Brave New World is an excellent book so far. And there are effable things I think I’m learning from it, too. What strikes me tonight is the power of something close to hypnopædia: I ought to make use of the apparent fact that if you repeat something assuredly to someone frequently enough, they will believe you.
The above leaf dates from thirteen years ago. Kris sent it to me yesterday. A lot in me has changed since then. And a lot sure hasn’t. :)
Speaking of things changing in me, I relapsed into not trusting Carla to by my ally today as the weekend time she was spending on her first council meeting stretched into its third or fourth hour this morning. DON’T DO THAT.
On another note, one of the several reasons I’d like to stick hard to my bedtimes is that I want to put a tad more thought into this journaling. I won’t be leaving much for posterity if I rush through this.
Nevertheless, it’s 10:36pm, and I need to get to bed.
Carla and I disagree about the overall merit of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). It comes down to this: I want an artist to do these adaptations. Peter Jackson is more like the captain of a theme park boat ride.
We shared another New Year’s Eve and morning with the Potters. We started at at a fundraising soup dinner held by the folks in the basement of the University Baptist & Brethren Church building. It’s the Potters’ home congregation. At dinner, I missed an opportunity to inquire about Josh’s faith. Other times will come. And gosh, does the pastor’s son know how to make a caramel cheesecake.
Anyway, we proceeded through the regular Sidney Friedman Parklet and Allen Street routine for First Night, appreciating the percussive, paper-maché parade emanating from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church building, kettle corn, the ice slide, the ice sculptures, the Christian Science Reading Room’s free cookies and cider, the phoenix in the Borough building, and the sight of the horses and carriages and Vamos' lit-up pedi-cab along the way. All four parents ended up carrying all four children back to the cars.
We had a dance party featuring upbeat selections from Stilson Family Mix 2013 (everyone...
// read full article →Carla [upon delivery of Éa’s dessert at Sips Bistro]: Bon appétit!
Éa [correcting her]: Bon appé-YUM!
“Cease and know that I am God.”
— Psalm 46:10
I press too hard in most of what I do.
Today what was supposed to be a prayerful walk through Mom’s neighborhood ended up a reestablish who I am, who I’d like to be, and how to go from point A to point B: Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will judge you in the end. Don’t let what you’re not doing distract you from you are doing. (I’m especially prone to be guilty of that last one when the what-I’m-not-doing is the kids. I seem to forget that the best way to get back to the kids is to concentrate fully on what I’m doing.) Whatever you do, do it heartily.
After another Christmas morning, an afternoon wave of sleepiness, and a delicious, heartfelt Christmas feast courtesy mostly of Mom, the Stilson siblings, Felix, and Carla went to see the above movie as our gift to one another. It was a good one, and I hope it’s a small beginning in a new tradition: My siblings and I purposely spending time with one another when we’re around. Carla is much better at that than I.
“Oh…
…I love cheetahs!”
— Éa, in an arrestingly genuine response to the animal-print pajamas Sullivan gave her for Christmas; she had left us because she paused about five seconds between the first and second parts, and her reply wasn’t accompanied by a smile
I feel a certain loneliness today, a longing for fellowship. It’s probably because Carla is sick and spent most of the day in bed, although it feels like I’ve been missing something for a while now, a need for a best friend with whom I share not only interests, proximity, and mutual affection, but also approach to God, approach to self-conduct, and way of thinking. No friend of mine thinks like I do. Ethan is the closest I can think of. Perhaps I need to drop him a line.
Nonetheless, Carla and I did finally finish Greed (1924) this evening together. It was an excellent film that prompted me to pray, “Lord, please keep us from being deceived by money.”
Above is a drawing of a cardinal Carla did for the front of a Christmas card for the Wendles. She is so good.
She is also pretty sick. Ibuprofen allowed her to enjoy the party at the Wendles’ house this evening while the I and the sick or recovering kids stayed home, ate homemade pizza, read books, and listened to tunes. But boy, did it wear off when she returned home. Lord, may I be a sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted husband tomorrow.
Jordan and Stephen divulged to me on our way up to Philipsburg for DiamondBack Christmas party day that playing vertical music for Keystone was the worst experience in their worship-playing careers. The motif of their report was that the people there were “mean.”
As Carla said upon my report of that revelation later this evening, “It’s good when wolves are wolves.”
I once again got carried away by doing and thinking about the choral society website, to the elimination of much time for prayer. It has encroached on sleep, work, prayer, fasting. This has got to stop.
I’m going to try to make it stop by allowing for bigger swaths of time working on it in the plan for the day.
Carla insisted the four of us go outside in the 6–8 inches of snow after dinner this evening, and I’m glad she did. We pulled the kids around on their sleds, enjoyed the scenery and relative silence, sledded down the steps of the new footbridge and down the hill near Meadow Lane. O Lord, You’re beautiful.
I finished the proactive portion of my Christmas shopping today. All that remains is about seven tasks that are queued up in Remember the Milk. I mention this as the most significant portion of my day today because I’m still not completely comfortable with multi-step, very detail-oriented projects whose deliverable are people I. The discomfort is a lack of confidence that I have thought of everything and am making proper progress. It causes me to ponder over my project management systems instead of getting things done. And it leads to me idolizing and being selfish about my time.
Lord, as usual: Help!
In other news, we discovered last night that Zeppelin is on Spotify. I exclaimed to Carla that this news trumped the handbell concert as my high yesterday.
Éa and I enjoyed the above concert today very much. Plus, we got to see Jimmy Hutasoit, Jo Lash, Joyce Robinson, Dana Carlisle, and a Russell Bloom who heavy-handedly—literally, with lots of downward pressure applied on my left shoulder by his hand—tried again to recruit me to Pirates of Penzance.
I got a flu shot today.
Carla thinks I’m goofy for thinking it such a big deal. And I guess I’m not sure why I think it’s a big deal. Maybe it’s because it’s my first medical interaction that I’ve had on my own behalf for a few years, and it’s proactive and preventative, which is rare for me. Maybe it’s because it’s a signal that I’m part of the mainstream of modern humanity, unlike many other parts of my life (e.g. home birth, not consuming a lot).
Going to bed on time seems optional one or two days, but it becomes crucial to happiness by week’s end.
Carla called me intense this evening at the College Township holiday party and appreciation dinner at the Nittany Lion Inn. Too much face. She meant it as an constructive putdown. Boy, did it dampen my mood. But she’s right: I need to control my energy in social situations that are tied to exciting ideas or where I feel my reputation for something good (singing, progressive vision for the township) goes ahead of me.
Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people…so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
— Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
A gentle sense of Your presence in my life suffused my soul today after work as I reflected on the verse above. Life was good today, and the verse above indicates that love makes us majestically holy. Wow.
While shopping for a Christmas gift for my mom, I found online lists of the best worship albums of the year. I felt convicted: Why have I not been more avid a seeker of music that is not only musically marvelous but thematically rich? Why have I not more frequently combined my favorite medium (music) with my favorite theme (God)?
I put the “concentrate mightily” bit into action today at work. And I enjoyed work more today than I have in a while.
Grumpiness is a sign that I have not properly handled some other negative emotion. Today, for instance, I didn’t properly handle my feeling tired, having run from to grocery shopping with Éa to unpacking the car to choosing a Christmas tree to decorating for Christmas with Janet over, all without taking a breath.
Put another way, I didn’t guard my heart, tending to it when it was tired, and as a result, it, my wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23) started to taste bad.
I need to start exploring and expressing negative emotions before they herniate as grumpiness.
(Once again, this mini-revelation came after I asked God to speak to me.)
We stopped in Danville on our way home from Rowland to pick up a brace-and-bit. Cassie Weaver had picked it up for us. We got to see her apartment, nibble on some fudge her mom had graciously given her to give to us, watch a few minutes of the PSU-Wisconsin football game, and then treat her to chicken cheese steak dinner at the sub shop across the street from the Danville Sub Shop, whatever its name is.
All that to say: I’d like to start incorporating friendly and relaxing stopovers into all our trips. Doing so would break up the drive, build relationships, and often lead to yummy food.