musings no.5 [the coming of Lent and other things]

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" As Everything But A Children's Book


When I first had the idea, it seemed like it would be wonderful to write my senior project on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There. Now, I'm not so sure. Because of the very nature of the Alice books and the mystery surrounding their author, the criticism available is...extensive and entirely too varied, to say the least. And honestly, I don't enjoy much of the criticism, because I am a firm believer in not reading too deeply into a text. I suppose that you might argue that I should not be an English major, but I have learned much relating to literature in other ways during my college career. I simply do not appreciate every other critic I read implying that there was a romantic attachment/sexual relationship/what have you between the real Lewis Carroll and the real child-Alice. Charles Dodgson (Carroll's real name) and Alice Liddell (the "real" Alice) were friends, of course, but to be perfectly frank, not even history can tell us if their relationship was more than strictly proper between a child and a shy young man! Of course, the main problem I have with researching the character of Alice is that I rather despise feminist/gender criticism. Much (not all) of it is written by women who appear to have some severe issues with the male gender, and as I am most certainly not a feminist, this irks me exceedingly.

But I digress; I did choose to study the character of Alice in Carroll's books and how she has changed in adaptations throughout the last 150 years. And I have been reassured by a (small) number of critics who do not agree with the supposed relationship between Dodgson and Liddell. And having a legitimate excuse (reason!) to watch both Disney film versions a few times is quite nice.


The Coming of Lent: Ash Wednesday


Now that I have ranted about my senior seminar project, I turn to a more appealing topic to write on. The season of Lent is one of my favorite parts of the church year. Well, that is an unfair thing to say, since I love the whole church year and the solidarity I find in the repeating seasons and festivals. I wish more church denominations paid any attention at all to the church year; it bothers me greatly when people do not even know what Ash Wednesday is.

I love Lent for many reasons, some perhaps a bit superficial in the big picture. First, the altar cloths are purple; I like that, because it is a somber purple, but also symbolic of Jesus Christ's royalty. Second, I simply adore the Lenten hymns. I cannot describe the haunting and sorrowful melodies, the deep and rich lyrics of each one. And some of the hymns we still sing were being sung 1000 years ago! I do not want the empty "Christian" "praise and worship" songs of today; there are very few of them that truly proclaim our sinfulness and Christ's ultimate sacrifice! The point is not to try to give God our all, because the truth is that we cannot....

But I do not want to rant about contemporary Christian music right now. I will, however, leave you with a hymn that I can say is definitely a favorite, though I love the whole hymnal.


"Alleluia, Song of Gladness" (Lutheran Service Book 417)


Alleluia, song of gladness,
Voice of joy that cannot die;
Alleluia is the anthem
Ever raised by choirs on high;
In the house of God abiding
Thus they sing eternally.

Alleluia, thou resoundest,
True Jerusalem and free;
Alleluia, joyful mother,
All thy children sing with thee,
But by Babylon's sad waters
Mourning exiles now are we.

Alleluia cannot always
Be our song while here below;
Alleluia, our transgressions
Make us for a while forgo;
For the solemn time is coming
When our tears for sin must flow.

Therefore in our hymns we pray Thee,
Grant us, blessed Trinity,
At the last to keep Thine Easter
With Thy faithful saints on high;
There to Thee forever singing
Alleluia joyfully.

[~life-changing moments]

It has been awhile since I last wrote; much has happened.
I should be reading The Tragedy of King Richard III, but it can wait.

The Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XLV!!! I am still celebrating this astounding victory. Anyone reading this blog should count themselves lucky that I did not update immediately after the Super Bowl because I would have gone on and on about the game. As it stands, the game has been talked about more than was absolutely necessary; I don't mind, of course, being so incandescently happy that my team fought against such odds in the world of American football to gain the highest title that rightly belongs in Green Bay -- after all, it is the Lombardi Trophy! The Packers were the first sixth-seeded team to win; that says something right there. Aaron Rodgers is only one aspect of this team to be reckoned with. I will admit that when I realized that we had won that night, tears came to my eyes. It had been such a long time, and I wanted to see Aaron Rodgers win a Super Bowl. The night was epic, in so many ways.

The night did not end there, however. I was still on a high from the victory of the green and gold when my boyfriend mentioned it was "the opportune moment" for something. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, still seeing the shiny Lombardi Trophy in my mind's eye, but all that fell to the wayside as he pulled out something else shiny -- a beautiful ring. He did not go down on one knee, but he did take my hand in his and gently remove the ring I had been wearing on my ring finger; this other ring is a purity ring from my parents, and I will wear it still, only on my other hand. Because of course, when Nate asked me if I would marry him, the only possible answer was yes. And he slipped the new ring onto the ring finger of my left hand.

It took a number of hours for the whole thing to sink in -- even now, I'm still surprised that, in less than a year, I will be getting married! Though it is definitely nice to have something other than homework to obsess over -- I think I like this whole wedding-planning thing!

When it was New Year's Eve, barely two months ago, I knew that 2011 was going to be a year of life-changing moments. I can see now that that feeling is coming true even more quickly than I imagined it would. The Packers won the Super Bowl (which no one could have predicted!). Nate and I are engaged. I graduate from Concordia University in May. Nate and I are getting married before Christmas. I will be officially moving to Wisconsin and away from home.

And yet, it's those life-changing moments that make us truly who we are. I cannot fathom the mind of God, nor would I want to. But I can be thankful for His hand in everything I do.

[~a heart's desire]

The Packers are going to the Super Bowl!! -dances-
This is so exciting; unbelievably so.

January 2011 is nearly over already. I sit here in my dorm, staring out the window at the snow that blankets the courtyard and I can be happy. To be perfectly honest, I hate being at school. Perhaps hate is a strong word, but it is a fact. I enjoy my classes and I love going to chapel and I love my friends, but for some reason just simply being here causes me to feel depressed.

So why can I just be happy? Well, because.
Because I am almost done. I can see graduation from here, and the road to that exit doesn't look so long anymore. But what am I going to do after that? There are many things I would like to do, but I think God has priorities for me at the moment. I won't muse about those in this particular post, but I do know that my life is going through more changes than graduating from college.

Of course, now that I am going to graduate from Concordia, I've begun to look back at some of the things that I missed. I wanted, so badly, to study abroad. I wanted to study in England, at Oxford specifically. I guess that wasn't a path God allowed me to follow. I'm having a difficult time accepting this, as a few people know. Studying at Oxford, even for a short while, had been my heart's desire for many years; it was a dream I've had since I was a child. But the thing about a person's heart's desire is this:

It can change, shift, the way the winds shift and change.


My heart's desire did shift, without my consent nor my expectation; but now I wouldn't change it for anything. Now what I want most in the world is to get married and begin a new journey with a certain special someone. I am afraid to even talk about it, for fear of jinxing something so special. Yet I know without a doubt that this is the path (or part of it) that God has laid out for me.

Now, I am going to share a few Bible verses that are not particularly relevant to this topic, exactly; but they are what I read this morning.

________________________________________________

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

~Matthew 6:19-21

musings no. 4 [a new year has dawned]

Yay for 2011! Another year, another chapter in the life of God's green earth.

Another chapter in my life has begun, too. Though if I spent the end of 2010 watching Ghostbusters 2 with my boyfriend...eh, it was fun. And the end of that movie takes place on New Year's Eve, so I think it was appropriate. And we did see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, which turned out to be awesome.

But now it's 2011.

The year I graduate from college.
The year my life changes forever.

Am I ready to take hold of the future?
Am I ready to leave behind some of what I've known my whole life?
Am I ready?

God must believe I am ready, and therefore, I am.

[Jeremiah 29:11]

-a kingly gift-

[Gandalf said,] "Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim. The Elves dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin, starmoon, which you saw upon the doors. Bilbo had a corslet of mithril-rings that Thorin gave him. I wonder what has become of it? Gathering dust still in Michel Delving Museum, I suppose."

"What?" cried Gimil, startled out of his silence. "A corslet of Moria-silver? That was a kingly gift!"

"Yes," said Gandalf. "I never told him, but its worth was greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it."

Frodo said nothing, but he put his hand under his tunic and touched the rings of his mail-shirt. He felt staggered to think that he had been walking about with the price of the Shire under his jacket. Had Bilbo known? He felt no doubt that Bilbo knew quite well. It was indeed a kingly gift. But now his thoughts had been carried away from the dark Mines, to Rivendell, to Bilbo, and to Bag End in the days while Bilbo was still there. He wished with all his heart that he was back there, and in those days, mowing the lawn, or pottering among the flowers, and that he had never heard of Moria, or mithril--or the Ring.

The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

The House of Tom Bombadil

"Who are you, Master?" he [Frodo] asked.

"Eh, what?" said Tom, sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. "Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless -- before the Dark Lord came from Outside."

The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien. <3

It is an April-November.

Yesterday there was fog over the lake, and I couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky began.
Today all is clear, and the air carries the scent of spring.
I cannot understand this, when winter is so very near.
Where is the bitter wind?
Where is the biting cold?
It is November, not April.
These months mirror each other in some ways.
April anticipates hot sunshine summer.
November anticipates cold snowy winter.
Yet they both seem unable to decide on their weather!

I think I am ready for Old Man Winter to come and blanket the earth in white.
But I can be thankful for the strange breath of spring that comes late in this April-November.