Monday's Metaphor -- Ready? 1. 2. 3. BITE!

Meet my nemesis the fire ant.  Looks harmless enough, but these little guys pack a powerful punch.  Here in Phoenix, they come out in force this time of year.  Mostly you'll encounter them outside, but sometimes they make house visits.

The other night, I fell asleep at around 8:30 p.m. while putting my youngest to sleep (typical) and woke up around midnight.  I stumbled to my office for a night shift of lawyer-ish work (also typical, unfortunately).  Sitting at my computer, I felt a sharp (and too familiar) sting.  Reacting with all the kung foo-like skills I could muster, I smashed a  fire ant on my right foot, but was bitten in unison by about five of its friends.  Most of the bites were on my toes and feet, but one actually reached my thigh when the message to BITE was broadcast across the ant waves.  I looked down to the floor and found hundreds of the little beasts swarming under my desk.  It's truly a miracle that I only received six bites.  I ran for a can of bug spray and used nearly the whole can to annihilate the whole bunch of them (gentle vegetarian, animal-lover that I am).

The miracle is even more dear because I'm severely allergic to fire ants.  I believe this is due to an unfortunate childhood experience that involved me sitting on a whole colony of fire ants, resulting in "ants in the pants" in the most literal way.  That's the thing about the venom of these things, your reaction gets worse (not better) with each subsequent encounter.  Ask me sometime about the time I was bitten by fire ants ON MY LIP.  The night before an oral argument in court.  I certainly wasn't going for the collagen-lip-injection-gone-awry look, but that's what I got.  And I looked that way in front of a judge on a really important case.  Good times.    

Back to my point.  So here's the amazing thing about these tiny bugs.  If you find yourself in their territory (or they decide to invade your territory), they will climb into your shoes and up your legs as a group.  They then send a signal to inform the entire group when to sting so that they can have the maximum impact possible.  How do they do that?!  I don't know, but I'm struck with how the stings of life often seem to come in unison as well, like a well-timed but cruel group effort of all that is bad in the universe.

Wednesday's Word -- Trust

I'm not one to follow celebrities (or think that what I think about them matters one lick), but I have to admit that I have always admired Maria Shriver.  She is a strong, smart, capable woman.  Have you read her 2009 Shriver Report on women?  You should.  Right now (whether she cares or not), my heart is aching (and still admiring her) for what she's enduring.

So this week I'm thinking about the word TRUST, and what happens when it is gone.

"Trust" means "firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing."  It is "something committed into the care of another."  Like the word ENDURE, it comes from the Indo-European root deru-, meaning "hard."  The word TREE comes from the same root.  So fitting, because I really can't imagine anything more trustworthy, steadfast and immovable than a tree.  

Times like these --  trust chopped to the ground -- leave a woman sitting on the stump, mustering the strength to get up and go plant her heart in more fertile ground.           

Monday's Metaphor -- Open Trench

So many of my metaphors find me while I'm running.  I (literally) almost tripped over this one.  I've joked that I'm going to silkscreen the sign I wrote about here on a baby t-shirt, but I can imagine wearing this one emblazoned across my own chest:  OPEN TRENCH.  I know it's not Wednesday (and this isn't one of my Wednesday's Word posts), but indulge me.

The metaphor is probably obvious to you (because you too have likely had your heart carved out at some point over the course of the cruel days that sometimes make up our lives), but it improves with some dictionary help.  A trench is a "deep furrow or ditch."  Indeed, the word comes from a root meaning "to cut."  Trench may also be defined as "a long narrow ditch embanked with its own soil and used for concealment and protection in warfare."

Sometimes when your insides have been carved out from within, the remaining cavity at least provides a hiding place.  Caution advised for passersby.

Holding On To the Ticket

Dostoyevsky's notes for Chapter 5
of The Brothers Karamazov

It's been nearly a month since I finished reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.  The novel has been on my mental to-read list for a long time, and I worked through its nearly 800 pages with determination.  I must admit that I let out at least a tiny sigh of relief when I reached the end, eager to move on to lighter fare.  But passages, images and themes from the book keep coming to my mind unbidden, sitting here and then there, trying out the rooms like a mental goldilocks.  Here is one.

I cannot sum up The Brothers Karamazov in this short post -- at least not in any manner that could do it justice.  The short of it is that there are three brothers, Dmitri (28), Ivan (24), and Alyosha (20).  All three share a father (Fyodor Pavlovich), but Dmitri is from Fyodor's first marriage, and Ivan and Alyosha are from his second marriage.  Both mothers are dead, Fyodor is a "scoundrel" (to use a word Dostoyevsky uses repeatedly throughout the book), and none of his sons really love him.  In fact, at least two of them (Dmitri and Ivan) would like to see him dead.  Dmitri, the oldest, is much like his father -- a sensualist and a scoundrel.  Ivan is an intelligent atheist.  And Alyosha (the "cherub") is a novice monk who believes fervently in God, but is not without chinks in the armor of his faith.  To make a very long story short (without spoiling all the twists and turns), someone murders the father, Fyodor, and Dmitri is arrested and tried for the crime.  I won't tell you how the book ends, because that's really not the point of this post (and you should slog through it yourself, in any event!).        

Plot aside, the book is about free will, God, faith, doubt, reason, sin, virtue, truth, deceit, guilt, love, and so much more.  But it is especially about suffering.  In one particulary gripping chapter (Book 5, Chapter 4 "Rebellion"), Ivan talks/rants to younger brother Alyosha about the inequity of the suffering in the world, speaking of the "tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its center."  (I like the way that sounds, don't you?  Can't you just picture it like a soggy loaf of bread?)  Ivan laments:  "Surely I haven't suffered simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure the soil of the future harmony for somebody else."  (Talk about metaphor.) 

He then asks his monk-brother:  "Do you understand why this infamy [suffering] must be and is permitted?  Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil.  Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much?"  Rejecting the world that God has created because it is built on a foundation of suffering, Ivan proclaims:  "Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it.  And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest many I am bound to give it back as soon as possible.  And that I am doing.  It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."

I am no atheist.  But, like Ivan, I too struggle to understand incomprehensible suffering -- in the world, in my circle of friends and acquaintances, and in my very own life.  Like Ivan, I can't help but think that the suffering costs too much -- at least when it sacrifices the innocent on the altar of another's sin.  Or when it hits, lottery-style in a randomness that confounds all understanding.  But, unlike Ivan, I can see the joy too -- a joy that is (despite what he says) sweetened and strengthened by opposition.  Perhaps what Ivan couldn't (or chose not to) believe, is this: 

"Joy and sorrow are inseparable.  Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed."  [Gibran, The Prophet]

That knowledge doesn't excuse the suffering, I suppose. But it at least grants me the perspective to hold on to my entrance ticket.

The Aging of Grief

I'm currently slogging through The Brothers Karamazov.  Yes, I do mean slogging.  It's not an easy read, but it does have moments of brilliance.  This morning, this line made me stop and ponder for some time:

"It's a great mystery of human life, 

that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy."  

I do think that's true.  And miraculous.  Even the sharpest of life's pains dull over time.  Thank goodness for joy, and that sorrow is only a periodic visitor.  But how "old" must the grief be before you can stop nurturing it like a sick child and kick it out of your house?  That's what I want to know.

Speaking of books, aren't these book sculptures (what the artist, Brian Dettmer, calls "altered" books) clever? (discovered via Omnivoracious)

Sobs, Sniffles, and Smiles

Each Christmas, I select and give a book to each of my children.  It's my little way of emphasizing the importance of reading.  I always tell them that the love of words and books has shaped my life in powerful ways.  When I'm gone, I hope that is one of the memories they will have of me.  This year, I gave one of my daughters an illustrated copy of The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry (a much loved story).  Some of the words are above the average reading level for children (or even adults of this day and age -- e.g., "the silent imputation of parsimony"), but my girls enjoy the story and illustrations very much.

Here's a line from the story that has stuck in my mind:  "[L]ife is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating."  I wonder, is that true?  I suppose O'Henry means that our circumstances usually aren't on either end of the spectrum (either all sobs or all smiles), but rather somewhere in the middle (sniffles).  I'd prefer to think that sniffles are not the middle ground status quo, but some stretches of life do feel that way.  

A couple of days after Christmas, my oldest daughter asked me to take her to get her hair cut.  I thought, "well, good," because I have been suggesting it for months and months.  Turns out, she was inspired by Della in the story, who had her long lovely locks sheared off in exchange for $20, which she used to buy a gift for her dear husband, Jim (and you know the rest of the story).  I thought the moral of the story my girls would take away was that gifts of love and pure sacrifice are the wisest of all.  But it turns out that my daughter was just hoping she could get some payment in return for the hair cut off her own head . . .       

Let's Have a Party

The teachers stretched and formed the children into lines on a crisp October morning at Windsor Elementary.  It was 1978, and it was my sixth birthday.  The lines would not hold, forms morphing like cloud shapes in the sky.  Assembly day, and we could hardly contain our excitement.  It actually doesn't take much to enliven a group of elementary school-age children, as you may know.  Our honored assembly speaker was a cookbook author, and none of us knew how to cook.  But we didn't care.  The assembly was a break in the routine, and that was enough.  What's more, there would be a lottery, and one lucky child (among hundreds) would actually win a signed copy of the speaker's cookbook, "Let's Have a Party"!  

The mass of children that would not stay lined floated  towards the multi-purpose room like a storm cloud.  For some reason that is entirely inexplicable to me now, I was praying.  I was praying with all the fervent faith of a first grader that I would be the lucky child to win the lottery.  It WAS my birthday after all, I bargained.  I do not remember all I promised in return for God's grace on this particular request, but I'm sure I probably promised to be a better girl.  Nor do I recall why in the world I cared to have the cookbook.  At the age of six, I certainly wasn't planning many parties, let alone themed dinner party menus like those contained in the book (including the intriguing "For Lovers Only," "Ladies Lit Luncheon," and "Morning Reveille," among others).

But as you may be guessing, my prayer was answered, and my name was drawn.  I won the cookbook.  God existed.  And I've never forgotten it.  In all seriousness, the question is why?  Why are some prayers answered and others (so much more important than cookbooks) not?  Maybe you've wondered that yourself.

I recently had lunch with a dear friend, and we found ourselves on the topic of why oh why do such horrible things happen to good people?  Senseless, inexplicable horrors. A friend's husband wakes up, has a massive heart attack, and dies -- in his mid-thirties.  Another friend's marriage ends, a casualty of faithlessness.  Yet another friend moves to another state to accept her dream job, only to be forcibly tied up and raped by an intruder just hours after moving into her new home.  All of this (and more) happened just in the past few months.  It's difficult to conjure up a palatable explanation.

My lunch companion lamented that she fears she's losing her faith -- that her prayers aren't heard.  I don't have a good answer.  I'd give back the cookbook in exchange for more important requests, if I could.  But I keep praying and asked her to keep praying too.                  

Surprised By Joy?

Surprised by joy -- impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport -- Oh!  with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind --
But how could I forget thee?  Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?  That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn 
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
~William Wordsworth

Today has me pondering on the age old question of "how could such a thing happen?"  Over the weekend, I read a novel about a man and a woman who are friends for nearly 20 years and eventually get married, only to have the woman die, completely unexpectedly, at the age of 37, leaving the man to go on without her, trying to find joy in the days stretching ahead.  With this fiction on my mind, I was going about my morning, still wallowing a bit in the sadness of it all, when I got the news that the husband of a good friend died yesterday of heart problems.  He was 36.  His wife is weeks away from giving birth to their fourth child.  What a sickening blow.

So the thought I have had throughout the day is how and when will this friend, now a thirty-something widow with soon-to-be-four children find joy again?  And this Wordsworth poem came to mind.

Wordsworth was grappling with his own grief when he wrote it.  His youngest daughter, Catherine, died in 1812 when she was only three years old.  This poem describes the double grief that goes along with the loss of someone dear -- the death itself, and then (almost worse) the memory pangs that grip and cramp like some sort of cruel after-birth, long after the fact.  Wordsworth seems to berate himself for slipping up, forgetting for a moment, and feeling joyful -- chiding, "But how could I forget thee?"

But I've always considered the poem a hopeful one.  The human spirit is a resilient one.  Joy finds a way to creep in -- even if (for a time) only in bits and pieces.  

Cookies, Choices, Control

Tonight, having made the well-intentioned but ill-advised decision to purchase another nine boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, I am thinking about another favorite lesson from Frog and Toad.  Maybe you know this one.  You can find it in Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel.

The Cookies

Toad baked some cookies. "These cookies smell very good," said Toad. He ate one. "And they taste even better," he said. Toad ran to Frog's house. "Frog, Frog," cried Toad, "taste these cookies that I have made." Frog ate one of the cookies. "These are the best cookies I have ever eaten!" said Frog.  Frog and Toad ate many cookies, one after another.

"You know, Toad," said Frog, with his mouth full, "I think we should stop eating. We will soon be sick." "You are right," said Toad. "Let us eat one last cookie, and then we will stop." Frog and Toad ate one last cookie. There were many cookies left in the bowl. "Frog," said Toad, "let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop." Frog and Toad ate one very last cookie.

"We must stop eating!" cried Toad as he ate another. "Yes," said Frog, reaching for a cookie, "we need will power." "What is will power?" asked Toad. "Will power is trying hard not to do something that you really want to do," said Frog.  "You mean like trying not to eat all of these cookies?" asked Toad.  "Right," said Frog.  

Frog put the cookies in a box.  "There," he said.  "Now we will not eat any more cookies."  "But we can open the box," said Toad.  "That is true," said Frog.  Frog tied some string around the box.  "There," he said.  "Now we will not eat any more cookies."  "But we can cut the string and open the box," said Toad.  "That is true," said Frog.

Frog got a ladder.  He put the box up on a high shelf.  "There," said Frog.  "Now we will not eat any more cookies."  "But we can climb the ladder and take the box down from the shelf and cut the string and open the box," said Toad.  "That is true," said Frog.  Frog climbed the ladder and took the box down from the shelf.  He cut the string and opened the box.

Frog took the box outside.  He shouted in a loud voice, "HEY BIRDS, HERE ARE COOKIES!"  Birds came from everywhere.  They picked up all the cookies in their beaks and flew away.  "Now we have no more cookies to eat," said Toad sadly.  "Not even one."

"Yes," said Frog, "but we have lots and lots of will power."  "You may keep it all, Frog," said Toad.  "I am going home now to bake a cake."

* * *

I just love this story -- for the humor, the simplicity and the true insight on human nature.  The question I'm thinking about is this:  Why do both the freedom to choose and the lack of that freedom make us so unhappy?  

Like Frog and Toad--unable to stop eating one last cookie despite all attempts to exercise will power--we commit to make good choices (about everything from food to the more serious choices of life) only to climb the ladder, take down the box and cut the string of the "mistake boxes" we all have on our shelves.  That makes us unhappy.  

Like Toad--who can no longer eat cookies after Frog throws them to the birds--we sometimes have the ability to choose taken from us (whether by another person or by circumstance), and that makes us unhappy too.  And like Toad, when choices are removed, the natural human tendency is to rebel.  No more cookies to eat?  Toad will go home and make a cake.  

The obvious application of the story to my life is to stop eating Girl Scout Cookies.  I would feed them to the birds, but that really wouldn't make me happy.  For now, I've taken the Frog-intermediate-approach and--rather than tying them up with string or putting them on a high shelf--I am putting them in the freezer.  That will at least make it more difficult for me (particularly with my braces) to consume them.  

But on another level, I'm also thinking about the other kinds of "cookies" in my life -- the habits that I'd like to change.  My "To [Not] Do List."  We all have them.  Fallback tendencies that control us when we're not controlling them.  It could be any number of personal gluttonies -- wasting time, losing your temper, procrastination, watching TV, being negative about yourself and others, and on and on.  

Putting the habit on a high shelf, tied with string is at least a place to start!

Though Worlds of Wanwood Leafmeal Lie . . .

Autumn Litter -- Flickr

Today, I'm thinking of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called Spring & Fall.  One of my sisters and I used to run together many years ago, along a wooded path that hugged the edge of a river.  As we ran, we would sometimes memorize poems that we carried on small scraps of paper.  This is one of those poems.  How fitting that we were hardly more than children ourselves back then.  

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; 
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

On the literal level, this is a poem about a young girl feeling sad about the trees losing their leaves.  Hopkins is  ruminating over the inevitability that the passage of years will bring Margaret such sorrows that--"though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie"--she, when she's older, won't even "spare a sigh."  In other words, even though all the leaves lie around her in a pale, mashed up mass on the ground, life will have shown her much greater sorrow, and the sight that once brought her to tears won't even phase her.  

I just love the way that 8th line feels in my mouth:  "Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie."  

How sad, but true, that we become desensitized as our hearts "grow older" and "colder."  And, of course, just as the trees lose their leaves, we people lose our leaves too.  We age.  But more to the point, we lose our innocence.  And sometimes, we lose our belief.  Like Eve and Adam, we eat the fruit life offers, and see the world through colder, sometimes jaded eyes.  Perhaps this "blight,"* as Hopkins calls it, is inevitable. 

But I like to think not.  After all, while the trees lose their leaves, they do regain them.  The poem is entitled "Spring & Fall," not "Eternal Fall," or something to that effect.  I certainly have days that feel like "wanwood leafmeal lie" -- or worse.  But I also have "GoldenGrove" days.  (And I'm not bipolar, I assure you.)  Don't you?           

Today, I'm also thinking about a work acquaintance, who left me feeling like "wanwood leafmeal," and grieving, after listening to him describe his own personal fall and "unleaving."  Despite nearly half a century of life as a "believer," he found that he can no longer believe in what he once held as true.  GoldenGrove has lost its leaves.  I'm sure he must think me much like Margaret, whose heart has yet to grow older and come to such sights colder.  But I like to think that I can still see GoldenGrove, even in moments when the leaves may feel like they're falling.  Isn't that the beauty of seeing the world with a child's eyes?  Children do see more clearly than "grown"ups -- after all.      

*I can't resist adding that blight is a fascinating word.  It is defined to mean "any of numerous plant diseases resulting in sudden conspicuous wilting and dying of affected parts, especially young, growing tissues."  On a more general level, it is "something that impairs growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity."  

On Joy and Sorrow and a Living House

Just a short post today to share a poem from the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.  My mom sent me this little book many years ago when I was going through a difficult time.  My copy is now well-worn with use and tends to fall open to this passage "On Joy and Sorrow" automatically.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your hear and you shall find
it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

. . .

[Joy and sorrow] are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board,
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Isn't this so true?  The things--and people--that  make us feel the happiest are the same things--and people--that make us feel the most sorrowful.  When I am at a struggling point, I like to think of myself as a cup burned in a kiln.  Without the burn, I'd be useless.  Just clay that can be smashed easily.  I'm so much more useful as a cup than as unfinished clay.  I like to think of myself as a piece of wood, turned musical instrument.  Even if the knives that do the hollowing hurt at the time.  

To finish, let me share a favorite quote from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.  Another metaphor.  The same point.

Imagine yourself as a living house.  

God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing.  

He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: 

you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably 

and does not seem to make sense.  What on earth is he up to?  

The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of -- 

throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: 

but he is building up a palace.  

He intends to come and live in it himself.

So consider it food for thought.  If you are joyful, accept that sorrow may be sitting on your bed, biding its time.  If you are sorrowful, believe that joy is just around the corner.  If you are feeling stretched and pounded, be excited about the improvements in store.  Or at least you can try to feel that way!