Wonderful

Review: The Mighty Miss Malone

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

Books like this are why I love to read and why I want to write. Miss Deza Malone is a diamond of a character. It isn’t just that she is bright and has a sparkling personality (both of which are true), but it’s also that she is so clear. Christopher Paul Curtis has given us a child who is clear about who she is. She knows herself, her family, her community.

What a pleasure to read about a child who has been loved and known and encouraged by an intact family for her entire 12 years. I adore the Malone family — not perfect, but real and loving and firm and funny. Deza’s compass for truth and nonsense come straight from what her parents taught her and what she observes of how the world works. The family has a hand signal to warn each other that they know someone is trying to string them along: they put their hands on the imaginary steering wheel of the Manipula-Mobile. The father often speaks in alliteration, and has long alliterative names for everyone. They so clearly love each other. So often, main characters in children’s lit are orphans, or one parent has died, or they have at least one terrible parent, so it’s a testament to Mr. Curtis’s skill that he crafts such a dramatic story for this great family.

Deza is intelligent and curious and asks for an explanation when she runs across something she doesn’t understand. That last thing is a great personality trait in a character, because the author gets to explain things that would be beyond a child’s normal understanding or experience. It is a regular refrain in the book that she will become a writer, that she’ll go to college. Deza lodged herself in my heart and I’m dying to know whether any of that happened. PLEASE, Mr. Curtis, write a sequel some day.

She’s also self-aware. I loved how she’d talk about her reactions when things didn’t go her way or something really bad was happening.

I’m different from most people and one of the main reasons is, I think I might have two brains. Whenever I get nervous or mad or scared or very upset, I have thoughts that are so different from my normal thoughts that there isn’t any way they could be coming from just one brain (p31).

She usually grits her rotting back teeth until the pain stops the bad brain, because she is a child who values truth and honesty. But the couple of times she takes the bad brain’s counsel are fantastic.

 The Mighty Miss Malone is, akin to the Newberry-winning, Bud, Not Buddy, a road book for part of the time. The book takes place in mid-1930s Gary, Indiana and Flint, Michigan, cities that were devastated by the Great Depression, even more so for Deza because she and her family are African-American. She and her mother and brother ride the rails and live in a shantytown — where she meets Bud. Deza appeared in Bud, No Buddy, so here we get the same scene from her point of view. (I didn’t remember this. It had been years since I’d read Bud, so I had to google it.) It’s a sweet little moment.

I won’t tell you all the stuff that happens, but, in many ways, it’s typical of other stories about the Depression: the father leaves to find work, promising to send money, and then doesn’t. Things get really tough. Here’s how Deza describes it.

If somebody came along and saw us walking they’d mistake us for a very quiet parade instead of what we really were, a river of people who didn’t know what city we’d be in tomorrow, or what we’d be eating, or even where somebody would let us stop and rest (p227).

Hoping is such hard work. It tires you out and you never seem to get any kind of reward. Hoping feels like you’re a balloon that has a pinhole that slowly leaks air (p232).

And I won’t tell you how it ends, either, but it makes you root for them to get to where their family motto says they’re heading: “We are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful.”

Well, this novel is wonderful, and the cover is killer good. Along with being a good, dramatic story, it’s accurate history. I highly recommend it.

SYTCD: Performance Show 3

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

I love So You Think You Can Dance. The dancers are young and at the top of their game. They show every style of dance. It is wonderful and inspiring! And because I have a blog in which I write about things I think are wonderful, I can indulge my passion for the show and my many opinions about the dancers and dancing. If this isn’t your thing, I’ll catch you next time.

George and Tiffany: That was some great, precise, fast hip hop. I was impressed with how they did, although those outfits didn’t do them any favors — way too heavy with the cutesy. Their moves had more toughness than their costumes gave the impression of. And I remember how great Christina Applegate was as a judge last year; love her suggestion to make the slow moves “soupier.” She was right on.

Brandon and Amber: This is one of the new partnerships after last week’s eliminations, and I’m looking forward to it. Brandon is a better partner for Amber than Nick was. She looked so much physically stronger than Nick, but Brandon is big enough to make her look little and delicate. Amber was amazing. Her smile was so personal, not at all a big “I’m dancing on the stage and don’t I look pretty” smile. Her dancing was free and strong and gorgeous. It came from way inside. She way out-danced Brandon. He was fine, but this one was all about Amber. In that way, it kind of reminds me of several seasons ago, the dance Twitch and Katie did to “Mercy” — Katie did all the athletic and amazing stuff and Twitch mostly strutted around looking hot and lifting her now and then.

Darien and Janelle: It wasn’t a particularly sexy Latin dance, and it wasn’t technically great, but it was cute. I have a thing for men on this show who have eyes-only for their partner, and he looked at her like they were dancing for real. I’m worried that they’re in the bottom three, because these comments are worse than I would’ve expected (and the judges already know who’s in the bottom).

Cole and  Lindsey: The first week, they did the best Paso Doble I’ve ever seen on this show. For the first time, the dance didn’t seem like a histrionic joke. However, their choreography didn’t do them any favors last week. Fingers crossed about them getting Mandy Moore this week. I didn’t get the “story,” but that was gorgeous, the two of them so strong with such long, beautiful legs. The lighting was the best ever, not distracting, helped us focus on the dancing. Cole is so explosive with his movement, and can be so light, just wonderful. Christina is right about the hair hiding her face too much. I really liked this one.

Will and Amelia: There really was something about Will in this number. I would never have thought to put him in a white suit, but he looked great in it. His movement worked well with it. I didn’t think Amelia’s quirk fit with this number. There wasn’t enough to connect with. But he did the “care for his partner” thing that I like so much.

Ryan Gosling, oops, I mean Matthew and Audrey: Oh no. I have a sense of foreboding. They are wearing the kiss of death matching red shiny costumes that Daniel and whatsername were stuck with the first week. Fingers crossed that these two pull it off and that Audrey can lose her “cute” for the salsa. Nope. No sex appeal. Great moves and tricks, but little connection with each other. The music was too grandiose for them.

Chehon and Witney (yes I spelled that correctly): I have high hopes for these two, especially if Chehon can finally release his ballet posture. I love me some Stacey Tookie. LOVED THIS. On a purely frivolous note, Chehon should always dance shirtless. But this had emotion and tenderness and passion and I loved it. Great combination of speed and slow. Crazy big opening lift. Insane for the move when he pushed her across the stage from behind. The two times she just put her head on his arm. It was all just perfect. It made me teary and gave me goosebumps. Best number of the night, and possibly of the season so far.

Cyrus and Eliana: Big hopes for this. The last time a real hip hop person and a ballet dancer did a Nappy Tabs routine, it was insanely good. This was really good; not as exhilarating as Twitch and Alex Wong, but so, so good. The charm of these two dancers was off the charts. And Eliana locked and isolated so well. Actually, Christina came up with the best word for this routine: sublime.

Nervous about the bottom three. This time, it contains people I really like, and people who danced really well tonight. I predict Amber and Brandon will go home. Their solos didn’t connect; they were too flaily (yes, I just made up that word, means “too much flailing about”).

And we get Alvin Ailey dancers. I am a happy woman. Although I am also a little shallow. The skirts these men are wearing look like the kind of skirts the women on this show often wear during the paso doble — reversible matador capes. This is a little distracting to me, but now that I’ve gotten that comment out of my system, maybe I can concentrate on the dance a little better. I’d call this, “histrionic androgyny.” It was physically demanding and cool, but I wasn’t feeling it.

I was right about both. At least Amber got to go out on such an amazingly high note.

When a Drudge Becomes a Callling

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

The first time I taught Sunday School, I was 17. I don’t remember much, other than my felt board and singing the occasional song that got so loud the grown ups could hear us upstairs.

The next time, it was called Children’s Worship, and I was a thirtyish mother of very young children. During that year, I saw a child truly worship — close her eyes, raise her hands, and sing to the Lord with every fiber of her first grade self. It was one of the most beautiful and pure things I’d ever seen. That was also the year I played poker with a few young gentlemen during their choice time, because it was the only way to keep them from wrestling. Neither beautiful nor pure, but fun.

When we moved to the multiracial church when my youngest was 2, I formalized the children’s worship program and lead it every Sunday for eight months. I knew only a few adults in the congregation, but I really got to know the kids. I was the only leader, so I had all the kids, ages 3-2nd grade, and, before I got tough, multiple young helpers. It was exciting and energizing and exhausting.

Then more leaders came on board and there was a schedule. And the next year, even more leaders, enough to split into two classrooms. It felt like such a luxury for me to only lead the preschoolers. There were such competent people involved that I began to daydream about handing over the responsibilities and focusing on dance and drama. I took some seminars, talked to some people, and felt like God was moving me away from children’s worship and towards new opportunities. It was exciting and energizing. And then the church imploded.

In the ensuing storm after discovering that a trusted member of the congregation had embezzled thousands of dollars from the church and the pastor, dozens of people left the church, including 6 of my 7 other children’s worship leaders. I went from thinking I’d be happily taking my shift while someone else was in charge, to being one of two people, in charge again — no separate classrooms, with the kids fully half of the time I was at church.

I gritted my teeth and did it because I believed strongly in the benefits of kids being presented with the great stories of the faith and with church at their developmental level. I like to think I didn’t take it out on the kids, but that was the year Miss Natalie would go into her office for brief timeouts when things got too frustrating. There were so many Sunday mornings I cried, exhausted, telling God that I had nothing to give anymore, so He needed to supply me with some of His energy. He always did. There were many beautiful and fun moments during those hard years when we couldn’t keep a third leader; people would sign up, do it a couple of times, and then leave the church.

I was getting bitter. I didn’t want to be “the kid person.” But after a few years everything shifted during a conversation with my other stalwart leader. We were complaining about our situation and he said something like, “I do it selfishly because of my kids, but you do it because you love it.”

He was right. I did love it, and I loved the kids, and that was why I did it. And just like that, I settled back into the role. I didn’t do it begrudgingly anymore. I didn’t need to beg God to make sure I wasn’t a bitch. I embraced the gifts God had given me. And God brought me leaders enough to split the kids into two classrooms. I wrote a new preschool curriculum with felt board-based storytelling and had a glorious year with my kids — the wild ones I had to rein in and the ones who’d tell me they weren’t going to sing but found themselves singing and doing actions when I sneakily did all their favorite songs. And then the church imploded. This time, I was one of the people who left.

Which means it has been six weeks since I’ve told a Bible story to children or sung silly-yet-spiritual songs with them, and I’m jonesing. So indulge me here. It’s a longish one, but I had so much fun telling this last fall.

As the children arrive, give them one “stone” (a soft ball from the basket that will be waiting by the door). Tell them to hold it carefully and sit in the circle. When everyone’s there, tell them that we’re going to try to defeat our enemy, the filing cabinet. First, does anyone want to try to push it over? Let everyone who wants to, give it a shot ONE AT A TIME.

Now, does anyone want to see if throwing your stone at it will hurt it? Again, ONE AT A TIME.

Segue to the story.

Well, we didn’t defeat the filing cabinet today. But let’s listen to a story about how David, when he was just a kid, a long time before he became king of Israel, defeated someone way, way, way bigger than him with God’s help.

This story takes place during a time of war: a people called the Philistines were at war with Israel. They were on either side of a valley, with a stream in the middle.

 

Every day, a giant came out on the Philistine side. He made fun of God and of the Israelites and challenged them to send one fighter out: if that one fighter could beat him, then the Israelites would win the whole war. If that one person lost, the Israelites would be the Philistine’s slaves.

Goliath was huge, and he had a big sword, and a javelin and a fancy helmet and even his shield was bigger than a regular-sized man.

The Israelite soldiers were terrified of the giant Goliath, and none of them went out to fight him.

David’s three older brothers, Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah were in the Israelite army. One day, David’s parents sent him with some food to give to the army.

When David got there, his brothers gave him a boost so he could see Goliath come out and taunt the Israelites.

Goliath had been doing that for 40 days, and nobody had even tried to fight him. When David heard that, he was upset that none of the soldiers trusted God enough to help them, so he went up to the king and volunteered.

Well, some people laughed and David’s big brother Eliab got angry at him. David was still just a kid, maybe 15 years old. But David insisted that God would help him and he could do it. So King Saul let him. The king tried to give David his own armor, but it was way, way too big.

David took off all that stuff and walked forward with only his shepherd’s staff and his sling.

When Goliath saw that Israel was sending a kid to fight him, at first he laughed, but then he got offended and he ran towards David with a roar.

David walked across the stream and picked up five smooth stones.

While he ran towards Goliath, he put one stone in his sling, swung it over his head once, and let go.

The stone went right for the unprotected part of Goliath’s forehead, sunk in, and stunned him. He fell face-forward on the ground.

He was still alive, so David took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head.

David had done what all the grown-ups couldn’t do: he defeated the giant, because he trusted God to help him, so God did.

Apt Analogies

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

When an analogy works, it’s a beautiful thing. The reader has both a richer and more precise understanding of the situation being described.

This is my new favorite, from The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.

The author, Sam Kean, is talking about the element gadolinium and its many unpaired electrons (he credits this brilliant analogy to Wolfgang Pauli in 1925):

Despite the willingness of electrons to bond with other atoms, within their own atoms, they stay maximally far apart. Remember that electrons live in shells, and shells further break down into bunks called orbital, each of which can accommodate two electrons. Curiously, electrons fill orbitals like patrons find seats on a bus: each electron sites by itself in an orbital until another electron is absolutely forced to double up (p.170).

It’s rare that a book on science manages to make me laugh out loud, but this is so perfect, even a humanities person (and ex-public transportation rider) like myself can instantly picture what’s going on. I totally get it. And can probably even remember it.

Following are three of my analogical attempts. The first one occurs when Saul is first introduced to David. David has just walked into Saul’s receiving room. The place is unusually crowded because people want to see whether this kid will be able to do anything to help the king, which makes Saul feel self-conscious and paranoid and angry that all these people are speculating so freely about his problems.

The whispering in the room that had started up as soon as Saul returned to his throne got louder, worming into Saul’s ears, swirling in his head like dry leaves.

Looking at it all by itself, naked there on the page, I realize that I’m mixing metaphors, with both worming and swirling. It might still work, because there’s a circularity to both motions, but I think I’ll have to decide which I like better and only keep one. It’ll be the dry leaves. But it’s still too wordy. I’ve got a little more work to do there.

The next one comes courtesy of Jonathan, reminiscing with his father about a particularly satisfying defeat of the Philistines:

“And then the Lord made the rest of their army panic until they were swinging their swords like blind men trying to kill bees.”

That’s a pretty good one, although it reminds me a bit too much of me standing at my open screen door yesterday and waving to my neighbor, but the wave turned into wild swiping when a bug flew too close to my face. If I looked even half as stupid as I felt, it had to be pretty funny.

The next one might be my favorite analogy in the entire manuscript. It’s certainly one of the earliest ones. I had this image in my head long before I started writing the Goliath scene.

Goliath was closer to the other end of the Israelite front line with his back to David. “I’m getting bored,” he shouted. “Maybe I should choose my own challenger. Someone from here.” He took a few running steps towards the army. “Or here.”

Wherever he aimed his body, the Israelite soldiers faded away and shifted like a flock of birds in the sky.

If you watched the “Murmuration” video about two young ladies kayaking and the flock of starlings that put on a spectacular shifting show, you know exactly what I had in mind. While googling about to find that video, I found out that murmuration isn’t just what they named that video, it’s the actual name for a flock of starlings. What a gorgeous term. It might tie with my usual favorite word, susurration (a soft rustling sound).

Then again, doing a search for “like,” so I could find all my analogies, I discovered yet another overused word in my manuscript. Will it ever end?

Prayers of Children

~ Natalie Hart ~ 1 Comment

Sunday was our last day at our church. They said “see you later” (not “good-bye”) beautifully, with tears and hugs and prayers and gifts. We served them one last time in music, dance, prayer, technology, and children’s worship. Handed in our keys. Now we start our summer of rest, when we actually get to sit together for the entire service, to hear my husband sing the songs right next to us instead of through the speakers. We will arrive at church at the same time, in the same vehicle, even. It’s been nine years since that has been possible on a regular basis.

I’m not going to belabor the leaving after this, but I do want to talk about one thing I’ll miss: praying with young children.

I loved it. You never knew what you were going to get: could be sweet, serious or silly. I accepted it all. Prayed for it all. There were a few sticky situations over the years, of children asking for a baby brother or sister (when I knew that wasn’t happening) or wanting me to pray that their mother never die. I would pray for God to shower the family with blessings, pray for a long and wonderful life together.

While cleaning out my office, I found sheafs of notes I’ve taken of the kids’ prayer requests (so I wouldn’t forget them while we prayed). They are so dear and such a reflection of what children are concerned about. Indulge me as I list some below.

brother hurt his chin
people in New Orleans
brother with surgery on his head
Nana died
Mama’s baby
a big dog
burned myself
sister crying
me and Mommy playing
brother got shot
Aunt Susan is going to have a baby, so he doesn’t die
that I make the basketball team
blisters on my toes
sister, Mommy and dad and friends at school and help me be nice to them and play well
Mom and Dad pick flowers
falling off my bike
happy to play video game at friend’s house
boo boo on Daddy’s braces
friend burned her hand
grandma died / grandpa died
little girl hit by a car
the Lost Boys
my tooth came out
my cough go away
my friend who doesn’t have a home
scratched myself on my face
that I have a good time at my dad’s today
that I can do something special with my dad
my grandma needs medicine
my brother is having bad dreams
stop my sister’s biting

There was a lot of concern for family members and friends, and very few requests for God to give them specific items (although my children would periodically want prayer for “Mom and Dad going shopping,” which is odd, because we almost never go shopping together. Maybe we should?).

We always thanked God for our snack, and I let any kid who wanted to do the prayer to do it — if 4 kids wanted to pray, they each got to do it. It never failed, at least one kid would give a heartfelt request that nobody would have to be sent upstairs and that they’d all stay downstairs. So sweet.

I will miss this little window into their lives.

The last story I told was the Ascension, a version that includes the line: “This is the mystery, that Jesus went away, but somehow he is still with us.” When I asked how Jesus could still be with us, a few children said, “In our hearts.”

I told that story on purpose, so I could tell them that it was that way with me: I was leaving our church, but I would always be with them, because they were in my heart. They are.

Words, Glorious Words

~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been reading one of my Mother’s Day presents, Stephen Fry’s The Fry Chronicles.

In the introduction, he says that he is not a practitioner of brevity; where someone else uses 10 words, he’ll use 100, which is true. He blames it all on his love of words. And he uses some great words and fun turns of phrase (turn of phrases?). Here are some that sent me to my dictionary, most of which I could get the gist of in context, but wanted to see what precisely he meant.

caravanserai: a Near East inn with a large courtyard to accommodate large caravans

prolix: writing or speaking at great and tedious length

evangels: good news in general; also the good news in the New Testament sense, a doctrine or guide
I’d read this as a variant of evangelical, but it isn’t at all: it’s what the evangelical believes in.

calumniating: slandering

anathematize: (I’d never heard the word as a verb) to slander, to pronounce something an anathema

All of these words were on the same page (p.46). Three of them in the same sentence, which is so fun that I’m going to share it here:

For myself, I’d always thought Leavis a sanctimonious prick of only parochial significance (my own brand of undergraduate sanctimoniousness at work there, I now see) and certainly by the time I arrived at Cambridge his influence had waned, he and his kind having been almost entirely eclipsed by the Parisian post-structuralists and their caravanserai of prolix and impenetrable evangels and dogmatically zealous acolytes.

I group memoirs in two broad categories: thrill rides that sweep you along and engross you in the story of this person’s life (the other Mother’s Day present, Storm Large’s Crazy Enough is one of these), and charming and interesting stories that leave enough room for you to think about your own life while you read about this other. Fry’s memoir is of the latter kind, so I’ve been remembering and analyzing who I was during my college years. No introspection in this post, though (that’ll wait until later). Now, more fun words.

lacunae: minute cavities in bone; air space in tissue of plants; missing part of a manuscript or argument

seraphically: seraphs are the highest order of angels, so this is angelic in the extreme. As he uses it, in a story about a wife smiling seraphically at their friends after her husband has been an obnoxious jerk, I imagine that it’s a bit aggressively angelic. Or, I guess, so far above it all angelic that her husband’s behavior doesn’t even register.

nubiferously: I think he made this one up. Based on nubile, which refers to young, sexually attractive persons, usually female. But this is how he used it:

At tea, the nubiferously chain-smoking pair of Tom Stoppard and Ronnie Harwood visit our rather showbizzy box.

Stoppard was 71 and Harwood 74 at the time of this story. They were chain-smoking like young, sexy girls? As if they were under the delusions of the young that they were going to live forever? No idea, but it’s a fun word to say.

fell-walking: fell is British word for a hill or area of high land. He uses it an a description of who people imagine pipe smokers to be, as in “they wear woolly knee socks and take brisk walks in the hills.”

obstreperous: This word appears in a favorite picture book from growing up, but I’d forgotten it. I’ll have to trot it out in children’s worship when the kids are noisy, boisterous and unruly — at least they’ll learn a new word.

When asked, the word I say is my favorite is susurration, a soft murmur or whisper, which I first read in a description of the sound of a light breeze through tree leaves. How about you? Any favorite words? Words you read that sent you to the dictionary?

 

 

Wonderful: Nobody’s Boy

~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

When my father was 8 or 9, he was home sick from school. He picked up a French novel, Nobody’s Boy by Hector Mallot (although I’m sure he read it in Dutch translation), and devoured it. He hasn’t read it since, but remembers being totally wrapped up in the adventures and misfortunes of Remi, an 8-ear-old boy who is sold by a cruel foster father (after being raised by his loving foster mother while the father is working in Paris) to a traveling musician.

The musician is, lucky for Remi, a warm taskmaster. Although Remi does have to walk with him all over France and learn how to play the harp and sing and act in little pantomimes with the rest of the troupe, the rest of the troupe consists of three dogs and a monkey. Master Vitalis also teaches Remi to read and write. It’s a hard life, but he’s treated well and he loves the dogs. But alas, while defending Remi to a policeman, Vitalis strikes a police officer and is thrown in jail for 2 months, and Remi has to survive on his own.

A sick little boy on a barge (Arthur) hears him playing the harp and invites him on board. Lucky for Remi, he is invited to stay on the barge with the boy and his mother to keep Arthur company. He does and he’s very happy there, and the mother and Arthur grow to love Remi. Once he’s out of jail, they ask Vitalis whether Remi can stay with them. But alas, Vitalis will not let him go. Things go downhill from there.

That’s how the book goes: lucky for Remi, followed quickly by, but alas. He meets kind people who can see “he has a heart,” and cruel people who won’t listen to him and throw him in jail. He lands in the lap of luxury, but never takes it for granted, and always works hard, which is good, because he’s soon yanked back into the vagabond life. The twists and turns of Remi’s life are dramatic — sweet, funny, tragic, harrowing.

Nobody’s Boy was written in 1878, so the language is courtly and old-fashioned, but the story is not too old-fashioned in the telling. There aren’t pages upon pages of description. All landscape and cityscape descriptions are just what a boy that age would notice, and they’re generally told to give us insight into him: does this place make him afraid, hopeful, happy, sad, etc.? What clues does it hold as to whether things will go well or poorly?

It’s considered a classic in children’s literature, and I enjoyed it. But most of all, I love the image of my dad as a little boy, sick in bed, captured by his first novel, reading as quickly as he could to see what would happen to poor Remi. I can’t remember what that first book might have been for me, (Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie most likely), but I remember it for my son: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’d given it to him for pre-bed reading and came up at 10:30, and he was still going, wide-eyed with wonder. Getting lost in a fictional world is one of the best things ever. Do you remember what that first “wow!” book was for you?

Wonderful: May B

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

This is a first for me: a historical novel in verse for children. And it is marvelous.

Mavis Elizabeth Betterly (aka May B.) is a 12-year-old living in western Kansas in a soddy (a hut built out of sod stacked grass-side down and scant bits of wood) in the late 1870s. Her parents hire her out to a newly married couple because the spring wheat didn’t do well and they need the money.

Around my finger
I twist a blade of grass.
It’s what I always wanted,
to contribute,
but not this way.
If I leave,
schooling is as good as finished.
Come Christmas I’ll be home
but even farther
behind.

Her father hitches up the wagon and drives her 15 miles away. She’ll be gone from July to Christmas.

The new family is not happy, the wife only a few years older than May and from the East — unprepared for prairie life.

The sound is muffled,
like a child at her mother’s shoulder.
Just as Hiram can’t hold back laughter during family prayers,
Mrs. Oblinger’s sobs escape the blankets.

Surely Mr. Oblinger hears?
Three of us awake,
two pretending sleep.

Something happens and May is left alone. In August. The nearest neighbor is gone East. Nobody knows she’s alone and there’s no way to get word out to her father.

When the world is black,
I’m most alone,
the silence thick around me.
I pray for wind,
for rain,
for the meadowlark
to break
the constant pound of quiet.

Her only company is the reader she took with her. The only problem with that: she’s dyslexic, and every attempt to read reminds her of Teacher repeatedly humiliating her in front of the school.

The tale of how May survives months on her own is gripping and moving and inspiring (and involves hillbilly hand fishing). It’s minimally told, but each detail is the right one. If you or your child like Little House on the Prairie, this book is for you. Don’t let the verse format intimidate you. My daughter isn’t a fast reader, but she whipped through the 225 pages in a few before-bed reading sessions. It came out this year, so it’s only in hardcover, but at least try to get it from your library. It’s wonderful.

May B., Caroline Starr Rose, Schwartz & Wade Books, 2012.

How Email is Saving My Marriage

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

Okay, that heading exaggerates. But kind of not.

Those of you who’ve been in a relationship of fairly significant duration know that there’s always a Big Nagging Issue (BNI). Some problematic way you have of relating to each other that crops up again, and again, and again, no matter how good everything else is. You knock it down, but it keeps popping up. Each time you have to knock it back, it feels like it sinks its claws in even deeper because you’re so sick of it that you wait longer and longer before you try to address it or you get more and more upset each time. Well, we’re in knocking back the BNI mode.

Frankly, it wasn’t going well, until I recently wrote my husband an email to explain, in a nonemotional setting, exactly why I’d been so upset the other night. He was out and I couldn’t sleep because my brain kept going round and round about the BNI and because there was real opportunity for confusing the issue. So I wrote the email like I used to write editorial letters: precise analysis tempered by compliments. Something I can’t do while in a face to face discussion in which my emotions have gotten out of hand (which is almost all of them regarding the BNI).

The next morning, he thanked me for the message and promised a response. A few days later, he sent me an email. And he had some requests for me. Trust me when I say this is revolutionary. I am an intense person, especially when upset. This was the first time he’d had the space to truly say his piece without me crying or jumping all over his wording. And then because this was an email, I had the chance to, privately, go through a whole cycle of upset, self-justification, and acceptance, to arrive at agreement. When I was calm, I wrote him back, asking for clarification/examples of one item.

I was thinking it’d be something minor, something tweakable. It wasn’t. It was the number one personality failing I have: my (especially lately) hair-trigger temper. This is the thing I am most ashamed of, the thing I try my hardest to contain already. It sucks to be called on your s#*!, because until you’re called on it, you can make like it’s a personal issue, not a marital or family issue. Now there’s no pretending.

Anxiety makes the problem worse, and I have a number of big things to be anxious about — imploding church, manuscripts out on query, BNI. So my church home, my potential career, and that pesky BNI are up in the air, which means that any other stressor gets a ridiculously huge response. So I take conversations with my dad way too personally and negatively. I make my kids cry about homework. My heart races at the towering household filing pile.

I don’t have a lot of power to change those big anxiety items, but I can take care of all the anklebiting items that add to it, like the household filing, the half-finished house projects lying around accusatorily, the making of summer plans for the kids. I can make sure I do my daily Bible reading and prayer. Lots of prayer. I can read things that help me put things in better perspective, like this. I can make sure I have fun with the people I love.

And, going back to the title of this piece, I can keep attacking the BNI via email with my husband. Social media may or may not be isolating us in the name of seeking connection, but email is my current favorite marital aide.

Being Seen: Divine Edition

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

A couple of months ago, I wrote about Allowing Yourself to be Seen, and before that it was The Moment of Being Seen. Those posts were about “seeing” between people, but this week I remembered a great story in the Bible about being seen.

I am amazed at how little the stories in the Old Testament are whitewashed. The people are people, with all their petty and not so petty cruelties and insecurities and fears. It must’ve been tempting to make the heroes of the faith purely heroic, but most (if not all) of them are complex and real. Whatever other issues we may (or may not) have with what the writers/editors chose to include in the Scriptures, I’m grateful they kept the people pretty real.

Hagar was a servant of Sarai while she and Abram were nomads. Most people who’ve grown up Jewish or Christian know about God’s promise that Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, yet, year after year, Sarai didn’t bear him any children. Well past menopause, Sarai gave up hope, and jump started the whole thing by forcing Hagar to have sex with Abram.

So when Hagar became pregnant, is anyone surprised that she didn’t bow with humble gratitude to Sarai for putting her in that situation? The Bible says she treated her mistress with contempt. I can imagine it:

“I’m sorry, since I got pregnant, the smell of your morning leban [mixture of yoghurt and wheat] makes me throw up. I wouldn’t want to put you through that. You’ll have to get your own breakfast.”

“Of course it’s easy for you to walk half the day without a break, you’re not pregnant.”

And is anyone surprised that Sarai doesn’t just accept this constant snarking as her just desserts for ordering her servant to submit to unwanted sex? Abram won’t intervene, so the Bible says Sarai treated Hagar harshly — given that their lives were already harsh, we can guess that she beat Hagar and withheld food and water.

Hagar ran away to the wilderness and an angel approached her at a spring with a crazy mixed message. It’s one of the few stories involving an angel in which the angel doesn’t first tell the person not to be afraid, so it makes me wonder how he appeared. I bet not in a blaze of glory, shining wings unfurled. I bet he appeared as another weary traveler and slumped beside her on a flat rock near the spring. And Hagar wasn’t afraid of him because she’d already been raped and beaten. What could he do to her that was worse than that?

The angel knows her name, knows that she’s pregnant, tells her that she’ll have a son who’ll be “as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives” (Gen 16:12). He gives her the name of the boy: “You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress” (Gen 16:11).

And he tells her she has to go back and submit to Sarai’s authority.

I don’t know that I would’ve seen this as good news, yet she changes the name she called God to El-roi, which means “the God who sees me.” This is a personal name, more intimate than a general title. She says, I imagine with wonder in her voice, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” (Gen 16:13).

Nobody else saw her for her. Sarai saw her as the means to an end, as an insurance policy/just in case/last-ditch effort to fulfill God’s promise. Abram probably barely acknowledged her outside the deed itself, and he certainly didn’t care to do anything about her situation once she’d gotten pregnant. She was a servant. Servants aren’t seen.

So despite the mixed message of blessing and struggle, because God saw her for her, and heard her cries and sent someone to her to clue her into the bigger picture, she goes back to Sarai and has Ishmael.

Amazing, the power of being seen.