the council gathering with trepidation, the light of hope burning only dimly.

Tuesday night we began to see prayers answered. The newly-consecrated auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of the South, Bishop Jonah, spoke to the delegates in response to many of the pained and difficult questions about the scandal, and something happened. The next day, the majority of the delegates gave him their votes. The Holy Synod of Bishops then stepped out in humility and confirmed the people’s choice of this most junior bishop, consecrated to his office only 11 days earlier. It brought to mind St. Paul’s exhortation to the young bishop Timothy, “let no-one despise your youth, but be an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

Our membership could not see or agree upon a clear way out of our morass of denial and recriminations, but the Holy Spirit working in synergy with God’s people has now provided one. “It was like Pentecost” one of my husband’s priestly friends said.

Whistle-blowers and gadflies have risked, and some have suffered, great things to inform and motivate the people of God to seek an answer to our troubles. And the people rose to this challenge, both in prayer and in action. Now we have a completed investigation, a new Metropolitan with a new emphasis on genuine conciliarity, and public thanks and vindication given to many of those who dared to speak out.

This is a fairy-tale ending-- the happy turn at the end of a tale, which J.R.R. Tolkien calls a "eucatastrophe". But in God’s Kingdom, such an ending is only a beginning. Only in the next world is there a true and final happy-ever-after. Having begun the race, we must not look back, but press on to the prize. Our bishops have truly said that trust cannot be re-established—they must earn it. There are wounded little ones who still need healing.

But perhaps most encouraging of all is the way some of the strongest critics of the previous administration are speaking positively of this AAC and our new metropolitan. We have a new Metropolitan Council, and there is no reason to think they will not be vigilant and wise as the wheels of the OCA begin to move. They are beginning to move, and now that they are moving, it will be possible to steer.

Some remain a little skeptical. That is all right, and to be expected after our experience of the last few years. There is however a difference between skepticism and cynicism. The skeptic asks sincere questions and says ‘show me.’ The cynic however says ‘I don’t believe, no matter what you are showing me.’ Only the individuals can know in their hearts (if God grants them true self-knowledge) whether they are skeptics or cynics.

The rest of us can do little for the cynics but pray. They are the dwarfs in C.S. Lewis’s concluding volume of the Narnia books, The Last Battle. Narnia is liberated, and here is what happens:

Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees...They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly…One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip…they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at!......”…they all said: “Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in..”

“You see,” said Aslan. “…Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

We need to heal. Our hierarchs need to earn our trust again. But we are not called to be dwarfs in a dark prison; we are called to be free men and women in the light of the Gospel. Let us continue to pray fervently for our new Metropolitan, our diocesan hierarchs and all our other church leaders, clergy and lay. We have seen God work a miracle in answer to our recent prayers. Now let us continue to ask Him for more such good gifts in the opening of missions, the healing of hearts, the ministry to the needy yet to come. For the best thanks we can give God for answered prayer is to ask Him for more, for He is a good Father who delights to give such good things to His children.

Stop to Hear the Music

This post is in honour of Take Back Your Time Day Oct. 24, 2008

still from video posted on the Washington Post's website

It won’t be often that you see an article about a social/psychological experiment turning up as the main subject of a post on this blog. So please take it seriously when I give you the URL to a Washington Post article from 2007 at the bottom of this post. The article is called ‘Pearls before Breakfast’.

It is a long article, but believe me it is worth reading every single word. In fact the length of the article is bound up with what I at least see as the main point: that our rat race world is doing something terrible to us. It is causing us grownups to miss the beauty that children are instinctively drawn towards.

A world-class musician plays a sublime selection of music on a Stradivarius during the morning commute at a subway station. What reaction should we have expected, and what actually happened? The reporters involved could have simplistically disdained the barbarians who failed to appreciate the quality of the free concert, but there is more to it. This wasn’t just about people not recognizing a famous musician because they didn’t expect to see him there, or not caring about the quality of the music. The individual stories of the commuters of all walks of life are fascinating. And yes, it was the children who without exception were attracted to the music, heads turning as they tugged against their parents’ headlong progress to wherever they were going that seemed so important at the time. (you can listen to the full performance here)

I don’t listen to a lot of music, for what might seem like an odd reason to some. I am deeply affected by a lot of music. If I listened to more, one of two things would happen: either I would get inured to it, or I would end up a basket case. It isn’t uncommon for music to provoke me to tears. It’s less common for an article –about- music (or anything else for that matter) to have that effect on me.

Why am I classing this article as a story of Spiritual Refreshment? Partly it’s the humility of the musician, Joshua Bell, which reminds me of that same ‘getting out of the way’ I wrote about in Benjamin Bagby. Partly it’s the wonder of beauty and art that can touch something in us humans and make us aware of transcendence. And partly it’s the always-wonderful spectacle of little children showing a wisdom that the big people have forgotten.

read it here . Oh, and take the time to enjoy. (hat tip to the Facebook group for Take Back Your Time)

Happy Birthday Bilbo!

still from the movie posted at :

http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/source/Imladris.net

"IF MORE OF US VALUED FOOD AND CHEER AND SONG ABOVE HOARDED GOLD, IT WOULD BE A MERRIER WORLD. "

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit or There and Back Again

As we contemplate the celebration of Bilbo's (and Frodo's) birthday on Sept 22nd, corresponding with the first day of fall this year, you could hardly improve upon this quote from The Hobbit for spiritual refreshment.

The ancient practice of hospitality and gift-giving runs like a bright thread through the history of a dark world. To provide for the stranger was a sacred duty in the ancient world. And I don’t think there has ever been a culture in which food and music and giving things away were not near the center of the celebration of birthdays and other special occasions. From Anglo-saxon ring-giving to native North American potlatch, human hosts have forged bonds with their guests by serving them food and drink, then strengthend the bonds by sending them home with gifts.

One thing I especially love about hobbit birthdays is the ‘mathom’ tradition. Like many of our world’s cultures, hobbits in the Shire do not receive gifts on their birthdays, they give them away. This is a particular contrast with the solitary figure of poor Smeagol/Gollum. He speaks of the One Ring as his birthday present when he is in the cave with Bilbo; only later, in The Lord of the Rings, do we learn that this ‘present’ is not something he was given, but a precious thing he looked upon covetously and then took for himself with murderous hands.

A mathom is something handed down, passed around and given away. It is an appealing idea in our materialistically cluttered world, where we give lip service to Re-use as one of our modern three R’s. Bilbo was a wealthy hobbit and so could afford to give away the custom-made imported toys of “real dwarf make” (and you can be very sure they were ‘fair trade’. ;-) Bilbo also made sure to see that practical gifts, like tools and sacks of potatoes, were given to the poorer families in the neighborhood. But the more usual custom, in the comfortably middle-class Shire, was to recycle those unused odd whatsits and stray thingamabobs as presents, making sure that no guest went home from a party without something.

And then, when you had collected far too many of these knick-knacks, your own birthday would come around and you could de-clutter your hobbit hole by inviting a large number of guests. Don’t forget to fetch the Old Winyards out from the deepest cellar…and if perchance you have some unexpected guests, and the cakes run out, do remember your painful duty as hobbit host to go without!