And Is It True?

And is it True?

The other night as my husband Tom and I were watching the “Cri de Comer” episode of The Crown season 3, we heard British Poet Laureate John Betjeman reading his “Jubilee Hymn” which was written to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, commemorating the 25th anniversary of her ascension to the throne in June 1977.  The above attached YouTube lets you hear him read it himself.  

Listening, I immediately thought of my favorite poem of Betjeman’s:  his “Christmas.”  I love the last three stanzas, and most especially the last two lines.  

And is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Those questions that start the 4th and 5th stanza hit home as I saw the numerous weekend church services that included Communion .  I realized anew how appropriate it is that we consider not just the birth and the death of Christ at this season, but also the important third act of this Salvation Trilogy:  His resurrection.  Is it true that He became a Child and lived and died and lived again . . . for me?  It is.  He came for me.  And you.

God's Great Poet

At 17 years old, John Milton knew what he wanted to do with his life. Brought up in a home where his prosperous father was a church musician, among other things, John was well-educated. By the time he was twelve, he was already studying several languages, both modern and classical. By the time he entered Christ’s College, John knew that he would be a poet. But not just any poet. He wanted to be a “great” poet. Even more, he wanted to be “God’s” great poet. Today, more than 400 years after his birth, we are still reading and studying John Milton’s poetry. His long poem about the fall of man, Paradise Lost, is considered the greatest epic poem written in the English language. God’s great poet indeed!

Milton’s decision as a teenager to be the best he could be for God is an amazing one to me. Every time I share his story with the seniors, I am inspired to rededicate my own life, re-explore my own determination and purpose for life. What interests me even more is the lengths Milton went to prepare himself to accomplish the goal he set for himself as a young man. After obtaining his M.A., he returned to his father’s house and spent the next six years continuing his studies, reading everything then known in ancient and modern languages (imagine!). He then embarked on a two-year Grand Tour of Europe that was, unfortunately, cut short by political turbulence back in England. Still, by the time he began his work as a writer, he was very well prepared, quite able to fulfill his life’s purpose.

I love that Milton’s plan was to not only be great, but great for God. I love that the plan, while seemingly ambitious, was doable, and that education, both formal and personal, was integral to the success of the plan. And I love that the plan blossomed into fruition. No doubt that prayer and meditation went hand in hand with study. No doubt there were days when John questioned himself. Certainly, he questioned God when, at age 44, he went blind. He even wrote a sonnet lamenting the fact that he would no longer be able to serve God the way he was used to. The turning point of the poem, though, is where he realizes that God didn’t really need him, He just needed him to be willing and ready to serve if need be. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” John concludes. And yet, he found a way to keep creating, keep serving. It was after that devastating loss of sight, that he wrote what became his greatest work. 11,000 lines of poetry, composed in his head at night and dictated to his daughter and other helpers in the morning, Paradise Lost was an instant success. Critics were amazed; even John Dryden, a contemporary and sometime literary rival, is reported to have said, "This man cuts us all out, and the ancients too."

Even more interesting, especially for today as we are dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, is that the year was 1665, in the midst of London's Great Plague.  Milton fled the city with his wife and daughters and it was during this time of exile from home that the great English epic was born.  Not only that, but its sequel Paradise Regain’d was also inspired during this Plague quarantine.

John Milton realized that being at the ready for God is the greatest possible service to Him. He got ready by getting the best possible education. He got ready by determining to accept nothing but the best from himself. He got ready by saying out loud that he was going to be God’s best poet, and then finding a way to make that happen. What about you? What are you doing today? Are you the best at your job? Are you the best at your job? Are you God’s best at your job? My prayer for each of us today is that this may be so.

Don't Quit!

Some of you may know that April is National Poetry Month.  At Thunderbird, that usually means a month of celebrating poetry and our Annual Poetry Writing Competition.  Each week the English department teachers (Ms. Turk and myself) challenge our students to submit poems and then we choose winners, one from each class, who get beautiful journals for their future creative writing endeavors.  Then, at the end of the month, we choose a grand prize winner along with 1^st and 2^nd place writers who receive gift cards to Barnes & Noble.  Not a bad way to celebrate one of the loveliest but often most challenging of writing forms!

In keeping with our Thunderbird focus on poetry, I thought I’d share an encouraging poem with you along with a few verses from the notable Biblical poet, the psalmist David.  The poem comes to us from a 19^th century national favorite who was so famous and beloved during his lifetime that his picture hung in every schoolroom and families read his poems around the fireside.  A Quaker and an abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier grew up on a humble farm north of Boston and learned to love poetry in a small schoolroom where, years, later, his portrait would hang.  Today, we might say his poetry is a little simple, a little uncomplicated, but it is exactly because of his simplicity and straightforwardness that this poem works for us in a time that is anything but simple and straightforward.  It brings with it encouragement that is exactly what we need right now:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Hundreds of years earlier, the Biblical poet David put his hopes and fears, his joys and tears into a verse form we now call the Psalms.  During his life, his emotions ran the gamut of all that and more.  A common shepherd-turned-king, he knew just about every situation and challenge that life could throw at you but always—sometimes later than sooner—found his solace and his energy in the Lord.  Just when he was about to quit, he would turn his thoughts towards God and find the comfort and strength he needed to get through whatever challenge he was facing.  The result would unfailingly be success and he would find himself needing to praise God with a song.  He describes it this way in Psalm 28:7 (The Message):

Blessed be God—
    he heard me praying.
He proved he’s on my side;
    I’ve thrown my lot in with him.

Now I’m jumping for joy,
    and shouting and singing my thanks to him.

The psalmist David and the poet Whittier, through their lyrical words, have important advice for us today as we face situations that are frightening and discouraging:  pray to God and don’t quit.  Those, in fact, are words to live by.

Connected

          Seventeenth century English poet and pastor John Donne wrote a meditation that includes these famous lines:  “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” In Donne’s day, whenever someone in the community passed away, the church bells would ring out to let everyone know that someone they knew had gone to their rest. He makes the point, though, that it wasn’t just that part of the community was no longer with them.  He says that a part of themselves has also been lost.  The connection, the thing that made all feel the loss of one, was their common ground, their humanity. 

            Beyond that mutual connection of humanity, though, is another even greater connection, however slim we might think it is.  Twentieth century American poet Anne Sexton describes it in her poem, "Small Wire":

                        My faith

                        is a great weight

                        hung on a small wire,

                        as doth the spider

                        hang her baby on a thin web,

                        as doth the vine,

                        twiggy and wooden,

                        hold up grapes

                        like eyeballs,

                        as many angels

                        dance on the head of a pin.

                        God does not need too much wire to keep Him there,

                        just a thin vein,

                        with blood pushing back and forth in it,

                        and some love.

                        As it has been said:

                        Love and a cough cannot be concealed.

                        Even a small cough.

                        Even a small love.

                        So if you have only a thin wire,

                        god does not mind.

                        He will enter your hands

                        as easily as ten cents used to bring forth a Coke.

            Throughout our lifetime, we have opportunities to explore that connection, that small wire.  Sometimes the choice is ours.  We may read and study, go to church, pray.  But it is also those around us who bring God to our mind through their words and actions.  The more often we are reminded about the God in our lives, the more likely it is that He will become the God of our lives.

            In a time when we are required to keep our distance from each other in order to protect ourselves and each other, we might be challenged to feel connected to each other.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve read many articles about how to survive this time of social distancing and one of the things that always comes up is the importance of maintaining our connections.  We are encouraged to make use of all the technology at hand to stay in electronic touch, but to keep connected.  The more we virtually connect with each other, the healthier we will be in body, mind, and heart.

            The same holds true with our connection with God. If we do not maintain our connection with Him, something profound in us will be lost.  John uses the analogy of the vine and branches to help us understand the importance of being connected: “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.”  (John 5:5-8, MSG)  None of us is an island entire of itself, no matter how much it may seem that way at the moment.  Now more than ever, we cannot leave our connectivity to chance. Let’s consciously reach out through whatever means we can to stay connected—to each other, and to God.

My Father

My father
Used to walk
so fast
I had to run to catch
his shadow.
Always one step ahead--
maybe more--
Literally.  Philosophically.
Theologically.

A leader.
A path finder.
A way maker.

All that was years ago.
But then
pain.
Crippling pain.
Pain that slows feet and fight.
Pain that stands him still.
Angry.
Compromised.
Except for his mind.

Now, while I slow my steps for his
syncopated stutter-stepped shuffle
he still outruns my mind--
day and night.

I want to cry out
against this injustice
because it is categorically
not fair--
not part of the plan decades
ago--

But I know that
Life is not fair
nor just.
It marches on
regardless.  Trampling
on plans made in our prime.
So I don't.  Instead
I find solace in
what there is in moments
not days or even hours.
Moments.
I find comfort in the hope he holds on to that
In a moment
In a twinkling of an eye . . .
We will all be changed.

This is another poem that I wrote during the Boothbay Harbor Literacy Retreat I attended in July 2013.  Two years later (4 years ago), my dad passed away after a long struggle with debilitating pain that was difficult to witness.  This poem touches on the only thing that comforts me in this giant loss:  the Hope of seeing him again one day, without the pain that stole him from us.  

Small Wire

I shared one of my favorite poems with my American Literature class today:  Anne Sexton's "Small Wire."  I usually teach it in conjunction with Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon because they are both written out of the Puritan tradition, although there are a few hundred years in between them.  I asked the students to write a short 20-minute essay comparing and contrasting the two views of God with their own.  I decided to write with them...

One of the most important things in life is our relationship with God.  Not just that we have a relationship, although that matters, but what kind of relationship we have.  Our view of God will dictate the quality of connection we have with Him and our view of God is determined by our upbringing, our experiences, and our personal efforts to establish and maintain a relationship with Him.  Jonathan Edwards wrote and delivered his sermon at the height of the Great Awakening in the 1740s.  Ministers at the time were using every tactic they could to bring their parishioners back to where they felt they should be, back to the Puritanical tradition of an angry, jealous, no-nonsense God.  Edwards tried to terrify his listeners into coming back, and he succeeded.  But at what cost?  Obedience at the price of love? Edwards describes us as loathsome creatures--even to God our creator, who preserves us on a whim rather than because he loves us.

Anne Sexton, on the other hand, realized that even though our connection with God might be tenuous at best, it doesn't matter.  God will easily and lovingly not only connect with us, but will hold us close and not allow us to fall.  Sexton was a descendent of Puritans, so she knew the traditional concept of God, and yet writing in the 1970s, she had a much more open view of God.  She also understood that our need for God is there, it is inevitable, even though we might not understand it fully.  The relationship is a two-way experience, though.  Both are involved--God and us.

My view is even more evolved than Anne's, I think.  I had the great privilege of growing up in a home where a loving, merciful, generous, and kind God was actively included in every aspect of living.  My father, a theologian in his own right, and a great student of the Bible, would often share his thinking and learning with us, so by the time I got to college, I had a healthy understanding of, and appreciation for, a God more like Anne's than Jonathan's.  College teachers continued to challenge and encourage my thinking and my relationship in ways I am only now beginning to appreciate.  What I thought was the norm turns out to be somewhat unusual for most.  But it has given me is a place and a way to minister to others in encouraging their own personal discovery of the true character of God and for that I am thankful.

Words Matter

QuickWrites are just that.  Quick.  They don't allow for revision.  But that doesn't mean what you write during that time shouldn't be revised.  QuickWrites just give you the time to get the words down quickly so you can take your time with them later.  Here's the second poem I wrote during the QuickWrite on Tuesday.  First, the 90 second version based on the last line of Robert Wrigley's poem "Do You Love Me?":

"Say it. . . . Say it to me."
I wonder what he means by that.
Say what?  Say what to whom?
Why does it matter
that we say the words too?
"Actions speak louder than words."
Yet we want the words.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words will never hurt me."
Ah.  But they do.
they have, and they will again.
"Say them over again to me
Wonderful words of life."
"I am the Way, the Truth, the Life."
"The Word of God."
"The Word made Flesh."
"the Word . . . dwells among us."

Say it.
Say it to me.
Words
Matter.

On the last day of the main part of this retreat, Linda asked us to choose something we had written during the week to share with the whole group (about 50 of us).  Now, that was daunting, I must say.  But I decided to read part of this poem.  I actually marked the lines I wanted to read, but changed my mind twice about which ones to include (she said to choose something short, or selections from something longer).  While this isn't a short poem, I felt there were too many references to things people might not get.  Here's the result:

Why does it matter
that we say the words?
Actions speak louder than words.
Yet, we want the words.
Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words will never hurt me.
Ah, but they do.
They have and they will again.

The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.

Words
matter.

In Spite of Everything

In spite of everything, God
is still in charge.
I mean--He's there.
He sees all, knows all.
He's engaged in a great civil war
testing whether mercy
trumps justice.

In spite of everything, I
don't blame Him.
Not for wars, pestilence,
hate, loss, pain.
Nor all the things that bring down
happiness.
And life.

In spite of everything, He
loves me.
This . . . I know.
I've seen it.
Heard it.
Felt it
deep in the marrow
of my bones.

In spite of everything, Love
will triumph over evil, mercy
will triumph over justice.
The lame will walk,
The blind will see.
And we.
Shall.
All.
Be.
Changed.
In spite of everything.

I wrote this a few days ago (June 25th) during an early morning QuickWrite session with Linda Rief, the writing mentor at this year's Boothbay Literacy Retreat in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.  I had the privilege of attending this retreat for the first time and I am already needing to go back.  Amazing.  That's the word that kept coming to my lips.  The word I kept rejecting as not adequate, not enough.  What else is there, though?  What word can you use to describe 5 days of "sitting among greatness," as one participant tweeted?

During these five days, we were quite literally listening to legends, writing beside game-changers, soaking up energy from cutting edge learners, thinkers, teachers, writers.  Maybe the word I should use is lucky.  I was so lucky to be there.  Maybe the word I should use is inspired.  I was inspired and excited to go back to my classroom, my kids.  Maybe the word I should use is again.  I need to do this again and again.

The poem comes from a line in Edward Hirsch's poem "In spite of everything, the stars."  The idea of a QuickWrite is to read a short poem, then take a line that speaks to you and use that as the jumping off point for 90 seconds of your own writing.  Any kind of writing, just continual writing for 90 seconds.  This was Tuesday's poem.  Unedited, just as I wrote it.

It surprised me that I could write something that quickly and be OK with sharing it with others...because that's the next step:  sharing.  The only thing that made that part doable is that everyone else had to do it, too.  Sitting there listening to what others did was fascinating--that each one could get something completely different from the same poem.  That's the beauty of the QuickWrite.  It's quick, it's uncensored, it's honest.  And so many times amazing.  There's that word again :)

Zambia Mornings

I've been in Livingstone, Zambia, on a mission trip for the past week with a group of 45 students and adults connected with my school.  It's been an amazing experience to say the least.  Today is our last day of work before we conclude the trip with two excursion days--tomorrow to Botswana for a safari and Friday to Livingstone and Victoria Falls for various experiences (including bungee jumping for a few!).  My job on this trip has been to keep in touch with the parents.  I chose to do that via a blog--Into Africa (www.taamissiontrip2013.blogspot.com).  Because the internet is slow at night when everyone is here using their phones and such, I spend the days at the lodge writing while everyone else is out working.  It has been peaceful and quiet, these African mornings.  Quiet enough to write a poem :) 

In the morning

there is the table at the edge

of the Kaazmein Lodge patio.
In the morning

there is my computer, a pen,

my much-traveled journal,

the bottled water with its

hard-to-open caps.

And always there is

the blue African sky.

There are sometimes companions

(Robbie, Jacob, Christi one day;

Ahilyn, Adrian, Narce,

Alejandra on another).

There are brightly colored squares

on the black table cloths.

Workers are sweeping--

calling good morning to me

while tending to business and

listening to canned music.

There are zebras grazing

peacefully,

wildly.

And always there is

the cool-yet-warm African breeze.

My view looks across

the patio to a footbridge,

and an island.

Mornings, there are

African kingfishers,

African mockingbirds,

African herons.  Or bitterns.

Or some other kind of

long-legged African water bird.

My job on this trip is to write--

a thing I’ve often longed to do

in the quiet of the morning

at a table with a view,

a breeze,

and sometimes a companion

or two.

My job on this trip is to share—

to put into words an experience

that defies words.

My roommate asks how

we will be able to share

all we’ve experienced.

We can’t I say.

We can try, but words

—which I love—

cannot

do justice

to

Zambian Mornings.

~ Rondi Aastrup
   Kaazmein Lodge
   Livingstone, Zambia

My Country

It's an interesting time to be an American, however you came by that moniker.  With Supreme Court rulings challenging and being challenged, immigration laws changing, election campaigns spewing out rhetoric...the privilege of being an American sometimes gets lost in all the muddle.  There's nothing like traveling abroad to give you perspective--even travel to exotic countries, but of course most especially to third-world countries.  Wherever you go, though, you will invariably be glad to come back, no matter where it is you call home.  That has been my experience at least.

Years ago, I learned a song in choir--7th grade vaguely sticks in my mind.  I'd forgotten about it until I heard it again this morning, sung by the legendary Mormon Tabernacle Choir on their program "Music and the Spoken Word."  As I listened to the words sung against the photographic backdrop of sites all over the country (most of which I recognized for having seen them in person), I realized anew that no matter the charms of other places, there is still no place like home, and I'm not only glad, I'm proud, to call the United States of America my home.

This Is My Country

This is my country! Land of my birth!
This is my country! Grandest on earth!
I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold,
For this is my country to have and to hold.

What diff'rence if I hail from North or South
Or from the East or West?
My heart is filled with love for all of these.
I only know I swell with pride and deep within my breast
I thrill to see Old Glory paint the breeze.

With hand upon heart I thank the Lord For this my native land,
For all I love is here within her gates.
My soul is rooted deeply in the soil on which I stand,
For these are mine own United States.

This is my country! Land of my choice!
This is my country! Hear my proud voice!
I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold,
For this is my country! To have and to hold.

Wonder-full Wedding

My niece got married on Sunday.  It was a mist-filled, wonder-full day.  The wedding took place in a garden on the North Shore of Massachusetts, so the weather was a concern.  With temperatures 20 degrees lower than normal and intermittent rain throughout the weekend, the outdoor ceremony was in doubt.  But the father of the bride said "No.  My daughter wanted a garden wedding, and that's what she's going to have."  And so she did.  It was beautiful.  Just beautiful.

I put together the readings for the ceremony.  A pastor-relative and I read the selections from literature and the Bible.  We've done readings together before and do well together.  I chose selections from Robert Louis Stevenson, Maya Angelou, Thomas a Kempis, George Eliot, the Bible, and Pablo Neruda. His Sonnet LXIX was my favorite of all:

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence, 

without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,
without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,

which maybe no one knew was growing 

like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence:  without your coming

suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,

gust of a rosebush wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,

since then you are, I am, we are,

and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

 

 

This is just to say

that I love the look of surprise
on the face of
my students
when
they discover
the beauty, the power, the passion
that is
poetry.

But then there's the smile
of recognition
when one
meets a kindred spirit for the first time
as if they had always
been friends.
So sweet.  And so rare.

If you know William Carlos Williams, you probably know his amazing little poem "This is just to say."  We watched an enactment of that poem today in my AP Lit. class.  Most kids said "How is that poetry?"  Which was fine because it opened up discussion about what is art in the first place.  But one sat to the side and said nothing.  Just smiled that smile of recognition.  That, too, is why I teach.

Looking at the Sky

by Anne Porter I never will have time I never will have time enough To say How beautiful it is The way the moon Floats in the air As easily And lightly as a bird Although she is a world Made all of stone. I never will have time enough To praise The way the stars Hang glittering in the dark Of steepest heaven Their dewy sparks Their brimming drops of light So fresh so clear That when you look at them It quenches thirst. I have felt this way several times lately.  I feel as if there is never enough time for the good and beautiful things.  And yet even the glimpses, the brief moments, can suffice when that's all I have...

Schoolroom Poets

This week was the birthday of two of the four New England Poets also known as the Schoolroom Poets, the Fireside Poets, and the New England Brahmins:  James Russell Lowell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Coincidentally, my American literature classes were studying them this week, supporting the idea that these poets are still studied in (some) schoolrooms.  I have written about Longfellow several times over the years, but haven't really mentioned the others.  Longfellow seems to be my go-to poet of the four, but I do like the others too--as much for their contributions to life in general as for their poetry.

Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Greenleaf Whittier are the other two who make up this interesting quartet.  As poets go, these two made more impact in other areas than in poetry--Holmes in the area of medicine and Whittier in the area of civil rights (abolition of slavery).  And yet, a Holmes poem saved "Old Ironsides," though, and we know what it was like to be snowbound in New England because of Whittier.


Sunday was Lowell's birthday.  Lowell, who with his friend Holmes, co-founded the prestigious and influential Atlantic Monthly, and was responsible for launching the careers of many a writer.  Here's a poem of his that speaks to me:

Auspex


My heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.
Had they been swallows only,
without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,--
Woe's me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
the impatience of their wings!
A moment, sweet delusion,


Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.

Molten Gold · 365 Project

Molten Gold by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

There's a house a couple of blocks from school that has an amazing yard in the spring (I say spring because that what it looks and feel like to me right now, even if it is still technically winter). What is otherwise a yard full of small stone, for several weeks in February and March it is filled with flowers. First, it's just green, but now, it's all yellow and orange...giving it the look of gold almost! It's quite pretty (an understatement).

Down the street from this house is another house with the same flowers, but not as many. And down another street there are a few flowers, obviously brought there randomly by the wind. Definitely a pleasurable sight!

A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orcahrd white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

How the Sun Set · 365 Project

How the Sun Set by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

I'll tell you how the sun rose,--

A ribbon at a time.

The steeples swam in amethyst,

The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said to myself softly,

"That must have been the sun!"

But how he set I know not

There seemed a purple stile

Which little yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while

Til when they reached the other side,

A dominie in gray

Put gently up the evening bars

And led the flock away

~Emily Dickinson

Full Moon at Sunrise · 365 Project

Full Moon at Sunrise by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

Normally I'm not a big fan of full moons because they usually mean trouble in the classroom. And, now that I think of it, kids were particularly squirrelly yesterday, and one boy today was unbelievably squirrelly. So that doesn't especially thrill me. Aside from that, though, I love seeing a full moon. And today, I got a lovely eye-full of the moon as it was setting through the sunrise.

I see the moon,
The moon sees me
God bless the moon,
And God bless me.

-A nursery rhyme

Gnarled · 365 Project

Gnarled by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

This gnarly tree is on a side of campus I don't often go. I noticed it the other day as I was making my supervision rounds. A lone girl was climbing it, lost in her own world. I was reminded of the "helicopter" tree my sisters and I had when we were kids--it was a sycamore tree the grew along side a creek across a field that was next to our yard. We used to love to climb it and pretend we were in a helicopter (not sure why that...) spying on the rest of the world around us. It was big, beautiful, sturdy. We felt safe up in it, in spite of the heights we climbed to. Puts me in mind of another tree-activity we used to love: swinging. And singing Robert Louis Stevenson's poem about "The Swing."  Maybe that was it:  just being up in the air and seeing all that we could see:

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Til I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

Between the dark and the daylight · 365 Project

Between the dark and the daylight by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower,
Come a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the children's hour.

Those are the opening lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Children's Hour."  The poem goes on to talk about his children and the games he plays with them.  It's a sweet recounting of a father's love for his children, one I grew up hearing and loving--for its rhythm and rhyme as much as anything else.

In a way, it was true for me tonight.  I took these pictures of the end of the sunset, at the time between the dark and the daylight, just before I had to go off to my school to watch my students play games.  This month's installment of "Class Games" featured basketball and saw my scrappy sophomores (I'm their sponsor) nearly beat the burley juniors.  They were ahead most of the game, but lost it in the waning moments.  They were disappointed, but I was proud of them.  They've come a long way since last year when they were mostly frustrating freshmen!


The pictures are of the view from my back patio.  I especially love my bougainvillea (beat up a bit as it is) against the beautiful dusky purple sky.

Time-traveling visitor · 365 Project

Time-traveling visitor by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

We had a time-traveling visitor in my AP English class today.  "Jonathan Edwards" came to give us a piece of his Puritan mind and preached portions of his famous (or infamous) sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."  I always find it oddly exhilarating to teach this sermon.  Most of the time, I preach it, but we have a pastor here who is very good with this kind of thing and he had a good time getting into character.  He had the kids close their eyes and imagine they were in the setting in Enfield, CT on July 8, 1741.  Amazingly, none of them fell asleep while they listened with their eyes closed for a good 15 minutes while he railed at them and told them they were going to hell!

Of course I never leave it there, and neither did he.  We had an interesting discussion afterwards about why the Puritans believed the way they did, and how his understanding is vastly different.  After he left, the students read Anne Sexton's lovely poem "Small Wire" that has similar language, but an entirely different application.  They had some interesting reactions while comparing the two pieces.  Some days, it's such fun in the classroom!