Saturday, February 12, 2011

30-Day Challenge, Day 26

A childhood memory.

I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog challenge!  I've been kind of putting it off, since I got off-schedule the other week after my wisdom teeth surgery.  And there have been other things to post.  :-)


I have so many lovely childhood memories.  The question is, which to post about??  
Hm.  Probably our visit to Campobello, when I was seven years old.   Campobello is an island off the coast of Maine and Canada and was the site of the vacation home of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  We went with our cousins from Indiana, whose grandparents (on the other side of the family) own a cottage on the island. 


I have some very special memories of this vacation.  We toured Roosevelt's summer home, visited lighthouses, hiked across rocky beaches, had a campfire on the beach, played games, christened and explored little nameless "islands"...and I got teased about the stringy seaweed strung all over the rocks on the beach behind the cottage.  I thought they were so mean. :-P  And yet still I look back on it as a great memory-- one of the most outstanding in my childhood.

I would go again in a flash if I had the opportunity.  Maybe one day. :-)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A new website :-)

Just for the fun of it, and for the enjoyment of fellow American Girl fans, I have started up an American Girl-themed website. :-)


There are pages for the doll clothes I make, doll repair, photostories, and a mini-blog. Just for fun. :-)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

"The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis

"My Dear Wormwood,


"I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian.  Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties; indeed, in your better moments, I trust you would hardly even wish to do so.  In the meantime we must make the best of the situation.  There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy's camp and are now with us.  All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour."

Under this delusive hope, professional devil Screwtape begins a series of letters to his nephew, a learning devil, Wormwood, on how to tempt and snare a human soul away from God. A nameless young man comes to Christ for salvation, and Screwtape passes on his "expert" advice to Wormwood, teaching him to distract him from God by means of tension in the family, issues and divisions in the church, romantic interests, flippancy about spiritual matters, obsession with the Future or the Past, and so on.  He is convinced that they will prevail in the end over the work of God in the young Christian... but can they?

There is no doubt Clive Staples Lewis has become one of my most favorite authors in the last year.  This is not to say I agree with every point he makes, but overall his writings are so insightful, and his use of fantasy and speculative fiction to make such strong, valid Biblical points never ceases to amaze me.  In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis presents truth by the way of contrast.  The devil tempts the young man to do this or to think this way, in contrast to this or that which would bring glory to God.  In Lewis' preface, he reminds his readers that "the devil is a liar.  Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle."  In a later preface, someone explains it thus: "Screwtape's whites are our blacks and whatever he welcomes we should dread."  I found it very interesting and insightful, and it also helped to give me a fresh perspective on many things.  It's worth reading all the way to the end--despite it's being written from the perspective of a devil (wallowing in his defeat), the last chapter was so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes... but I can't tell you why.  You'll have to read it for yourself.  :-)

As I was reading the book, I wanted to re-post almost every chapter when I finished it, so even now I'm having a hard time deciding which excerpt to post for you.  I will share the excerpt I first read that made me want to pick up the book, and one chapter that particularly stood out to me as I read.

 ~~~~~~~~
Chapter XV

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I had noticed, of course, that the humans were having a lull in their European war—what they naïvely call "The War"!—and am not surprised that there is a corresponding lull in the patient's anxieties. Do we want to encourage this, or to keep him worried? Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind. Our choice between them raises important questions.

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being
concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity.  It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to
the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.

To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation),
washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the
present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

It follows then, in general, and other things being equal, that it is better for your patient to be filled with anxiety or hope (it doesn't much matter which) about this war than for him to be living in the present. But the phrase "living in the present" is ambiguous. It may describe a process which is really just as much concerned with the Future as anxiety itself. Your man may be untroubled about the Future, not because he is concerned with the Present, but because he has persuaded himself that the Future is, going to be agreeable. As long as that
is the real course of his tranquillity, his tranquillity will do us good, because it is only piling up more disappointment, and therefore more impatience, for him when his false hopes are dashed. If, on the other hand, he is aware that horrors may be in store for him and is praying for the virtues, wherewith to
meet them, and meanwhile concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable and should be attacked at once. Here again, our Philological Arm has done good work; try the word "complacency" on him. But, of course, it is most likely that he is "living in the Present" for none of these reasons but simply because his health is good and he is enjoying his work. The phenomenon would then be merely natural. All the same, I should break it up if I were you. No natural phenomenon is really in our favour. And anyway, why should the creature be happy?

Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE


 ~~~~~~~~
Chapter XXVII

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

You seem to be doing very little good at present. The use of his "love" to distract his mind from the Enemy is, of course, obvious, but you reveal what poor use you are making of it when you say that the whole question of distraction and the wandering mind has now become one of the chief subjects of his prayers. That means you have largely failed. When this, or any other distraction, crosses his mind you ought to encourage him to thrust it away by sheer will power and to try to continue the normal prayer as if nothing had happened; once he accepts the distraction as his present problem and lays that before the Enemy and makes it the main theme of his prayers and his endeavours, then, so far from doing good, you have done harm. Anything, even a sin, which has the total effect of moving him close up to the Enemy, makes against us in the long run.

A promising line is the following. Now that he is in love, a new idea of earthly happiness has arisen in his mind: and hence a new urgency in his purely petitionary prayers—about this war and other such matters. Now is the time for raising intellectual difficulties about prayer of that sort. False spirituality is always to be encouraged. On the seemingly pious ground that "praise and communion with God is the true prayer", humans can often be lured into direct disobedience to the Enemy who (in His usual flat, commonplace, uninteresting way) has definitely told them to pray for their daily bread and the recovery of their sick. You will, of course, conceal from him the fact that the prayer for daily bread, interpreted in a "spiritual sense", is really just as crudely
petitionary as it is in any other sense.

But since your patient has contracted the terrible habit of obedience, he will probably continue such "crude" prayers whatever you do. But you can worry him with the haunting suspicion that the practice is absurd and can have no objective result. Don't forget to use the "heads I win, tails you lose" argument. If the thing he prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and "therefore it would have happened anyway", and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective.

You, being a spirit, will find it difficult to understand how he gets into this confusion. But you must remember that he takes Time for an ultimate reality. He supposes that the Enemy, like himself, sees some things as present, remembers others as past, and anticipates others as future; or even if he believes that the Enemy does not see things that way, yet, in his heart of hearts, he regards this as a peculiarity of the Enemy's mode of perception—he doesn't really think (though he would say he did) that things as the Enemy sees them are things as they are! If you tried to explain to him that men's prayers today are one of the innumerable coordinates with which the Enemy harmonises the weather of tomorrow, he would reply that then the Enemy always knew men were going to make those prayers and, if so, they did not pray freely but were predestined to do so. And he would add that the weather on a given day can be traced back through its causes to the original creation of matter itself—so that the whole thing, both on the human and on the material side, is given "from the word go". What he ought to say, of course, is obvious to us; that the problem of adapting the
particular weather to the particular prayers is merely the appearance, at two points in his temporal mode of perception, of the total problem of adapting the whole spiritual universe to the whole corporeal universe; that creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time, or rather that their kind of consciousness forces them to encounter the whole, self-consistent creative act as a series of successive events. Why that creative act leaves room for their free will is the problem of problems, the secret behind the Enemy's nonsense
about "Love". How it does so is no problem at all; for the Enemy does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it.

It may be replied that some meddlesome human writers, notably Boethius, have let this secret out. But in the intellectual climate which we have at last succeeded in producing throughout Western Europe, you needn't bother about that. Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are
of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating The Historical Point of View. The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (specially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the "present state of the question". To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge—to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behaviour—this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded. And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another. But thanks be to our Father and the Historical Point of View, great scholars are now as little nourished by the past as the most ignorant mechanic who holds that "history is bunk",

Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE

Psalm 146

Praise the Lord! 
Praise the Lord, O my soul! 
I will praise the Lord as long as I live; 
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. 

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man,
in whom there is no salvation. 
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; 
on that very day his plans perish. 

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, 
whose hope is in the Lord his God, 
who made heaven and earth, the sea, 
and all that is in them, 
who keeps faith forever; 
who executes justice for the oppressed, 
who gives food to the hungry. 

The Lord sets the prisoners free; 
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. 
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; 
the Lord loves the righteous. 
The Lord watches over the sojourners; 
he upholds the widow and the fatherless, 
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 

The Lord will reign forever, 
your God, O Zion, to all generations. 
Praise the Lord! 


(I don't know what can be more beautiful than that!!)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Character vs. Reputation

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation
because your character is what you really are, 
while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

~James Wooden




Thursday, February 3, 2011

30-Day Challenge, Day 25

A recipe.

Here is one I really enjoy.  It is from a cookbook, not original to us, but I can't remember the name now...Anyway, it's very tasty and moist.  Good stuff. :-)

BANANA BREAD

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 teaspon soda
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup nuts (optional)

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add vanilla and flour.
Beat together bananas, soda, and nuts.  Ad this mixture last.  Bake slowly at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.  Use 2 loaf pans (4 1/2 inch by 9 inch)  greased and lined with wax paper. 

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

30-Day Challenge, Day 24

A movie no one would expect you to love.

Agh.  Some of these posts are not so easy.

I mean, what does it mean by "no one"?  No one at all?  No one upon meeting me?  No one who knows me at least a little?  None of you?  And should it be one no one expects me to love that I do love, or that I don't love?  (I analyze too much.)  I think all my readers here are pretty familiar with the types of movies I like... I'm not too secretive about what I like.  It is a fact generally acknowledged that I love Jane Austen and Charles Dickens adaptions and other period dramas (though not all) and animated films (particularly Disney).  If you didn't know I love Disney animated films and get as much enjoyment out of watching them as I do out of watching a Jane Austen flik, then I guess there's the answer to today's post. :-)


But anyway, I  thought it would be more interesting (and easy) to write about a movie no one would expect me NOT to love.


So I love animated films.  And I have a soft-spot in my heart for, well, um, like dolls and stuff. :-)  So what would you all expect me to like?  (In general.  At least, I think most people would expect me to like it.

Toy Story.  :-P

Okay, rewind.  I really like Toy Story 2.  It's not one of my top 10 favorites, but I do enjoy watching it very much if I fastforward Jessy's depressing song.   But Toy Story 3 is a different matter.


I was hesitant at first about watching it because I knew the theme was Andy growing up, and I've struggled a lot inside about growing up and knowing I'm not a little girl anymore.  (It has awesome pros, but it's kind of sad too sometimes. :-) )  But when I watched it, that aspect didn't bother me at all.  I teared up in the end scene with Andy playing with the little girl... especially when he starts talking about how Woody is a faithful friend... Okay, so that was a lovely scene; I loved that part.  In fact, I would probably have loved the movie except for one thing.


The climax.


*spoilers ahead* (if you haven't seen it and you don't want to know, just stop reading here)


If Lotso had clipped the "stop" button on the dump belt when I thought he was going to, and everyone had been saved just before going over the edge towards the fire pit, I would have been quite happy with the movie.  I would have gasped with relief and sat back to enjoy the rest of the film.
But to have those "friends" of my childhood... Woody, Buzz, Jessy, Rex, Slinky, and the others, really actually almost burn to death??  I didn't even like when they all started holding hands.  I've heard some people say they started crying there and thought it was so wonderful because it symbolized the strong bond of their friendship and how they would stick through anything together, but I didn't like it at all.  I don't mind if the characters "almost die" and then get saved in the nick of time, but to really almost ALMOST die...and in such a traumatic way... and so emotional... and, I mean, Woody and Buzz, ya know?... yeah.  It was just a little too much.  I even had a hard time appreciating "The claaaawww!!"  I was so tensed up after that that I had a hard time sitting back and enjoying the sweet ending.  I did like the sweet ending, but I was too traumatized to really let it warm my heart, if you know what I mean.  


In addition, the film did have enough "darker" moments that it just didn't make it to the top of my list.  The evil Lotso bear that smells of strawberries, and... *shudders* that SUPER CREEPY BABY DOLL that looks like it needs someone on the American Girls Fans Message Board to fix it up.... (I still hated the baby doll even by the end.)  And just little aspects here and there.  Not bad things, necessarily, just things that didn't sit right with me when I wanted a heart-warming, nostalgic movie. :-)

Don't get me wrong-- I don't hate this movie, and I don't not recommend it (though I don't recommend it for children, even if it is a cartoon-- don't believe in that line on the back of the case that says "G-General Audiences").  I got some good laughs out of it, and I thought the ending was the perfect way to conclude the series.  I loved Bonnie (absolute adorableness!) and her little toys, especially Mr. Pricklepants ("I am trying to stay in character!") :-) :-)   And who doesn't love Woody?  (mmmmm!!  *hugs self* I LOVE WOODY!!!!)   But it just didn't make it to my favorites list and I probably wouldn't watch it again unless my sisters let me fastforward through (or leave the room for) the whole dumpster scene.  It just wasn't my idea of a good climax.  The climax should have been a good several minutes prior to that, like, before the dump truck even picked the toys up in the first place. :-P

(Though it's kind of odd, because I don't really dislike intense scenes in general; I mean, I love The Incredibles and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which have some intense, main-character-almost-dies types of scenes. (Didn't know I liked those?  Maybe I should have featured them... :-P ) (another post for another time...)  I think, though, that it was the fact that I sort of "grew up" with Woody and Buzz and the others, and already have a soft spot for (eh-hem) toys anyway, so to see them almost burn to death just wasn't what I wanted to see.  :-P

So what did you think about it?  Feel free to disagree with me.  I'm very glad if other people like it, because I feel bad that I didn't. :-)  What were your thoughts on Toy Story 3?   





P.S. I'm sorry I keep posting about animated films.  I tried to think about something else to write about for this post, but animated films kept coming to mind and I didn't know what live action films people wouldn't expect me to love. :-)