book of the month

Tonight was my first night of single motherhood. Usually, Nathan and I come home about the same time, scarf down some food (probably whatever microwave dinners I picked up as cooking has not been a priority lately), and head off to our meeting du jour. Tuesdays, I have no meetings (though I am contemplating joining a yoga class) and so, as my husband marches his young idealists through the muddy soccer field to learn the higher life lessons of competition and running until vomiting, I am home...with a glass of wine...curled up on the carpet by the fire...gently, then violently pushing Buttercup's teeth away from my tender, exposed foot flesh. She's a doll, that one.

Before I crashed in the middle of the living room, I decided to pull a book off the shelves in our office. I combed through for one I had never read, or at least one never started when I became distracted by the promise of another books' tale. I stumbled upon The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth by David Bentley Hart. Now, I think this book must have been part of Nicholas Ireland's collection that we inherited when he sauntered off to Romania. Apparently, it is Hart's dissertation as a published book, and the back cover promises "penetrating and frequently amusing critiques of Foucault." Without any need to read further, I cast off the small mammal trying to mate with my leg and dived into the first chapter.

I nearly drowned. Has it been that long since I took a look at someone's dissertation? Well, I had to reverse and reread quite a bit. Though I'm moving through slowly, I'm finding the work cathartic. I don't know if that is because I am so thirsty to be back in the center of cerebreal learners or just because I'm lonely and Foucault seems like an old friend.

Regardless, ideas expressed thus will likely keep me coming back for more: "The interrogation here is the difference between two narratives: one that finds the grammar of violence inscribed upon the foundation stone of every institution and hidden within the syntax of every rhetoric, and another that claims that within history a way of reconciliation has been opened up that leads beyond, and ultimately overcomes, all violence."

Hart's ambitious. Nicholas's marginal notes cease after page 7. Perhaps I'll make it further with the promise of Derrida still to come...

on my mind today

1. The white grapes in chicken salad. They are yummy.

2. Dead people. Some that I know. Some that I don't. How my grandfather's "wife" blocked me from being in his hospital room when he was dying until my uncle stood up to her. Of course, this all occurred after my massive public breakdown in a full ICU waiting room where I wailed about why wasn't my DNA and years of being a granddaughter good enough to let me see him one last time. (Thanks to Uncle Bill though, I got to hold my grandfather's hand. I miss him.)

3. Blood relations. It's an interesting thing to share DNA.

4. How I want to go to all of the soccer games Nathan is coaching this year for PCS. I think I am going to be able to.

5. My struggle with remembering my dead son's body. I knew instantly when the ultrasound tech swiveled the monitor in my direction that the baby was a boy and that I would never forget the photo burned in my mind of his stilled heart.

6. The 17 tables I have to decorate for a big luncheon at work.

7. The following line from Click: "Michael Jackson, the first man to clone himself, is suing himself for molesting himself."

8. Getting Buttercup fixed and getting my windshield fixed.

9. The buds on my Japanese magnolia.

10. How I would like to have ten items on my list, but really these are the only nine things I've been musing over this afternoon.

week 1: 2007

N&I just got back from the youth retreat this weekend. I'm sooo sleepy...as is everyone who went. There was not much sleeping in a room with gobs of other people and mattresses that were the equivalent of fabric saltine crackers. I was, at least, buffered by Suzannah on one side, Cynthia on the other, and the wall. All three were quiet, which I can't say about most everyone else around me...especially the girls who were having a math conversation in the middle of the night... (yea, I don't get it either).

Some really great stuff happened though. Nathan performed his world-renowned Scotland vs. Ireland routine, which delights me to no end. I also really began to thank God for how He uses the mistakes I have made in my life to help others walk through their sin and pain. I was thinking this morning while we were singing the song "I'll trade these ashes in for beauty and wear forgiveness like a crown..." that I have been really ashamed of things of I have done. But my past sins and mistakes have been covered and now they are all about God's power and not my failure. I can wear that forgiveness as a crown and thing of beauty instead of hiding it. And I'm glad that I have something to offer people who are hurting and in difficult places. It's good to be forgiven and it's good to be able to be used by God.