The God of More

An Anthology of Anedcotes

A Compilation of Occurences

A Collection of Circumstances

Or, some of the things I've been up to the past few weeks. Many are stories I first told in other venues, so words like "today" and "yesterday" aren't entirely accurate in their context in this post. Some are excerpts from things I've read or consumed or done. Some are mere thoughts I've had or memes I've enjoyed. A partial portrait of my recent life in pointillistic style.

“Do you believe in heaven?"

"Yes and no," said Granny Squeak. "When people talk about heaven, they usually mean something far away in the sky that comes after you . . . um . . . pass on. But I don't think heaven is like that. I think it's low down--and everywhere, even when you're still here. You only have to decide to see it.”

― Nick Lake, Lily and the Night Creatures

This morning I was browsing reader book reviews and saw yet another one complaining they didn't enjoy the book because they found the protagonist annoying. It's a common experience, one I've had myself with some titles. And I thought, That's the key, isn't it, the main challenge an author faces: creating characters that feel real because they're flawed--emotional, temperamental, biased, given to outbursts and bad decisions--without being so much so that they're unsympathetic. They need to be relatably imperfect so that readers can find themselves in the story. Make the characters too perfect and readers can't relate; too flawed and they can't either. It's all about finding that balance.

A few months ago, in Neo Crossed with Willy Loman, I wrote about reading the books of and interacting with author James Kennedy. Since the post was so much about him and is public, I looked him up on Facebook and sent him the link--better to find it that way than later through a random Google search. We had a short conversation after. It included:

Him: I'm really glad you gave DTK a chance and appreciated it (especially since you liked the parts I'm particularly proud of but I was afraid nobody else would get; and also because you made the effort to understand the humanity of the narrator and don't glibly dismiss him as "unlikeable").

Me: What's the point of a narrator/protagonist who is not flawed? I actually found him scarily relatable.

Him: Me too, which is why I get uncomfortable at all the Goodreads reviews that say "What an irredeemable jerk!" Like, I know he's not perfect, but I shudder to think what would happen if these folks read A Fan's Notes or A Confederacy of Dunces or even Notes From Underground. Not putting myself in league with those. I'm just saying it's a valid move!

I'm reminded of the different categories for stories we were taught sometime long ago in my youth. Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Others, Man vs. Self, etc. Something like that (not important enough to go look up). A story has to have some type of conflict, some type of problem, or it's not interesting enough to be much of a story. Most stories are about people. So they're about people with problems. In some stories, the problems are external (nature, others, etc.) and in others they're internal (self).

My favorite stories are character-driven ones. Ones about the people and their internal conflicts and flaws more than about the plot or events. I don't mind a mix where some of the issues have external sources, but if there aren't any self-created ones I'm generally not interested because I can't relate to the characters. What's the point of a protagonist who is not flawed? I want to read about people like me.

Anyway, to get around to the things promised in the possible subtitles and mini-introduction above . . . 

Last Christmas we got two "Charlie Brown" trees at the very last minute, I think even for free (I know we pulled one out of the store's trash). As I was looking at one, I noticed an interesting cluster of branches coming out of the same spot. I studied the rest and felt the tree wanted to be something else when it was done with Christmas. The first thing that jumped out was a spiky mace, but I didn't want to make a weapon, and so came up with the idea of a scepter.

In January, I cut off the parts I didn't need and set the core aside for later. When I had a bit of spending money, I bought a cheap beginner wood carving set. Then I got busy with other things. This past week I took the weekdays off (sandwiched between a Sunday and Saturday at work) for some "me" time at home, and finally decided to pull it out and get to work. It's my first time ever doing anything like this and it looks appropriately amateur, but I gave it a protective finish and decorated it with trinkets from my treasure chest, and I now have a Druid scepter/rod/staff/wand (in the Dungeons & Dragons sense).

(Letting my freak flag fly.)

I find I relate to this more and more all the time.

I haven't gotten to the point where I can identify many birds by name yet, but I do notice them way more than I used to and am happily entertained watching and listening to them when I didn't used to be.

I also find myself yearning more all the time to make things and be creative. I'm not sure if, like bird-watching, it's related to age or simply my circumstances, but I want to do art (flaws and all).

I really like this quote from Free Lunch by Rex Ogle:

Being poor in this country is like--like starving at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can see all of this food piled high, but you can't have any of it. It's just out of reach. Like everything else. Jobs. Houses. The things you see in TV commercials. It's all a pipe dream for people like us. It's all window-shopping. The grocery stores, the malls, the car lots everywhere. It's all luxury, and people don't realize how lucky they are if they can afford any of it. We know, because we can't have any of it. No matter how hard we work, we'll never have money like the people at the top. We work just as hard as they do. Harder sometimes. But we'll never make the money they make. The system is broke.

Not all conflicts and problems are internal, caused by personal flaws. The worst, most powerful and significant are systemic. Nevertheless, they never exist in isolation. My review of the book:

Embarrassment reaches its highest intensity levels in middle school. The need to fit in is strongest during those years, the desire to find approval from peers, and the insecurity that you might in some way be wrong. Worry and mortification are constant companions. All of it creates a skewed sense of self and view of the world, and can lead to inappropriate lashing out and poor decisions.

For sixth-grader Rex Ogle, all of his embarrassment centers on his family's extreme poverty. He is horrified to find himself on the free lunch program at school, having to announce in front of everyone each day that he is poor. He can't stand that his clothes are old, that his mom uses coupons at the store, and that so many other things about his life aren't "normal" the way he imagines they should be.

His feelings are so strong, he can't even differentiate between the negativity he feels due to his skewed perceptions and disappointed expectations and that due to the neglect, physical abuse, and cruelty his parents sometimes display. His life includes real hardship and suffering, and he constantly rails against it--making his situation even worse as often as not.

This is a powerful story, made all the more so for it's truth. Ogle tells his story in present tense, giving it such immediacy that I forgot it wasn't fiction until the character said his name a good way into it; it feels like a cautionary tale an author might imagine, but this is something he lived and is reporting on. The writing is personal, gripping, and effective, and the story is a moving one. Even as he makes mistakes, readers understand this young man and feel what he does. I definitely recommend it.

The bigger issues are systemic; the story is about a real, relatable person: Even as he makes mistakes, readers understand this young man and feel what he does. Ogle finds the balance.

I mentioned above Lily and the Night Creatures by Nick Lake. Here's more:

An atmospheric tale of the night. Of darkness. Most importantly, of dealing with darkness. Darkness of the emotional kind, vividly realized in the form of horrific replacement parents that have stolen Lily's house in the night and a band of talking animals who help her find her courage.

Lily is the kind of sick that requires regular visits to the hospital and might result in an early death. As the story starts, she is returning from a treatment with her Granny, her parents having gone to a different hospital for the birth of a new baby. She feels she is being replaced by a new, non-defective version, and just wants everything to go back to the way it used to be. She sneaks home to find where her parents have gone--to possibly reject the baby in person--and finds her house unnaturally dark, occupied by creepy beings pretending to be her parents who say she no longer has a place with them. With that confrontation, she begins a long supernatural and emotional struggle to reclaim her family and herself, illness and all.

It must be said this is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls, and Kenneth Oppel's The Nest. Both the writing and the illustrations are equal to the task, and it stands well alongside them.

I can imagine many different emotions behind this car window cling I saw today. I wonder what this driver was feeling.

I am the furthest thing from a disappointed parent as possible; though, as with my protagonists, I do not expect perfection. Here is a bunch of stories about our boys, ages 7 and 8, and some of our parenting.

A couple days ago the boys were playing on the patio while I was hanging out off to the side. They started arguing and one of them chased the other into the house (I was looking the other way so didn't see the order). Then I heard a scream of pain and crying.

[Older] came back out to cool off with me while [Spouse] took care of [Younger] and his injury. There is dispute about how [Younger]'s hand got into [Older]'s mouth--a punch? a shove? self-defense?--but [Older] admitted to biting.

After the initial cooling off, [Younger] poked his head back out of the house and said, "[Older], you bit me so hard that my hand was bleeding."

"I know," [Older] responded. "I had to pick a bit of your skin out of my teeth."

Last evening, [Spouse] and I escaped to the basement for a little TV downtime and left the boys to their own devices. Uncle [Roommate] came down at one point to report:

"I was on the patio. [Younger] picked up a random board with some nails sticking out and started using it to poke and smash a pumpkin that he found. After a while, I suggested it might be safer to go get his toolbelt to use some proper tools for the enterprise. He said his mom has taken away his toolbelt since he kept using his tools to smash things.

"Eventually, [Older] poked his head out. At first his face was dismayed at the destruction of his pumpkin. But then [Younger] said they could take the pieces and throw them at and rub them on each other. So now they're running around the backyard doing that."

The Renaissance Festival seems to be [Older]'s place where good intentions become infamous legends.

The last time we went, in 2015 or 16 I think, we took him to the petting zoo. He really, really wanted to hug a sheep. But the animals weren't going for it, and each one he went after ran away. It became an enthusiastic chase, until he had the whole pen stampeding around to avoid him, much to the amusement of all the onlookers.

Yesterday, we spontaneously decided to go when we saw decent weather coinciding with the Chiefs opening game and something at the racetrack that we hoped would keep others away--which was great, by the way; it was the least crowded we've seen it in 20 years, just a beautiful day. The boys are now old enough and into fantasy adventures to revel in the spirit of the event. They had a great time.

As to [Older]'s notoriety; soon after we arrived we saw a flame juggler starting his show and sat down on a bench right in front by the stage. Midway through the show, Maxwell the Magnificent had four flaming torches going when a bandana fell out of the his pocket. Before anyone knew what was going on, [Older] darted onstage to pick it up so Maxwell wouldn't trip over it. Except, just as [Older] was crouched down, Maxwell turned around and almost ran into [Older]. No torches were dropped; no one fell or was hurt; but everyone nearly had a heart attack. It became a running joke the rest of the show and Maxwell worked it into his patter the rest of the day. He even called out "Hey, [Older]!" as we were walking by near closing, then we heard him start working the story into the conversation he was having.

We met with [Younger]'s second grade teacher after school today just to get to know each other and open communication for the school year. A couple of favorite things from it:

She said [Younger]'s behavior the past week has been especially good, to the point that today he almost took it too far. "He started putting other kids in TAPS (Total and Absolute Silence) and then telling them when they did a good job."

And [Spouse] updated the teacher that [Younger] has made peace with a peer. The second day of school they had a running conflict that included kicking each other on the playground and a call home from the principal. But he's told [Spouse] they've worked it out and are now friends, including, in his words, "we conspired to go behind the teachers' backs."

Oh, and while I'm composing this he's improvising a song on the piano. Sample lyrics: "Never trust the dentist because dentists never learn. . . . Sometimes they use a chainsaw to take out your cavities."

"Today was not my favorite day ever," began [Older]. Then he told us about all the things that went wrong at school. His tale ended at lunch, where his friends were giving him a hard time about being angry about his bad day. "I wanted to die dramatically," he finished (acting it out a bit for us).

We are sympathetic, but we're also laughing because it's so him to add the "dramatically." And self-aware, that the feeling was wanting to make a display of his emotions and not actually die.

Previous school years, [Older] has said he didn't have any real friends and was lonely. He seemed mostly indifferent to peers. So it was a relief when his recent response to the idea of going to a different school was, "No, because I'd miss all my friends."

Just now we were stopped behind a car that had Guy Fawkes and Anarchy stickers, and he asked what they meant.  I gave a quick explanation, ending with it means they basically are against a big government. But that can mean two different things: the person could be for no rules and total chaos and everyone doing what they want or they could be for having rules and consideration for others where it's determined as locally as possible, in small communities.

Reaching for an example on the fly, I said, "So instead of a government making laws that you have to be nice and get along, it's our family agreeing on rules and keeping each other in line. So if you murdered someone it wouldn't be police that punished you, it would be [Younger] and Mom, and Dad."

"I like that," he said, "because there are a lot of people at my school I'd like to murder."

So I failed at properly explaining an anarchistic political philosophy, but we have confirmation he's no longer indifferent to peers and has fully integrated socially on both sides of the coin.

(Though . . . as we were sitting before church watching everyone gather, he said, "Oh, drat, another kid. I like it when I'm the only one who leaves for children's church so it's just me and the adults.")

[Older]'s allergies are acting up right now, with coughing and an asthma flare, so we've prohibited him from going outside and I refused to kick the soccer ball around with him last night. Instead, the boys spontaneously started playing soccer in the hallway, with [Older]'s beloved stuffy, Wolfie, as the ball.

One of my parenting strategies is asking the kids, "How will Future You feel about that decision when it's time to accept the consequences?"

Most often with things along the lines of: "Do you want to shower tonight or in the morning?" Though sometimes it's more like: "Do you want all your teeth to rot and fall out by the time you're 60?"

Thinking in terms of "future me" has been a very helpful frame for me to have, and I hope they learn it as well.

The other day I was trying to explain to the boys why I sometimes get grouchy about the house being messy. "I go to work and clean up after kids.* Then I come home and clean up after kids.** Then I go to work and clean up after kids. Then I come home and clean up after kids." Instead of sympathy, they responded with laughter. They laughed and laughed.

*Among many, many other things.

**Among a few other things.

Last night a plastic egg we hid on Easter turned back up in our yard. Candy missing.

(Near what looks like the entrance to an animal tunnel under the barn foundation slab.)

Yesterday we were browsing the pet store. [Younger], of course, wanted to see their cats for adoption. They had four. As a group, they had an excellent collection of names:

 - Joaquin

 - Reader Rabbit

 - All Purpose

 - Kevin

Today was just the fourth week of our post-Covid return to storytimes--so the most anyone could have attended before today was three--and already a little boy ran up to the library's Kids desk on his arrival excited to see Mr. [Degolar]. He and his mom gushed to the person there about me and he lit up when I walked around the corner a few moments later.

Which is not to toot my own horn--it happens to everyone who does storytimes. We're preschool celebrities. People they go to see put on shows they anticipate. To me, it's a responsibility to be worthy of the anticipation.

My favorite was when a little boy showed up in khaki pants and a polo shirt because he wanted to dress like me.

Anyway, I made the rare choice to include a nonfiction offering among my books today because I like it's message so much. Reminds me very much of Ted Lasso, which I just finally started watching sporadically (no Apple TV access for us). It went well.

From Seeds by Carme Lemniscates:

And we can plant many different kinds of seeds.

A smile is a powerful seed.

One the can bring joy and friendship.

But there are also seeds that bring anger and misunderstanding.

When those seeds grow, they pull us apart.

Seeds can only bring what they carry.

Pumpkin seeds bring pumpkins; kindness seeds bring kindness.

You have lots of seeds, and you get to decide which ones

to plant and which ones to help grow.

See more at Solving Hard Problems with People You Admire.

A storytime moment . . . 

 -- When Sharky was around, the clownfish cleared out, the flatfish fled, and even the rocks go out of her way. -- 

"Wow, that's pretty scary. Have any of you ever scared a rock before?"

"No. No. No. No. No. Yes. No. No. No."

"Did I hear a yes? You've scared a rock before?"

"Yeah!"

"You have?"

"Yeah!"

"Wow!" I kind of wanted to hear the story, but went back to reading the book.

From Sharky McShark by Alison Murray

I just discovered today (using it is not one of my regular tasks) that the automatic sorter machine at our return window (book drop) orders users when it wants cleaning. I'm not sure if this falls more into "helpful reminder" or "robotic overlord" territory.

Yesterday I checked out the trails at a new park (newish; my first time there). One of the things I found interesting was a bit of . . . I don't know if you'd call it nature archeology--the impact of human culture on nature.

We have fencing around our yard, and are constantly fighting to trim back all the saplings that sprout up from tree seeds that spread under them and escape the lawnmowers.

There was a good mile of trail that looked really boring on the map, basically just straight lines that I thought might go through flat fields or be otherwise open and unremarkable. Instead, I found those sections followed old fence lines, but were fascinating. The straight lines were rows of trees that had been safe from cutting because they were sheltered by the fences, and the trails constantly wove back and forth through them in a highly interesting way. At times the trees were (or had been) so tightly grouped they almost made an impassable wall.

I find it fascinating that an area we're now preserving and protecting from development as wild nature was so completely shaped by past human habitation and activities.

Since I got sucked into making my druid scepter, I only managed to go hiking one day of my mini-vacation. Still, it was worth it.

Scientists Are Unlocking the Secrets of Why Forests Make Us Happy

Scores of peer-reviewed studies have identified the myriad benefits of wooded landscapes on everything from improved cardiovascular and immune system health to depression, which decreased with immersion in a forest alongside lower levels of anxiety, anger, confusion, and fatigue.

But it appears the type of forest may be important too: Intriguingly, several studies suggest that more biodiversity has a bigger boost on people’s mental health, while the recording of brain activity in response to forest density found a more relaxed state and reduced tension and fatigue in forests with a lower density of trees—from 30 percent to 50 percent—suggesting that densely packed conifer plantations aren’t so restorative.

When I can't get out for a hike, I try to at least take a break to sit or walk around trees for a bit.

From The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy, edited by James Crews:

Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

PEACE CAME TODAY

Peace came today

through a slender breeze.

Stopping for a moment in the field,

I felt the clouds of my mind

gently lift and move along.

Some days it happens like this--

with simplicity, lightness, ease.

Others, I must haul my complaints

to the ocean's edge,

look out across the blue water,

out beyond I know not what,

somewhere past the horizon,

and beseech, and invoke, and beg,

and breathe the salt air in

until, quieted again, I am opened

with no words to pour in between

this life and the life I am living.

Nothing left to long for.

Nothing left to say.

I've just started the book and am taking my time with it, so I don't have a review yet, just a couple of pieces from the early pages. I relate to this one.

(The book is a sequel of sorts to How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, which I featured in There Is No Regeneration Without Degeneration.)

I'm not getting into current events in this post, but this editorial is excellent.

Have We Forgotten What a Public Library Is For?

In August, people in Jamestown, Mich., just outside Grand Rapids, signaled with their votes that they would rather defund — and possibly shutter — their only public library than keep books with LGBTQ themes on the shelves.

The impact of such a vote is deeply concerning. And the place from which it stems — a small but vocal minority trying to dictate what others can and cannot read — is even more troubling.

Libraries fill a role central to any functioning democracy: upholding the rights of citizens to read, to seek information, to speak freely. As champions of access, librarians are committed to curating collections that allow everyone who enters the library to see themselves in the books and resources the library provides. It is especially crucial to serve people who belong to traditionally marginalized groups — such as the LGBTQ community — which have historically been underrepresented in the publishing industry. . . . 

Describing an “alarming increase in acts of aggression toward library workers and patrons,” the ALA in June issued a statement condemning “violence, threats of violence and other acts of intimidation increasingly taking place in America’s libraries.”

This is what the censors refuse to grasp: Librarians are not trying to force your children to read material you don’t want them to read. They are fulfilling their role as information professionals tasked with upholding the constitutional promise of access to information for all. . . . 

It is important to note the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court on this topic. In 1982, the court determined that removing books from a school library because certain people simply disliked the ideas contained in those books violated the First Amendment rights of students.

Everyone should be able to find a story where they can find themselves.

Recently a Twitter thread came across my feed from a Michaela Atencio. I suppose it's a little bit current events, but mostly it's interesting--and good--theology.

i'm nonbinary. how does this reconcile with the verse, "male and female he created them," you may ask?

the variety in God's creation emphasizes God's creativity as an artist. Genesis gives us several examples of this.

God made "day and night." this sounds like a binary, similar to "male and female," right?

that isn't quite all we experience in 24 hours. sunrises and sunsets do not fit into the binary of day or night. yet God paints the skies with these too.

On the second day God separated the sky from water, seems like another binary.

yet the clouds hold water for us in the sky, the condensation and rain cycle refreshing our earth constantly. the sky, separate from water, contains and releases water.

God also said "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."

that isn't the full story, either. consider marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens. not fully land, not fully waters. there is such glorious variety in God's creation.

We see another binary in the celestial bodies God made: "the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night." and then, almost as a footnote, "and the stars."

there is more than just sun and moon in outer space. planets, asteroids, black holes, supernovae.

side note: these magnificent stars hundreds of times more massive than our sun, as simple as that to God.

"and the stars."

I marvel. Hallelujah.

"God created the great sea monsters" and "every winged bird of every kind." a split again between water and sky.

yet we see creatures like penguins that are definitely a "winged bird," but do not fly and instead walk and swim.

and finally "male and female he created them."

first off, intersex people exist.

but, and perhaps more importantly, friends, look around. listen. do you have friends or family that say they don't fall under "male" or "female?" if so, honor that.

does all this variety invalidate God as creator? of course not!

I believe that this instead is an example of how authors weave words to tell a story. we see the author in Genesis give examples of the extremes that God creates. It doesn't exclude the possibility of more.

and so we worship the God of more. The God of the marsh, the penguin, the God of the sunrise, the cloud, the supernovae. The God of the nonbinary.

you are loved.

I love that final tweet (though it needs the context of everything that leads up to it).

Also from The Path to Kindness:

Danusha Lameris

SMALL KINDNESSES                           

 

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress

to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

It's the poem that opens the collection, leading the way for the rest.

We worship the God of More. The God of the Marsh, the Penguin, the God of the Sunrise, the Cloud, the Supernovae. The God of the Nonbinary.

“Spells aren't real," said Lily.

"Really?" said Crow. "Try telling someone you forgive them. That you love them. Or that you don't forgive them. That you hate them. Spells are very real.”

― Nick Lake, Lily and the Night Creatures