Come, Ye Thankful

Giving thanks for grace evidenced in family

While focusing on thankfulness at this season of the year, I find myself halting between two opinions: the first being a wondering at why we so often relegate thankfulness to this lone season of the year. Are we not grateful in spring/summer/winter? Do we not relish beaches and barbecues as much as pumpkins and turkey? The flip side of that same thought is joyfulness that our hurry-up world takes the time to stop and smell the burning leaf piles and enjoy the bounty of the season.

This year my thankfulness has been refocused on the grace of God and how the many pleasures and pains we enjoy reflect Him (Ephesians 5:20). So I look around me and I see . . .

—a well-tended lawn, and I'm thankful for the grace of God in giving me a husband willing to work hard (even at things he does not enjoy); for God's grace in giving mankind dominion over the earth; for the genius of a God Who created boxwood plants, Bermuda grass, dogwood trees, purple cabbages, and endless summer hydrangeas and for His infinite goodness in making me to enjoy the bounty and beauty of them.
—a family that at this moment enjoys health and harmony, and I'm thankful for God's never-ending love that allows four very different people to laugh and cry and work, and—yes, even disagree at times—but in the end make choices that build each other up.
—a Empire chest covered with dust, and I give thanks for that greyish, silty reminder that we are temporal beings who will be planted in earth, God tarrying.

In this time of thanks, I rest thankful that "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

Too Much

I don't do very well with debates. Just ask my debater-mock trialer daughter. I have to leave during closing arguments. I can only make it through one round of Lincoln-Douglas. It's just too much embarrassment for me to absorb.

So here I am listening—from afar—to the first presidential debate between Obama and Romney. I say "from afar" because my son has C-SPAN on in the next room from where my office is. I can't help but overhear some of the talking. And frankly, it's awful. There is smugness. There is animosity. There is bloviation. These things are mostly on one side.

The President looks annoyed to be there. He looks down at the podium or his notes or something and makes very little eye contact—except an occasional glare at moderator Jim Lehrer as if to say, "Would you please stop him?" Romney seems a little more open and comfortable, I think. He does have a certain "You gotta be kidding me" air about him. No, sadly, Mr. Romney, the President's not kidding. I think he really believes what he's saying.

And that's embarrassing.

Kvelling in Words

I am a word lover. A logophile. I like the way certain words sound on the ear and taste in the mouth. I like seeing them on a page and rearranging them to make new meanings or clarifications. I like the challenge of analyzing grammatical intricacies. (I tried explaining this to my 15-year-old son last night when I was looking over his English homework. He wasn't convinced that how words work together in sentence patterns was at all beguiling.)

My English-teacher parents nourished this love of words by giving me each Christmas a Word-a-Day calendar. You know the kind—you rip the pages off every day to reveal a new word. (I still get one at Christmas, only now it's from my husband.)

Often the words are somewhat lackluster. (Witness quail, belfry, and enjoin which come later this year. [I peek ahead sometimes. But that's another post.]) But yesterday's was one I'd not heard before: kvell \'kvel\ v: to be extraordinarily proud; to rejoice; from the Yiddish kveln, meaning "to  be delighted." And that word kvelled my heart.

Shakespeare and Elections and Laundry—Oh, My!

As You Like It laundry pile

The title says it all. I'm in the thick of those three big entities right now. Our non-profit Shakespeare company (Greenville Shakespeare Co.) has just finished a 16-performance run of As You Like It. My director/designer/actor husband and I just hauled 15 ginormous Rubbermaid containers full of costume pieces, jewelry, props, and paraphernalia up to the attic for storage til next spring. Now we begin full tilt toward a November production of Richard III: The Terrible Reign, a Richard of epic proportions. (See my husband's blog for more info on this fab project.)

As for elections, it's post-national convention season, and I'm having to summon all of my strength to stomach the polling, advertising, speculating, and general bloviating that accompanies this time of year. I have to remind myself that my hope lies not in man.

And last, but certainly not least, the laundry. Sometimes I believe laundry to be my profession. I am a laundress. Today has been especially laundry-ing as I added my son's bedspread (why the Southern red mud stains?), a bathroom rug, and several loads of post-AYLI (see first paragraph) stinky washing. (If you think actors don't work hard, you should smell their garments after a weekend of shows.)

In between all of that, I have been able to squeeze some editing of the October issue of Trak magazine, which is due to the printer's this week.

Author Visit

Well, it's been a long while since I posted. I'm still here and still writing—mostly for Trak magazine these days but writing. This spring I had the great opportunity to read both of my children's books to a wonderful group of K5-4th graders at Greenville Classical Academy. We had a lot of fun, and the kids enjoyed interacting with Mumsi and Rodney. They had a number of questions about Kenya, lions, and the animals mentioned in Mumsi Meets a Lion. Once again I got choked up with pride at Mumsi's reaction to the trouble he finds himself in. The picture is of the K5 class with me after the reading and q-&-a time.