Unseeing Eyes

For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before?  What if I knew I would never see it again?"  ― Rachel Carson

I remember a time, many years ago, when my friend Karen and I took a walk together. We were students at Bryan College in Tennessee, and we had just had dinner in the dining hall.

It was a lovely, fragrant evening in spring. “I want to show you something,” Karen said, pointing to the budding leaves on the trees and bushes. “They weren’t here two weeks ago, and now, here they are. Where did they come from?”

I had never thought about it before. Leaves — they simply appear each year, as if pulled from a hat by a magician, as if rising from the phoenix ashes of autumn leaf piles.

That night my friend helped me to look with holy awe at the heretofore humdrum, the leaves in spring.

Then in my junior year, Mrs. Bentley, my teacher in an art history class, made an off-handed comment about how she was amazed by all the shades of green in the spring. And again, my eyes were opened. 

I guess that before that day, if you had asked me the color of the leaves, I would have said "Green. Duh." Suddenly I saw that leaves are a zillion different colors.

Though I am not an artist, I was inspired to do a watercolor painting of the trees with many shades of green. I was delighted at the way water colors can run together to capture a small spectrum of  nature’s palette. 

And I saw that painting is another way of seeing, and we non-artists of the world should do it more often. It's not about whether Mom would hang your picture on the frig. It's about what you see and feel while you're committing the act of creation.

Another revelation came my senior year, once again in spring — this time on a rainy day. I wasn't a fan of rainy days. Rain made my hair and my heart go blah. But I suddenly saw that the gray of the skies made the new green of the spring leaves glow like cat eyes in the dark. All the colors of the season popped against the gray. And suddenly I was hooked — on rainy days and the beauties they reveal to our eyes.

Leaf buds. Shades of green. Gray skies. It’s funny the things we actually remember from school, the things that comprise our real education.

I think that most of us are born blind. We need help to peel back the scales that keep us from truly seeing. I am grateful for the Wise Ones God continually puts in my life to help me see more clearly — friends, teachers, artists, poets, writers, children with disabilities, people of other races and cultures, laughing babies and wry great-grandmothers, and even voices that speak from beyond the grave, from ages past.

Many springs have passed since that night I took a walk with a friend, and I still don’t know where the leaves come from. Something from nothing, life from death — right before our eyes. It’s magic. It’s a miracle. It’s a mystery.

But though I can’t understand it, at least now I can see it. That is a great gift — and cause for celebration.

The Inn at the Crossroads

No, wait! Please don’t go. Won’t you stay and have dinner with us? The things you said as we were walking on the road together -- we want to hear more, don’t we Cleopas?

Yes, this is fine, right over here. We’ll just order some bread. But as I was saying, I’ve never heard anyone explain the scriptures the way you have today. Let us know where your congregation is and we’ll come hear you some Sabbath.  

Well, actually, I don’t believe you said where you’re from. No, let me guess. Your accent is Galilean — maybe Cana or Nazareth? But you know the old saying — “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Ha! I guess you get that one a lot, eh?

So, you’re saying that Messiah had to die and to be raised. That’s amazing. I mean, it really is there in the text, isn’t it? I’ve just never heard anyone teach like this before. It's like. . .I can't explain it, but it's like you've lit a flame within me.

I have so many questions I want to ask. But I suppose the biggest question on my mind — on all our minds — is this. Was Jesus the Messiah? Or will we ever know the answer to that, now that he’s gone? We had put all our hopes in him. And now, our hopes are shattered. You just can't imagine what we've been going through.

Well, here’s the bread. Good, I’m famished. Cleopas! Don't eat until we have the blessing. Sir, would you do the honors and bless our meal? 

Wait — what's happening? Rabbi. . .your face is shining like . . . like . . . .

My God! Who are you?

And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?    --Luke 24:32

A Parting Gift

Around the table, voices rise and fall -- some tired, some anxious, all clueless that creation has come to its crossroads. Amid the voices sits the Word, silent. 

He turns to the wine, as yet unpoured, the cups still clean. He knows the wine will be cold as death, dark as blood  -- knows he will see his reflection floating ghost-like in the cup. 

On second thought, I'm really not that thirsty. It isn't too late, even now, to back down. Why, God -- why do you ask the impossible? I'm a man, after all. Flesh and blood, like these.... 

Andrew is grousing about the accommodations. Judas is arguing with Matthew about the group's long range financial planning. Peter, James, and Mark are having a theological debate about whether a Samaritan can gain entrance to heaven. Bartholomew has fallen asleep with his mouth open and is snoring loudly.

I love them, Father. For all their faults, maybe because of their faults. Oh, I don't want to leave them. . .not just yet. 

He stands. 

"Can we eat now?" asks Peter. "I'm famished." 

"Soon," says Jesus. He unties his sash and takes off His robe. 

"Too hot for you?" asks Andrew. "We could open the door. . . .I knew we should have rented that place on the square. They have banquet tables and serving girls and. . ."

"Serving girls, is it?" teases Mark. "Our brother does have an eye for the girls." 

"I do not." Andrew blushes deeply. 

"Leave the door closed," says Jesus, tying the towel around His waist. He goes to the door to fetch the wash basin and then returns to the group. Judas and Matthew are still arguing. 

"You're just too short-sighted," Judas is saying. "You and the others. We ought to at least be drawing interest on our money. Doesn't our Master have a parable to that effect?" 

"If you ask me," growls Matthew, "you've got too much interest in this money already." 

"Ohhhh -- that's cold," shouts Andrew suddenly. Everyone turns to see what the commotion is about. "And it tickles!"

Jesus is kneeling in front of Andrew, and Andrew's dirty feet are soaking in a basin. The disciple's sandals are lying to one side. 

"Jesus, what are you doing?" asks James. Someone pokes Bartholomew, who wakes with a start. 

Jesus takes the towel and dries Andrew's feet. Then he moves, on his knees, to Matthew and starts to untie Matthew's shoes. Matthew looks first at the ceiling, then at the floor, finally out the window. 

"What's he doing? Let me see," demands Thomas. Judas folds his arms across his chest and sighs. 

James looks at his feet and frowns. "Oh, my," he says to Mark, "if I'd known He was going to do a thing like this, I'd have cut my toenails -- or cleaned up a bit. . .or something." 

"How could anyone know He was going to do a thing like this?" Mark replies. 

"You just never know what he's going to do next," Philip whispers. 

After drying Matthew's feet, Jesus moves on to Peter.

"No," says Peter, pounding his fist on the table. "You'll never wash my feet." 

"If I don't, you can't be my friend." 

"Well, all right then. . . .If it means so much to you, wash my hands and my face too." Peter holds out his hands. "Give me a bath if you want to." 

"You've already had a bath, I should hope." 

"If he hadn't, we'd all know it," says Andrew.

Jesus laughs. "Your heart is in heaven -- I know that, Peter. You're my rock. But your feet are still on earth, and they get pretty dirty  -- just look at the water! Of course, not every one of you is clean."

At this, they all look at each other funny and are afraid to say anything else.

For a time, the only sound is that of water wrung repeatedly from the washcloth as Jesus moves around the table. First one star, then two appear in the window. After He has washed all the men's feet, he dresses again and reclines at the table. 

In the silence, Andrew thinks he can hear the celery wilting. 

"Well. . .do you get it?" asks Jesus.

They look at each other stupidly. Peter starts to nod his head yes but changes to a no when Jesus catches his eye.

Jesus speaks slowly, as if explaining a problem in arithmetic to very young children. "If I, your Master, wash your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. You can't come into my Father's house with dirty feet, you know." Most of the men look down at their just-washed feet, relieved.

"Tonight, I am giving you a very great gift. It's my going away present to you."

They raise their heads again, more confused than ever. Bartholomew looks all around the room but doesn't see any presents.

Jesus sees only a blur of faces, like watercolors that have run. "I give you each other," he says, "and I give you the towel."

Then he wipes his eyes, so he can see to pour the wine.

The Story Wizard: J. K. Rowling

My grandfather was a railroad man -- so maybe it's my family heritage -- but the sound of a train on a summer night can transport my thoughts to far-off places and times. I always wonder where the train is coming from and where it's going. Some little part of me wants to hop that train like a sooty-faced hobo and catch a ride to an alternate life. 

It's not that I'm unhappy right where I am, but there's just something wistful, something beckoning in the sound of a train. Who knows? Maybe I could be like Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- off to conquer the world and the Dark Lord on the Hogwart's Express. 

So many great scenes in the Harry Potter books and movies take place on trains and in train stations. Harry meets Ron and the Weasleys while looking for Platform 9 3/4. The boys meet Hermione on the train. Harry's first encounter with the Dementors happens on a train. Fortunately, he meets Professor Lupin at the same time. Even the afterlife scene is set at King's Cross Station. The train takes Harry away from the muggle world and toward a new life. And perhaps the same could be said for the creator of these stories as well.

Trains have played an important role in the life of British children’s author J. K. Rowling.

King's Cross Station, photo by Timothy Baldwin

Her parents met on a train travelling from King's Cross Station to the town of Arbroath in Scotland. The year was 1964, and both were on their way to join the navy. They later married, and their daughter Joanne was born July 31, 1965.

Emma Watson
(Hermione Granger)

Young Jo loved reading and writing fantasy stories. Rowling later recalled: “...The first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee."

Joanne's teen years were sometimes difficult. Her mother had multiple sclerosis, and her father became distant. Jo still loved books and writing, and she later confessed, “Hermione is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of."

Her best friend was Sean Harris, a young man who owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, like the flying car featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In fact, the character of Ron Weasley was partly drawn from Sean.

Fast forward a few years. Jo had graduated from the University of Exeter and was living in Manchester. In 1990, she was taking a train from Manchester to London, when there was a delay for four hours. While she waited for the train to move again, the idea for Harry Potter simply popped into her head. She saw a boy who is on his way to Wizard School. 

The ideas came in a rush, but she couldn’t find a pen—and she was too shy to ask anyone if she could borrow one. But maybe that was a good thing, because she had time to really think through the plot. She had been writing since she was six years old, but never had she been this excited about a story. She started writing it down that night, but events in her life soon put her writing on hold, just like a train with a delay. 

Fast forward again. After a bitter divorce, Jo was a single mom, struggling to provide for her child. She took the baby on long walks to help her fall asleep. Then she pushed the stroller to a coffee-shop where she worked on her story—as often as she could. With hard work and great determination, she finished Harry Potter and the Philospher’s  Stone, Book One in the series.

J. K. Rowling

No one knew then that the Harry Potter books would become the bestselling book series in history. Or that in just five years, Jo would go from a life of struggle and poverty to being one of the richest women in Britain.

And like so many other great adventure stories, it all began on a train.

The Real Ugly Duckling

One day years ago, when I was homeschooling my children, I read the story of the Ugly Duckling aloud, and the kids used water colors to make illustrations.

Little Wesley proudly showed us his picture. "This is the pond. And these are some ducks." Then he pointed to a dark blob. "And this is an oil slick." Yes, homeschooling gave me quite an education.

Anyway, I love the story of The Ugly Duckling--and also the story of the man behind the story.

Once upon a time, in the far away land of Denmark, there lived a man.

He was poor. He was tall and gangly. He had a sad childhood. He wasn’t a great student. He was unlucky in love. His teachers advised him NOT to pursue a career in writing.

But this “ugly duckling” — Hans Christian Andersen — became one of the most famous writers of all time. In addition to novels, plays, and poetry, he wrote many of the fairy tales we all know and love. Stories like...

• "The Little Match Girl"
• "Thumbelina"
• "The Ugly Duckling"
• "The Princess and the Pea"
• "The Little Mermaid"
• "The Emperor’s New Clothes"
• "The Snow Queen"

Which only goes to demonstrate that we should ignore the nay-sayers in our lives and follow our hearts.

Hans was born in the town of Odense, in 1805. His father was a cobbler, and his mother was a washerwoman. He was a child who loved stories, and his father told him Danish folk tales and stories from The Arabian Nights. 

Childhood home in Odense

After his father died, Hans was sent (more like banished) to a school for poor children, where he was forced to make his own living. He worked first as a weaver’s apprentice and then as a tailor. He always looked back on those school years as the darkest, most dreadful time of his life. Small wonder. One schoolmaster often mistreated him just “to improve his character.”

The Little Mermaid's Sisters

After a couple of failed careers, Hans took up writing, against the advice of his teachers. At first, he retold stories he had heard as a child. Then he branched out to writing new and original stories. Many writers today also get their start by writing “fan fiction” based on popular stories in books, movies, or tv shows.

At first the stories Hans wrote were not well received (more nay-sayers), but he was persistent, and he kept writing them anyway.

Then in 1845, things changed. In that one year, four different translations of his tales were published. One reviewer of his book Wonderful Stories wrote, “This is a book full of life and fancy; a book for grandfathers no less than grandchildren, not a word of which will be skipped by those who have it once in hand." This reviewer understood that fairy tales aren’t written just for children but for people of all ages and all times.

The Little Match Girl

Some of Andersen’s stories came from sad experiences in his life. He wrote “The Little Match Girl,” remembering that his mother had been forced to beg as a child. He wrote “The Nightengale” about his love for the famous opera singer, Jenny Lind. Alas, Jenny did not return his love, but because of the story, she was given the nickname “The Swedish Nightengale.”

Hans Christian Andersen had much in common with the Ugly Duckling of his famous story. But that story has a happy ending, and so did the life of this writer who finally found recognition for his work. 

On April 2nd, we commemorate Andersen’s birthday, now known as International Children’s Book Day. Why not celebrate by reading one of his stories out loud to your family or friends?

Hans lived for seventy years, but the characters he created and the stories he wrote—they will live on, happily ever after.

Aflack!

The Hobbit -- Yehaw!

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Professor  Tolkien doodled these words in a blue book while grading an exam for his students at Oxford University. 

Maybe he thought this would be a good way to start one of his short stories. He certainly had no way of knowing that this sentence and the story to follow would grow and grow until it would take over most of his life. 

With those simple words, he took the first steps of a journey—and as he taught us, “The road goes ever on and on / down from the path where it began…”

Tolkien’s engaging description of hobbit holes and the folk who inhabit them began a delightful fantasy novel called The Hobbit, published in 1937. It featured Bilbo Baggins, who like all self-respecting hobbits preferred the comforts of home to those “nasty, uncomfortable things” called adventures. 

First Edition of The Hobbit

Yet after “an unexpected party,” Bilbo winds up on just such an adventure—with thirteen dwarves on a quest to reclaim their lost home and treasure. And just to mix it up, Professor Tolkien throws in a wizard, a dragon, and a magic ring. A perfect recipe for mythic mayhem.

The Hobbit was followed by The Lord of the Rings trilogy, published as a series of three books, although it is really one honking big epic story. The main character of LOTR is Frodo Baggins, Bilbo’s nephew, who is charged with a great quest to deal with the ring Bilbo found in The Hobbit. 

First edition of Book One of LOTR

The Lord of the Rings was written between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II—and published in 1954 and 1955. After his father’s death in 1973, Tolkien’s son Christopher published more myths, poetry, and background information from Tolkien’s story world, notably in The Silmarilion.  

Gandalf the Grey

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Although Tolkien had already been working on some of the mythology of Arda and Middle-earth, that day when he doodled the first words of The Hobbit marked the beginning of his great adventure of bringing his world to our world.

The Misty Mountains

That simple declarative sentence has led to a literary empire of books, movies, and mega-merchandizing. In 2009, Forbes magazine ranked Tolkien as the fifth top-earning “dead celebrity” in the world—a designation that would probably make the professor laugh and shake his head. The Lord of the Rings is the second best-selling novel ever written, surpassed only by Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and The Hobbit ranks sixth on that awe-inspiring list. 

But more importantly, Tolkien gave the world one of the greatest literary works of the twentieth century, sparking a great resurgence of interest in high fantasy.

And most important of all, Tolkien told a rip-roaring good story that still captures our hearts. So butter the popcorn! I can’t wait to see Part 2 of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit—The Desolation of Smaug. Yehaw!

Happy Anniversary, Dr. Who!

This blog post has a sound track. Or if you know this famous theme song, you can just hum while you read. 

          Play music.

 

Dr. Who, the iconic British sci-fi series, first aired on November 23rd, 1963. Yes, the day after the John F. Kennedy assassination. The first episode, called "The Mutants," featured the Daleks, those rascally cyborgs with a mission statement of universe-al domination and--oh, yes--extermination. 

The title character is a Time Lord, a humanoid alien who frolics through time in his Tardis, righting wrongs and trying to help those primitive humans, so susceptible to having their minds and bodies controlled by evil aliens with limited vocabularies. ("Are you my Mummy?") The Tardis, which on the outside resembles a British police box, is actually a sentient space ship that is much bigger on the inside. And the Doctor is armed with a sonic screwdriver, presumably for fixing whatever's broken around the cosmos. (Wish he'd start at my house.) Are you tracking so far?

The original Doctor was played by William Hartnell. There have been eleven Doctors, and a twelfth is now emerging. For the Doctor has a special talent. When fatally injured (or perhaps tired of doing the show), he can regenerate, taking on a new body, a new age, a new personality, and a new actor in the role.

Dr. Who originally aired from 1962 to 1989. Sadly, some of those early shows were destroyed or taped over, but bootleg copies occasionally resurface from yard sales, eBay, or the lesser moons of Saturn. The series was relaunched in 2005, and will presumably run until Daleks exterminate the studio where it's filmed. Guiness lists Dr. Who as the longest-running sci-fi series in the world.

For me, the charm of the early Who was in the marvelous idea of a Time Lord and in the cheesiness of the production. You sort of had the feeling you could film a show like that in your basement, using your relatives as actors. And that is not a put down. It was a great deal of fun. In later years, the cheesiness has been replaced with higher production values and better developed characters and stories, but they have kept the fun. 

This November marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who. The BBC celebrated with an anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor," featuring three of the Doctors. Unfortunately, the day it aired, we had to make a run to the ER. But thanks to the time-freezing capabilities of my DVR, I hope to watch it this weekend.

Who is your favorite Doctor? So far my faves are Tom Baker (Doctor #4) and Matt Smith (Dr. #11). But I have to confess that I haven't seen every season--so that opinion could change as I fill in the gaps. 

Meanwhile, if you've got time to kill on a Saturday night, why not explore the meaning of life, love, time travel, and extra-terrestrials by tuning into BBC or Netflix for an episode or a marathon of the incomparable Dr. Who?