BigBlondeBlog

Mormons To Christians To Jews

2011-10-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

This is an update on a blog I wrote in March, 2009, about why John McCain became, by default, the Republican candidate for President rather than the very impressive Mitt Romney. Some folks are still angry with Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, for asking (disingenuous? I really don’t know, perhaps he was genuinely ignorant) questions about what Mormons believe.

Let me say at the outset, I don't vote based on theology and I'd be surprised if many people do. At the same time, if Mitt Romney becomes the Republican candidate in 2012, there will be a huge media storm about the LDS church and my opinion is that Mormon candidates for office would be better served by being upfront about the differences rather than pretending they don't exist.

For a lot of people, this is a ridiculous debate: “Of course Mormons are Christians! They believe in Jesus!”

But for people who pay attention to theology it’s not about the word “Jesus” or even believing that a person lived and died and rose again about 2,000 years ago – it’s about who you think that person was and what you think he did. So the meaning of the word is the critical part, not the word itself.

Traditional Christianity has embraced and taught from the beginning that God is a Triune Being: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and the Three together comprise God. This is one of the places that Christianity separates from its Jewish roots: Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” and understands it to mean the Triune God but Jews focus on “one” and say, “No, God can’t be a Trinity.” Obviously, as a Christian, I believe the two can be reconciled – but that discussion isn’t the topic of this post.

The LDS don’t believe in the Trinity; they don’t believe in eternal unchanging God; the Mormons believe that God was once a man and that a perfectly realized Mormon man has the potential to become god in his own future creation. This is radically different from either the Christian or Jewish view of God’s eternal and unchanging nature, “Who Was and Is and Is To Come.”

Normative (“orthodox” with a little “o”) Christianity believes that Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity, that He has been God and with God from eternity past to eternity future, always and forever. John says it beautifully in the first chapter of his gospel:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1:1-4)

Obviously that is not the Jewish view of Jesus or God and, fair enough, they’re not Christians, of course they don’t believe what Christianity teaches. But it’s not the Mormon view, either. According to LDS theology, Jesus and Lucifer are both spirit sons of God the father (who was once a man), and each came up with a plan to reconcile fallen humanity with God, and God preferred the plan of his son Jesus over the plan of his son Lucifer, who took offense.

Now I don’t know much about what Mormons believe happened to Lucifer, after God rejected his plan, and it’s not relevant to my point. The fact that Mormon theology believes Jesus and Lucifer are equal beings prior to the incarnation makes the Mormon Jesus very, very different from the normative Christian Jesus. The fact that the Mormon Jesus wasn’t with God from the beginning makes him very, very different from the normative Christian Jesus.

Details regarding the conception of Jesus, the scope of the forgiveness Jesus achieved on the cross, and the Person of the Holy Spirit all show a significant difference between Mormon beliefs and orthodox Christian beliefs.

Simply using the name “Jesus” while pointing to the historical figure and saying, “we believe in THAT guy,” doesn’t mean we believe the same things about “that guy.” Christianity believes that Jesus is Creator and Lucifer is part of the created order; they have never been equal or equivalent beings. In and of itself, the different understandings of God and Jesus, who they are, their history and their relationship, are sufficient to mark a vast gulf between the two religions.

My analogy is that the Mormon faith is to Christianity as Christianity is to Judaism. Christians embrace the Hebrew scriptures (although, to be fair, many Christians are greatly ignorant of the Hebrew scriptures and some suffer confusion about the very nature of the “old testament God” – but those are personal limitations and not reflected by normative Christian theology) and then add the new testament, the gospels and epistles. Likewise the Mormons embrace the Christian bible (old and new testament) and add another gospel and additional books that form specific Mormon theology. I am told by Mormon friends that they are discouraged from reading the Bible, that it is considered inferior to the LDS scriptures. Joseph Smith was told by his angelic source that none of the churches were rightly following Jesus and he needed to form a new one. So he did.

I think the LDS and Mitt Romney in particular would be better served to acknowledge that they are Mormon and, while the religion has similarities with normative Christianity, it is significantly different. In my opinion Christians shouldn’t try to pass themselves off as Jews and Mormons shouldn’t try to pass themselves off as Christians, at least not as unqualified Christians – it looks deceptive to people who know something about the two theologies.

It’s a truth-in-advertising, accuracy-in-labeling question. And inadvertent misrepresentation could explode the candidacy of a Mormon.

Now, does any of this theology have any bearing on the suitability of Mitt Romney to be President? No, of course not. We're not voting for "Theologian in Chief," we're voting for "Commander in Chief." Would Romney's LDS beliefs have any bearing on his ability to do a good job as President? No (and, arguably, they could have a positive bearing: Mormon males are under a lot of pressure to live excellent and exemplary lives; there is no "cheap grace" in LDS theology). Would religious holidays in the White House take on a different flavor? Sure.

So what? This is the United States of America and we very purposefully chose not to establish a state religion. One of the consequences of that (wise) decision is that we've had Presidents from a variety of Christian traditions. And, in the larger sense, being Mormon certainly grows up out of the Christian tradition even while it is not traditional Christianity.

Are there religions which would prevent me from voting for a candidate? Yes, if the religion embraced a different set of values. I don't know that I could vote for a Muslim because the religion is inherently political; Islam doesn't see a separation between mosque and state. I wouldn't vote for a satanist. Would I vote for an atheist? If their values were solid and I believed they were the best person for the job, yes. If Mitt Romney is the conservative nominee most likely to win the general election, he should be the candidate.

The Stone the Builders Rejected

2011-02-15T15:51:00.000-08:00

Yet Another in the Collection of the Obvious which Lynn Has Heretofore Missed :\

Psalm 118:22-23 says, "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes." This scripture is understood to be about the Messiah (at least by Christians!) and Jesus quotes it in reference to Himself (Matthew 21, Mark 12, Luke 20) in the culmination of a confrontation with the chief priests and elders in the temple, about His authority to teach.

I've always thought of dressed stones and wondered why one suitable to be the cornerstone would be reject but as I read the verse today it struck me that a stone which is rejected is a stone which refuses to be any shape but its own.

This is most assuredly the case when it comes to Jesus: the Jewish people in the first century were (very understandably) looking for the Messiah to come as a conquering king to throw off the yoke of Rome - most of the previous 600 years were spent as a conquered or vassal state: first to Babylon then the Medes & Persians, then the Greeks and now the Romans. And there are lots of Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures which reference Him as conquering king; these have not yet been fulfilled. Instead Jesus came as the Lamb of God, the suffering servant, God in human flesh paying for human sin as the passover lamb, in order that death will no longer have authority over those who come into agreement with Him.

So, right there, you have 'builders' with an idea of the shape of the stone for which they are looking, an opinion about what shape the chief cornerstone should be. And, in the natural, the builders and the architect are in agreement about the dimensions of the cornerstone. But in the spiritual realm, the Architect is God and He is the one Who says, "This is the chief cornerstone," and thereby establishes the shape of the entire building. And we builders, straddling the natural and the spiritual, look at this entirely self-possessed cornerstone and cry, "but I can't DO anything with that!" That Stone is entirely Itself and It does not change shape to accommodate anyone; instead we must come into agreement with the Stone.

This makes me think of Joshua 5:13-15, this powerful and mysterious interaction before the battle of Jericho: Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" He said, "No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, "What has my lord to say to his servant?" The captain of the LORD'S host said to Joshua, "Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

Personally, I read this as a Christophany - an appearance of pre-incarnate Jesus in scripture - because an angel of God will not receive worship (in both Revelation 19 and 22 John tells of falling at the feet of a glorious being and he is told, "See that you do it not! I am your fellow servant - worship God!") and this Person not only receives worship, He commands it ("take off your sandals; this is holy ground").

So, if this is Jesus appearing to Joshua, why in the world doesn't He say, "of course I'm on your side! You are my chosen people!" ???

Because it is not for this Being, commanding the army of the LORD, to be on the side of Joshua - rather it is for Joshua to be on the side of the LORD. Likewise, it is not for the stone to accommodate itself to the builders but rather for the builders to accept the Stone provided by the divine Architect.

I wrote a song we use sometimes at church which says, "Help me line up with You, line up with You, line up with You, my Lord--" and that's my ongoing prayer, as God is doing the work of shaping me to fit His purposes and I resist the temptation to try and shape Him to fit my purposes!

God is big and unpredictable (to us, at least - Aslan is not a tame lion!); we know He is good and we know something about where He is taking us but the path is often circuitous - it's certainly not the way we would go, left to our own devices. And so we start questioning, doubting - maybe God hasn't taken everything into consideration? Maybe there's something we know which He hasn't noticed yet? (!! - I know it sounds silly, but how often do we pray as if we were instructing God on the shape of our lives? "Lord, I'm having this problem with XYZ..." "Really? Wow, Lynn, somehow I'd missed that--") And it's not a big step from there to thinking we have vending-machine god or portable god that fits in our pockets. We persist in trying to downsize God because, face it, He's too big for us to see in His entirety. I'm sure it's awesome and amazing to travel in the space shuttle or live in the space station, to look out the window and see the earth and the moon - but if you really want the whole picture, you have to leave the station or do an extra-vehicular activity. And even then, you're seeing through the limitations of your helmet....

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

The Fabulous Doctor Glyer

2009-01-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

Have I told you lately about how fabulous Dr Glyer is? My pal, Diana, brilliant scholar, woman of God, delightful and entertaining human being.

Have I mentioned that her award-winning book, The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, is now available in paperback? Or that there's now a Wikipedia page on her?

Then I've been remiss. She also has a book out on spiritual formation, Clay in the Potter's Hands, and it is now available from Amazon in both paper and Kindle formats. Other eBook formats are available from Smashwords.

This post updated Fall 2011.

Transitions and Ambivalence

2008-11-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

This year I've been reading the history books of the Bible interspersed with the prophets who lived and prophesied at the same time. One of the things that leapt out this reading, especially in the context of the Northern Kingdom, were violent transitions. How grateful I am that our system of government allows for a smooth transition of power from one presidency to another! We are not a coup-friendly nation, and I am profoundly thankful for that.

Obama wasn't my candidate. McCain wasn't either, but he had my vote because his ideology and values are closer to my own and I believed he would do a better job of leading this nation. But now Barack Obama is my president (elect) and while there is disappointment and concern. I am also intensely moved by the significance of his election.

It struck me most profoundly when I heard a radio reporter mention watching Jesse Jackson weeping on television (as a TV-free zone I rely on radio for real-time descriptions of events). It's powerful for me that we have elected a self-identified black man to the highest office in the land - but I'm a middle-aged white woman who grew up in a racially diverse part of Los Angeles and the truth is, I have no idea what full-on racial prejudice feels like.

So hearing this reporter describe with a sense of awe that Jesse Jackson wept continually, wept like a young child, I realized how extraordinary this election is for the black community-- something they felt was out of their reach as a race has been grasped resoundingly, and not only by blacks but by all races. The Presidency is not a referendum on race but Obama's win required the support of myriads of white voters - and I hope that fact serves as a balm to the weary and torn souls who've been encouraged to view all of life through the lens of racism.

I pray that Obama will be a great and wise President; I pray that he is not a man of the Chicago machine but proves to be his own man and a man with a true heart for the Lord.

The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it
like a watercourse wherever He pleases.

Proverbs 21:1

The Redistribution of Peanut Butter Sandwiches...

2008-10-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

Much has been made lately of Barack Obama's "spread the wealth around" philosophy, taking from Joe-the-plumber to give to the guys "behind him," to give them an equal chance to succeed as well as Joe has. But don't they already have an equal chance? Aren't the variables found in our individual gifts, abilities, vision, and work ethic? Or do we aspire to realize the nightmare of Kirk Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron short story? yikes--

When I indulge my indolent self, I accomplish much less than when I deliver a pep-talk to my go-getter self-- it's kind of the "two dogs at war within me" scenario.*

Being a television-free zone, I haven't been over-exposed to television ads or last night's Obama infomercial (caveat emptor: there is no money-back guarantee on this purchase and no 'do-over.' Bearing that in mind I've been fascinated by Obama's strong encouragement that people vote early instead of waiting until Election Day; it sounds so much like, "Vote for me now before you learn something that might change your mind--") but I've heard several references to Obama sharing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in elementary school and his apparent comparison of that experience with his desire to redistribute wealth or, in his own words, "spread the wealth around."

I don't think so.

In fact, children sharing and trading lunches and sandwiches in elementary school is much more a 'free market' economy than a government redistribution economy. Remember? How often could you trade your liverwurst sandwich to another kid? I liked liverwurst but even I didn't want someone else's liverwurst sandwich; I liked the way my mom made them.

What Obama wants is for the teacher to collect all the lunches, pick out her favorite things, and then hand them back out the way she sees fit, so that it's 'fair' according to her own agenda. Guess who is 'the teacher' in Obama's left-leaning utopia?

But what if she cuts everything into pieces and divides it up, passes it back? She's still going to 'take her cut' of the pieces. In a classroom of 40 students (which was routine for my generation), she'd cut everything up into 45 pieces and she'd keep those extra 5 pieces. Maybe she'd cut it up in to 50 pieces and keep 10% and, as in the first scenario, some of those goodies are never going to be 'redistributed' back down to the classroom.

That nice piece of chocolate cake? Gone.

Now, for the kid whose mother is a drunk and who routinely gets margarine sandwiches, this is hopeful. But in your standard schoolyard economy, some kids are going to notice that he rarely gets a decent lunch and share - at least, that's what we did in the early 60s and I can't believe that my generation, the self-obsessed generation, was more inherently generous than the generations which follow.

*A man observed there were two dogs at war within him: one that does good and the other does evil. When asked which dog wins, he replied: "The one I feed the most."

Aslan is not a stuffed Lion

2008-05-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

Like so many fans of the Inklings and mythopoeia, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, fantasy and yes, even Harry Potter, I went to see the new Narnia movie Prince Caspian.

What a disappointment.

I went with my son & daughter-in-law and grandkids; I wore my C.S. Lewis Centenary Celebration t-shirt, the one with Nancy-Lou Patterson's great illustration of Bacchus' wild girls, from the spectacular Mythopoeic conference in Wheaton in 1998.

Spoilers follow, so if you don't know the book and you wish to remain in blissful ignorance until you've seen the film, cease and desist reading now.

The Peter Jacksonification of Narnia:

It's not fair to blame Peter Jackson, horror-film director made rich and famous by turning Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings into an action-driven horror-fest in place of a character-driven epic of high fantasy. Someone, somewhere, must have thought, "ah, these films are popular because of the really impressive battle sequences!" and Walden Media, God bless their pointed little heads, thought, "ah, we must do really impressive battle sequences in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - we can even film in New Zealand!"

I was disappointed in the first film, particularly in the characterization of Peter as whiny and bossy and troubled. This invented characterization has grown larger and more putrid in Prince Caspian, which starts with him fighting *yet again* with school mates. Where is High King Peter, where is illustration of the point, repeated over and over again by Lewis, that the children start to reacquire the maturity and skills they developed in their first stay in Narnia?

Now, fine, if a person thinks there's an interesting psychological story, to look at the impact of the 'Kings & Queens grown up in Narnia, back to childhood in England' experience, tell that story independently - but it's not the story Lewis told -- it's not Prince Caspian. These are children's books, children's magical fantasy stories, rich with spiritual meaning and interesting questions. The Walden Media people ignore most of the interesting questions and contort the spiritual content.

My son's lovely wife never read the Narnia books in childhood so she came to the film without expectations to be dashed; she came away very confused. "You know at the end, when Aslan says Peter and Susan won't be returning to Narnia because they learned the lessons they were supposed to learn? What did they learn?" Good question. Perhaps they were meant to learn you don't rely on your own understanding but you follow Aslan even when it doesn't appear to make sense - in which case, they didn't learn it.

Every question she had was related to the inventions of the filmmakers: "why did they attack the castle? Why did Caspian try to attack the Old Narnians? Why didn't Peter kill Miraz if it was a challenge to the death? What was Lucy doing? Why did she leave and ride through the forest?"

Yes-- most egregious of all. Aslan, who is not a tame lion, turns out to be a stuffed lion; Lucy has to return to the place she last saw him in order to fetch him.

Give me a break!

So, to recap the confusion: these are children's books so the battles can't have any blood (swords drawn out without gore) BUT they're Peter Jacksonified so we need more battles; these are books written by a man who enjoyed a smoke and a pint BUT that would confuse American evangelicals (apparently believed to be incapable of handling the rich, full humanity of Clive Staples Lewis) so we'll delete all the festivities with Bacchus and Pan and the wild girls (--so much for my t-shirt--); for entirely unclear reasons we change the two conniving Telmarine lords into a conniving lord and a reluctant victim lord and instead of having them initiate the accusation of treachery during the challenge when Peter steps back to allow Miraz to regain his feet, the filmmakers invent a sequence where High King Peter refuses to kill his opponent during a 'fight-to-the-death' challenge, passes the task off to Caspian (who also declines, showing himself weak), and thus make for a very clumsy accusation of treachery (using one of Susan's arrows, of all things).

Sad Realities and Doomsday Book

2008-03-20T02:10:00.000-07:00

We all lived through the Millennium without the power grid collapsing or the internet imploding or turning into cannibals. And after the initial shock and horror of the terrorist attacks on the east coast on 9/11/01 and months, perhaps even a year, of expecting another assault but none came, we've fallen back into our sense of safety and dismissal. I fear we've become a little smug.

Still, I couldn't help think of Connie Willis' brilliant novel Doomsday Book when a Ship of Fools hell thread started about a deadly flu outbreak in Hong Kong.

Paula DiSante and I optioned Doomsday Book from Connie back in the mid-90s and spent three years trying to get the puppy greenlit (not sufficient Hollywood juice ~ sigh). Paula's adaptation was brilliant, even Connie liked it and authors never like the truncated script version of their baby (too much like taking someone's lithe, leggy dream teen and handing them back a dwarf and saying, "well, of course we had to make it shorter..."). But this is one time I'd be very happy for one of my favorite SF writers not to be prescient-- *whimper* --I'm not looking for a modern Tyhpoid Mary à la 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam; we've already demonstrated our hubris in that we're unwilling to call for quarantines.

Still, if you haven't read it, do--

A Poem for My Father--

2008-02-26T00:50:00.002-08:00

Shortly before Thanksgiving, while working with my organizer lady, I had a profound emotional experience; the next day I read in Diana Glyer’s The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community about Owen Barfield writing a poem for C.S. Lewis on the first anniversary of his death and it struck me that I should write about what happened the day before. This is the result:

Yesterday
in sorting, shifting house
I came upon my dead father's watch, a wristwatch
with large face and metal band
that marked it as of a certain time
in marking time

In my throat there caught and formed a swelling egg of grief, of loss

Brushing lightly across the well of tears
I staved them off
suppressed them as inconvenient
for I was working and not alone

Please, I pray, do not let this be a final dismissal
of his import or my gratitude

He was as large as life: expansive and wise
fixed and blindered
quick to laugh and quick to glare
too smart by half and always giving credit where perhaps little credit was due

I am his true child

I will miss him until Heaven.

November 15, 2007 © Lynn Maudlin, all rights reserved

Oliver Sacks' Brain

2007-12-03T23:02:00.000-08:00

One of the most amazing stories from Oliver Sacks' book, An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, is "To See And Not See" and it gives us a glimpse into the remarkable miracle of ordinary, garden variety, everyday sight. Couple that with Dr. Paul Brand's observations from The Gift of Pain (essentially a re-release of Pain, The Gift Nobody Wants) and you suddenly realize that virtually everything you know --or think you know-- is processed by an organ without any senses of its own, encased in a dark box. And, if you think about it too long, it really freaks you out a bit...

Part of the fun of working with Jeremy in mixing the live House of Bread recordings was growing to recognize all the more how differently we process sound and memory, memory of music and intervals. An example: Rowena from our church just died unexpectedly but, all things considered, mercifully-- her daughters and some friends came to church on Sunday and instead of a sermon Fr. C gave us the opportunity to stand up and share (including memories from a week earlier when she was in church and had a word about someone feeling "sad - but not depressed") and as we drew to a close he announced, "Lynn is going to sing a song she wrote and then we'll continue with the creed." Happily Jeremy & Buzz stood up with me because this was a complete surprise and while I was fairly sure I'd remember the lyrics (and did), I was also pretty sure I didn't remember the chords (!!! - stop laughing. I've written about 400 songs and play 10 songs every Sunday w/the worship team; I try not to memorize them) - happily Jeremy remembers the intervals and he filled in where I fell apart.

Better yet, I think only the three of us were aware, not the family and congregation. So I can't begin to explain how I memorize (mostly repetition, I think) versus how Jeremy simply remembers. He hears the tempering of instruments and therefore recognizes the key in which a piece is played; I transposed one of my songs one Sunday morning and he said, "ah, that's good, it sounds better in A." I simply can't imagine hearing that way; the only way I know if someone has changed the key on something I'm singing is if it moves it out of my range.

Next: The Female Brain

Note: The very cool brain image at the top of this entry is by Sven Geier; he works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and creates cool fractal art. Thanks, Sven!

Loscon Weekend Enchilada

2007-11-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

Three Days to Never: A Novel

The day after Thanksgiving for Los Angeles science fiction and fantasy fans means Loscon and a lovely holiday tradition it is, too, although it does get in the way of any plans for out-of-town Thanksgiving events. I got to enjoy my annual dinner with Tim and Serena Powers (blatant link to most recent novel, above) on Friday night which was really delightful. We have conversations that run in about 14 disparate directions and we never quite finish any of them, so there's always more to talk about. I love these guys: smart, funny, and always thought-provoking. I gave Tim a copy of Diana's book The Company They Keep which he proceeded to stay up late reading - I know because I was sitting in the Green Room with Diana the next day when Tim walked in and said, "I was reading your book last night, I'm about a third of the way through--"

Diana was delighted ("Tim Powers is reading my book!") but I knew he would really enjoy it: good scholarship, solid connections, well-written, engaging - and it's about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams (and the other 16 Inklings, too) - what's not to like?!

Karen Willson came in and joined us during the break between the end of the Inklings panel (Diana Glyer, David Bratman, Tim Powers, Mark Ferrari, and another author (and librarian!) whose name I have blanked on; really excellent) and my concert. I was looking through my folder of "Songs Not Inappropriate for SF Concerts" and trying to decide what I would sing and she said, "sing to me! Pick songs you'd like me to hear," which made for an interesting selection. Started with "I Gotta Kill My Clone," which people really enjoy ("I caught her dating my boyfriend - I think he may prefer to be with her..."), then "High Frontier" - the song I wrote a week after the Columbia shuttle tragedy. If I'm remembering right I then sang "Difficult Drinks" and "The Fire Says Yes" which I consider sort of a "graying of fandom" song ("In the still of the night I curl up with a book but I'd rather be curled up with you--") and then "Come In, Houston," "Left Turn Love," and closing with "Emotional Junkie."

It was really fun for me that Dr. James Robinson, the musical guest of honor, did a combination concert/explanation performance following mine. I didn't know him or his work and he's delightful and very funny!

I didn't get to as much programming as I'd like and I drove home Saturday night so I could be at church Sunday a.m., thereby missing John Hertz and Tom Veal's infamous PrimeTime Party (starts at 1:00 a.m. and runs until 7:00 a.m.; it's a lot of fun) - but perhaps next year I'll make my excuses at church and stay for the whole enchilada.

More Engineering, from the Artist side...

2007-11-16T02:33:00.000-08:00

What prompted me to write this post (and the previous) was the degree of satisfaction I got from doing the hands-on mix of a rather complicated song. This particular singer was more oriented toward performing in the room rather than remembering we were capturing the performance via the microphones (funny, because he's very good at being on-mike in the worship team setting). So he dropped in and out in funny ways related to when he turned his face toward another 'character' - these things need to be corrected, or at least minimized, in the mixing process. This particular song also had an internal narration and a choral section, so at some point in the song every microphone needed to be turned up to specific levels, which would change and shift throughout the song, but because of the pedal clunk of the live piano sound (see previous entry) I couldn't leave the microphones on through the whole song or there was too much bleed-through.

And it's really fun for me to figure out what I need to do and create a mental road map of the work and then do it all in live time - very exciting! And I really don't know why it's exciting to me. Hmmmmm.

Now the challenge is learning to be content with the reality of its massive imperfections because live performance standards are quite different from studio performance standards, and understandably so: there's so much energy in live performance that a clunker of pitch goes by and is quickly forgotten - but you capture a recording of the moment and you can listen to it over and over and over again... *sigh*.

This is definitely "live" and I need to be okay with that...

Engineer Lynn - or Soundmixing

2007-11-10T13:43:00.001-08:00

As a singer/songwriter, I've spent a fair amount of time in professional recording studios and I've watched a lot of mixing go down. Twenty-four tracks, flying faders, amazing punches - shoot, we even did a genuine reverse cymbal crash on my album (nowadays I suppose it would all be done digitally; can you tell I'm practicing to get crotchedty? Give me another 30 years and I'll have it down--). But I've not done much mixing myself.

I've been working with Jeremy (young brilliant musician and computer wiz, on the worship team together) on mixing the live sound from the performance of House of Bread so that we can have a reasonably good sound recording (I don't anticipate a wide release but at least for the folks involved and other churches interested in it, etc.). We're working with the little eight-track hard drive recorder that Jeremy used to capture the performance.

First fun part: the grand piano had a problem with the sustain pedal; this wasn't particularly noticeable in the room and the dynamics of performance are such that folks don't really notice it - they're more caught up in the story and the singers and the faces and the moment rather than an occasional soft *clunk*. But despite our best efforts on the day to minimize the clunking sound, the recorded track is full of it. And, being the sustain pedal, it's not even "in time" with the music (!!). So I re-recorded all the piano. This wouldn't be so hard in a studio setting but with a live performance where I was "accompanying" singers (allowing them to shift timings, etc., rather than driving the songs and forcing them to fit with the piano) it was a bit of a challenge.

Complicated by the fact we had 7 open mikes picking up room sound. Fine, we shut down the mikes we don't need at any given moment but it still leaves the singer's microphone with the original piano track audible in the background. This means I have to try and play the replacement keyboard pretty much the same way I played it live. Ha! Actually, that wasn't nearly so hard as I expected - Jeremy would give me the sound of the (new) keyboard and the original tracks and sometimes I needed more vocal and sometimes I needed more of the original piano. A few of the tracks were particularly "floaty" but even those I was able to re-record with surprisingly little difficulty.

The Passage of Time--

2007-10-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

I had no idea it had been so long since I'd posted here, amazing--

This has been a challenging year: sorting through paperwork and junk, anticipating a move. Very hard when you've lived there for 29 years and you have a hard time with paper and organization in the first place-- ACK!!! (runs screaming from the room). And I've discovered --well, recognized-- that my computer is the Tar Baby and I'll go in and spend hours happily working away, finding something to make me feel "productive," when in fact I'm futzing.

bleah.

Of course, today is okay because I am in fact on holiday so I can't possibly go work on organizing my house or throwing stuff away! Good excuse to post here... pray for me, if you think of it.

Hollywood Bowling

2007-08-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

I took my granddaughter, nearly 8 years old, to the Hollywood Bowl last night. I expected my grandson to come as well but he declined. He is not yet 6 and still a bit young to impose Great Art upon him, but the time will come when I think we (his parents and I) shouldn't take "no, I'd rather stay home and play on the computer with my dad" as a suitable option. I believe his father has introduced him to "City of Heroes"...

So the program was The Grand Tour: Mozart in Vienna and it was delightful. I was surprised that the Five Contradances only got a single iteration (they're very short, played once through) - is that typical? Obviously not if one were dancing, but for concert performances? Perhaps someone else will know the answer and leave a comment.

I was not familiar with the pianist, Shai Wosner, but he was very good at the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor - a piece that requires very fast hands. One of the nice things about the big screens put up now at the Hollywood Bowl is the close-ups shown and fast hands are shown to good effect!

Courtney loves the violins; she was very excited about hearing the violins again. I asked her as we drove out, "would you like to play violin?" and she said no, she'd like to play the piano (!!) - I found that very curious - I guess I can't entirely relate to the idea of loving an instrument, as a child, and not wanting to learn how to play it... hmmm.

The conductor Nicholas McGegan was good fun, I've not seen him before. He was very engaged with the music and his enthusiasm was infectious. He also wasn't put out by people applauding between movements of the symphony (No. 41, "Jupiter") and occasionally you'll see the eye-rolling "how can I be playing for these peasants?" kind of attitude.

I was also very impressed with the L.A. Phil's new Principal Oboe, Ariana Ghez. As many of you know, I have extensive first hand experience of excellent oboists!

I really love these concert trips with Courtney. At home she bounces around almost endlessly, but she behaves beautifully in these settings. Her questions are soft and she tries to wait until later (!!). She does bounce along with the music some, but that's allowed, right? (it had better be - what a sad world if bouncing along to the music wasn't allowable).

Still Grappling with Harry Potter--

2007-07-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

I wrote this essay in response to an entry written by a friend on a diary site we both inhabit. The bold italicized portions below come from her entry and where there are ellipsis in the italicized portions they come from the original; I have not edited the quotations lifted.

i'm a fundamentalist christian and i read harry potter.

i've just finished rereading the series in preparation for the relase of the HP 5 movie and the the final book of the series. one of my sons too is rereading the series and i've spent quite a bit of time talking online with friends about different theories and other silliness related to the stories.

it's funny because only 4 years ago, all things harry were banned from this house. i went right along with the idea that it was evil, confused kids and glorified things i don't believe in. okay i admit, it was an example of blindly following the council of men that was both unbiblical (yes) and not one of my finer moments.

I was also very slow to read the books. Slow because I don't jump on ANY bandwagon as it goes by; that's just not my nature. It's my nature to watch it, consider it, walk around it, kick its wheels, and then --if it appears to be a good bandwagon-- gingerly climb onboard, assessing as I go. As I listened to people talk about Harry Potter (my first exposure being in a bi-monthly zine that discussed fiction and what the various members were reading) I heard reasonable discourse, some speculation as to why Rowling's book had so captured the public imagination rather than Sherwood Smith's Wren to the Rescue (which I quite enjoy), recognizing the "perfect storm" of marketing and timing that surrounded it, etc.

And then the Christian backlash. And then the backlash to the Christian backlash, which, I must say, has always seemed absurd to me on the face of it: you may freely disagree about whether a particular book is a bad influence (be it moral or spiritual or even regarding the proper use of language) but to disdain the very idea that a book could influence the reader is absurd on the face of it.

those who know me and know my experiences can probably understand why i would have been wary. my own experiences with witchcraft are of the variety that would have the wicked witch of the west saying "damn, that's just wrong." i'd always been hyper careful with the subject of witchcraft and wizardry, even shunning tolkien and other authors because it just gave me the heebie jeebies.
A friend of mine with an extremely abusive cult background (not the one I'm quoting here) started having great difficulty, being triggered in very negative ways, by reading the HP books outloud to the children she watched after school. I assured her it was okay to *not* read the books to the kids; that if they really wanted to read them, they could read the books on their own (or have their own mothers read to them).

And then I watched some friends become mildly obsessed. Obsession always alarms me a bit - it's not healthy or balanced. Doesn't matter whether it's Harry Potter or The Beatles of Angelina Jolie or The Lord of the Rings or computer games or pornography, obsession makes me take a few steps backward. I was obsessed with horses from toddler to 13 year old - it wasn't destructive but it wasn't balanced, either. And watching a handful of young adults develop an obsession with Harry Potter was a little unnerving; children's obsessions can only go so far but an adult's obsession can swing in a much wider arc... With a couple of these people there were contributing spiritual dynamics that increased my concern.

So standing back a good long while seemed like a reasonable choice.

anyway... my husband and i had a conversation the other night about whether or not it was okay to continue being fans of the series and spoke aloud, for the first time, some of the things some of our fellow believers may have forgotten or ignored.

I finally decided to watch the first movie on DVD - and it was okay. I didn't have that sense of wonder that a fan would experience (you know, the joy of seeing something you've read about for years embodied on the big screen) but, on the other hand, it was a really fun introduction to certain concepts - like Platform 9 3/4! I hadn't read the book, so I wasn't disappointed by things that were missing, etc., and I wanted to see whether I understood the story well enough (one of the criticisms I'd heard from several corners was that the story was muddled by the screenplay). I felt I understood it. Waited a few weeks - was there any negative spiritual dynamic? None that I could perceive.

So I rented the second movie (3 were out at this point) and was really tickled to watch the same actors only a bit older-- very cool, I quite liked that. So then I rented the third movie and said, "awww-- it's a time travel movie!" So I actually had to buy a used copy.

But I still hadn't read any of the books and was still quite ambivalent (now I'm only somewhat ambivalent) when I drove to Durango a few years ago with my friend Diana & her daughter Sierra; we stayed with the sister of one of Di's close friends; this sister specializes in children's education and tutoring and assessments of gifted children. In the course of several days there Yvonna mentioned her fondness for Harry Potter. Again, Yvonna is a strong, Bible-believing Christian (as is Diana, as am I, etc.) and so I really picked her brain about the books. And she's the one who sold me - she said, "Rowling has written engaging, accessible books with all the fun of the boarding school environment, contrasted with wicked parent-substitutes and hideous cousin." Yvonna expressed her conviction that the books were highly moral and very clear about what is good and what is evil (--funny that in a world where even the church starts blurring those lines and waffling, it's the author of a children's fantasy series who draws a clear line).

So at some point in the fall of that year, I took out the first couple of books and started reading. I found J.K. Rowling a good writer with a fun sense of humor and her story engaging. I think it was late last year that I finally finished the sixth book - and I am looking forward to reading the seventh, when I can take it out from the local library! I don't anticipate buying the series unless the Folio Society in England decides to release them - then, if I can afford it, I probably would buy the set.

WHY, as a fan of the series, do I have ambivalence about Harry Potter which I do not have about The Chronicles of Narnia or Tolkien's created world of Middle-earth? One of the powerful strengths of Rowling's creation is that Harry Potter's world is almost our world: planes, trains, automobiles, computers, medicine, television, Christmas - and a talent or genetic ability to witchcraft. Now if it wasn't witchcraft but simply a propensity toward levitation, I would have no problem at all. But witchcraft bears the stigma of being condemned in both the Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible. God warns His people about witchcraft.

It makes me feel like Indiana Jones when he looks down into the pit and sees the floor moving with serpents and he rolls back and says, "Snakes-- why did it have to be snakes?"

Rowling's creation has humans that can learn to become witches. Tolkien and Lewis have witches and/or wizards *but* they are not human. When humans attempt to embrace witchcraft in Lewis' creation, it is a very wicked behavior - which is in line with scriptural prohibitions. So Harry Potter isn't at a comfortable fantasy-arm's distance, but presses right up against The Real World. It is a strength and a problem. Is she encouraging children to embrace witchcraft? I don't know. I know there are kids who write to Hogwarts and ask to be admitted (the British Post Office has said so) and frankly if I felt misunderstood and abused and alone in my childhood life, Hogwarts would have looked wonderfully attractive - does that mean they are inclined to pursue witchcraft in reality? I don't know. I sincerely hope not, because that would be tempting little ones to sin, which Jesus thoroughly condemns.

I actually think one of the big problems --at least for serious Christian readers-- may be when their children run up against the "You shall not allow a witch to live" scriptures. Huh? B-b-but Harry Potter? Hermione is a witch! I like those people; what do you mean, they wouldn't be allowed to live in ancient Israel? God says they have to die? Then God is a big meanie. By blurring the lines between a work of fiction, a fantasy world, and the Real World in which we live, Rowling creates a very real tension between God's clear instruction that His people are NOT to seek knowledge or guidance from any spiritual/supernatural source other than Himself. I fear the Potter books may interfere with the ability of some children to "taste and see that the LORD is good."

And that's a big problem.

if it is creating confusion, i have to wonder why. is it not the responsibility of the parents, no matter what their spiritual beliefs, to lay a solid foundation for their kids? if the parents are confused, the kids will be confused... no matter what the religious affiliation.

if harry potter is confusing christian kids, then perhaps it is because there's been too much focus on the law of the Word and not enough on faith and the change of self it is meant to create and support. if you're more interested in what the bible says to do than in who it says we are to be then yeah... there's going to be confusion. with or without harry potter.

i don't think john wishing he could transfigure our tabby cat to a declawed kitty is a sign he wants to be involved in or believes in witchcraft. he also wishes he could be a transformer.

magical thinking (as it is known in psychiatric terms) is a normal part of childhood. as parents, it is our responsibility to lay a foundation of truth that will not crumble when our kids grow out of the belief in superheros. a foundation of belief that will be unshaken when the realities of life begin to make themselves known.

if we haven't, that's our fault. not J. K. rowlings.

Of course it is the responsibility of the parents to bring clarity. But as a child raised in a seriously Christian home who *still* got demonized in early childhood, I'm very aware of the dangers and pitfalls and the complete lack of mercy with which the enemy goes after children - and very specifically targets Christian children (why target the kids who aren't even being taught about God? They're much less likely to grow up into Christians... from the enemy's perspective, those kids already belong to him).

Confusion is not easily dismissed. For instance, it took me a long time to understand the whole Acts 16 thing - if this spirit is testifying to the truth, why does Paul cast it out? Because 1) the presence of that spirit in the girl is an offense to God and the freedom which He created humans to enjoy and 2) the spirit is self-serving; it is trying to increase its credibility within the community so that it will be more powerful when Paul & Luke and all leave the area; it is entirely parasitic and opportunistic.

I don't think these books could encourage satanism (well, unless a reader finds Voldemort and Malfoy attractive and wishes to impose their will upon others; the true mark of satanism: I can make you do what I please) but I think the books make witchcraft appealing, and that's problematic. One can argue that witchcraft, in the Hogwarts setting, is scholastically appealing and therefore might as well be chemistry or physics. But it's not chemistry or physics, it's witchcraft and the word itself is loaded. It is disingenuous to expect readers and critics to strip the historic meaning of the word from Rowling's use of the word.

My friend offered a statement and responded:"it's just not of God" - the bible says we are in the world but not of the world. as much as i respect the amish, i couldn't live as they do. if i were to be diligent and wholehearted about shunning 'things of this world' i'd have to take a step further than the amish and live in a cave. there are many things not of God that can still be positives in our lives... when used properly.

I think that argument would be fine if these were books about linguists or chemistry majors or football players. But these are books about children attending a school that teaches them how to be wizards and witches. The problem really does boil down to the fact that that God instructs us, in the strongest possible terms, to avoid sorcery, witchcraft, divination, mediums, astrology, spiritists. Thus I would argue there are three categories: of God, of the world, and of the forbidden. What if these were books about adolescent boys exploring their sexuality with each other in a fun, bath-house kind of boarding school atmosphere? All the clear "good/evil" divides could still exist - rape is evil but consenting orgies are fun. Fewer Christians are willing to stand up and say, "homosexuality is not compatible with Christian life" and yet I imagine my friend would not allow her sons to read the series if the death-penalty offense was homosexuality and not witchcraft. Once again, unlike Tolkien or Lewis, Rowling's creation makes the idea of being a wizard attractive and possible - and who wants to be a muggle, anyway?! I'm actually not very bothered by the racism in the books (muggle vs. magical) because I think it adds three-dimensionality to her world; the degree to which the reader engages with that attitude I find problematic in the same way that descendants of African slaves find "Uncle Tom" attitudes or behavior problematic.

if we've done our job as parents, we can use even this series of stories to build on the lessons we seek to teach.
love is by far, the greatest thing.
death is not to be feared.
there are things far worse than death.
keeping hold of the good can repel the bad (dementors are a powerful example)
evil exists, no matter how some may choose to remain blind.
to name only a few.

fact is, harry potter is responsible for the literacy of a generation. it's certainly responsible for my kids' growth as readers. and you know what? they've grown interested in the bible. something i doubt would have happened if their reading abilities hadn't progressed to the point they could understand the language.

I agree; there is so much positive good in these books and they're great springboards for discussion. And they have gotten kids to read (including big kids!) who were never excited about reading before - and THAT is WONDERFUL. I just don't think that erases the problems.

And so yes, even though I've now read the books (6) and have seen the first four films and really enjoyed them, I am still ambivalent.

*sigh*

The NEXT BEST THING is Suzanne as Lucy~~

2007-07-09T12:30:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine from church is a finalist on THE NEXT BEST THING, the ABC television show which is sort of like "American Idol" for celebrity impersonators--

Suzanne LaRusch has been the family-authorized official impersonator of Lucille Ball for many years now. I remember one Easter Sunday, probably 10 years ago, when my youngest sister was in town and we arrived at church to find Suzanne in full Lucy regalia-- Dawn kept wigging out; finally she looked at me and said, "Talk about a resurrection!"

Anyway, Suzanne is a really lovely human being doing the hard work of making a living in showbiz so any of youse guys who are watching the show and feel at all inclined to call in, please vote for Suzanne and "Lucy" -- thanks!

You can watch a clip of Suzanne on The Next Best Thing here.

It Went So Well!

2007-06-25T13:50:00.001-07:00

Thank you for coming, thank you for your support! I am so pleased with everybody's performances in House of Bread - it was really a neat experience for me to see and hear other singers "inhabit" songs that I've written - very, very gratifying. I don't know what else to say about that - cool experience!

We will probably release it on CD; I'll broadcast that when we do. And when I get some of the still photos taken (it was also videotaped--), I'll put some up.

The 'Ruth' page on my website now includes the background information I included in the program book, interesting details about the significance of Boaz's mother (well, interesting to me!), etc. And the lyrics are available at Moonbird Music, my publishing company's site.

House of Bread

2007-06-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

I know, I shouldn't brag - and I'm not bragging. I'm attempting to learn the fine art of self-promotion (you never took me for modest, did you? ha).

Next weekend we're putting on a "musical" (a song cycle with narration) that I've written based upon the book of Ruth. The other singers involved are extremely affirming ("this is very powerful--") and it's one of those rare times when I know that God is pleased with me... I like that.

I'm also very touched by the number of people driving over a hundred miles to see it (and only *one* such person is family: hi, mom!) - taking the train, and one even flying. It moves me profoundly; I am truly blessed.

Another weird little piece of miscel- lany: The 1990 NOT Tolkien Calendar, a calendar I created (as mastermind, producer, and one of the artists) along with Sherwood Smith (aka CISL), my companion in goofiness, is actually a treasured part of some rather prestigious Tolkien collections (for example, Marquette--) and here's a fun little quote from a Tolkien calendar collector online:

"As to my favorites, my top 5 list would have to include:

1. The 1974 A&U signed by Professor Tolkien (more precious than ANY ring to me!)
2. The 1998 Khandlendar done by Alex Lewis (yes, THE Alex Lewis). It is a hoot-and-a-half!
3. The 1990 NOT Tolkien Calendar (Mythopoeic Society). It is a hoot!
4. The 1969 illustrated by Tim Kirk because it is the first one ever and because Tim Kirk sent a copy of it to me (very cool!)
5. The 1973 Ballantine because it's the first of the commercially published calendars. I have a mint (unopened in its mailer that looks like it could be on a store shelf today) copy of it. I have two copies of most of the commercially published calendars: one mint (unopened mailer or still shrinkwrapped) and one for "reading".

I like any of the calendars issued by the various Tolkien societies (including especially Beyond Bree where Nancy Martsch has been a great resource). These were illustrated by non-professionals. I very much appreciate their abilities to put pen to paper and give us their concepts of Tolkien's world."

His site and here is the page on which our little puppy can be found.

It really is extraordinary when a project done as a lark ends up as a desirable collectible!

Ramblin' Lynn sez...

2007-06-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

...you can tell if you're in heaven because:

the chefs are French, the administrators are Swiss, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, and the police are English (don't stand so close to me-- or I'll hurt you with my guitar pick).

But if it's hell, the chefs are English, the administrators are Italian, the lovers are Swiss, the engineers are French, and the police are German.

I know of what I speak. I used to own a Renault Fuego, a car I really enjoyed except for the repairs. Watching the face of the
uninitiated mechanic when he pops the hood of a Fuego for the first time is quite wonderful. Or it would be, if one wasn't paying for his learning experience. *sigh*

thanks to Arturo for the "Ramblin' Lynn" photo and moniker
-- who loves yer baby? (well, I hope you do--)

The Comany We'd Like To Keep--

2007-05-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another"

- Proverbs 27:17

My friend Diana wrote a terrific book and it's finally been published (--whew!--). The Company They Keep:J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis As Writers In Community started life as her doctoral thesis. I knew her back in those days (and earlier); I remember being shocked that thesis advisors have so much power over the shape and content of the thesis. Mike Glyer, then friend, now husband, turned to her after the smoke had cleared and asked her to write the book she originally conceived.

And lo, these many years later, I hold it in my hot little hands; a scholarly book you don't have to be a scholar to enjoy thoroughly.

I remember discussion early on, "what do you mean, 'the Inklings didn't influence each other?' How could any scholar ever say such a thing?" Well, one can hardly blame them since the Inklings themselves made that claim. And in the second chapter, Diana 'splains it to us, even better than Lucy to Ricky.

And, to be fair, if I were part of a group of disparate authors and I people started writing about us as a group, claiming that we had a "corporate mind," a kind of human hive, I would say, "Now wait a darn minute!" too. So to understand the 'methinks the Inklings doth protest too much' aspect of the argument, one must first know that an absurd claim had been made and the principals reasonably reacted against it. And then later scholarship took the Inklings at face value rather than examining the conditions under which the rather odd statements were made.

In a nutshell, this scholarly but thoroughly entertaining work takes the reader on a wonderful journey, illustrating in detail the width and breadth of the mutual influence, up to and including assorted examples of one person writing notes which recommend changes on a draft of a work by another person that later appear, often verbatim, in the final manuscript. Sure looks like influence to me...

But more than that, the book provides rich acounts about the nature of this group, how they interacted, how they supported and encouraged and challenged each other in their creative lives and endeavors. Very, very exciting and attractive - I want that!

Everybody, to the tune of the old Dr Pepper jingo, "wouldn't you like to be an Inkling too? Be an Inkling, oooh, be an Inkling--" yeah.

So anyone with an interest in J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Hugo Dyson, et. al., you will enjoy this book first because it’s an entertaining read, chock-full of accounts of Inklings interactions. Second, it’s a fascinating examination of “influence” in its broad understanding, what it is to be interconnected by friendship, interests, goals, scholarship, creativity and faith. Third, it details concrete assistance they provided each other as editors, promoters, and collaborators, and references they made to each other in their work. But, for me, it is most stimulating as a look at creative support: what it takes to effectively encourage and exhort one another in the exercise of creative gifts.

There are present day applications in this book: how can we be effective resonators, collaborators, even opponents, and thus encourage our own creativity and that of others around us? Have we become phobic about the word “influence,” stuck in our romantic notions of the lonely genius? Diana examines this issue in the final chapter of her book and I found myself thinking what good thing it is that science and mathematics don’t eschew “influence” but rather build freely upon the theories and discoveries of others; I suspect there is an exaltation of artistic vanity in the view that a work is somehow diminished if “influence” is perceived. I don’t believe it’s possible to avoid “influence” – it is entirely pervasive, an inescapable part of being human. Diana argues these men were more fully themselves because of the Inklings, more individual and distinct for the contrast and encouragement, and I am persuaded she is right.

While I personally prefer footnotes to endnotes, these endnotes are gems; don't neglect reading them!

Diana Pavlac Glyer, The Company They Keep: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as Writers in Community. Ohio; Kent State University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0, hc, 293 pp., $45. Click through here: "Shop Amazon."

Where are we going and what's up with the handbasket?

2007-02-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

a minor rant...

I am part of a small Episcopal church in the Los Angeles area and being "orthodox" in my faith --which means I believe the Bible, I believe Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life and no one comes to the Father but through Him, and if He wants to widen that gate, I have no problem with it, but I become very nervous when people purporting to speak for Him widen the gate-- I have watched with interest the activities of TEC (The Episcopal Church, a part of the Anglican communion worldwide) and was amazed when a practicing homosexual was elected bishop in New Hampshire (2003) and then shocked when the House of Bishops confirmed him to that position in 2004 after Lambeth 1998 confirmed Biblical standards for sexual activity (basically that God blesses sexual relations within the constraints of Holy Matrimony, which is by definition a man and a woman: two adults, one of each sex; if one is not called to marriage one is to live a celibate life) and our Presiding Bishop agreed. So the action of both the Diocese of New Hampshire and the subsequent appoval by the House of Bishops were out of line with Resolution 1.10.

Personally I don't care what one's sexual proclivities are, as long as one is dealing with consenting adult humans; I'd prefer that the Bible be a little more "forward thinking" in its view of human sexuality. I was greatly distressed when I really came face-to-face with the fact that the scriptures have an opinion (a very negative one, *sigh*) on sex outside of marriage; that cut deeply into my personal behavior, so in my early twenties I had to decide whether I was simply going to pay lip-service to an empty gospel or if I was going to actually try to live as it exhorts us to live. I chose the latter: with greatest reluctance I asked my lover to move out and I became celibate (until I married, but that's a whole other rant). One thing I can tell you for sure: the Bible isn't politically correct.

I grew up in a small Methodist church in Hollywood; I was quite used to ministers who didn't actually believe the Bible. And, for reasons too long and arcane to go into here, neither did I - but I came around and realized that Christianity is not a buffet where you can take what you like and leave the rest; thus I began the long and arduous process of armwrestling with God (cut to the chase: He wins). So the experience of taking my faith more seriously than the people who are being paid to promote and protect that faith is par for the course - but I wish it was otherwise.

I think of Paul, who wrote: "I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully." (2 Corinthians 11:1-4)

I am encouraged that there is some small outrage in America as TEC preaches an increasingly different gospel; I am more encouraged that the largest provinces within the Anglican communion are orthodox in their belief and their outrage is wonderful and righteous. I hope that a way will be made for orthodox Anglicans within TEC to join in pronouncing the gospel of Christ, to walk with believers and bishops who are more concerned with being faithful ministers of the Word and Sacraments than they are concerned with being politically correct. I wait prayerfully and patiently.

So I watch the current gathering of the Primates (the 38 highest leaders of the Anglican communion worldwide) in Tanzania and pray that truth is not compromised to political expediency, that they would rejoice to see the plumbline of the LORD in the hand of Zerubabbel.

The response of the Anglican communion to the actions of TEC was assembled as the Windsor Report and it seeks certain acts of reconciliation for TEC to continue walking in communion with the rest of Anglicans worldwide (to avoid schism, currently a precipice over which we dangle); specifically it calls for The Episcopal Church as a corporate body to express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for the See of New Hampshire, and for the consequences which followed, and that such an expression of regret would represent the desire of The Episcopal Church to remain within the Communion; that the bishops who took part in Gene Robinson’s episcopal consecration, pending such expression of regret, should be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion; and that The Episcopal Church be invited to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges; likewise it called for a moratorium on all such public Rites (the blessing of same-sex unions), and recommend that bishops who have authorised such rites in the United States and Canada be invited to express regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached by such authorisation. Pending such expression of regret, it recommends that such bishops be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.

So - after TEC (now under 1 million members) vastly oversteps its authority as a member of the Anglican communion and thus attempts to compel all the other parts of the Anglican communion (over 77 million members) to accept TEC's position on human sexuality (rather than Lambeth's position in 1998, with which TEC agreed), TEC has been called to make nice and stop consecrating same-sex unions and ordaining practicing homosexuals as priests. TEC hasn't stopped the behaviors and the "making nice" part has been, imho, disingenuous.

I am embarassed by the arrogance of the American church. Instead of repentance, "we did wrong and we are sorry; we will not do it again," a carefully choreographed tap-dance was offered, a 'we regret you took offense' kind of sleight of hand. Essentially, 'what's wrong with you backward people that you can't see that we Americans know better than you? Stop being offended and get with the program! You know it's going to happen sooner or later.' A churchly equivalent of "lie back and think of England--"

There is such narcissism in the American church: it's all about us, about our rights and privileges and how dare anyone ask that we not exercise a freedom for the sake of a brother or sister in Christ. Never mind that those brothers and sisters are living in very different cultures, bumping up against Sharia law, and being linked with the excesses of TEC literally threatens lives.

I think of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6:1-12 mourning: "Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything."

"Why not rather be wronged?" If the Episcopal church is right in all of this, why not take the genuine moral high ground and give parishes freedom to leave, taking their property (which they have purchased, improved, and maintained throughout the years) with them? Why act with such violence as to sue individual vestry members? This is not the behavior of a God-fearing, freedom-embracing church, but rather the behavior of a group bound and determined to go their own way, outraged and offended when someone holds to Biblical standards and calls them on dancing down the slippery slope.

Paul grieved when he saw the churches he mid-wifed straying from the gospel of Christ. Paul was shocked when the Corinthians had become so inclusive as to embrace a man living with his father's wife; he set them straight and exhorted them to chuck the fellow out, to "hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 5:5) and then in the next book Paul instructs them to receive the repentant brother back into the church community, lest "such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." (2 Corinthians 2:7)

The church is supposed to challenge us in our sin, not simply commiserate and say, "yeah, it's hard to live a righteous life." YES, it IS hard to live a righteous life - but we are called to make every effort.

If we do not hold to Biblical standards, what standards embrace? On what basis do we reject scripture and replace it with our own contemporary opinions? This is the church of what's happening now, riding the crest of the current trend and the current wave and about to smash into the eternal rocks on the shoreline.

The new Presiding Bishop Katharine Schori refuses to "waver in her stand for justice and inclusion of all people in the body of Christ.”

Has she missed the point that the gospel of Christ is a gospel of grace, not justice? Is she actually asking for justice rather than grace? I hope not. Believe me, none of us want justice if we're offered mercy. Has she forgotten that Jesus doesn't preach an inclusive gospel? He says, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'" (Matthew 7:21-23; emphasis in the original).

On what basis do we receive the grace of God? By the atonement; by the perfect and precious Blood of Jesus, God incarnate, poured out for our sake. I know that there are many universalists who believe in Jesus (and I don't think believing that everyone will be saved is the unforgivable sin) but the Bible appears to teach otherwise. We stand on very dangerous ground when we rewrite scripture and widen the very gates that Jesus Himself described as "narrow" - it may be, at that point, that we've stopped standing within the gates at all. The broad way leads to a very different place.

Conjecture's Exquisite Corpses

2006-10-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Down at Conjecture 5 in San Diego and Bettina Davis had a "word play" workshop. These things are always fun, at least if you're a "word" person. One of our little exercises was exquisite corpses, where one person writes a sentence, putting the final word of the sentence on a fresh line, and folding the paper over to conceal the rest of the sentence. Next person writes a sentence which starts with the single exposed word, and so on. Some of these were very funny and I'm putting them up here, for general amusement (and in the hopes that I can read everyone's writing - ack!). I will alternate between regular type and italic type and font color changes to indicate change of author.

There were no themes... just a single word (which is sometimes misread by the person following on - and so it goes).

I.
Conventions make for strange bedfellows or even dinner companions who insisted on cooking in your kitchen with your pots and pans, your food and never did the dishes. One, two, three, they were cast across the room like little shot puts and they crashed against the wall. Oh crannied chink! Oh wall, oh wall, oh well... damn, I loathe Shakespeare. Shakespeare knew how to steal a plot and make it his own, or to rewrite history had never been his best subject; he wanted to take the textbook and throw it out the window or at his teacher's head and just see what the Principal Skinner. I hated the little bastard and looked forward to the day I could skin him like the rat turds! These are not capers, they are rat turds belong in the litter box, I explained to Angus, but the orange tabby ignored me and carried on with his grooming the cat always resulted in scratches and blood and a trip to the emergency room, but I wished I had three pigs to trade at the county fair.

II.
My daughter was stung by a jellyfish drift in a dark and silent sea launch is the way most planets launch their shuttle sings through the thread as the beater bar raps the rhythm and blues, rock and roll crackers and cheese and crackers. Preferrably a fine brie served with a side of white grapes, make those grapes seedless waternmelon is a waste. What's the point of nothing to spit out from the artillery-like cannister, mowing down every man is not alone in the universe, but should be true to yourself and you can find real happiness is fleeting but true contentment is the real jewel of a true enlightenment is never easy but it's easier than you think all truth. Feel all love. See all beauty. Intuit all philosophy alone creates no warmth nor value!

III.
Singing the song of praise, I called out to my Lord for salvation. "Salvation is my only hope!" Dolores thought, desperate and fervent prayers were offered up for the first manned mission to Mars as a new home. Nobody wanted to live there without a set of breeches and a canteen filled with sangria. I savored the day I would have these things. The day I would have to you, my love, forever and ever - because, if this ain't love, we are just wasting our time machines are all the rage in Hong Kong, but I don't think they have used enough safety of the ocean, where no man would follow into the ice. But what is a lie, but a permutation of the truth and consequences. Always those damn consequences never go away no matter how many days have past the fact that he couldn't breathe underwater, he slurped the last of his José Cuervo down and so much for cheap, tawdry chorus girls like Ruby Tequila. Damn her and all her ilk!

IV.
"Murder!" she screamed hysterically, rushing into the street car named desire. Wonder what exactly its 'about face' screamed the sergeant to the green recruits woefully under his care and feeding of wild animals was my favorite book of the dead will lead us all to a care (cure?) for immortality is not all it's cracked up to be in books are great fun to read through, very hard to write a meaninful short story in under ninety minutes tick by far too slowly when you want something to happen is as happens will. Frills thought as frill will I never see another spring? The winter-bound trapper muttered to myself about life, the universe, and everything was blown away by the Xenia Tornado of 1972 was a good year; I got my first big girl bicycle freely down the canton, and see the lovely people.

V.
At first, I sought one hundred years of solitude is so relaxing after an afternoon of noisy kids can drive you mad; I dunno if I'm gonna have them stuffed and mounted, hung on the wall so all the world can see their useless flea-bitten hides under the rock. Shine a light; it's never as bad as you think of the true worth of everything and the value of none remained after the devastating storm crashed the coast guard I respect more than most military "divisions and propogations of Bearded Iris will be the subject matter of next week's Garden Club," Sally read from the brochure press kit and publicity photos all promote the star light, star bright, lead me on through starry night offers no promise of repose, but unformed apprehensions about the future can hold you back on my flight home, I paused to open my book for next week's reading Club.

VI.
I wonder what the best video game I played ever was not was, a great underappreciated band of the eighties rock is like totally the best said the boy with big hair is so sexy on women. I think they should wear nothing comes of nothing. Effort must be made to achieve your dreams and you will be "happy birthday dear Bono - happy birthday to you," I sang to the posters in my bedroom eyes beautiful dark brown eyes with long lashes fluttered as she flirted through hallways of men like to think they are the captains of their fate is a lot of bullhonkey, you gotta make "your purpose cannot be often separated from the desire to accomplish great things," Grandma said sagely nodding, the wise old woman had the last laugh.

VII.
The selkie hid her skin in a cleft of rock was hard. I sought it not just to climb but for the challenge really makes the blood boil and a person fire up the grill cuz I'm hungry for some shrimp scampi served with garlic and lemon on a bed of linguine with garlic sauce makes my breath rancid fat is the basis of all true witchcraft; she knows this well at the World's End is a nice title for a rock band aids are evil, but it's better than bleeding hearts are a moisture and shade loving shrub that do well in swampy areas of your garden vegetables are a bunny smorgasbord was a true board of blood and Iron men and streel wills change the course of human events.

whew!

Too Long Gone

2006-07-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

I am not a great blogger. I wasn't a great keeper of journals, either. In both cases, I write when I feel compelled to - either something I want to share (a blog) or something I want to wrestle through (a journal).

Right now I'm reading Dante's Inferno for the first time (slowly), along with Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight which is about sensory defensiveness (between that and subtle brain damage, I'm learning a lot about why I'm sooooo weird). Preparing for a trip to Mythcon 37, the annual conference of the Mythopoeic Society, this year in Norman, Oklahoma. And grappling with the stuff of life.

I know, I owe you the rest of my trip report from last year's jaunt to England (Stonehenge and then the Tolkien Conference in Birmingham). And it might be fun to write about my birthday dinner with Tim & Serena Powers, Larry & Marilyn Niven, Karen Anderson, Jimmy Akin, Sue Dawe and Michael Underwood... but not tonight! Suffice it to say we had a GRAND time.

The History of Alcohol

2006-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

well, in my life!

My parents were tea-totallers (what is the origin of that term, anyway?!), so I didn't have a liquor cabinet to raid (my mom had some cheap cooking sherry that she kept up on a very tall shelf and used every 18 months or so - I knew because, being 3-4" taller, she'd ask me to retrieve it for her).

High school (in the late 60s) there was the crowd that drank a lot of beer and puked at parties (the appeal of which has always mystified me) and the crowd that smoked dope, of which I was a part. So I never even tried alcohol until I was out of high school and jamming w/friends and offered a beer on a hot day (yuck, then; now I probably drink a couple of beers a year - certain foods are very nice with beer) and somebody else was drinking some truly disgusting wine like Boone's Farm Apple and I found that tolerable - so I drank cheap, flavored wine in very small quantities.

I think it was probably at a carbo-loading dinner w/my competitive cyclist boyfriend that I discovered chianti is very nice with pasta, and so I began my explorations of red wine, a voyage I am still enjoying.

I rarely drink when I go out, unless a group of us decide to get a bottle of wine with dinner, because I find a decent red wine is excessively expensive by the glass. I used to go to a lot of clubs to hear bands (and friends) perform and the standard was a cover charge with a two-drink minimum. I would either drink Kahlua-and-cream or Tequila Sunrise; I once had a gin-and-tonic that I really enjoyed at a party, but I've discovered since that gins vary a lot and most of them I don't like. Sometimes I'll have a margarita on the rocks at a Mexican restaurant but I had a bad experience w/tequila that greatly diminished its appeal: one night at The Troubadour (seeing Leo Kottke, as I recall) I had my two Tequila Sunrises, came home, went to bed, woke up with the stomach flu - and the taste associated with it was tequila (as close to a "drunk" experience as I've had). Not good.

Don't misunderstand me, I enjoy that warm glow that a certain amount of alcohol provides, but I don't like where it goes shortly thereafter, which is kind of choppy and sloppy and disoriented. I've had many a long, slow dinner w/friends where we drank a couple of bottles of wine over the course the evening, but it just sort of prolonged the glow (and as long as you keep yourself hydrated, the body processes the alcohol quite well); traveling in Europe I would typically order half a carafe of the local red wine (and cheaper than the Coke my ex- drank continually!) and in English pubs it's usually dry cider (scrumpy, if it's available). I love the way Guinness looks, drawn on tap, like rich chocolate milk, and then it separates into that beautiful dark dark brown with creamy head - but I can't stand the way it tastes (such a disappointment to me--).

At home I'll often have a glass of red wine with dinner, because I like it and because it's good for you (well, me), in reasonable quantities, the whole cholesterol-cutting aspect of it, heart-supporting, etc. I think of red wine as a wonderful accompaniment to food (give me a really big mature red with a medium rare steak and I'm one happy puppy).

When recording, I found a little Southern Comfort was good for keeping the vocal cords relaxed and smooth - but it needs to be a VERY little or you end up with one loose singer, by the end of the session. Pitch gone to hell in a handbasket and timing, what timing?

And, to bring the whole thing full circle, a wealthy German industrialist with a wine-cellar par excellence introduced me to ice wine (botrytis), so while I shudder at the thought of cheap flavored white wine, I delight in a very good dessert wine (with fruit and cheese - yum) - but that's an exceedingly rare indulgence.

General Updatedness

2006-03-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

I came down to San Diego for ConDor (this year was ConDor 13, I think - I've done concerts at nearly every one) and for the first time stayed with my Mom in her new location up in Poway, so that put me about half an hour away instead of 8 minutes away. The only alarming thing about this is a particular piece of pavement on the 163, just before the 805 junction, when the finish of the road sounds like a brake squeal - every time it would give me an adrenaline hit until the very last time when I kept repeating, like a mantra, "it's only the road, it's only the road" - so that made me notice where it happens and hopefully I won't continue to react so strongly in the future!

The concert was good fun. The last few concerts I've done I haven't been very pleased with because I really hadn't done any prep and was selecting songs on the fly and perhaps hadn't performed that song for months, and while I was well-received, I knew that I could do better.

There are excuses for all that, of course (--aren't there always?!--) but I knew and it's ultimately me that has to be okay with what I'm doing.

So this time I did better and I'm much more satisfied and the concert was received very enthusiastically. Ah! good.

One of the fun things was debuting a couple of brand new songs: Left Turn Love, which is something of an attempt at a modern Childe Ballad (the last verse even starts, "Come all you tender maidens and heed the words I sing..."); and There Are Three Things, a love song built off Proverbs 30:18-19.

There are three things which are too wonderful for me,

Four which I do not understand:

The way of an eagle in the sky,

The way of a serpent on a rock,

The way of a ship in the middle of the sea,

And the way of a man with a maid.

England Six, Lynn Slow...

2006-01-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

So... I left you with the threat of Stonehenge. Our last day at the timeshare we loaded into the car and then wrestled with heavy traffic to Exeter where Michael was picking up his rental car. He'd been grumbling about the size of our rental car, although we needed the room when it was loaded full of us AND our bags, and had reserved something smaller to pick up at Exeter and drop at Birmingham - but when we got to the rental location they offered him a station wagon (!!) - a much BIGGER car than the one we'd been in all week - and he took it (the fool!). Ellie and I shook heads, helped him load his stuff from one car into the other, and then we all drove off with Michael following us.

I kept him in my rear view mirror for at least an hour, through the heavy traffic (school holidays, remember - *sigh*) and then lost him while overtaking some slow vehicles (families towing trailers, or caravans, as the Brits would say). I thought I saw him draw near but that car eventually passed us and it wasn't him (rats!). We'd all planned to go to Stonehenge that day, and his little photographer's heart would have leapt for joy because the sky was wonderful - big dramatic clouds. If you can't be there for magic hour (sunrise, sunset) then dramatic clouds are as good as it gets - but we never saw him there and learned afterwards, when we met up in Birmingham 5 days later, that he was attacked by a bout of good sense and chose to drive on up to the Lake District (a loooonnng haul in one day, especially by British standards, which are smaller, more winding roads than he's used to in California).

But Ellie and I had a grand time slowly walking around the henge and taking a ton of photos (that's what really made me apprciate my digital camera - I must have taken more than 50 shots of Stonehenge and I never had to reload! yay!!!). Here is the official English Heritage site, which has lots of links (they have the management of the location).

We finally hit the road and drove on in to London environs, having finally eluded most of the holiday traffic, and by hit-or-miss (MapQuest leaving a bit to be desired in this instance... quite a large bit, actually) made it to Pat & Trevor's and fed their hungry kitties and schlepped stuff into the house. Pat and Trevor were at the World Science Fiction Convention (up in Glasgow, which I'd planned to go to and then decided I'd prefer to spend that time seeing friends in England and seeing ENGLAND, as opposed to seeing a convention center and a hotel which could be about anywhere, as interesting as Worldcons are) but they kindly lent us use of their home, which freed up a friend who was driving over to feed the cats (Broggy and Kiwi - large brother and smaller sister, both gorgeous black animals).

I think we drove out to an Indian take-away in a nearby community, and crashed pretty early. Next day, Sunday, we slept in, used the computer, started doing laundry, fed cats repeatedly (rather complex directions as they each have special diets!), found a shop where we could buy a little food (having cleverly forgotten it's SUNDAY and even this close to London, the shops don't stay open late - spoiled Americans, I tell you!).

Monday we drove 15 minutes down to Farnham, a charming small city (town?!) full of Georgian architecture, some lovely churches, and a castle which was, sadly, closed that day (*sigh*). We nonetheless had a grand time wandering through the town and eating a pub lunch in a rather "foody" pub - they had a 2 course prix fixe meal that was EXCELLENT plus a special on a bottle of wine - we thoroughly enjoyed that! I learned there is a well-known guitar shop and I walked off in search of it while Ellie went in search of a particular publication and came back to find me tucked into a timbered corner of this great old building, happily playing a VERY nice inexpensive guitar (!!) to maintain my callouses (I hate losing them and having to rebuild them - it hurts!). We walked back and wandered through the Lion and Lamb Yard which was charming - I do like the sculpture!

Tuesday we drove all the way out to Whitstable on the east coast (so we walked beaches on both the utter west and utter east of England, right across it's broadest portion!) - we particularly liked the beach huts - funny little houses. My friend Joan told me that these have sold for some ridiculous figures, especially considering that you can't SLEEP in them! But it was lovely for me to see Joan again (who fed us a scrumptious luncheon) and her now-grown daughter and two grandkids (yay! for grandkids) and then we started the drive back, stopping in nearby
Canterbury (check out more Canterbury shots at this site) and just missing the Cathedral (they closed EARLY, the rats!) but enjoying the grounds for several hours.

When we finally hit the road for home we had a great experience as we topped the rise of a hill and found a hot-air balloon rising majestically (and ENORMOUSLY!) before us - there was an annual ballooning meet the next day - here are some nice shots from a different meet. A rich, full day!

Wednesday we took the train up to London and spent the day riding the Underground, walking through assorted galleries and museums, hanging out in Covent Garden and of course a yummy lunch with wine and finally an evening at the theatre, seeing The Philadelphia Story with Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Ehle at The Old Vic. Lovely, rich day and despite terrorist activity within the previous month, neither of us were fearful (remember how my trip started with a diverted flight, after all!).

Thursday will find us loading out of Pat & Trevor's home and driving up to Birmingham, stopping at Kenilworth Castle on the way. The story of parking and schlepping and returning the car isn't particularly interesting - except that we drove 1,500 miles in less than 10 days, from Rochester to Heathrow, out to Cornwall and Land's End, back by way of Stonehenge and east to Whitstable, and finally north a little ways to Birmingham! Whew!!!

An Obituary for my Father--

2005-12-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

Lloyd Z. Maudlin - February 20, 1924 - January 20, 2005
Noted physicist, beloved husband, father, and friend.

"He had a very, very great soul and he made the world bigger everywhere he went." Mike Glyer, Hugo Award winner, upon hearing of Lloyd Maudlin's unexpected death.

Lloyd was born in Miles City, Montana. His mother homesteaded in northern Montana and Lloyd was raised in a log cabin near Rosebud, not far from Maudlin, Montana, which was named after his father Loyd. Every winter the Yellowstone River would freeze and the spring thaw brought massive ice floes that burst up onto the land, flattening everything -even buildings- in their path; the family would retreat to higher ground across the railway embankment and Lloyd had a vivid memory of riding the back of the buckboard, horses racing, while a block of ice ten feet tall gained on them.

The family moved to a farm in Iowa in 1932 but three years later Lloyd's father died and, as the oldest son, Lloyd became the farmer at the age of 11. Despite the hard demands of running a farm through the Depression years, he graduated valedictorian of Ladora High School and then served 30 months in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943-46, primarily as the Lead Crew radio operator on a B-24 bomber ("the Liberator") flying missions out of Norwich, England.

In 1946, in fulfillment of his ardent hopes and dreams since first dating her in 1941, Lloyd married his beloved Lauralee Rose and they moved to Los Angeles where Lloyd earned his Bachelor's degree in physics from UCLA in 1949 and his MS in physics from USC in 1952, often studying with his young son on his lap. His thesis on the absorption of thin plastic film in the vacuum ultraviolet resulted in a new discovery and was presented before the American Physical Society in 1955. Lloyd did additional graduate work in physics and engineering at MIT in 1954.

Lloyd's career roughly paralleled the development of the computer: his professional life started in 1951 as a civilian working for the Navy at the Pasadena Annex of the U.S. Naval Ordinance Test Station, China Lake, California, and for the next 30 years he worked for the Navy through various iterations of the name (Naval Oceans System Center, Naval Undersea Center, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, etc.). Lloyd was a pioneer in the use of computers, working with such early computing luminaries as Grace Hopper (co-inventor of COBOL). When he started, "automatic computers" (to differentiate the machines from the men and women whose job title was "computer") filled huge rooms, used vacuum tubes, and were in constant danger of overheating - but a day before his death Lloyd was editing on a PC some of the World War II era love letters he had exchanged with Lauralee.

Lloyd shepherded the development of real-time torpedo simulation (the hydrodynamic simulator), which began as a flight table made from a surplus gun mount controlled by an early analog computer but thirty years later was a highly complex system utilizing a UNIVAC 1110, numerous array processors, ancillary support computers, and versatile graphics terminals. Their expertise in real-time simulation enabled his team to accurately predict outcomes of underwater torpedo performance tests and solve many problems in advance, at a tremendous cost savings to tax payers. He was instrumental in the development of the Polaris missile.

Lloyd was passionate about protecting America and influenced the development of anti-submarine warfare technologies, regularly traveling to Washington D.C. for meetings with elected officials, Naval personnel, and the President's Scientific Advisory Council.

When his meetings with other Navy labs were scheduled in the summer, Lloyd would load up the whole family, now numbering six, and drive cross-country for a month at a time, pulling a 21-foot travel-trailer, stopping to visit relatives still in Iowa. For all his brilliance as a physicist, Lloyd always laughed about his errant sense of direction and on the long road trips he taught all his children to read maps and navigate.

He was awarded a patent in 1964 for a three-dimensional means of describing underwater acoustics. In 1973 the Pasadena lab moved to Point Loma and Lloyd and Lauralee moved to San Diego. In 1979 he led a team of physicists in conducting a study of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident (March, 1979); the committee's recommendations were included in the last Congressional Act signed by President Jimmy Carter.

After retiring from the Navy Lab, Lloyd worked for several small technology companies and his work covered such diverse areas as: the Arctic, including studies of Arctic ice and survival in Arctic weather conditions; the ability of oil platform rescue boats to withstand a drop from the platform into Arctic waters, which might be at zero degrees Fahrenheit; undersea surveillance systems using advanced acoustic techniques; and utilization of desk-top computers on board ships for various command and control problems. He performed systems analysis to predict damage areas associated with explosive/radiation hazards and was responsible for the design of a computer based system to predict surf conditions in selected coastal regions; anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aspects of homeland security; and later conducted a study for the Department of Energy on the practicality of using methane gas recovered from pig farms.

In 2000 the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) awarded him a Millennium Award and in 1984 Lloyd was one of 1,984 recipients of the Centennial Award out of 300,000 members. The morning after September 11, 2001, he received a phone call from Washington D.C. asking what he knew about al-Qaeda.

In the last decade, although Lloyd's professional focus was on counter-terrorism and global warming, he was most proud of his 58 year marriage to Lauralee, his "beautiful redhead," and within the last few years spent much of his time writing his memoirs and transcribing hundreds of pages of their World War II love letters. He delighted greatly in his four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, as well as his church family. He continued to have reunions with his WWII flight crew.

Lloyd always generously served his community, both Los Angeles and San Diego, through involvement with the Boy Scouts of America, the YMCA, and as a founding member and president of the Gifted Children's Association, to name a few. He was a particularly gifted grandfather and, though he could not carry a tune, he could nonetheless sing any fussy grandchild to sleep. His commitment to the United Methodist Church was steadfast, serving the church at the local and District levels, both in Los Angeles and San Diego, in dozens of different ways over his lifetime. He found no conflict between his orthodox Christian beliefs and his observations as a scientist. He noted, "At the high school physics level we understand things and have laws - at the graduate and post-graduate levels there is a real understanding that we really don't know anything; there really are no ultimate 'laws' that we know or understand." One of his favorite quotes came from Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727): "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

England Sank (Cinq - Part the Fifth)

2005-12-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

Being the Fifth Part in Lord Only Knows how many parts!

I'd better hurry up before I forget!!!

Another day of excessive driving through Cornwall - we drove out to the Chysauster Roman Village, another English Heritage site, this one dating from pre-Christian times, and spent several hours wandering the hillside, speculating how the buildings were used, enjoying the view, and taking lots of photos (these aren't the ones we took, but there's quite a good selection here). We eventually left and drove to down to Penzance, getting a fabulous view of St. Michael's Mount along the way, where we inadvertently turned right instead of left and drove through Mousehole (but after Fowey, it wasn't nearly so bad as most people would lead you to believe! yes the streets are narrow, but now THAT narrow!!!). After we worked our way back to Penzance we had lovely fish'n'chips on the seashore and pondered - what next?

We decided we were close enough to go to Land's End but when we got there we were horrified by the presence of a monolithic, garish hotel and "Land's End Experience" structure - Ellie was terribly disappointed, having really enjoyed Land's End before the appearance of this "improvement." We refused to be dismayed - we simply eschewed the modern atrocity and drove a few miles up the road to Sennen Cove where we spent several idyllic hours climbing the hill (view in the photo is very like ours from the hill - including the flowers!), watching the sun set, and eventually wandering up the little road to a lovely pub for one of our favorite pub meals in the whole trip; the place was a well-populated, half-timbered building, with good music on the soundsystem, a good selection of real ales, and some very fine homemade soups as starters. YUM! Long drive home after a long day of driving, but very satisfied we were.

One day we stopped and took a picture of me and "my village" and when I figure out how to post the photo to this blog, I will.

We stayed pretty close to "home" the next day, heading in to Bodmin, (here's a traffic circle I remember well!) having a pub lunch at "The Weavers" - heavy on the atmosphere but not such a great lunch (or perhaps it was merely the crab salad which disappointed me)and then we tried to use computers in the library but Bodmin was offline for bizarre reason. We were nonetheless able to drive to nearly Wadebridge and use their library computers - it's such a different travel experience to throw internet access into the mix! But Ellie was still getting details for the Mythopoeic Awards that she would present the following week in Birmingham, so she needed it. I don't remember if it was Monday or Thursday but one of those days, in wandering close to our digs, we drove through Lostwithiel and here you see the great juxtapositions of architecture and culture! (and, boy, do I remember those road signs!).

Friday we drove back out to the Penwith peninsula and St. Ives and saw a number of mine engines spotted along the coast and drove back in daylight, back to Trernython Manor where I'd booked a massage (!!! yes !!!) while Michael took pictures in a nearby woods. Ellie and I went for dinner in the hotel's "bistro" (as the restaurant proper was booked for a wedding) - but the bistro was fabulous - the best meal yet, and very possibly of the whole trip - yum!). I was such a happy soooooothed soul, between an hour-long massage, a bottle of vino rosso, and excellent food. Michael eventually joined us and they scared him up a sandwich (which was also great - we kinda kicked ourselves for not eating there until the night before we left!).

And in the morning we ate up the rest of our breakfast foods, packed our bags, cleared our bill, and hit the road. We drove together to Exeter where we dropped Michael at the local Hertz (he got a great deal on a 4 day one-way car rental up to Birmingham) and then we continued along the very busy road back toward town. Cornwall is a glorious place to visit, but in the summer school holidays the roads are all VERY crowded and the traffic abominable - and I speak as a regular L.A. driver, so I know from abominable traffic!

Next installment: STONEHENGE!!!

England, Part the Fourth (Cornwall)

2005-11-02T23:16:00.000-08:00

A continuation of the very gradual reportage of the English trip this summer... incorporating Mythcon XXXVI at the Tolkien Conference in Birmingham.

So August 1st we made ourselves yummy breakfast of eggs and English bacon and toast (with lime shred - yum!) and tomatoes - we basically planned to have one meal out per day, and if we ate a big breakfast at the time share (nicely equipped kitchen, btw - they aren't always) we were good until early dinner time; on the days when we ate smaller breakfast (say, scones & clotted cream! - no protein) we'd have a pub lunch and then make supper back home. And off we went to Castle Restormel, a ruin of a Norman motte and bailey castle in a beautiful setting;

check it out here or here for some cool pictures and more info, if you're interested. Spent hours there while Michael took photographs from nearly every conceivable angle but, to be fair, it was a glorious day and a gorgeous setting and I took plenty of photos m'self!

Stopped in Liskeard to check email at the local library (we were EACH able to sign on to a computer for 30 minutes free service - cool, eh?!) because Ellie, as administrator of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (etc. - there are actually 4 different annual awards) was looking for emailed acceptance speeches from the winners.

We eventually wandered up to Bodmin Moor to see The Hurlers, a series of 3 stone circles, estimated ca. 1500 BC. It's a long hike up to the top of the hill and the "Cheesewring" (a hike I didn't do, in its entirety, so I didn't see the Cheesewring up close...!) but I did take some fun photographs; I particularly like one of two sheep grazing by one of the standing stones. Cornwall is just full of ancient megaliths, like the Trethevy Quoit (more pics here) which we accidently blazed by in the course of driving up to the Hurlers - it's perhaps the one thing I regret: I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I could have parked in one of 2 or 3 little spaces right by it, but I asked Ellie and Michael if we should stop and they said, "no," and then we were gone, opportunity past, continuing the elaborate drive (thanks to the ordinance maps Michael bought the day before in the Daphne Du Maurier bookshop in Fowey--!), heading up roads too small to even be numbered, coping with a bizarre detour, and a rather large car, for the size of the lanes.

In fact, we'd just weathered the most horrific bit of driving I had to do during the whole trip (I didn't know it at the time, of course - until you turn in the car and DON'T have another more hair-raising experience, you don't know that was it! surprisingly stressful, and I'm a good driver. Ellie and Michael both begged off driving in such circumstances - cowards!!!) - we had to go down a country lane, hedgerow-lined as per usual, and THIS one even had a little sign before entering advising that vehicles longer than 35 feet (if I recall correctly - it wasn't terribly long, in other words) shouldn't drive the lane. Well, it was the MOST narrow of lanes! Technically it's a two-way lane (nearly all of them are) but our wing-mirrors are slapping the hedge on both sides of the car, simultaneously - NO IDEA how I would have managed if we met a car coming up. It's also quite a winding lane and we're going downhill. I am beseeching God to have mercy on us, especially me,

as the driver, and delay any oncoming traffic until we're in a more commodious spot (silently, because Ellie is not a fan of religion and I push that envelope with her enough as it is; no point in stiffening her resolve against all things Christian) - it was quite a long lane, too, well more than a mile - which you really feel in that kind of stressful driving environment, especially when you've already noticed that the locals drive through the lanes at a great rate of speed - they have lots of accidents and you see many cars with NO wing mirrors on them because they were sacrificed in some motoring mishap. In any case, we got to the bottom and just as it widened out for us to turn (a T-junction) a car came from the left, turning into the narrow lane - I did say all my, "Thank you, God!" acknowledgements outloud (!!!) and this was certainly one of many occasions when I saw His mercy (pity, even!) at work on our trip. So, to go BACK and see the Trevethy Quoit up close would require driving that lane again and nobody was up for it - so on we went, up to the Hurlers. I can tell you, however, that even from the little glimpse I got, it is one LARGE quoit!!!

My camera was running low on batteries and we were now not far from Bodmin itself (largest town of size in our proximity) so we stopped by the ASDA again and bought dinner foods and new batteries for my camera (and more WINE, of course!) before driving back down toward the coast, noticing once again that there is a tiny community between Lanhydrock (a very serious "stately home" Naitonal Trust property) and Tywardreath called "Maudlin" - once again we drove past, saying we really must stop and take a picture of that...

More yummy food and Michael attempting fruitlessly to phone his wife (cell phones which were promised to work in the UK weren't, there was confusion about the phone in our lodge, etc.) and we pondered maps and activities for the morrow.

Tuesday we drove out to Tintagel (check out the additional "click here"photos on this BBC site), the purported site of King Arthur's birth, and spent hours hiking that impressive coastal ruin. I visited Tintagel before, with my friend Wendy and her 18-month old daughter (now nearly seven years!) and Madelyn walked ALL the stairs ALL by herself (here's a glimpse of what I mean!). Having learned from Michael's shooting habits the day before, Ellie and I simply told him to meet us back at the car at 4 pm (it was now 10 a.m.). In fact, we all wandered the ruin in our own way and our own timing. Ellie re-connected with me in the early afternoon and we had an ice cream cone, visited the gift shop, and eventually walked the long uphill track back to the town of Tintagel where we shopped and meandered (saw some amazing hand-sawn wooden puzzles in a shop called "The Silver Tree") and eventually strolled back to Pengenna Pasties for a supper of Cornish pasties and salad (cider for me, beer for Ellie) - serious YUM! My friend Jason has made an intense study of *where* one can acquire the best pasties and he swears by Pengenna - I quite thoroughly agree (a pastie is the Cornish equivalent to a lunchbox - basically a meat and potatoe pie whose crust has been folded over and sealed, so it's a hand packet of a meal - a bad pastie is quite stodgy but a good one is a true delight). These guys do vegetarian AND vegan pasties as well - amazing!

We reconnected with Michael and then drove a little ways out of town to visit Rocky Valley to check out the labyrinth which, it turns out, is quite a hike down toward the coast and required navigating some narrow, damp, and slippery terrain which I decided it would be *wiser* to avoid. So they continued on and I went back, enjoyed a book I was reading, took a little stroll myself, and eventually they came out and reported in detail the stone labyrinth carvings and the beautiful view up the coast from that particular inlet - and then we drove back to our lodge for another good night's sleep.

-- Understated British signage at Castle Restormel --

England, Part Trwah (trois!)

2005-10-30T23:21:00.000-08:00

I know, I know - I'm slow. But a lot has been happening and NOBODY has been beating down the door saying, "what next, Lynn?!~ what happened next?!!!"

Weelllll - since you ask (!!), I got up early Saturday morning, check the computer for flight arrivals and learn Ellie's flight is about 20 minutes early but Michael's is more than an hour late, creating about a hundred minute spread. The clear blue sky has clouded over and started pouring down - I wait for a little break in the weather and load up the car w/Colin's help, clutching his directions to motorway to my chest and then hug and kiss C&M goodbye and drive down their little lane, still reminding myself with some frequency on WHICH side of the road I'm driving, in case I meet anybody in the lane (I do, in fact, and it's fine).

I couldn't have driven in England the first few times I visited - I had a hard enough time sitting in the front passenger seat, feeling around for non-existent pedals and wishing for a steering wheel. But I started driving over there 15 years ago or so - there are times when having a car just gets you to places you can't otherwise go and, if there are two or more of you, it may not be any more expensive than public transport (which I am a fan of, at least much of the time). Still, I couldn't POSSIBLY drive in the UK (or any left-side-of-the-road nation, e.g. Australia or Japan) in a left-hand-drive car - so the fact that my friend Trevor actually drives his British automobile over to Europe just impresses me no end (of course, makes it VERY exciting to try to pass that slow lorry up ahead on a two-lane road!!!). Thus most of the work is done for me, sitting down in the right hand side of the car and finding myself behind the steering wheel. THIS trip I even got the mirrors down within the first day - amazing! There was one trip, 6 yeras ago or so, when I didn't EVER get used to the mirror placement and I'd be looking in the middle of the car down on the dashboard and out the right hand window up at roof level - NOT helpful!

But this Saturday the only problem is not yet being familiar with the operation of the Vauxhall Vectra - like, where the heck are the windscreen wipers?! Little things like that. I had to almost continually trigger the "intermittent double swipe" to get me through the heavy rain on the hour-plus drive up to Gatwick (and that's the CLOSER airport!). And, of course, getting used to the size of the car versus the size of the parking spaces... gulp! There's a moment, as I'm driving through the parking garage, when I wonder if I'll be able to park what suddenly seems like a behemoth. But I drive up to the 4th level and park as far from the elevators as possible, where I've got a little extra room simply because I'm not crowding into a single vacant space but have room to park a little more easily (yeah, American parking spaces are a lot bigger - even the "compact car" spaces!).

So I wander in and find Ellie waiting (her flight was early, after all) and she's doing great - nothing like a self-sufficient traveler! She's bought a coffee and discovered Michael's late-arriving flight, has been checking its progress, etc., knew full well I'd show up SOME time (!!). She goes off in search of a "Time Out" (London activities weekly magazine) but it's the wrong time of week & they're all gone (besides, we're about to drive to Cornwall, not London) and I stay at the arrivals gate. Eventually his plane lands and eventually he makes it through passport control and customs and comes wandering out, looking about as funky as I've ever seen him (Michael is a very attractive man-- nice of his wife Sue to loan him to us for the week! Actually, we love Sue and her presence would've added greatly to the trip, but she was teaching a college class that wouldn't end until the day before the Birmingham conference began). I buy us both a cup of decent coffee and we head off to the pay machines to buy an exit token to get out of the garage. We stop by a car rental satellite and add both Ellie and Michael to the contract so they can legally drive and then load up the car.

NOW is the time we appreciate the size of the Vectra - we need every bit of that trunk and we've still got stuff loaded on the unoccupied portion of the back seat. A smaller car while in Cornwall would have been great - but a smaller car GETTING to Cornwall would have been a pain...

Nearly all of Saturday is spent driving... driving... stopping for traffic... driving... slowing down... gawking at the accident along with everybody else... driving some more... Yeah, you get the picture. We wave at Stonehenge and Michael (the photographer as well as University English Professor!) drools at the thought of shooting there in a week when we return. I'm learning how these guys are as navigators (Ellie's better than Michael but neither are as good as I am... not to brag, but I am a VERY good navigator - give me a map and we're there. I've navigated Paris on the fly with an aggressive driver, and that takes some doing - it was fun!). Pity was that neither of them were as comfortable driving as I was, so I did 90% of that, too. I did force Michael to take the wheel for awhile that day, just to give my poor cramping foot and leg a rest (I hadn't yet figured out all the 97 different things I could do to adjust the seat better to the steering wheel, etc. - it was better, later). Stopped for some nondescript sandwiches in a pub (just missed their open kitchen) and continued the long drive. I've never had to drive during school holidays before - something I will continue to avoid, in future! Roads get busy...

Eventually we got to Bodmin and left the motorway, stopping at the ASDA for assorted stuff (food for supper, breakfast, WINE, etc.) and then meandered our way down toward the coast, ending up with about 3 miles of hedgerow-lined lane just before the manor (right by Castle Dore! An old mound from an earlier castle - don't know if that falls into the "barrow" definition or not... hmmm). By the end of the week, I'd recognize that THIS was a nice wide lane and that you could pass another car just about anywhere along that 3-mile stretch - but for NOW, it was harrowing!

We pulled in to find the manor proper quite busy (a wedding - they had loads of weddings scheduled that week) but we waited at reception and they gave us our lodge keys and a map telling us where to go and where to park. It was a nice timeshare in many ways but it was considerably smaller than I'd been led to anticipate (they said they could sleep SIX!!! yikes! felt plenty crowded with the 3 of us). Having paid 3/4 of the fee, I took the master bedroom, Ellie took the smaller bedroom, and Michael encamped in the living room (which worked out fine - it meant that only I walked through the living room on the way to the loo, as Ellie's room was across the hall.

I made a nice chicken curry and rice dinner, we drank a bottle of wine (just right for 3 people), and we crashed pretty early - it had been a long day of driving, especially for me.

Michael is hairy-chested and gets warm at night and I was continually amused to see that he sleeps like an effigy of a dead king - flat on his back, straight as a board, hands clasped upon his chest - I really did want a fake sword so I could take a "King Arthur in Repose" photograph! I should've taken one anyway, but somehow at the time it felt *intrusive* ("Look, Sue! It's your husband sleeping!!!").

Sunday we went through 2 carafes of coffee before leaving the lodge (!! - Michael and Ellie both drink a lot of coffee; I think I only had 2 cups) and then we wandered down to Fowey (pronounced "Foy"), a lovely small harbor town not far away. As we drove through, I could see that parking was up a steep hill and the town was down, down, down - and, not liking the thought of walking back UP the hill after roaming through the town for hours, I decided to go in search of closer parking. The signs indicated there was limited parking down in the town, but we decided to risk it.

Within moments I knew I'd made a terrible mistake - we were in a one-way system winding down extremely narrow streets, fighting for room with meandering tourists and I was not yet confident about the dimensions of the car (should've driven up on the edges of the hedgerows to *hear* where that left side really is!). We didn't move any faster than 5 miles per hour, I'm sure, and it took a good 15 minutes to wind our way down to the bottom, often stopping for an especially narrow bit of road to clear before navigating it. There was one point, thankfully didn't last more than 20 yards or so, when I had Ellie and Michael keeping an eye on their side of the car while I drove by keeping my wing mirror about 3 inches from my side of the car (!!) - they were saying, "You're close! close!" but it wasn't until later that I asked, "Just how close was I?" and they both agreed it was less than an inch on that side - yikes! Probably best that I didn't know it, at the time! (actually, I could've folded in both wing mirrors and gained about 6 inches total). There was no parking in the town proper but as we drove out there was a small lot with a few spaces in it, down at sea level, so we gratefully grabbed one of those (I was already much more confident parking The Behemoth) and walked into town.

Lovely quaint place with a rich Daphne Du Maurier history (in fact, a lovely little museum shop in her honor - I never realized she was such a hottie as a young woman! wow!) - we all took lots of photos and eventually stopped for a cream tea as Michael had never had clotted cream before (well! We must break you in!) - I found a charming hotel with a restaurant and two balconies overlooking the water offering a reasonable cream tea and in we went. Michael was hooked, of course, and we had a good time sitting in the sun and scarfing down scones and clotted cream and strawberry preserves. I had coffee and they both had tea, but there you go - they'd had a lot more coffee earlier in the day!

We eventually wandered back to the car before the "pay and display" ticket expired (and the gate would be locked and closed), wandered back out another way and stopped again at another lot on the other side of town, much closer to the harbor mouth. Now the sky was threatening a bit (it had been sunny and glorious all the midday) but we took some fun pictures at a castle outpost and considered hiking up the ruined trail to the castle proper (decided against it and I'm glad - probably would've been risky for me, large with wonky ankles, and it started raining shortly). On the drive home we passed the Tristan Stone and got out to take pictures (yes! we are tourists! that's why we're here, bringing you our money and investing in your economy! appreciate us!!!) and then went off looking for a pub meal, forgetting it's SUNDAY and they close up earlier than usual.

We finally found someplace with an open kitchen and had a wonderful dinner; Ellie and Michael were tickled it was a free pub and they had a wonderful array of ales and beers and they tasted their was through several pints respectively while I stuck with cider (I love English hard cider, especially the more primitive stuff - scrumpy, even! But I'll settle for Strongbow). Ellie and I split an order of pate (sorry, missing the accent circonflex and grave - or is it aigue?) for a starter and hardly touched it, so we asked if we could take it home. Much to our surprise, they wrapped the whole thing, little stoneware ramekin and all, in aluminum foil and we happily carted it away to enjoy another day. We managed to find our way back to our digs (yay! Lynn starting to build the map in her head) and crashed shortly after getting in.

Michael snores. I turn up my white-noise surf-sound generator and am a happy camper myself.

The English Trip (part two)

2005-09-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

Next morning (now Wednesday, having lost most of Tuesday to the diverted flight), I see Marjorie for the first time and I'm thrilled - I haven't seen her since spring of 2001. We have a visit from Rebecca, their oldest daughter, and her daughter and my goddaughter, Emily, now 13 - we all have a cup of tea and a fun conversation and I present Emily with a HUGE bag of "scrapbooking" materials. It's a new hobby in the UK and most of what they have is imported from the USA at great expense; thankfully my good friend Sharon is a scrapbooker over here and we went shopping for things and she donated a lot of materials to the cause (yay! Sharon!) - Emily is beside herself! As they leave, Rebecca tells me that's she's taking me to dinner with her girlfriends on Thursday night (the 3 of them try to do this every week; it works out to about 3x a month) - okay, fun.

This is perhaps a time to talk about origins of relationship - WHY am I so connected to this English family?! Well, back in 1978, four months after getting married to Phil, we were planning to go on this rock'n'roll gospel tour of England; Phil had toured with this band 3 or 4 times already and the leader was his good friend. As it turned out, Phil got a gig at the Music Center (pit orchestra for "Pal Joey" with Lena Horne and he couldn't afford to turn down months of work for what was, essentially, a missions trip) but he still wanted me to go and they needed my voice (as it was, the band used a handful of my songs in every concert, so I was the most featured of the four singers and played piano and guitar much of the time). The set-up for this tour was through a small parish outside Gravesend which sponsored the tours by putting all the musicians and singers up in homes - so now, instead of needing a home to accomodate a married couple, they need a home to accomodate a single woman - but they need some mad English folk who can cope with the mad American! THIS is how I met Colin and Marjorie and we all hit it off famously - I have visited them dozens of times since 1978 and they've stayed with us twice; we took them all over the southwest, including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, San Francisco, San Diego, and Catalina. They are lovely, lovely people who were profoundly grieved when Phil left the marriage. C&M's daughters, Rebecca and Rachel, were about 13 and 10 when I first came (Rebecca has also come to visit - Rachel has yet to come). In the course of some phone calls made before the trip, I realized that Bec's kids, Emily and Harry, are the same ages that she and Rachel were when we all met.

We made a run out to a local garden center and have lunch there (!! - see, we don't tend to have sit down cafeterias in garden centers) and shortly after we get home there's a phone call from Rachel and she wants to come by with her kids - apparently she'd come by Tuesday late afternoon (remember, I was supposed to land by noon) saying, "I've come to see the American!" Rachel is hysterically funny but so much of it is delivery - she has a wonderful wonky sense of humor and I love seeing her. All the kids are out of school since the school holidays have started - she took her kids, Rosie (6) and George (4) and a friend of Rosie's up to Bluewater, the largest shopping mall in the UK (well, it was - I think it still is - built in an old quarry!) where they were doing all sorts of special kid stuff - they all had their faces painted, except George had a lion face pained on his arm instead - good fun.

Thursday we decide to head out to Chartwell, a relatively local stately home (Churchill lived 30 or 40 years of his life there) and have lunch there, but we run into horrible traffic and eventually give it up, turn around and go the opposite way to Oad Street Craft Centre where we had delicious soup before rushing back home because Colin has to drive up to the outskirts of London and take his aged (nearly 90 years old!) sister in to one of the London hospitals for a regular appointment. The shape of Colin & Marjorie's life is rather challenging right now: they moved from Gravesend to a little community between Meopham and Sevenoaks and they're living out in the country (which they love - they adore driving around the country lanes) in a lovely little farmworker's cottage (a row of 4 or 5 small homes). But Colin is the youngest of 6 children with about a 20 year range in their ages and the eldest (this sister) has no children and therefore looks to Colin to step in with all that care, as does one of his brothers! Eeeep! But it's a real question - who will take care of the elderly without children of their own? So at the time they'd enjoy travel and their four grandkids, they've got lots of demands on specifically Colin's time and energy from elderly siblings.

Marjorie and I spend the afternoon in the garden, drinking tea and eating these lovely little chocolate "bites" from Marks & Sparks (lethal!). Colin wasn't late picking up his sister and it all worked out okay and he made it home so I get ready for dinner with Bec and her friends while Colin & Marjorie have fish and chips (!! - rats! I love fish and chips! almost as much as curry...). Bec picks me up and we drive up to an upscale Italian restaurant and meet up with her friends.

It's a lovely dinner (I started with a carrot and coriander soup - one of my favorites and not something you ever see here in the USA) and a fascinating conversation - these women have all been friends through school, so all of them remember the rock gospel band with which I toured and that became part of the focus of the conversation - remembering what it felt like to be 13 and excited about an American showing up to stay in your home, excited to be at a concert and see your houseguest performing. One of the women, when asked by her son why she was more than usually excited over a Thursday night dinner and she answered, "I'm having dinner with a rock'n'roll star!" You just never know how other people see you, especially from a distance - so while I'm uncomfortable with the description of myself as a "rock'n'roll star" I'm also flattered that I ever appeared to be one, even to that small community - amazing. Fun night, bright clever women sharing their lives with me - it was delightful.

Friday we have a bunch of errands to run - Colin realizes that he has to have the MOT run on his car before the end of the month, so we drive in to Gravesend and leave it with their mechanic, quite near the port (a part of town I never visited before!) and then we drive out to Bec's where all the family is getting together for lunch (except Daniel and Gary, the two son-in-laws; they're both working - poor fellows!) and we are busy eating lasagne and salad and drinking wine; the kids pile into an above-ground swimming pool in the back yard and a grand time is had by all. But *now* it's time to drive in to Rochester to pick up my rental car, drive back to Gravesend and pick up Colin's car from the mechanic. Turns out the computer-directions to the car hire location are *completely wrong* but, thank God (literally) we found the place anyway and I wind up behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Vectra. It's a *very* nice car, but larger than I would like. I follow Marjorie back through Gravesend to drop off Colin, then back through Meopham to their little community. We have a nice quiet supper and then drive back up to Bec and Daniel's so that I can have a little time with him, not having seen him since he rescued me at the airport Tuesday night! Finally we're back at C&M's and I pack up my bags, anticipating my early-morning departure for Gatwick airport.

Saturday morning the sky is clear and blue and then quickly clouds up and we kick ourselves for not loading the car while it was clear, because NOW it's bucketing down (it really is amazing how quickly the weather changes in England - I know everybody jokes about it, but it REALLY is true!). I check the computer for flight arrivals and learn Ellie's flight is about 20 minutes early but Michael's is more than an hour late. We load my bags into the car during a relative lull in the downpour and Colin gives me directions to the motorway; I put my big British road atlas in the front seat along with my bottled water (!! - through the years I have learned that changes in water are the hardest thing for my system to tolerate and I do much better if I just stick to bottled spring water) and then we all hug and kiss goodbye and the first part of my journey ends as I drive away from my friends in Kent.

The AP Article

2005-09-20T02:18:00.000-07:00

July 26, 2005

L.A.-London Flight Diverted to Boston

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON (AP) - A flight from Los Angeles to London was diverted to Boston early Tuesday because three Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, but nothing amiss was found and the three were released after questioning, authorities said.

United Airlines Flight 934 landed in Boston shortly before 3 a.m., Logan Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said. Three people he described as Pakistani citizens were taken into custody and questioned.

All three were later released and no charges were filed, said Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Boston.

"The flight crew made an observation of their behavior which caused the flight to be diverted to Boston," she said. "It's all being resolved. They will be on another flight this morning for Heathrow."

Flight 934 is expected to depart for London later in the morning.

Police searched the aircraft and found nothing suspicious, Orlandella said.

State trooper Veronica Dalton said the three passengers had been "acting suspiciously and making the passengers nervous."

"The crew made the determination that they were going to land the plane in Boston," she said.

The three passengers were not identified.

The English Trip (part one)

2005-09-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

What a great, amazing trip! Four weeks exactly from departure on Monday, July 25th to return on August 22nd, although it started oddly enough.

First, the shuttle service I called is one I'll never use again (kind of a generic service) - first, the driver was late and couldn't find my house. He phoned from in front of my neighbor's house and I told him to drive down to the first driveway on the right hand side, which he never did. In the meantime I was schlepping my bags to the front of the house - then I walk outside my fence and see him down in front of the neighbor's house, looking wistfully over the fence - bozo, there is NO driveway there! I wave and yell and finally get him to drive down to my place - and there's an extra person in the car - turns out it's his *girlfriend* - NEVER tolerate a driver who is your private car who brings his *girlfriend* with him! Flakey. He needed help getting through downtown L.A. and getting to the airport; just not a good driver.

Once on the plane everything seemed fine: I had dinner and a little wine and set about trying to go to sleep, as my approach to international travel is shifting into the time zone of the target airport as soon as I board the plane. I slept for awhile and then woke up, not quite sure what awakened me, but I sat there with a particular praise song fixed in my head, so I sang it softly (nobody can hear soft singing in the ambient noise of a jet!) - and then the pilot came on and announced that we had a navigational equipment failure and it wouldn't be safe to cross the Atlantic in that condition and we'd be setting down in Boston, shouldn't take long to repair and be back in the skies.

A few minutes later he came back and added, "When we land in Boston, please remain seated with your seat-belt fastened." Okay. Perhaps five minutes later, another member of the flight crew came on and made the same announcement and I think, "wait a minute, something's going on here." But I dismiss it; I'm just being dramatic (moi? dramatic?!). Then the same "remain in your seat with your seatbelt fastened" announcement is made a third time. Then a fourth time. By now I am quite certain something other than a navigational equipment failure is up and, sure enough, when we land, the first people on the plane are carrying assault rifles - which I expected. What I didn't expect was for them to remove a man from my own row (he was seated by the window and I was on the far side middle aisle). Then another man came on and tore apart his seat and environs. We're all sitting there, watching... turns out there were two more men taken out of coach (I'd upgraded to business class). FBI and Transportation Security Administration and local law enforcement are all talking, interviewing flight crew in the doorway, planning to bring in dogs to search the toilets.

Somewhere in there United Airlines and the feds decide to put us up in hotels for the night - it's now 5 a.m. in Boston and it takes them about an hour to get hotel vouchers arranged. I decide to leave my bags on the carousel and just take my carry-on (it contains all I need for the moment), which will give me an extra hour in the morning. We'll fly out at 11 a.m., so I need to be back at the airport by 10 - I got 3 hours sleep in a bed (yay! horizontal!), took a quick shower, and then from the airport I call Colin and Marjorie, my friends in England - we'd planned for me to take the airport bus from Heathrow to Gatwick (!!) and Colin would pick me up at Gatwick; there are no really convenient ways to get from Heathrow to Southeast England (Kent, basically) without going into London and I'd decided to avoid the Underground - at the moment, they're not allowing bags and I'm coming in with two pieces of checked luggage and a carry-on bag and I've DONE that in the past, jockeying for space on the crowded tube, trying to get from Paddington to Charing Cross. There is a stationlink bus which circles the city, stopping at every train station and the Central Bus Terminal (I have a cool story about the first time I used that bus - maybe I'll tell it later, if you're interested) - it's cheap and convenient for bags but it's sloooow. Now, arriving so late at night, it's unworkable and our plans to connect via coach from Heathrow to Gatwick is the best option - so I promise to phone when I arrive at Heathrow so Colin can get in his car and drive the hour or so up to Gatwick.

It's a zoo re-boarding the plane because, as far as the computer is concerned, we've already embarked so it can't generate a new boarding list - they finally generated an alphabetical list and we boarded alphabetically (!!) and took off closer to noon than eleven a.m. Considering that we should have landed in London seven hours earlier, we are running seriously late, but there's nothing I can do about it so I try to sleep a little on this second leg of the flight.

--It made a very strong impression on me that the captain apologized for lying to us about why we were landing in Boston; he explained that he didn't want to alert the passengers in question that they were under suspicion. He made it clear that it was his call to divert the flight, based on the concerns of passengers and flight crew, and he apologized for the delay in our travel.--

We arrive at a very empty Heathrow about 11 p.m. and clear passport control and customs very quickly; I hoof my way to the Central Bus Terminal (it's all underground and it sits between Terminals 1, 2, and 3 - it's probably close to a mile of walking). I've been informed that the bus will run until 1 a.m. or so, but it's now running once an hour, so I'd rather catch it sooner than later - I find the quay where the coach will load in 15 minutes so I call Colin and he says, "Don't get on the bus! Daniel (his son-in-law) should be there to pick you up!" So I ask him to phone Daniel and let him know I'm walking back to Terminal 3 and to wait! I am thrilled - how nice to have someone you know greet you at the airport (even if they initially miss you) after such a goofy flight experience. Sure enough, I come back up the ramp into the terminal and there he is, drinking a coffee and pacing.

It's raining lightly and it's nice and cool - we pile into his car (yet another in his collection of spiff Jaguars; he runs his business well and enjoys his perks) and drive down to Colin & Marjorie's - Colin is wearing his bathrobe and Marjorie is already upstairs snoring (it IS 1 a.m. by now, so that makes sense) - he makes me a hot chocolate, heaves my bags upstairs, and says goodnight.

Next morning I go online and read the coverage of the flight (United 934 on July 25th) - turns out passengers and flight crew were nervous about the behavior of these 3 Pakistani gentlemen (because one was in business class and the others in coach, they kept going back and forth between cabins, following each other in the toilet, etc.) and the captain make the call to divert the plane. They were questioned and released, put onto an earlier flight to London (so they got there before we did!) - I can't blame people for being nervous and I think it's better to be "safe" than "sorry" - but I never felt at risk, personally. The AP story follows...

More later--

Dorothy Sayers as Lay Theologian

2005-09-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

Dorothy L. Sayers as lay theologian
My friend Laura Simmons is *now* a professor of theology at George Fox University - but when I first met her she was still at student at Fuller Seminary. We played on the worship team at church together (Laura plays great rhythm guitar! can double time 'way better than me!) and within a few years we were 2 of a group of 5 who started a creative arts support prayer group called "The Ninos" (with the tilde over the second n, I forget the html code numbers for it! So it's "neen-yos" and means "children" in spanish) about 8-9 years ago. Over the years the Ninos have become increasingly "heavy" in college professors, especially from Azusa Pacific University, and now the regular e-mailing goes out to about 20 different people and we routinely see 8 or 9 at a meeting, where we share dinner (themed foods - for instance, "animal food," "zoo food," "blue food," "Eat at Joe's" etc. - there's always some weird link to what's going on, what the nearest holiday is, what folks are going through, etc. - very entertaining! I once made a bas relief dragon out of garlic mashed potatoes and sliced sausages; I also made lunar landers out of corn-on-the-cob for a "moon food" theme... good fun), catch up a little, but mostly we pray for each other. From the very beginning, it's been a powerful prayer group and lots of good things have come out of it (God shows up powerfully!) - 2 people have finished their doctoral theses (Laura being the first), 4 books have been published, 4 more have contracts, and Lord only knows how many more are "in the pipeline." The most recent book published is Dr. Laura's "Creed Without Chaos - Exploring Theology in the Writings of Dorothy L. Sayers" and it's fabulous. For those of you who only know Sayers as the author of the "Lord Peter Wimsey" detective novels, this book will pique your interest in Sayers' nonfiction (wide, varied nonfiction writings). So - go buy a copy! You can get it on Amazon for under fourteen bucks (such a deal!)... Buy Laura's book HERE! and then let's tawk...

Slow Drive Home

2005-06-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

There's a stretch of freeway I'm quite fond of (I actually wrote a song set there, "Night Sky Fall") - the 134 between Glendale and Pasadena.

So tonight I'm coming back from dinner with friends - we're celebrating a young man at my church having finished his master's degree in screenwriting and we've had a terrific evening of Japanese food and great conversations. I leave Burbank about 11:45 p.m. and I ran into a completely unexpected traffic jam as I'm coming up on Eagle Rock - I was able to get a traffic update at 12:01 a.m. and realized I was going to be stuck for awhile... a small plane crash landed on the freeway a few miles ahead of me, flipped over on its back (2 occupants taken to the hospital but okay, no cars involved!) and along that particular stretch of road there are no exits for 3-4 miles. The news said they were taking the traffic off at Figueroa but, in fact they didn't and shortly before coming to that exit the traffic picked up and started to move - so I figured, ah, the news is behind the curve and the freeway has been opened up again. In fact, I think what happened is they stopped taking cars off at Figueroa and started taking it off at Linda Vista (another 1+ miles down the road) so the traffic opened up and then shut down again. Took me an hour and 10 minutes to go about 5 miles - eep! Glad I went potty before leaving Burbank! I squeaked off the freeway and drove up by the Rose Bowl and was VERY happy to walk into my house! whew!

Never did get to see the plane... sigh.

Like Rice Crispies In My Brain--!

2005-05-31T01:32:00.000-07:00

A week ago I had the most strange mental cognition experience I think I've ever had, at least without the benefit of self-applied pharmaceuticals for entertainment purposes, so it's been DECADES, at least! A friend of mine has been planning, for well over a month, a driving trip from Southern California to Estes Park, Colorado, for her nephew's wedding, incorporating a week in Durango with a tutor very talented at assessments of children, having this woman spend some time observing my friend's three-year old very precocious 3 year old. I spent some time trying to work out driving with her and going to the wedding (having been invited) and finally, sadly, recognized it was simply going to be too much time and money. I didn't realize how seriously my friend wanted an adult companion until she asked me to consider driving out with her and the 3 year old and then flying back home (eep!) - so I prayed about it, considered it, checked out frequent flyer tickets and saw that I could do it without too much expense, giving myself a couple of days in southwest Colorado after the drive, before spending hours on airplanes coming back ("you deserve a break today" -- at least!).

We talked about leaving on Wednesday and she called me last Tuesday morning, caught me walking out the door, and I said, "I'll have to call you when I get back from San Diego for my Mom's birthday," and she said, "but I need to talk to you about the trip - we leave tomorrow morning!"

Snap! Crackle! Pop! "No, we leave a week from tomorrow!" "No, we leave tomorrow!" I was well and truly flummoxed - I recognized very quickly that we'd been talking days of the week and not *dates* but the sensation was so very extraordinary. In sorting it through, it turned out she was spending not only a week with this tutor in Durango but nearly a week in advance of the wedding in Estes Park (thus an additional week, one for which I had not accounted). Simultaneously, I was realizing that I'd spent the previous day getting ready for the Colorado trip, running various errands, and being pleased with myself that I was doing it so early (I confess to inveterate procrastination - I repent, but I have yet to reform - would that it were so easy). So I went to my appointment, trying to mentally juggle all the assorted balls and see if it was feasible to drop everything and just go. I ran home to make a few inquiries before running to church (a long-standing prayer commitment) and I called my priest only to learn that the two other available pray-ers had just called and cancelled, so I was free for the rest of the afternoon.

Everything fell into place so quickly and effortlessly (even to changing my award-travel flight home) I had to laugh because, of course, none of this is a surprise to God, but it sure was a surpise to me - and such a curious, bizarre sensation, mentally!

I am now home from my whirlwind tour of four states, but still intrigued by the mental experience...

L'Escalier Spiral du Mort

2005-05-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

I did, in fact, come back and share my amusing story of humiliation with the landlady (well, the owner of the hotel, where I've stayed for years - they indulge me, laugh at my bad French but encourage me nonetheless) and told her all about "L'escalier spiral du mort." Several years earlier, I met my good friend Wendy's future husband in the lobby of this hotel (I'd heard of Michael but never met him, and here we were, about to set off traveling through France together for 10 days!) and the owners had a lovely large German Shepherd (Alsatian) dog and Michael turns to me and asks, "Does your dog bite?" and we proceeded to do the entire Clouseau routine, much to Wendy's dismay and confusion (she was entirely unfamiliar with the Pink Panther movies) - so the lobby of this hotel has witnessed a lot of interesting behaviors (and questionable accents) - happy, the lobby cannot be subpoenaed...

The Spiral Staircase of Death

2005-05-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

being a good soul (generally speaking, at least), I've been pottering around the various other blogs and, due to the use of my name in Miranda's Maudlin Meanderings, I visited a site she mentions, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and *there* (is this becoming sufficiently obscure? I do so long to be sufficiently obscure...!) I found Kevin Dolgin Tells You About Places You Should Go In Europe and, as I like to go to Europe and have been to a few places worth going to, I figured I'd check out his list, where I found "The Door To Hell: Paris, France" and I knew immediately he was talking about the Rodin Museum which does, indeed, include Rodin's magnificent bronze doors which are titled "The Gates of Hell."

I was further delighted to see him follow the theme and write about the Catacombs of Paris (not just in Rome anymore!), where I spent a wonderful day wandering and pondering (which *almost* rhymes) with my pal Ellie as we recuperated from the week-long Tolkien Centenary Celebration at Keble College in Oxford back in 1992.

You slo-o-owly make your way down underground and might not realize how deep you've gone - until you finally realize you're hungry and tired and desperately need a pee, so you make your way to the exit, only to discover The Spiral Staircase of Death - a narrow (one person wide) ancient spiral staircase that rises probably 5 stories (maybe more, but, if so, I don't want to know about it!) back up to street level. Ellie makes like a young gazelle, being slim and fit, a resident of San Francisco who walks a good deal, but I begin huffin' and a'puffin' about the 3 round and finally I have to stop for a breather. I apologize in my childish French to the family behind me who now must stop and wait for me to recover enough to continue, and they respond that they were grateful for the rest and felt they couldn't stop as long as the fat lady in front of them could keep going... (!!!).

ah, life... at least I didn't sing for them.

Thomas Wolfe was right--

2005-05-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

My dad died in January - he was exactly 80 years and 11 months old. My siblings and I have all rallied around our mom; married for nearly 59 years, it's a huge adjustment for her but she's really doing well - I'm VERY proud of her. But this has required the selling of the home they lived in since the early 1970s (side note: my three siblings all lived in that house with them, at some point, for some years - but not me; I never lived in this house with the rest of the family). Still, even though I haven't lived in it, it is nonetheless the home to which I've returned for Christmases and Thanksgivings and assorted birthdays and other holidays, the home in which loads of childhood memories reposed, having moved with them from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Back in 1973 when they sold the house in L.A., I wrote the following song - and it's been resonating in my head for weeks now...

Cannot Go Home Anymore *redux*
Feeling awkward and clumsy - and fallen from grace
the doors and the windows are closed in my face
I feel displacedall the locks have been changed
and we cannot go home anymore

The woman is awkward, the child is wise
so look at this placed through those innocent eyes
they don't see the lies that live in the woodwork
and we cannot go home anymore

I wish that I could do without it
sing and laugh and shout about it
wish I could see through the walls
and the curtain calls
that put on this show, but no--

The lighting is different, you can see that at a glance
and standing divided we are trying to dance
they sealed the past
revealed at last
that we cannot go home anymore
(copyright Moonbird Music Co., 1974 - all rights reserved)

The past is converging on me--

2005-05-05T01:29:00.000-07:00

In the last week I got phone calls from my first ex-husband (hey, when you have MORE than one ex-husband, you have to find humor where you can) and my favorite lover (the one I didn't marry, the one *between* husbands). I really don't have any relationship with either one now... well, I suppose that's not entirely true - the old lover and I have kept in very loose contact over the years, but it's been 3-4 years since we talked. It's like, the bombers are circling... strange sensation.