A note from home

For those of you who might be wondering what we're looking like these days... here are a couple of pictures to catch you up a bit. The first two were taken at my parents house back in December when my brother and sister-in-law dropped by with a belated birthday present for Kara - an easy bake oven. Kara and Aunt Sara had a lot of fun making a big mess and a little cake and we all enjoyed watching! The picture of Caleb was taken in our dining room, and yes, those are bookshelves beside him! He's growing so fast. Crawling, pulling up and thinking seriously about how to get from place to place. Those two front teeth are hoping to be joined by a few more so that he can eat more interesting things. Kara is enjoying school and loving living near Grandma and Papa and so are we all. Hope all of you are well. We miss you all!

Kara and Aunt Sara baking having fun in the kitchen!

 

Crazy Kara and Crazy Aunt Sara working on making us a "homemade" Easy Bake Oven Cake!

 

Our Big Guy! - Caleb at 7months - Two teeth!

 

Things Kara has said recently

“Kara,” said Lynn-nore, “why aren’t you asleep yet?”
“Because you turned on the light!”

“I want to invite you to my tea party,” said Kara, “It’s at 8/7 central.”

“Daddy,” she says to me last night (before the light comment), “close your eyes.”
I close my eyes and she sticks her hand under my nose.
“Ugh, I smell bum–have you been sticking your hand in your bum?!”
Kara dissolves into rolling giggles, managing to blurt out, “yes!”
(Needless to say after I stopped laughing her hands had a good washing.)

And, since we’re being a little gross, a few days ago, Kara and Lynn-nore were discussing the merits of eating corn despite the fact that Kara threw up corn when she had that stomach bug over Christmas. Lynn-nore said, “Honey, just because you threw up some of your corn doesn't mean you should never eat it again--you really like corn" to which Kara replied, "SOME of the corn?! Mama, I threw up ALL of my corn!!"

Melanin do-again

A Rejoinder. In a past post, I reported that my now-boss appeared "pasty." Such is not the case. Instead, he has slowly and progressively tanned until now he is become a handsome African-American man.

In other news, Kara wants to take Ballet. Caleb has learned to make a house by planting his feet/hands on the floor and elevating his bum. Lynn-nore is nearly done plowing through all the boxes; the place is starting to feel like home. And, after weeks of trying to lose weight, and an initial 5 lbs drop, I discovered this morning a net loss of zero. At least I learned this morning that I'll be editing Brian McClaren's next book.

Apoclalyptic country drop-in or ordo Finanjo

It takes a lot of work to move into a new place. Outside of the simple act of physically hauling all of your stuff, loading and unloading it, there is the evaluation of it all. Here is a case in point. When L. and I were first married, she decorated in “mild country” with hearts, apples and bears. Over time, most of this has been sent back to the shadows from which it came, but some pieces avoided the axe—until now. Now, as we open boxes and sift their contents, there is a reckoning. This is the Great and Terrible Day for every frame, every candle holder, every ounce of bric-a-brac and nostalgia from little plastic cards with inspirational messages to a miniature butter churn.

The new world (ordo novum) is somewhat like the old one, sage and burgundy do appear, but now in deeper, wine-colors. There is a certain commonality; both my Mother- and Sister-in-Law have picked up on the move to Napa in kitchen décor. You get the feeling of great, subterranean tides at work, such as those which design men’s ties. Gone are solid colors in favor of late-80’s geometric shazam. Pleats, however, will forever fatten the male midriff unless something truly messianic is done to stop it.

The in-laws have taken to stopping by. This is totally new. L. stopped by just last week, and everyone got a kick out of it. Continents or oceans have always separated everyone from each other; stopping by is like the miracle of train travel to 18th century humanity. I would probably stop by, too, if I had grandkids so close by. The thinking is as follows: “I could be here in my home folding laundry that only I and my wife/husband care about (and then only tacitly), or I could be playing with my grandchild.”

Caleb can sit up now. He can also execute a sophisticated combination of rolls and lunges, scoots and twists to reach any geographic location he desires. When he gets himself stuck under the couch, he cries until someone pulls him out. And, occasionally, he barfs for no reason. He did this yesterday, during the first “stop by” by afore-said in-laws.

Kara has run into her first taste of ordinary school life. Despite the “Christian school” label, her Kindergarten is showing its spots. One little girl, I’ll just call her Pushy Petunia, tries to run the show. If I understand Kara’s puzzle-like descriptions, this girl tells Kara what to do and excludes her from play. Mentally, I’ve given Pushy the forearms of a merchant marine along with sweaty, black body hair. She’s probably a sweet-looking little girl whose parents want her to reflect good values. And then there’s the teaching response. When L. brings this to the teacher’s attention, Mrs. Find-a-New-Job (Finanjo) makes it fairly plain that Kara’s problems are Kara’s fault. This kind of attitude reminds me of, say, the quality experiences I had in Tennessee’s public schools. Never mind the woman that ran the car inspection station, a 2nd year transplant from Cape Cod, who begged me not to send Kara to public schools here, “because they are years behind Massachusetts schools.” Well, Maam, when it comes to Christian love at Christian schools, I have to say I agree. The love and care that Beacon (Christian Academy) showed for every child is totally absent from the remarks made by Mrs. Finanjo, or the attitude allowed to fester in Pushy Petunia.

Good Wednesday

Since it has been forever since I blogged anything on this board, I have been getting desperate. Needing to come up with something quick, I hit on the idea of randomly keeping track of what I did during one workday. Here goes.

8:00 a.m. My coat made a clanking noise getting out of the truck. I discovered a left over lunch spoon in a pocket. Yellow stuff has dried on it. I don’t have anything to eat with today. I’m going to use it (after a little scrubbing.)

8:49 a.m. Presently, my computer is the platform for an Adobe Acrobat war between Acrobat 5.0 and 7.05. Neither of them wants to install completely, so that .pdf files are automatically assigned to them. Well, 5.0 is a little more aggressive in this respect. Both reinstall every time I use them.

9:15 a.m. Finished readying the troops for the reception and sending-to-proof for a long overdue manuscript. The similarities between being an editor and playing dodge ball didn’t occur to me until just now. Watching various employees sign on to AIM (AOL’s instant messenger client, which many of us use as a form of inter-cubal communication.), and sending “Good Mornings” because I can.

9:20 a.m. Noticed the emissions report for my truck. I’d stuck it in my pocket to leave in the glove box. Funny that a state with more smokers per capita than I’ve seen in over a decade (most of them women) is so interested in emissions testing.

10:20 a.m. Dad called & we have a great discussion about influence and mission in the workplace. I’d mentioned the book Lead Like Jesus, and picked up a copy from our display shelves on the way to the production meeting. I also resolved to finish Barna’s Revolution and blog about it as soon as possible.

11:15 a.m. The administrator of type reading gave me some pointers on how to read the production schedule – quite helpful! Then we commiserated on the difficulties of converting data into XML.

11:45 a.m. Reading blog comments on George Barna’s silly little book. More a holiness tract than a legitimate sociological investigation, and with less scriptural argumentation!

12:35 p.m. Eating lunch at my desk due to the realization that I have three manuscripts to read in the next five days. Broccoli and pork tenderloins in a teriyaki sauce. (I found plastic utensils.)

12:58 p.m. Scribbling a hasty to-do on the back of a stray piece of paper while sorting out my Outlook tasks. I task everything!

2:00 p.m. Editing a foreword to a manuscript. I’ve spent an hour checking silly things like whether to capitalize “rock” as in rock music, and verifying the rules for placing commas after introductory phrases. Wishing I had a few days to do an intensive seminar on the Chicago Manual of Style.

2:49 p.m. A friend of mine and I stop to consider patience as the outcome of submission to the provident care of God. A refreshing thought given the list of to-do’s.

3:28 p.m. I just remembered that my oil pressure gauge was dangerously low this morning. Speed demands I reduce my usual standards, so I Yahoo yellow pages a Jiffy Lube and give them a call. I have plenty of manuscripts to read. Maybe, as L. said to me once, they will give me a flower. (It’s an inside joke.)

3: 45 p.m. Deleting Adobe 5.0.

3:53 p.m. Wrote a “thank you” to some friends for a gift which proves quite useful here on the job.

4:01 p.m. Updated the Outlook tasks list to reflect progress & add deadlines on new projects. Began reading a manuscript per an acquisition editor’s request for a “theological read.”

4:07 p.m. L. calls, tired and out of it, too much unpacking too many days in a row. I’d be tired, too. I feel sympathetic and tell her so.

4:10 p.m. I leave to get the truck’s oil changed. The truck alarm is set off during the process two times. I try and get through some of the opening remarks in February’s First Things and pay attention to overhead CNN commentary on the State of Union address at the same time. A guy named Alan Mittleman writes: “Paul and his theological descendants describe a Judaism that Jews cannot recognize.” Well, the temple and its sacrifices were still standing when Paul was alive, so that makes sense. Jamnia was still a long time coming.

5: 15 p.m. I make it home at seemingly the speed of light. The President was at the Opry, and they shut down Briley Parkway so that must have redirected much of the traffic that keeps me sitting between 5 and 6 p.m. Wouldn’t you know, I left that emissions report at the office.

Eat out and take in at Amerigo's

Amerigo Nashville. Broadway & West End. Me in coat and tie at a business dinner, a meet and greet with Dr. Cardia from California. I arrived late. Interstates in Nashville are just suggestions planted here and there on whatever strip of asphalt seems to be heading in a similar direction. Just because you are on I-65 S right now doesn’t mean that the situation will remain so. Most likely, you will split, merge, turn, and split again into a half-dozen other highways, some lesser and some greater, and each one may or may not continue as I-65. The atmosphere was hushed in deep, black leathers and earth tones, lit by hanging, oversized ambient globes. People’s voices crowded into close seats and intimate booths, thrumming and hustling each other for aural prominence. White napkins. Couples celebrating engagement; young men and women laughing at each other’s stories heard for the first time; mature couples out with friends; and business dinner people. “Thom!” I turned to see my table.

“So nice to meet you Dr. Cardia,” I said, he rising slightly from behind a bruschetta al pomodoro. No memory of the handshake; he’s trying to figure out who the heck I am. I scrunched into the seat opposite, beside The Storyteller and his wife, Anne. Across the white linen, Dr. Cardia, and to his right, D.W. The conversation was of the bruschetta, of the flight – introductions still being made while I fussed over the wine list. “I’ll have a glass of the house Pinot Grigio and a water, please.”

I really had no idea what I was doing at this meeting. The Storyteller and D.W. are both my superiors, the former by several degrees. I resolved to play conservative, but simply couldn’t help myself: “Now what is anhedonism?” Dr. Cardia opened like a collector given leave to bring out his rarest finds. He talked for 20 minutes at least, and I couldn’t help smiling at him, enjoying the pleasure of being in the presence of someone talking about what they love. (My heart laid its hand on theology.) We were all leaning in, and asking questions. The rising rate of pastoral infidelity; the American ADD phenomenon and its drug of choice, Ritalin; the inhibition of pleasure centers in the brain by a culture addicted to serial melodrama and hedonistic bombasts. Ultimately, he concluded, we so deaden our pleasure centers in the brain that we can no longer enjoy anything. We become like zombies, feeling nothing, enjoying nothing. A kind of depression sets in which is not sadness but emptiness. Real pleasures, good company, ripe fruit, beautiful sunsets, and especially delayed pleasures such as those achieved in listening to good music or acquiring a foreign language, become impossible without treatment. And what kind of treatment? This sounds so much like the consequences of gluttony and greed, I thought, “So are you saying, then, that a spiritual discipline like fasting, rather than be an avoider of pleasure, actually re-awakens our pleasure centers and opens a door to the experience of legitimate and authentic, rather than manufactured, pleasure?” Yes, he said, and then talked about some studies with recovering cocaine addicts. Hmmm…now that would be an interesting book. One that addresses not only the spiritual reasons behind the ascetic disciplines, but also supplements that with good scientific-and-brain research demonstrating their impact upon the whole psychosomatic person.

The Storyteller took over, and the conversation turned to the children of famous Christians. No gossip here, just good, wholesome stories; human life together, whether one is an author or international speaker or no. When everyone ordered coffee, I thanked God that Dr. Cardia ordered a cappuccino, as I did the same. Oh, you cannelloni al forno, only that cappuccino could have done you justice! “I have to bring L. here.”

It was a pleasure to meet Anne. Sunday school teacher, philanthropist, business woman and mother who opened a story with the descriptor “infancy narratives” – a beautiful woman with a young and wonder-full soul, I could see why The Storyteller married her. And, as he told tale after tale, I could see why she married him. I liked being around them as a couple, it made me feel good about being a human being. It made me feel good about my own marriage, and I missed L. There was a sad note, though. Anne looks so much like George Eliot, aged a bit. “Here is what she would be like if she were a Christian,” I thought, and my heart felt the loss.

Afterward, we stumbled out into the cool and neon Nashville downtown. I walked and whistled to the truck and climbed inside. Checked the messages. QE, still struggling with a cold. Sir Walter Raleigh answered the phone, and Oh the happy news: a boy! A boy! A boy (and, I’m told, quite apparently so!) I’m still excited and thrilled. John G. and I wrapped up the evening, where I blabbed far too long but he got to talk library speak and H. said a few words. This day was a table of the Lord, and I ate and was satisfied, and, even now at the end of this post, please understand that there are baskets left over.

Finding Beauty in Middle Tennessee

There is a beauty to Middle Tennessee. It isn’t the beauty of the ocean. Nor is it an architectural beauty; most of the buildings around here – the one’s that aren’t strip malls – are made of brick. It isn’t the charm of European walking distance, the library, the grocery store and a playground all within a few moment’s walk. It would take an hour or more to get anywhere here on foot. Yet, there is a beauty to it.

I first noticed it one morning when everything was shrouded in fog, laying thick and quiet along the slope of the land. Myself and the other commuters sped through these earth-bound-clouds cautiously, making deadlines, going places. And then, as I crossed over the Cumberland River, I looked across the rail at the water below. The sun glinted off the strange water and refracted through the overhanging fog. The scene was strange and mysterious, and flowed with memories of the frontier.

A few days later, I saw something else. Construction is everywhere in Nashville. The city has grown so fast over the last decade that public roads and other facilities have burst against rising demand. In an effort to make up the difference, nearly every road in Nashville is being widened, and new connections are being made. Thus, cars share the roads with construction machinery and their handlers. It was just such a situation that gave me another glimpse of the beauty to be found here.

Just off highway 155E, in a knot of trucks and pylons, a group of construction workers had gathered before starting their daily labor. They stood together in a loose circle. Tattered shirts and old jeans, gloves and hard-hats, dusty hands and faces, they gripped coffee or a biscuit from Jack in the Box or McDonald’s and greeted each other. It reminded me of my warehouse days. It reminded me of the feel of the warehouse first thing in the morning. Muscles just warming up as hands and feet took up new tasks. In their faces and postures, in the work that waited all around them, I saw something else that is beautiful in Middle Tennessee: its people.

And, finally, a third thing – quickly said as this is getting long. We visited a Baptist church yesterday. A congregation of perhaps 120 in a not-unattractive sanctuary for 350 people. Just before the sermon, a man of about 45-50 years sang “Special Music”. It was a gospel song of gratitude for being a “child of the King” filled out with pre-recorded percussion, bass and background vocals. Cheesy, that’s what I thought as a kid. But, as this man, this bearded grown man, got into the song, and could barely choke out his real gratitude for being such a one, I didn’t think it was cheesy at all. It was grace. Southern religiosity takes some getting used to, and I’m not sure if I will ever totally trust it, but that doesn’t mean that it is false. It certainly wasn’t to this man. And as he struggled to sing in those last few bars, I saw something else beautiful, beautiful and beyond beauty.

The other habit

Watching TV the other night with Kara, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she had her fingers up near her face. Thinking the worst I said, “Kara, stop picking your nose.” “I’m not picking my nose Daddy,” she whined, “I’m doing the other habit!”

Fifty-or-Fit

So the lot of us were at Friday’s a week or two ago to celebrate Mary Shelley’s birthday. Mary is on my right, Dolley Madison on my left. Opposite are Idgie Threadgoode and Alypius; Mr. Darcy at the head. Little by little the subject turned to New Year’s resolutions, and, from there, weight loss. “I need to lose weight this year,” said Mr. Darcy. Dolley agreed, and in a flash Mr. Darcy’s hand was out. “Let’s make a bet out of it,” he said, “50 dollars apiece to see who wins the most by…” Dolley laughed and shook on it. Discussion followed. Alypius threw in. Do it! I thought. You need to lose weight big time. Plus, this is a great way to do that and be a part of things! Now $50 is a lot of money, and I’m normally not given to wagering anything. When the powerball was up in the 200 million, I didn’t even buy a dollar ticket. Just do it! I went back and forth, and then finally shook on it. The date set was April Fool’s Day. Whoever loses the most weight, measured as a percentage lost, wins the pot at $150.

The next morning, Dolley sent an email to the rest of us. “….one mile, x sit ups, y push ups….GAME ON!” Mr. Darcy’s shot back: two trips for beer. My strategy hasn’t so far been as aggressive. Slight, incremental changes are my forte, harnessing the power of caloric compound interest. Park further from buildings. Drink water. Cut out sweets. Take the stairs. I lost 20lbs doing just this a few years ago, and I wagered these would make a good sortie toward the goal. That is until Alypius started getting up early to work out. Now I’m thinking a good deal about that fitness center in the new apartment complex.

Lynn-nore was a little shocked when I broke the news. $50 is a lot of money! (Did I mention that?) If every couple has a spendthrift and a tightwad, then I am most definitely the former. Still, the health benefits of having me a bit lighter, coupled with the prospect of winning enough money to cover the cost of a new wardrobe sweetened the deal. Also, we have since figured that the money saved by acquiring our apartment, thereby negating the need to pick up a Y membership, is none too shabby. I even think, having been at it for over a week now, that she is a little proud of me – and that feels good.

Catching Z's

The sun is going down, and from the window next to my cubicle, I can see the tips of trees, yellow and brown. They stand on the dock, and wave to the Sun as it sets out to the west. Inside, someone is on the phone. Another is chatting to a co-worker, in this case Dolley Madison. The rat-a-tat of ubiquitous keyboarding joins the hum of ventilation. A quiet afternoon that is soporific in the extreme.

I have been trying to read a galley copy of Brian McClaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus (IMHO largely a colloquial popularization of a better N.T. Wright lecture) but keep wanting to nod off. Most days there is a good bit to do, but todays “to do” has caught fast in the wheels of others.

Domestically, we found an apartment. We went from 1250/mo for a simple 2brdm with < 1000 square feet of space to much less $/mo with 1200+ square feet + fitness center/2 pools/volleyball/tennis court AND - perhaps more importantly - a dish washer! L. and I are pinching ourselves! Caleb has begun teething. 3 little white incisors are starting to peek out on his lower jaw. It is a good thing, too, since he’s anything but covert about his desire to chomp into real food. While his sister chants “Meat! Meat!” at a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, Caleb has to make do with rice serial and bananas. He’s ready for more. This, unfortunately, has made him a very light sleeper. Suddenly we are up 2 and 3 times a night again (I say “we” but poor L. takes the brunt of it.) Once he goes down around 8, it is tiptoe time for the next 12 hours. Alas, Kara can’t help herself but shout and groan and make all sorts of noise when we’re putting her to bed – no matter how many references to the Spanish Inquisition one makes by word or sign! Kara is in her first full-week of a new Kindergarten, and she is really enjoying it. Thanks to a visual method for sight-reading, she is sounding out words and simple sentences in a leap of ability bordering on the miraculous! I am very proud of her, and sensitive to the face that spelling doesn’t always mean you keep the secret. Gramma spelled out “Z-O-O” last Saturday, and Kara had no trouble at all deciphering it on the spot.

Coming up: $50 or a pound of flesh.

Santa came to Manchester

Going through some papers, I came across this article that L. cut from the Manchester Cricket. File this under "only in New England"!

SANTA IS COMING TO TOWN AGAIN!
Mark your calendars for the annual Jingle Bell walk, co-sponsored by the Community Center and the Manchester Mothers Club. Set this year for December 3rd, Santa will arrive at Masconomo Park via lobster boat. Santa will lead children on a Jingle Bell Walk to Singing Beach, followed by an Open House at the Community Center from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Refreshments will be served and Santa will be available for pictures. Put on your best holiday outfits and come join Santa!

I gave Max Lucado a Cold

I gave Max Lucado a cold. Who? Max Lucado /loo-KAY-doe/. As comfy as a fireside chat, as pastoral as your favorite Uncle, as best-seller as an Oprah book club discount card. That’s the Max Lucado I’m talking about. I met him my first day on the job. Who? Max Lucado. White like sunlight glancing from whitened sandstone. Tall like the A in Antonio. Downy and pastoral, a tenor with a sweater-vest, a heath-hearted fire. That’s the Max Lucado I’m talking about, and I gave him a cold on my very first day.

Unlike my last foxhole, my new cubicle is open and spacious. Wide writing surfaces, with a slide-away file cabinet and drawers are topped by under lit, lockable shelving. The first day, this space was still full of K’s stuff: the accumulated junk of years of shuffling and re-shuffling. Wires, plugs and bags of materials, dusty and unkempt gave the whole a transitory feeling. There were secrets, too.

It is a premium in my new position to keep an eye on the details, details intricately bound up with judgments and manipulations of time. Underneath the dusty leftovers and boxes were a few archaeological bones of K’s own astrology: a file with a color-coded dot; the way she organized the folders in her C:\ drive; different-colored pens. I was left alone for an hour that first day like an acolyte in the temple, looking past the standing stones at the moon and the setting sun and wondering at the question of time. I squared off the site and began sifting and diagramming each of its treasures.

“Excuse me, Thom,” said Mr. Darcy, just as I was about to empty a stack of antiquated emails into a bin, “Max is in the office today, and we’re going to have a meeting with him. We’re going to pray for his upcoming book.” “Pray! How does that work?” I wondered. Not that I don’t mind prayer, but in a corporate setting. Since coming to Nashville, the borderline between religious expression and, to speak existentially, the street, are always crashing into each other in unpredictable ways. And, here on the Outlook tasks: prayer.

Fumbling with names, and coated with new-guy inapproachability, I followed the rest along toward a good sized meeting room. Suits were already there, sitting in a closed square around the center. We pulled chairs from stacks and assembled respectfully along the wall. I bumped along to the right, and found myself sitting alone beside two late-middle-aged women who took no notice of me. I barely noticed myself. And then everyone stood up, and next thing you know up comes Lucado. He takes my hand, looks me right in the eye and says, “Good morning, I’m glad you are here.” Normally I never shake hands with anyone when I’m ill, but Lucado just sort of took it. Surprised, I still managed a smile, “Thanks, I’m glad to be here.” After that he milled through the rest of the crowd, finally ending up at the head of things. Then there was a half hour or so of prayer. I wondered whether only the important people could pray. I wondered whether anyone in the outer ring would pray. What sort of “prayer dynamic” was at work? Who felt as if they had to pray? Then it was over. Time for the Christmas party.

“I hope you like the party we threw for you!” I heard this about half a dozen times as I bummed a ride from some co-workers, still strangers but probably friends. We climbed into an SUV, and climbed out into the grand ballroom of the Sheraton Inn. Our group had a table reserved, right up front. I was seated beside Mr. Darcy, who gave me a “whose who” of the room and fired off well-meaning insults, giving as good as he got, from the rest of the table. I still felt cold and new, like brittle glass.

Around me, the room, opulent and red velvet, was loud. People were having a good time, shouting and jostling each other in friendly greeting. Patsy Clairmont was the speaker. A little, graying woman with a booming voice (or were we sitting in front of the speakers?) she spoke about Jonah, and I was glad to note that she’d obviously read a commentary or two before she wrote her standup. Lucado took the stand to talk about his book.

I was taking in everything. One thing I wanted to know about this group all seated at the same table was whether they liked each other or not. In my last employ, a few hellos would go around, and small talk would be attempted, but there would be little in the way of non-office friendliness. I was pleased to discover that this was largely not the case. This group was more like a cluster of teens at a youth convention than a bevy of suits who came for the food. It is normally very difficult to get any sense of personality at functions like these, but in this case, each person seemed to own themselves. Each person shone in their own color, more along the lines of a church assembly than a collection of co-workers. I marveled at this while wondering with the rest of the table what we were to do now that the wait staff had taken our forks, when the music started.

One golden-voiced executive, with two others drawn from other departments in the company, had taken the microphone and the three men began to sing Christmas carols. The second man played a giant, black Gibson Epiphone hooked to a jazz amplifier. They sang two songs, and then asked the audience to sing one together. They chose “Silent Night” and began straightaway:

Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright

I joined in, lifted up by the room. Missing worship with my church, and the move having taken advent out of the December weeks, I was hungry for carols, hungry to sing, and here was a company singing together, singing in all sincerity about Jesus. And lest you think only the first verse was sung, no, they launched out into the remainder, and by the time we got to

Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace

I knew that I wasn’t the new guy any longer. I felt it all the way through. It has been a long time coming, but on this day, I said, here is exactly where I belong.

The last leg

Again, I wasn’t sleeping. My eyes closed and opened again on restlessness. “You can relax,” I told myself, “you are at John and Tina’s house now. You are with friends.” At one point, John woke up and moved to occupy a sleeper sofa not far away in the living room. I noticed him by a pair of socked feet out of the corner of my eye. Not having brought anything myself, I slept in my clothes. “Where is this place?” I thought. “Somewhere between New England and Tennessee. Somewhere between the past and future? . . . I must be in shock.” I turned over, finding a better position on the couch. “Look!” I said, ubraiding myself, “God has given you so much. This is a fantastic opportunity for you and for your family. Stop griping. Stop moaning about like something awful has happened!” But isn’t reality more complicated than that? Can’t you grieve and rejoice at the same time – is this a mood with no words?

Daylight slipped through the front window. Realizing we were both awake, John and I considered just getting up. It was good to be here. We hadn’t seen either John or Tina in years. And now, meeting their daughter, H. for the first time was a wonderful occasion. The adults congregated in the kitchen. It had been refurbished in the last few years, and L. and I admired it. John and I talked about books, about work, about his interest in the form critical developments behind the American Constitution. My mind felt disorganized. In-transit. Finally, H. woke up – what a cutie! It took a few minutes, but she and Kara soon warmed to each other. Kara was so eager to meet her. Again, what a great attitude – Kara was handling this whole thing like a pro. Then we had to push on to Nashville (with a stop at one of our favorite restaurants: Misakes).

I don’t even remember the remainder of the drive. But when we pulled into L’s parents house – their beautiful retirement home nestled in a community with high-ceilings, cathedral windows and a rocky waterfall at the entrance – with two kids, a pack-n-play, boxes of clothes, guitars and toys and baby wipes and diapers and two vehicles a baby swing, a crib, blankets, legos, CD’s, and who knows what else – I just didn’t know if this was going to work despite everyone’s best intentions. And, frankly, neither did they.

The Journey South

Finally I have a moment to review the last few weeks. Living with Lynn-nore’s parents, living with someone else’s schedule and habits, has meant time away from the routine that would have guaranteed a little more communication before now. Nevertheless, I want to talk about the trip down and let everyone know how we are doing.

The journey south was relatively uneventful. Our stuff made it in record time, arriving at the terminal in Tennessee a mere two days after pulling away from Manchester-by-the-Sea. Our own passage took a little longer. We had hoped to visit friends on Long Island Monday evening, but that didn’t materialize. Instead, we stayed in Pennsylvania. I hadn’t been sleeping well. My mind kept turning on innumerable details – car registration, insurance questions, potential trucking fees, the heavy work of unloading the truck in Nashville. It did no better now that everything was underway. The second day, Tuesday, was hard driving. An ice storm was supposed to roll in that evening, blanketing the Appalachians. We couldn’t stop until Kingsport, until we made it to John and Tina Grubb’s house, a 12-hour trip. So we drove 80 m.p.h. most of the way. I-81 is a major East Coast artery, and I worried for Lynn-nore and the kids as trucks whizzed by. On one occasion, a car turned in between us, so I slowed down to force him to pass. 60 … 55 … 50, the driver matched every deceleration without a hint of frustration. This was a Sunday drive, apparently! At 35 m.p.h. I wondered if I wouldn’t have to stop and ask the driver to “please go on ahead.” Threading the mountains in West Virginia brought another challenge. This time, a small truck weaved first this way and then that, staying in the lane but with obvious difficulty. He was tired or he was under the influence. I sped past him and then hovered, encouraging Lynn-nore to do the same, but she didn’t move. She hung back. “Come on,” I said aloud, even though she couldn’t hear me, “pass him!” She seemed frozen. Finally, her blinker came on – take the next exit. “We’re just going to have to face this guy again,” I grumbled. We stopped at a truck stop, and I punched out of the truck. “Caleb needs to be changed,” she said. “I thought you were just nervous about that drunk driver,” I interjected. She didn’t know anything about it.

The truck stop smelled of cigarette smoke. Kara and I waited while Lynn-nore took Caleb into the ladies’ room. Hunting gear, electronic poker machines, and angel statuettes were everywhere. Kara took me on a trip through the gift shop. Kids toys, remote control tanks, t-shirts, hawaiian hula dolls, hair care products. I thought about the life of a truck driver, the life of many of the people sitting in the restaurant next door, watching the remote control tank in a video demonstration, buying a Coke at the register. I’d always placed such a life somewhere between the varieties of condoms for sale in the men’s room and the brands of cigarettes behind the cashier. Yet, I have lived in communities where being a trucker is a good life. Men save up to buy their own rig to the tune of $60,000+. These men and women are as much an image of God as I am. I have no business thinking less. They need toys for their kids, t-shirts, Cokes, shaving cream, just like anyone else. Our clothes smelled like rumpled Winstons as we returned to our vehicles. Kara had me plug the DVD player back in as I strapped the seatbelt around her. It had been all day in the car and she had a better attitude than I did.

My attitude was somewhere between grief and masculine single-mindedness. I wanted to get there (wherever) in good time. Yet I missed New England in general, and our friends SWR&QE in particular. Missing them was a dull ache in my heart. Yes, I was afraid of losing “me” to my Southern roots. “In some ways it is like New England never happened,” Lynn-nore had said one evening a few weeks ago, talking about the move and the future. Thom grows up in Kingsport and moves to the big city, with that loop somewhere up North. Nothing changed, nothing put behind, nothing new added. New England had been my going away to college, every choice there had been my own. Lynn-nore and I had made what we are there, and had put 11 years into it. The result had been running into people you knew on a regular basis, a church family with shared history, the historical-yet-frenetic nature of Boston, the omnipresent beauty of the Atlantic coast, the rich resources of the BTI, decent snowfall, church bells in Harvard Square, the song-sand of Singing Beach and many, many friends, like shiny coins jangling in a pocket, and then there was SWR&QE.

SWR&QE are missionaries, and missionaries live their lives under the question mark of God. We, too, were aware of that question mark: things would change. One day God would open a door and that would be it. Hadn’t that been my prayer for nearly a decade: “What next, Lord?” New England had been a stepping stone in the beginning, a cliff not a plain. We knew going into our relationship with them that every moment had the word “temporary” written on it. But it didn’t matter. Words weren’t required. How many times did QE go up and read to Kara in her room after a long day of managing 1st graders? How often did SWR just take Caleb from us, not as if holding him was a chore but a welcome pastime. They are “our bummy friends.” We had opened the doors of our heart to them, and with it all other doors as well. How could we go with the baby due? How could we go with stories yet to be snapped off in a weekend? And it was we, not they, who were leaving. Leaving for a place far away and not coming back. Who is the missionary now? Who has sent whom? I nursed my ache with each passing mile, and my mood was as torn and overcast as the clouds against the black Virginia hillsides.

BBC4's Advent Offerings -- Thanks Be Unto God

Thank God for BBC4’s advent offerings. If you have never visited their website, I suggest you check it out. From an audio-rich advent calendar, to daily services recorded in various cathedrals throughout Britain, you can easily fill your ears with carols, choirs, readings from the lectionary, and advent homilies. Over time, the BBC has become a staple of my advent experience, if simply for the music. I can’t get enough performance during the season, and certainly can’t afford in cost or time what is available. The BBC serves it up for free.

Music, and especially choral music, really makes the advent season for me. My Mom, both a teacher of voice and an experienced and accomplished alto herself, was always dragging me to performances in my youth, and, well, it must have rubbed off. Now I’d drag myself to one every day if possible. There is nothing quite like experiencing music as a living thing. In our day of artificial lungs and mechanical hearts, we know how to keep a performance going on decades afterward, and we have mistakenly equated these corpses with living bodies. At the same time, performance groups in every area of the liberal arts have out-priced tickets to all but the wealthy, and, as each year more die from lack of funds and public interest, they reap the results. So-called culture isn’t dying because people aren’t interested any longer, rather, people are dying because ‘culture’ has turned its back on them. Music – good music -- needs its reformation.

A large part of it, too, is education. Even as I sit down in a theatre or music hall and begin to enjoy a performance, I am always painfully aware that I don’t know how to listen. I have no real framework for making meaning from what is happening. The aesthetic enjoyment is there, but experienced as a child at play, not as an adult who enters into the real depth of the thing. The only performances for which our culture educates us are political and athletic ones. My soul feels poorer for it. Just last year I drug L. and Kara to a local Episcopal church for an advent’s evening of English carols. They came more for me than for them. I wanted Kara to hear live music, to see the performers, to hear the sharp intake of their breaths, the rustle of flipping pages and the shifting and coughing of the audience. But, I had not way of really explaining to her how to take it all in. All I could do was drag she and L. there and hope for the best. There is something wrong there. If I was to go with a friend to a wrestling match, by the time we arrived at the stadium he would have filled my ears with the back-story and suitable anecdotes attached to each of the competing wrestlers. He certainly wouldn’t just induct me to our seats, sit down mutely beside me and say nothing with every body-blow of the match.

Advent suggests an answer to this malady. During Advent, the songs, readings, sermons and even the movements of time participate together lending their voices to each other. The coming of God to his people and as his people informs everything, creating what the academy calls a meta-narrative. Inducted, then, by every voice, we are led through this great story until we ourselves form a part.

So, I weep for you music and theatre. I weep for you members of the Handel & Haydn Society who, each year, sing the complete oratorio of Handel’s Messiah. I compose a lament for you well-wishers singing Christmas songs in shopping malls. You are like sheep without a shepherd. You listen but hear not. You sing, and dance, and speak your lines without knowledge. You wander in exile without a narrative-home, clutching your arias, symphonies, concertos, and chamber pieces to your breast. You have forgotten your informing logos, become unseated from the dynamic and creating Word, and need, as much as any of us, advent to give you life again.

Adventus

How should we greet the future?  With gladness or with grief?  It comes to us like a pale dawn, like New England, but it isn’t New England.  We know it for our benefit, but, at least today, parting is grief.  You, future, must wipe our eyes.

November's interview

The interview went amazingly well. I didn't get to bed until 12:20 the night before, and was up to leave at 4 a.m. God was good, though, and that nap felt as if it took 12 hours. It was raining hard driving to New Hampshire. I kept the radio switching between talk radio stations, and breakfasted on a granola bar. With me was the Chicago Manual of Style and a change of clothes. The plan was for L's parents to pick me up at the airport and take me over to the interview. Unused to Southwest, when I boarded the plane they had not assigned me a seat. What to do? Finally I claimed a seat about 3/4 of the way back, an isle, two seats over from a guy watching an Adam Sandler movie on his Dell. I read the style manual for awhile and slept for awhile. God was good to me again: the flight took forever – more sleep for me -- and my ears didn't notice a thing. No trouble at all meeting up with L's parents in Nashville, they put me in their car and drove me out to one of those isolated, Martian office parks. Gigantic squares and rectangles of glass thrust up from the grass at odd-angles. Robotic architecture. Mechanical aesthetics.

We arrived at my appointed publisher’s offices. Well-dressed, happy people coming in and going out of a blue marble lobby decorated in a red Christmas-bells motive. Even the metal trash cans had rims made special for red potpourri. I was dressed in leather shoes, slacks, with a blue shirt, a subdued complimentary tie and a blue sport coat. I carried references and a legal pad in a leather holder with Harvard's veritas crest embossed on it -- a gift from a friend. Taking the golden elevator, I pushed 5.

A receptionist named R. and I struck up a conversation about a pair of golden, Mickey Mouse ears perched on her counter while waiting for my interviewer, Mr. Darcy, to arrive. The entrance to this portion of the company (corporate headquarters is a huge, steel-and-glass building a block further away) was all of glass, though the interior was far too busy. The people, however, seemed human and approachable. Mr. Darcy himself was tall and quite cordial with black hair, blue eyes and a good handshake. He wore a blue shirt and tie. He took me to his office and sat down with his desk between us. His workspace was cluttered with attempts at organization. A large Van Gogh print was framed behind him, and pictures of his daughters made the rest -- he is in his upper 40's with a couple of kids in Middle School. Amid the papers was a Bugs Bunny coffee cup, one of my favorite scenes in which Bugs has been taken to the mad scientist's castle and is giving the monster a pedicure and saying, "You monsters are such interesting people." I decided that I liked this Mr. Darcy.

Now on the way down, I had been stressing about different interview questions. What do I say if he asks me this or that? I started thinking, as I told you, about my Dad's advice: tell stories. I can do that. The part of my mind that blogs and thinks and chats with friends comes up and says, "I'll take care of everything." And, sure enough, it did.

As Mr. Darcy asked me a question, I gave answers, stories. I described, narrated, engaged, cited, and above all informed him about me with every story-power I had. Be three-dimensional, be blood and bones to this man and you'll do a good deal, I thought.

Mr. Darcy steered clear of the stupid, evil questions and stayed on the "who is this guy and why should I hire him" questions. His clustered around the following: (1) can you put up with working on popular, rather than academic, religious books? (2) How do you handle detail; (3) How are your political skills; (4) Why do you want to be an editor? Halfway through the discussion, he started up and grabbed his boss, a member of the Board of Directors named the Storyteller. The Storyteller, a thin, tall man with grey hair and a grey moustache, smiled and shook hands. We talked like men talk at church over coffee. We talked about Texas, about barbecue, about the publisher’s stock, its CEO, the future of the company. Then he left Mr. Darcy and I to continue. We talked for 2.5 hours! I had an opportunity to get all my questions in, too (I’d taken care to come up with some good ones.) He said he was making a decision within the next week. He would want someone to start by mid-December. Afterward, he had to go and I had to take an exam. Beforehand, he loaded me down with four or five books.

The exam was awful - all English exams are. Unlike Math, where there is a clear answer, you never know if you're getting everything with English, and your mind starts second-guessing itself. Still, I knew I had lots of prayer with me, and so I carefully marked each page, going back over them several times. Checking isolated sentences is a totally different thing from editing prose. Prose has a feel, it runs in your hands and you can feel for inconsistencies. Isolated sentences are antiseptic and dead. I let myself out, the entire department was at a meeting, and met back up with my parents-in-law.

With a few hours to spare before my flight, I had a chance to tour L's parent's house: beautiful. A nice cup of coffee in their comfortable living room. We talked about friends in Germany, how their tapestries are showcased better in this house, what they were doing in the front lawn. Auntie Kara met me at the airport, looking not a day's different than she did in college. She looked so youthful I had to keep reminding myself that it was 2005. And, though it had been two years since I have seen her, I tell you not a day had passed. The flight back was macabre. The plane flew through alien and forbiddingly thick clouds of white ectoplasm. I couldn’t get comfortable, and wound up staring out like the dead into the monochromatic sky. L. stayed up to greet me, despite a horrible cough. I pulled in at 12:20 a.m. We talked until 1 a.m. about how things had gone and about our plans. Then we went to bed.