Lift Up Your Hearts!

How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson (HarperCollins, 2005)

The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson (Penguin Books, 2009)

Porter recently earned his ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certification.  Not to be outdone, I read these books to obtain my IDLE certification.  (A joke that only works if you read it out loud, I guess.)  Unlike Porter's efforts, mine required no exam, although How to Be Idle did at times test my patience.

I read the second book first, on Janet's recommendation, and I'm glad I did.  It is by far the better, as evidenced by having over 30 of my sticky notes whereas the other only has eight.  I suspect that parenthood gave Hodgkinson a little more maturity, as it does most of us.  Even though I know he's exaggerating to make a point, in How to Be Idle there's still 'way too much disdain for effort, responsibility, and moral standards, and much too much praise for smoking, excessive drinking, drug use, unlimited sex, and all-night partying.  On the plus side, he mentions Paul Verlaine twice, a poet I'd never heard of till Stephan introduced me to him.  I love to find connections like that.

From the chapter on meditation, a sentiment I can relate to:

It's hard to drift off into nowhereland when your arousal hormones are circulating wildly as a result of your rage at mobile phone users.  Fantasies of hurling their mobile phones from the train window tend to disturb the search for inner calm.

Much of what Hodgkinson praises I cannot relate to, even a "pleasure" as innocent as remaining in bed until noon.  He's not even talking about getting a good night's sleep—as one would need after another of his pleasures, staying awake till three or four in the morning—but of lolling around, simply being idle.  Even if I were a night person for whom a 4 a.m. to noon sleep felt normal, I'd be climbing the walls if I couldn't wake up, get up, and get to work!  I never did get how breakfast in bed was supposed to be a luxury.

On the other hand, this touches on one of the book's best points:  that we have—unnaturally and to our harm—separated work from life.   We focus our educational efforts too much on training our children to get a well-paying job working for someone else, when we should be teaching them how to discover what they love to do and leverage it into self-employment.  Although he quotes  G. K. Chesterton several times, Hodgkinson does not mention one of my favorite of Chesterton's ideas, though I'm sure he would agree with it:  the world does not really have too many capitalists (owners of the tools of production), but too few.

Another important point, hidden in his obsession with what I'd call slothful idleness, is how essential to the creative process are unscheduled time, daydreaming, staring into space, meandering walks to nowhere, and the like.  Yet we feel guilty for these idle times, and others feel free to interrupt them, because we're "not doing anything."

The Idle Parent retains a modicum of the prejudice against Christianity in general and Puritanism in particular (or rather, the author's misinterpretation of them), and a bit too much respect for Rousseau, Locke and others who seem to know more about theoretical children than real ones.  And he still exaggerates at times to make his point.  But there are some real gems here.

Here follows a ridiculously long list of quotations, and I won't blame you if you are put off by the quantity.  But at least half the reason for making the effort to post them here is so that I'll be able to find them again myself, so I don't apologize.  They're worth taking the time to read, really. (More)

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant (Crown, 2007)

It is good for me occasionally to read something written by someone I disagree with.  After all, I frequently find wisdom in unexpected places, and have been trying for five years to put my aphorism, "the wise man recognizes truth in the words of his enemies," into common usage.  (With spectacular lack of success, I might add.  A Google search nets seven results, all from my own blog.)  This book was difficult, and I haven't yet been wise enough to discern much useful truth, though by the end I was able to understand the author a bit better, I think—and to feel sorry for him.  He's ashamed of his background, he's afraid of the future, he's angry at the injustice he sees, and he thinks he knows where to assign the blame.

It was not my Christmas present.  I was only the courier, and if I don't like it, well, that's what I get for reading someone else's gift merely because it passed through my hands in the delivery.

Joe Bageant grew up in a small town in Virginia, not all that far from my own West Virginia/Western Pennsylvania ancestors.  Unlike most of his neighbors, he went off to college and, as my strongly right-leaning friend would say, became thoroughly drunk on the "Liberal Kool-Aid."  He became a hippie and a journalist and a hardline socialist.

Writing about his roots, he occasionally comes across as sympathetic to the sorrows of those who share his hometown, but mostly with a condescension that is difficult to stomach:  Surely the only reason they don't see the world the way he does is that they have been ground down by their corporate, industrialist, Republican masters who conspire to keep the serfs stupid, ignorant, poor, and sick!

By the end of the book I was convinced that his conflicted response to his own people—alternate sympathy and loathing—is due to his own self-hatred.  Sorry to go all pop-psychology on you, but he clearly has never forgiven himself for being white, and Scots-Irish at that.  To hear him tell it, all the troubles of the world are the fault of people who are white, of Scots-Irish descent, and/or Christian.  He himself is guilty of the first two, and if he managed to shed the last, to his embarrassment his own brother is a pastor—even one who admits to having cast out half a dozen demons in his time.  In an attempt to atone for these sins, Bageant indulges in what would clearly be branded "hate speech" and earn him the harshest opprobrium were the objects of his screed black, of Hispanic descent, and/or Buddhist.

The best chapter, oddly enough, is the one on guns, hunting, and the Second Amendment.  I say "oddly" because I dislike both guns and hunting, but appreciate Bageant's demolition of the standard Liberal gun-control reasoning.  Here he seems at last to understand his own people, even though he no longer has use for guns himself.  I suspect the recipient of this book will like this chapter a lot.

Although there are many places where I nearly threw the book across the room because of what I see as Bageant's ignorance and irrationality, he occasionally has some impressive insights:  as, for example, when he accurately predicted the subprime mortgage crisis well before it became obvious to the world.  On the other hand, Porter predicted that, too.  It's a lot easier to see that something is a house of cards than it is to do something constructive about it.

I'm also struck, again, by how much the far Left and the far Right have in common.  It's the Right that usually gets mocked for stockpiling food and water and otherwise preparing for the coming Doomsday, but Bageant is just as pessimistic.  He may see different causes for the impending disaster, but he's sure it's coming.  It's those of us in the middle who just keep on keeping on with life, expecting neither heaven nor hell anytime soon.

Here are a few quotes—then I have to go wrap the book.  :) (More)

December 15 was the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday.  This day of rejoicing in the midst of the somber Advent season was fitting for our church's service of Lessons and Carols.  Christmas Eve would have been still more appropriate, but in a time when many choir members are out of town for Christmas—not to mention a time when pastors really, really don't want to give up their opportunity to preach to a packed church—compromises are made.  I love the Lessons and Carols service:  lots of Scripture readings, lots of music, no sermon.  Apologies to my pastor friends and relatives....

I know that the entire service was videotaped, but that's not available right now, so I once again resort to what I can find online.  Except for Christmastime, that is, which features our choir of two years ago—before we joined, so don't strain your eyes looking for us.  I'll modify this post if and when our own versions become available.  Hymn numbers are from the Episcopal Hymnal (1982).  We, personally, did not sing all of the works listed below; some were solos, some by youth and children's choirs.

Prelude:  Soli Deo Gloria (arr. Mark Hayes)  Our youth choir sang the non-Latin words in English, but this Russian version is cool.

How thankful we are to have been part of this service.

Gaudete!

UPDATE 11/1/19 Ugh.  This time, the problem with the automated updating of Flash videos to iframe cut out not just a little but most of this post.  :(  However, I can't deal with it now.

Here are some excerpts from Conversion Diary's 7 Quick Takes post today.

You may recall from previous years’ ravings that I love Christmas cards. LOVE. I love getting them, I love sending them out — I even love updating our address database and printing labels.

Throughout the year, [our friends] go through their Christmas cards one at a time to pray for the family who sent that card. I just love that tradition, and I think it speaks to the enduring value of Christmas cards, even in the online age. There’s something special about having a physical object that you can hold and feel, like a picture or a card, instead of pixels confined to a screen.

That said, I totally get why some people don’t send them. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. We can’t do it all, especially during the holidays, and some activities have to go, even if they’re great in theory.

One of the things I’ve realized only recently is that I need to find as many liturgical year traditions as possible that are not work for me. Doing Christmas cards, for example, does not feel like work. Each evening I look forward to pulling up my basket filled with envelopes and pictures and our family newsletter and new pens and sharpies. I can’t wait to jot down little messages on the back of the cards and smooth labels onto envelopes, all with a favorite show playing in the background and a glass of eggnog at my side. It truly makes the holiday season more special for me.

Baking, on the other hand, makes me lose my will to live entirely. I know that it would bless my family if our counter were spread with warm cookies and pies throughout the season, but my children lost the mommy lottery on that one. I occasionally make some treats with them because they enjoy it, but you’ve seen how it tends to turn out, and then I feel like I need 10 hours in a Relaxman to recover. I have a friend who is the opposite (hates Christmas cards, loves baking) which makes me realize that the key to maintaining sanity during holiday seasons is to find activities that you genuinely enjoy.  [emphasis mine]

Wise words—easier said than implemented, but wise.

Three anthems, sung Sunday, November 24, 2013.  [Oops.  Forgot to hit "publish" before going out of town.]

Be Thou My Vision (arr. Jay Rouse, PraiseGathering Music A08367).  Our choir director cynically (though no doubt correctly) posits that arrangers always mess with the originals because that way they can make money on them.  But in this case I have to say that as much as I like the usual version, I also like this unusual arrangement.  The syncopation makes it feel more Irish—though only if you take it a bit faster, as we did.  I don't like this rendition, but the other one I could find online I liked even less.

For the Beauty of the Earth (Folliott S. Pierpoint, Conrad Kocher, setting by Joel Raney, Hope C5733)

No YouTube video that I could find, but you can hear it at the link above.

UPDATE 11/1/19 Once again, the automated updating of Flash videos to iframe cut out a chunk of the post, but I'm leaving it as-is.

Jon found this amazing furniture designed for small spaces.  This is what happens when artists and engineers collaborate!  I find it terrific!

There's only one tiny problem:  It appears that if you can afford this furniture, you can afford a larger apartment.

No prices are listed, but Jon's e-mail inquiry about the bunk beds is rather discouraging.  (I rounded the numbers, but you get the idea.)

• Beds:  $5,000 - $8,000
• Folding headboards (each):  $500
• Folding desk under lower bunk:  $1000
• Twin mattresss (each):  $500 - $1000

Minimum $6,000 for a set of bunk beds?  Add the headboards and a desk and it will set you back at least $8,000?  (Plus taxes and shipping no doubt.)  They're very clever, and I'm sure they're well-built—probably not in China, though I haven't found any evidence to back up that speculation—but yikes!

Although it's still warm in Florida, the first snow has fallen for much of our family, so I'd better post this before no one is thinking of autumn fun anymore.  I don't know if this sign was intentional or not, but when our friend RDH posted it on Facebook, I had to share it further.  I'm pretty sure it was not an attempt to give bilingual directions to the crop.

Last year for Veterans Day I posted the honor roll of all those—thus far documented—in our direct lineage who have served in the military, from the Pequot War to World War II.  (We don't go any further than that directly, though I'll tip my hat as well to some current family who married in.) Today I invite you to remember your favorite veterans and enjoy some selections from our church service yesterday, November 10, 2013.  In the Episcopal Church, at least in my experience, no secular occasion (e.g Mothers Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day) is ever the focus of the service, but we do allow ourselves a little time to remember what the rest of the country is celebrating.  After having the veterans of various branches of the service stand, we sang the part everyone knows of God Bless America, which I don't need to include here.  Below are the anthems we sang.

A Prayer for Our Time (Joseph and Pamela Martin, Harold Flammer A7600).  It took me a while to warm up to this anthem, written in response to the events of September 11, 2001, because my favorite of that genre has always been our own Robert Kerr's Prayer for Peace.  But it has definitely grown on me, and singing it yesterday was spectacular.  It's been a long time since I've been in a choir where the singing gave me goose bumps!  It's not that our choir is so spectacular, but it's good enough that sometimes everything comes together just right.  (Again, remember, that the videos below are not us.)

Happy 20th anniversary to two of our favorite people!  Belated, that is; I blinked and the week was gone.

Our family is infinitely better off because of your wise decision those many years ago.

Our anthem for today, November 3, 2013:  assisting our cherub choir with The First Song of Isaiah (Jack Noble White, Belwin CMR 2247).  (This video is not us.)

Despite the indisputable cuteness of the kids, the most amusing part of the service was one of the hymns:  Praise to God, Immortal Praise.  No, there's nothing funny about the hymn itself, but the bulletin contained a rather unfortunate typo, leaving the title short one "t."

We have a bunch of folks from the Caribbean in our church, including several friends from choir.  Every year they put on a Caribbean Festival, and it is tonight.  Porter is still there, earning his Honorary Jamaican badge for another year:  set up, tear down, and manning the drinks table in between.  The food and the company are always great, and the music would be too (I love steel drums) if the volume weren't so painfully loud.  I only lasted two hours, and gave my earplugs to Porter when I left.

We were driven out of our previous church by music so loud I had to wear earplugs during both choir rehearsal and Sunday services.  Let's just say that our former music director would have loved the volume tonight.  But here it's only one night a year, and I enjoy the food and fun.  I would have enjoyed the conversation if I could have heard the person next to me....

Four months ago, Joseph added a Boston Red Sox baseball cap to his Amazon wish list.

Did he know something?

Our choir anthem for Sunday, October 27, 2013:  When in Our Music God Is Glorified (arr. by Mark Hayes, Beckenhorst Press, BP1750). 

I couldn't find a YouTube video, but you can hear it at JWPepper.com:  When in Our Music God Is Glorified.  This was particularly fun because I thought it wasn't going to be.  That is, we only rehearsed it twice, once on Wednesday and once on Sunday, and like most of Mark Hayes' arrangements, it was non-trivial.  Still, as happens unbelieveably often, it all came together in the service.  Not perfect, but I'm learning to tame my inner perfectionist and be pleased with GEIBTP (Good Enough Is Better Than Perfect) in many areas of life.  I don't like feeling unprepared, but when you surf the big wave and succeed, it's thrilling.

We like snakes.  Snakes eat bugs and rats and other not-so-pleasant would-be inhabitants of our yard.  For the past several years, however, we haven't seen many.  There haven't been that many hawks, though I have been hearing more owls than usual.  Most likely the cause of drop in the snake population is that some of our neighbors don't feel about snakes the way we do.  Our most common snake, the black racer, also has the unfortunately habit of hanging out just where the garage door hits the ground....

So we were glad to see one the other day, though less than happy that he zipped into the garage.  Whence comes this snake suicide wish?

Then today Porter called me to the back porch to see another one.  It was a snake I'd never seen before in all our 30 years in Florida.  I took some pictures, and then Porter nudged it out the door with a broomstick.  (Of course we had a broomstick handy.  Isn't it two days before Hallowe'en?)

I transferred the pictures to my computer and started my identification quest.  With a little trepidation, I began with the venomous snakes, because our snake (click to enlarge)

reminded us of nothing more than a pygmy rattler.

We could see no rattles, but they are very small, and this looked to be a pretty young snake.  I began my search with the thought that shooing him out into the backyard—over which we expect our grandchildren to roam freely this summer—might not have been the smartest of ideas.  True, we'd never had a pygmy rattlesnake in our yard (that I know of), and had only once ever seen one in the wild (on a campout), but there's always a first time.

It didn't take long, however, to discover that even after 30 years we still had something to learn about the black racer.  The juveniles look nothing like the adults, which are sleek and a solid grey-black.  The young are blotched, and are often mistaken for pygmy rattlers.  You can see images of both the young and the adult here.

Whew.  We're glad we let him live to grow up and patrol our yard.  If only he'll stay clear of the garage door.

It's not the most profound of Christmas anthems, nor the most beautiful, nor at the top of the list of anthems I'd most like to sing.  It's not a Christmas anthem at all, but one for Epiphany.  And I'm pretty sure we'll actually be singing it during Advent, which is when we'll have our Christmas Lessons and Carols service.  Be all that as it may, the fun quotient for this anthem is over the top, and I'm thrilled to be singing it.  Any former Candlelight singers want to join us? 

Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy (Lanny Wolfe, arr. Derric Johnson, Benson 45757-2018-7)