Lift Up Your Hearts!

Since Hurricane Irene has been flirting with our friends and family all along the East Coast, I'm opening up this post as a place for updates, should you want to post any.

I'll start:  If it weren't for the news we'd have never known Irene went by.  Perhaps it was a little cooler and more humid than we'd normally expect for August, but we're back to hot-hot-hot now—and no less humid.

Next up, I'd like to hear from our nephew in Virginia, who should be feeling Irene's effects right now....

Update, placed here because I can't figure out how to put pictures in comments.  Tree down at the Flounder (one of three trunks, actually).  Click for larger view.

Photo credits PJS

More photos from PJS, 10 a.m.-ish.  That's the view from the Flounder, not from a boat!

(Please note that comments have spilled over to a second page.  Click the "Next" button at the top of the comments section to get to the most recent updates.)

London, 1969:  I was lost, though I didn't know it yet.  For reasons I no longer remember, some friends and I had become separated from the rest of our group.  Certain that we were in the right place, and expecting them to show up at any moment, we sat and waited.  And waited, and stared at the wall-sized poster of a man, a singer.  It was emblazoned, "Englebert Humperdinck." 

The only Englebert Humperdinck I'd heard of was a composer.  Said composer being long dead, I suppose the up-and-coming singer thought the cool name was up for grabs.

I would have thought that by now the name was again available for recycling, but Englebert Humperdink, the singer, is alive and singing.  How do I know, and why do I particularly care?  Not for his music, for sure (I still prefer the dead composer), but because our friend AL is booked to sing three shows with him!  How cool is that!

(P.S.  After some negotiation of the British telephone system, we left the 1969 Humperdink behind and were reunited with our friends.)

 Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture, by Adam S. McHugh (IVP Books, 2009)

(I wrote briefly about this book based on a Mars Hill Audio interview with its author; now I have finally read it myself and can do it more justice.)

Hello.  My name is Linda, and I'm an introvert.

(Hi, Linda!)

That's the way I once thought about this aspect of my personality type, as many people still do.  At best it's an affliction, a disease—if not evidence of weak character or even mental illness.

Rare is the book that will make me cry, unless it's in frustration over poor writing, but Introverts in the Church brought me to tears in the early chapters, as I recognized again and again how many of the characteristics of my own life fit into the introverted pattern.   "I am not alone" is a most powerful emotion.  I was also reminded of Marcus Buckingham's assertion that we spend too much time and effort trying to shore up our areas of weakness, and not enough building on our strengths.  Somehow we have been sold on the idea that introverts should work hard at being more like extroverts, rather than applying our strengths for the common good.  What's more, I discovered that in trying to act more like an extrovert (and doing it rather badly), I have myself misunderstood and hurt fellow introverts.

McHugh's focus is on how this dynamic plays out in the church, so the remainder of the book was not as emotionally moving as the beginning, but it, too, was revealing, as I gained insights into why introverts are often uncomfortable in modern churches, and why their unique gifts are just as important as those of extroverts—and may be especially valuable because we live in such an unbalanced time.

My comment that I should probably buy a copy of Introverts in the Church just so I could lend it out provoked the response, "Would you lend it to your introvert friends or your extrovert friends?"  The obvious response is, "To both."  To the introverts, so that they might experience the affirmation that their weaknesses are the flip side of strengths of which our world is in much need, and to the extroverts—exactly the same thing, actually, and so that they might understand, appreciate, and encourage the introverts in their lives.

As usual, there's no way a few quotes can do justice to the book, or give an adequate picture of what the author presents.  What's more, long quotations are discouraging to most blog readers, myself included, I am somewhat embarrassed to say.  Nonetheless, here is a small sampling of ideas that struck me, culled from the bookmarks that bristle all over the book's 200-some pages. (More)

My e-mail and blog activity will be curtailed, either somewhat or a lot, until we get a handle on some serious computer problems.  Let me just say this about that:  Computers ought to last at least long enough for them to become obsolete, which even in this fast-moving culture is more than 2 - 4 years.  And laptops should last longer than their batteries.

All that to say, if you need to reach me, e-mail might not be the best medium for a while.

I used to love shopping at Sears, insofar as someone who loathes shopping can, that is.  But today my frustration meter pegged.

I'm rather picky about my clothes.  Not in a fashion sense, but I want them to be comfortable, modest, and reasonably-priced.  That's a combination much harder to find than it should be.

After much trial and error, I found shoes, shorts, and bras that I really like, all at Sears, and I greatly enjoyed being able to order them online without dealing with travel, crowds, and (above all) dressing rooms.

Until now.

Now Sears does not carry my clothes.  Any of them.  Not my bras, not my shorts, not my shoes.  Now I must venture back out into the world of physical, retail stores and (ugh) Try. On. Clothes.  That might not be so bad if I had any confidence that what I want will be there to find.  Online searches have thus far revealed nothing equivalent.

Except, maybe, at K-Mart.

It appears that when Sears bought out K-Mart, they transferred the kind of clothes I like to the lower-class store.  I wouldn't mind so much, but there's no K-Mart nearby.  I'm guessing it may be worth the drive just to check it out, though.

Years ago, I volunteered at our local middle school.  From what I learned there, I knew it was not a place I wanted our kids to attend.  Most of the reasons were academic, but burnt into my brain still is the comment of one of the teachers to her class, in reference to someone I no longer remember:  She was the kind of girl who buys her clothes at K-Mart.

Having bought many a clothing item at said store, back when there was one nearby, I knew we wouldn't fit in—nor want to.

Still, it galls—that my taste in clothing isn't good enough for Sears!

What's your gut reaction to this story?

There are more than 1,000 varieties of bacteria that live within the human gut, and an average person can have around 300 different varieties of the little critters living within them. Each type of bacteria not only supports one another but support your ability to digest food, stay healthy, and if your gut community is a bit off, perhaps gain weight or develop diabetes.

Or this one?

[The] often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts that is so extensive some scientists have nicknamed it our "second brain".  A deeper understanding of this mass of neural tissue, filled with important neurotransmitters, is revealing that it does much more than merely handle digestion or inflict the occasional nervous pang. The little brain in our innards, in connection with the big one in our skulls, partly determines our mental state and plays key roles in certain diseases throughout the body.

U.C.L.A.'s [Emeran] Mayer is doing work on how the trillions of bacteria in the gut "communicate" with enteric nervous system cells (which they greatly outnumber). His work with the gut's nervous system has led him to think that in coming years psychiatry will need to expand to treat the second brain in addition to the one atop the shoulders.

And from a much older source:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  (1 Corinthians 12:21-26)

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

I've seen it on bumper stickers for years, and just today at the bottom of my Penzey's Spices receipt.  Only now did I finally wake up to the outrageous insult implied by that platitude.

With all due respect to teachers, of which there are some who are great and many, many more who do their jobs very well, how is it that we presume that a child, who requires only a reasonably supportive environment to learn to eat, to crawl, to walk, to understand, to talk, to love, to manipulate his environment—in short to acquire the essential skills of a lifetime in just a few years—how is it that we presume he cannot learn to read—a minor skill compared with all he has already learned—unless someone teaches him?

That's crazy talk.

I'm grateful for all who are willing to share their knowledge with others, and especially for those who make the sharing enjoyable.  I suspect that those who do best, however, are the ones who realize they are not teaching so much as facilitating a child's natural learning.

But that turns out to be much too big an issue to write about just because I was annoyed by a bumper sticker, when I'm surrounded by vacation detritus, my husband is hungry, and I haven't yet managed that shower I promised myself after walking four miles in the 95 degree heat....

My sister-in-law, ever the teacher, saw some children catching blue crabs from our bridge.  Walking over, she engaged them in conversation and taught them a bit about the crabs, in particular how to tell the males from the females.  One of the children, a ten-year-old from the District of Columbia, caught on right away:

Oh!  One is the Monument and the other the Capitol!

Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.

(Photo credit Hackensack Riverkeeper)

Here's a quick post because the article frustrated me and I need an excuse to get off my feet for a few minutes.

For the record, I know that New Worship Conference Seminar: How To Talk To Note Readers is humor, and it did make me laugh.  But it perpetuates an unfair and inaccurate stereotype that pains me.  (Unless it's my over-worked legs and back.)

A note reader is someone with formal musical training who can look at a page covered with lines and dots, and actually sing it or play it.  Note readers aren’t normal humans.  Unlike me, they actually studied music in high school and college, whereas I didn’t have time to learn things like scales and signatures; I was too busy smoking weed and listening to Revolution #9 on the Beatles White Album....

First, the kind of "note reader" he's talking about can't just look at a note and hit the right pitch.  Okay, the instrumentalists can, but the human voice is a different kind of instrument and rare is the person with the ear to look at a note on the page and sing the correct pitch.

As for what I think he means—that is, being able to look at the patterns of notes in a song written in standard musical notation and know when to go up, when to go down, and whether to do so by a little step or a big leap—I learned that, plus a lot more, in elementary school, back in the 60's.  Ordinary, small-town, public elementary school, not high school, not college.  So if time signatures, notes, keys, and dynamic markings are foreign concepts in our culture, the first thing I'd ask about is what is going on in our schools.

You may have note readers on your worship team. You can recognize them because they usually have pocket protectors....

I know, I know.  It's humor.  But it reminds me of jokes about women drivers, or [insert ethnic group of your choice], which we have rightly come to recognize as in poor taste, at least.

(H/T Jon—thanks, my feet are feeling better now.)

Welcome home, Atlantis.  A moment of silence, please, to mark the end of an era.

No more will we step out our front door to marvel at the soaring arc of light as a space shuttle climbs into orbit.  No more will our whole bodies thrill to the iconic double sonic boom as it returns to earth.  I'm glad that this morning we were able to hear the boom-boom one final time.

Listening to the prepared statements and commentary on the television reminded me of a funeral—or worse, of the kind of laudatory speeches you hear from organizations when a long-term, once-valued employee retires or takes another job and everyone tries to pretend that his departure was voluntary.

What would John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Nikita Kruschev think to know that for an American to get to the International Space Station he must now be transported there by the Russians?

I like to hope that the drive, energy, enthusiasm, sacrifice, daring, and sense of adventure that powered America's space program still exists, flowing into other, less visible but perhaps even more productive, channels.  I look around and am not convinced, but I'd be glad to hear of examples, especially from the young people who are almost always the beating heart of such endeavors.  Not that a full-range of age and experience is not also necessary—and I'm still eager to hear more of this hopeful story of a 95-year-old visionary from the Occasional CEO.

Where I see such dedication and enthusiasm these days has a decidedly non-technological bent, even though the science-and-engineering types are well represented.  I see it in homeschoolers, homebirthers, midwives, alternative medicine, radical homemakers, large families, family farms, local and sustainable agriculture, heritage breeders, small businesses—in short, among the outliers, rather than mainstream America.  But perhaps that's due to my own skewed persepective.

Where do you see life, drive, commitment, and energy these days?

At Home, by Franz Hohler (translated from the German) (Bergli Books, Basel, Switzerland, 2009)

Franz Hohler observes the same situations you or I might, but sees them quite differently.  He sees stories.

At Home was a Christmas gift to Porter (thanks A&M!), and he found it the perfect book to read for his hectic life:  the stories are for the most part very short, and thus the book can be read in bits and snatches, here and there.  Not that you'll want to put it down if you can help it.

Some of the stories are a bit on the weird side (though not nearly as weird as Ray Bradbury's), but most show a very interesting perspective on life, and nearly all are enjoyable.  The tale of the man who inadvertently brings a baby devil home from the pet store is fascinating, perceptive, and frightening (though not at all in the modern gross-out horror film sense).  I, of course, enjoyed reading about and recognizing aspects of Swiss life; Hohler is Swiss and lives in Zurich.

Because it's very short, and because of its steel connection, I'll quote in entirety the final story in the book, hoping Herr Holner would consider it "fair use" and good advertising.  It's called The Mailbox, and provides a good snapshot of his style.

"I wish I were a racing bike," said the mailbox to the garden gate, "and could flit through wide plains and conquer mountain passes."

"You and your wishes," croaked the garden gate, "when you don't even meet the official postal regulations."

"One can always wish," sighed the mailbox, and continued to swallow bills, magazines, advertisements and postcards.

A little later he was unscrewed and replaced with a new one.  He was melted down.  Then together with old metal chairs, torn wire fences and bent screwdrivers, he was processed into light steel, landed in a racing bike factory, and was soon flitting across wide plains and conquering mountain passes and could hardly believe that he had stood for years in the same place and every day nearly choked on the mail.

From every room of our house we knew it was 5:45 in the afternoon, when my father’s fire radio announced the time as part of its daily test.  The radio was an exciting addition to our lives, because now we were not solely dependent on discerning the fire station’s loud siren to call my father to his duties as a volunteer fireman.  Even better, we could listen in on some of the activity.

For most if not all of the years we lived in the district, my father was a member (and usually an officer) of the Beukendaal Volunteer Fire Department in Scotia, New York.  It was a good time and place to be a fireman, as in our rural area there were few buildings more than two stories high, and most of the calls, while important, did not involve anything gruesome.

The whole family became involved, from making sure he heard the alarm (“Dad!  Dad!  The siren’s blowing!”), to pouring him hot coffee after an icy 3 a.m. call, to stuffing envelopes for the department newsletter he edited, to (my personal favorite) helping with the weekly fire engine inspections.

 The officers of the Beukendaal Fire Department, sometime between 1961 and 1967.  My father, Warren Langdon, is at the top left, with the mustache.  Unfortunately, I can’t identify the other men, but perhaps someone will see this post and be able to help.  Some possibilities (culled from old newspapers, alternate name forms in parentheses) are:  James Christopher, Lee Darby, Armond Dorazio, Wayne Duval, Bernie Fertal, Ernest Hitchcock, Ken Hitchcock, Kenneth Holden, William Lewis, Stanley Marynowski, Joseph Morette (Morrette), Charles Mowers, Barney (Bernard, Barnard) Revelia, James Ortoleva, Robert Revelia, William Riddle, Douglas Rifenburg, Phillip Schell, Paul Shatley, Charles Silva, William Spencer, Donald Stavely, John Thomas, Jay Woods, Milton Flansburg, Floyd Lewis, Robert Remus, James MacCracken, Gordon Streeter, Allen Tyler, Jeffrey Noonan, Kenneth Hitchcock, Roderick Rowledge, Willard Bailey, John Brennan.  If I had to guess, I’d say the person in the middle of the front row was Armond Dorazio, and the person to his left (right in the picture) Phillip Schell—but most of my readers know how face-and-name disabled I am.

It was a happy time.  Dad enjoyed the company of his fellow firemen, although the department didn’t, as far as I can tell, have the social functions it does now.  Or maybe Dad just preferred to do his duty and leave most of the socializing for family events.

In light of this, I am extraordinarily pleased and proud that our son-in-law has become a volunteer fireman.

Times have changed, of course.  Fire calls come via a tiny pager-radio, and instead of gathering around a crackling speaker, his family can follow the action on the Internet.  But the work is still important, and I’m thrilled to have a fireman in the family once again.

It's a good thing I have an economist for a husband, because ever since I weaseled my way out of a mandatory high school economics class, the subject has confused me no end.  (I took advanced physics instead, but that's not helping either.)

One of my little side pleasures on visits to Switzerland has been the purchase of Swiss Army knives.  So far, just the little keychain versions, but I've bought three of them (at different times, and from two different stores).  For years I had had one that I liked a lot, but it had lost parts and eventually become lost itself, so I was delighted to be able to replace it.

The second purchase was because I live in fear that the TSA will take the first one away from me, some day when I forget to take it off my keys before attempting to pass through airport security.

The third was a birthday gift for a grandson.

For each of these knives I paid some 15 Swiss francs, about $18.50 at today's exchange rates (which are considerably worse than when I actually bought the knives, but that's another story).  I thought the price was reasonable, and paid with no regrets.

Then two days ago I happened to be wandering through the sporting goods section of our local Target store.  It's a department I hardly ever see, but I was looking for fishing line.  (Deleted: story too long to bother with, having nothing to do with fishing.)  Lo and behold, there was The Knife:  not some cheap Chinese rip-off, but the genuine, Victorinox, made-in-Switzerland Real Thing.  Selling for $9.99!

How do they do that?  How can they cart it all the way from Switzerland to the U.S. and sell it for not much more than half the Swiss price, expecting to make a profit in the process?

Porter suggests that the Swiss respect small businesses and won't allow a big-volume company to undercut the local knife stores.  I can see that as a good thing.  But I still wonder how much profit Victorinox must normally make in Switzerland that they can afford to sell in volume to Target at a price that allows Target to profit on a resale of $9.99.

So ... a word to Noah:  Your Swiss Army knife is the Real, Real Thing.  It came from a wonderful little knife store in Basel.  If the TSA ever takes it away from you, try telling your parents you really ought to pay a visit to your Birthday Buddy, Joseph.  But if that fails, maybe they'll fund a trip to Target.

One of my regular walks takes me across a small bridge, under which flows a stream.  This stream can be a pathetic trickle or a rushing torrent, depending on the recent weather.  Yesterday we had a good deal of rain, so today I was treated to a lively, chattering stream that flowed and leapt with great enthusiasm.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

In the time of the writer of Psalm 23, sheep (and therefore shepherds) must have had quite a different persepective on water.  He's clearly praising the still waters (and God for providing them), but when I think of still water, I picture something stale, flat, and unprofitable:  fetid ponds, or the unpalatable alternative to mineral water that Swiss restaurants will serve you if you make the mistake of asking for water that's not fizzy instead of for that blessed, delicious Swiss Hahnewasser.  (Tap water, that is.  Switzerland has wonderful drinking water, and it flows freely in the city fountains, yet restaurants will charge you an arm and a leg for something flat and boring unless you know the secret password.  Remember it:  Hahnewasser.) 

Still water smells of death and decay.  Moving, flowing, leaping streams project life, health, freedom.  Why was the psalmist so happy with God for leading him to still waters?

I guess I'll have to learn a lot more about a shepherd's life in ancient Israel to be able to answer that.

H/T to Jon:

In Google maps, get directions from "Beijing, China" to "Taipei, Taiwan."  Look at direction 40.

Then do the same thing from Beijing, China to Tokyo, Japan, and look at direction 32.

A quick search didn't turn up anything else as interesting.