Love me, lad.
I dare not ask thee,
Would not task thee,
Yet I’m sad
Not to hear thee
Or be near thee;
Love me, lad.

Love me, lad -
Yet don’t fear me;
If you’re weary
Go, be glad,
Live without me.
Lie about thee,
I won’t, lad.

Nothing, lad,
Is what you owe me.
Proud to know thee,
To have had
some moments with thee
Bright, kind, witty,
Dearest lad!

But if, lad,
You’ve just not thought thee
To have sought me,
I’m mute, lad,
Yet I plead thee
Somewhat speed thee,
Do not bleed me.
I do need thee -
Love me, lad.

Even though my own education was self-directed and patchy, I do have very pretty ideas about how people learn to write.

I am presently taking a distance writing class and I had a course or two at college. What I find is that those kinds of sources have a limited but very important function.

Their limitation is that they will give you fairly generalized instruction, but the benefit is that someone is going to see what you write and point out exactly where you deviate from that instruction. (Hopefully you gain the ability to decide, on mature judgment, which deviations are to the purpose and which are merely oddities.)

Technical excellence is admirable. But I think that the real difference between a good and a bad writer usually comes from less formal influences.  In my own case, homeschooling with an emphasis on language was the big one. I have been journaling since the age of eight, when my Mom handed me a marble school notebook and I discovered the forbidden pleasure of discussing myself and my feelings at length.  But the most important thing of all - and anyone can tell you this but it is too true not to mention - is the benefit of reading. You have to read better stuff than you hope to write yourself. 

I have a theory about how to read poetry. In brief it is that I should only read the poems I succeed in enjoying. Now any worthy enjoyment (this excludes most entertainment) requires some effort. So I like to try enjoying anything I pick up. But if I am not succeeding in enjoying a poem I do not force myself to finish it; rather I go look for something easier. Even if that is only Dr. Seuss. 

I believe that people should read for delight; and what’s more I think there is a trail of delight that leads from each good thing to each greater good thing. Starting at the first place where you are able to taste that delight (it is the tang of Truth) and then following that trail will be at the heart of forming good critical skills. (This process is also part of the journey of our souls and it will lead us to better religion and family and society as well.) 

Sam asked specifically about precision. In my opinion, the best authors from whom to learn precision in writing are British… Lewis, Chesterton, Tolkein, Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers,…and going further back Jane Austen, but her especially.

And there is one great exception to this Brits-only rule. Many people find Jonathan Edwards to be rather cold and sterile…but I think he was simply a master of precision. It was his writing as well as his theology that captured me in my twentieth year. I think the fire is there but it is forced to run along lanes so miniscule and perfect that you have to fall in with them to catch the fire. 

But then to counteract the enchantment of that inessential perfection you have to read and re-read the magnificent imprecision of St. Paul so as not to forget that the fire comes first.

(And where does this fire come from? It is the product of pursuing metaphysical knowledge. Nothing else will do. We must acheive conviction that there is, in some sense at least, a world beyond the obvious material arrangement of our lives; and we must acheive the highest ideas we are able to attain about what that world means and what our world means in relation to it.)

Notice how these writers (St. Paul being an obvious exception) often favour combinations of short, Anglo-Saxon words. While it is true that you can generally say in one Latin-derived word what would require six or ten in the more homely English, that is not always a more precise way to write. Sometimes it robs a writer of the opportunity to make fine distinctions by tweaking a word here and a phrase there.   

Crossing disciplines is also important - both in reading and writing. The most important things I learned about writing prose came from trying to fit a complex thought that would normally have devoured a page into four lines of iambic pentameter. There’s nothing like it to make you look at each word in a sentence and exhaust all its possible relationships with all the other words. 

Then there is essay writing as opposed to novels or short stories and chatty articles or humorous anecdotes as opposed to speeches…we who hope to be good at any of these disciplines must read and try our hand at all of them if we are to know our tools thoroughly. 

Even outside wordworking, crossing disciplines encourages greatness. The confidence we gain from succeeding at downhill skiing; the ambidexterity needed to practice piano; and the awe induced by trying to keep up in a physics or theology class; these can all translate into greater confidence, flexibility, and imaginative powers in our writing.

And speaking of tools, I believe that it’s important to develop a consciousness not only of words but also of larger packages of meaning, which are phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.  

Sometimes saying what you mean requires moving the phrases in a sentence around until the thing balances properly. Sometimes an essay won’t make sense unless you tell your ideas in the right order; in which case it’s important to be able to keep track of your flow of thought throughout the piece of writing. In other words you have to be able to split, re-combine, and move sentences and paragraphs around.  

Sometime when you are writing a sentence try how many different ways you can arrange it.  

If you do this, your awareness of the possibilities open to you will expand.  

You will become more aware of the many expressions at your disposal. 

You will learn that there are many ways to say something and they all mean something slightly different.

Many possible expressions wait on your every thought; if you do this exercise you will become more sensitive to the weight and presence of each one.  

Ultimately, if you have something to say you will find a way to say exactly what you mean, and that’s what precision is. Good writing is honest writing; it tells the truth. This requires the skill and labor to recognize that reality has its own structure and shape and to ensure that one’s text reflects in its own structure the shape of those realities which it is expressing. 

So eventually we must get down to it: practice, practice, practice.

Oh yes: and when we are practicing, we must never become unconscious of how our words, phrases, and sentences sound. Meaning is wrapped up in sound, both tonal and rhythmic. Sometimes the emotional impact of a long word with an ’s’ in it vs. a shorter one with an ‘f’ is the difference between a acceptable sentence and an effective one.

I’ve had some more visitors from facebook and I notice that my facebook post is no longer on the front page.

Yes, this is who you think it is. You are welcome, friends, thanks for visiting. You can refer to us as AR, Scottie, and Johnny…and please keep details about our jobs off the blog. Other than that it’s conversations as usual.

Thanks!

Holly had an eager glance tonight;
She probed my eyes, attended to my hands,
as if she thinks I know the master’s touch
to make her pour out some unearthly song
and almost paint the air with gold and light!
It’s true she’d play for me; almost demands
that she be played. This girl’s suspense is such
as tunes my violin strings taught and long.

A shame she’ll never know my mastery:
it’s just that candor cries, but doesn’t sell.
A louder violin won’t always do,
For worthier instruments have subtlety
and when the whole world sees your choice…ah well -
There’s nothing like a girl in love with you.

My first favorite method is to buy frozen peas and diced carrots and store them in a clear freezer bag so that Johnny can see what I’m pulling out of the freezer. “OOOO, Does Johnny want Blocks and Balls?” I ask with the veggie-light in my eyes.

 He clacks his tongue - every time - in that snacking sound Scottie taught him and looks delighted. I take a handful and run the veggies under warm water just until they are thawed. This way I don’t have to cook them and Johnny doesn’t have to eat mush, against which he was taking a stand before he was even twelve months old.

Once the veggies are thawed - about thirty seconds - I arrange them on his tray, peas on one side and carrots on the other. “Look at these yumadoo orange Blocks!” I say. “And look at these delicious green Balls.” Johnny eats this sort of stuff up.

How did we get there? Well, I have to put part of it down to natural inclination: Johnny just fell in love with peas. He was practicing picking things up and the peas were the perfect size for his fingers. Also, they happen to be tiny eatable balls, and the ball is his second-favorite toy. (Apples - whole, not sliced - get similar preference.)

However I quickly learned that canned peas were not favored. They have an ugly color and they are mushy. Frozen veggies are inexpensive, they are more nearly fresh and very firm, and they have a wonderful bright color. The carrots came with the peas and Johnny soon learned to like them just as much. Putting veggies on his tray before any other food shows up really helps.

My other favorite method is by way of V-8 Vegetable Juice. I put it in a tiny cup. It’s easier for him to drink than fruit juice because it has the pulp and flows more slowly. If I am really, really, in a hurry I can squirt it into his mouth with a medical syringe. Tsk, tsk, that’s the lazy way out and doesn’t teach Johnny independance. Yes, well, at least my kid eats his veggies every single day.

…

John Keats once prayed to touch a maiden’s wrist!

I merely pray that I’ll not first be kissed

(awkward as it must be) before an audience,

Nor by some hurried boy far too intense,

Nor by some practiced jerk who’ll grade my nerved embrace.

I pray to be proposed to with some grace,

to find some garment not-too-short, for first-night rite,

and that my future spouse won’t run his ship too tight.

How slowly, as my youthful years advance,

How surely have I ceased to dream romance.

Still, when the brisk young woman I’ve become

Stops to read what Keats prayed, also young -

The maiden with the rustling gown wakes inside,

Who’d interrupt the poet’s goldfinch-watching by the brook,

Blushing to have kept the unplanned tryst.

Were I to meet his startled look and lyric tongue,

Were he to lead me to the brook’s far side,

I think that leaving, I, like her, would turn and look

A few more times when he had brushed my wrist...

(referring to the following excerpt from an untitled poem 

by John Keats, romantic poet: 

published when he was about twenty-two years of age)

…Linger awhile upon some bending planks

That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks

And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings:

They will be found softer than ring-dove’s cooings.

How silent comes the water round that bend;

not the minutest whisper does it send

To the o’erhanging sallows: blades of grass

Slowly across the chequered shadows pass.

Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach

To where they hurrying freshnesses aye preach

A natural sermon o’er their pebbly beds;

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,

Staying their wavy bodies ‘gainst the streams,

To taste the luxury of sunny beams

Temper’d with coolness. How they ever wrestle

With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle

Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand.

If you but scantily hold out the hand,

That very instant not one will remain;

But turn your eye, and they are there again.

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses,

And cool themselves among the em’rald tresses;

The while they cool themselves, they freshness give,

And moisture, that the bowery green may live:

So keeping up an interchange of favours,

Like good men in the truth of their behaviours.

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop

From low hung branches; little space they stop;

But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;

Then off at once as in a wanton freak:

Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings,

Pausing upon their yellow flutterings

Were I in such a place, I sure should pray

That naught less sweet, might call my thoughts away,

Than the soft rustle of a maiden’s gown

Fanning away the dandelion’s down;

Than the light music of her nimble toes

Patting against the sorrel as she goes.

How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught

Playing in all her innocence of thought.

O let me lead her gently o’er the brook,

Watch her half-smiling lips, and downward look;

O let me for one moment touch her wrist;

Let me one moment to her breathing list;

And as she leaves me may she often turn

Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne…

Holly Brightweed spread her arms and ran
out from the double hayloft doors, and yelled
“I’m riding home, Dad! See you there!”. She bent
and snatched the green knit scarf her basket held,
wound her neck, then seized her prostrate bike.
“Now down this frozen track in time” she said,
“befitting Gwenyth’s steed.” Both grace and use
she had in mounting; sternly bent her head,
made instant force against the pedal. Wind!
Her face rejoiced.
                           The road was straight and long;
Her father’s fields lay square on either side.
Halfway down she halted. “Something’s wrong.”
To left and right two lines of trees split fields.
To right she stared. “A fair enchantment, this”
the girl pronounced, and stilled her mount. “Gray sky,
gray fields, dark limbs of trees, and who should kiss
a thing so dead but White Queen Winter?” (Lines
she’d learned by heart.) The flakes fell silently.
She breathed.
                      Her father’s pick-up passed her then,
honking twice. She smiled and waved, and he
did too. His deep red hat reminded her
that Christmas-time was here when through her home
bright red would hang and drape and plop and cook.
“Evergreen dreams and gingerspice days and comb
your hair and sing his praise and presents lay
beneath the tree to Grandmother’s house we go…”
She sang a hodgepodge medley, riding on
past one more field.
                                Their house was now below,
glowing in a little dale. Holly stood
astride her bike, gazed down the craggy ridge.
Her dad was walking ‘cross the yard, and through
the window Holly saw before the ‘fridge
her mother pulling out a yellow bowl.
Dinner soon!
                      Holly Brightweed shoved
her feet against the ground and sailed the last
few yards down to her home. The bike she loved
she almost tossed inside the lean-to; then
she ran. In the house her parents kissed
and Holly, washing at the kitchen sink,
sang and splashed and sudsed and sighed and swished.

The Wall Street Jounal Online linked to this recent blogpost about Russia, National Intelligence and the Mythical Iranian Nuclear Program.

A Putin-admirer we all know and love is the intelligent author of this post.

I realize that few figures lend themselves visually to thoughts of intrigue and mystery more than the hood of a monk. Nevertheless this trend in which exciting fictional stories feature a church as arch-villian is distressing to me mainly because of the church’s identification with Christ, whom I love beyond anything. Still, I’m not ready to say that there is no reason for this spate of Gibbon-esque religion-bashing that’s been going on recently, and I’m even less ready to say that the reason is none of the church’s responsibility. Just maybe, my fellow Christians, the disintegration of Western cultures on the Church’s watch is part of the problem here? Weren’t we supposed to be the guardians of everything good? 

That said, I don’t see these novels as serious participants in the pressing cultural issue of what to do with (or without) religion. Yesterday I looked at a small rack of bestsellers in a book store and at least five of them were of this Church=Villian type. I glanced at the final sentence in one of them and it said something to this effect: In the final analysis, you have three religions, each of which believes that it is right and the other is wrong. This is the real problem. (I assume it was referring to the three great monotheistic religions.)

When you are writing for money (not something I have a problem with in itself by the way) it can be tempting to pretend to address a problem only to end by dismissing it altogether.  As if I were to say, “Look at all these Presidential nominees. You want to know which one I’m going to vote for? Confusing, isn’t it. Well have you noticed all think they should be President? In my opinion that’s their problem. Since they can’t agree on which of them is right, the Presidency must be a pointless office. If it were as important as everyone pretends, it would surely be easier to make a decision about! Down with civil service!”

Not that there isn’t a problem in modern religion. Far too many evil things have been done and are still being done in its name. If it weren’t for the warning of our dear Fr. B— about bad-mouthing other religions, I could tell some ugly stories from first-hand experience. Nothing, in fact, is uglier than religion gone bad.

There are two opposing explanations offered for this fact. One is that religion is incapable of being a good, helpful factor in human life. The other is that religion is the best part of human life, and therefore when it does go sour, it has farther to fall and becomes a greater evil than any other evil. Then of course there’s the middle road which says that whenever society becomes multi-cultural, a new generation has to learn to get along and be tolerant and we are still just in the middle of that process. Havn’t quite figure it out yet.

I tend to the second view, with a nod to the third. The fact is, religion is the only thing that makes my life worth living.

So now, Mr. Author whose name I have forgotten - allow me to say that the problem is not us religious people thinking we are right. It’s impossible to be human and not think you are right about some things. In fact, the hope of being or becoming right is what keeps most of us who are remotely serious about life - probably including you - going.

I think the problem is our historic construct in Western Christianity, and far more so in the larger part of Islam, about how to act when we think we are right. What to do about being right. How much room to make for being somewhat wrong in the midst of being mostly right. And the value of human beings, even when they are wrong.

But aren’t these things precisely what religion is supposed to teach us? Well, yes. And this is where I decline to jump too harshly on Philip Pullman and his like, however little interest I have in reading his Church-bashing. That our religion is failing more and more to teach us these and other things is … well, a large part of the reason I am turning to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

About that: popular culture seems to associate Christianity with the West, and yet it originated in the East and in the East it has largely remained healthy and fostered healthy societies. The Orthodox Church simply features far less abuses, frivolities, and fakery. One is inclined to suspect that there is a counter-abusive force deep in the heart of the thing - whatever the mediocrity, jurisdictional battles, or occasional abuses floating on its periphery.

Thankfully, as I get deeper into Orthodox Christianity I can attest that experience confirms that suspicion of a Love-Force at the heart. I know the calming of my own soul since I’ve come here. I know the love that has been poured out on me and that, rather than blame and abuse and scorn, is what I’d rather pour out on other people in return.

So maybe some novelist wanting a new twist on all of this should tell a story in which someone abused by some of the darker corners of religion finds peace in Eastern Orthodoxy only to emerge a hero with new-found answers to tired old problems. It wouldn’t be that hard for a lot of us to believe. 

Face it, some literary trends are pretty shallow. Exploring new worlds (Fantasy/SciFi) is a bottomless well of delightful stories. Being anti-something, on the other hand, only takes you so far before leaving you high and dry, because it has no reality of its own, finding necessity to draw on that which it opposes for its own existance and substance. Wealthy the geniuses, like Pullman, who learn to make the latter lean on the former - but even his story, I hear, loses steam once it has to face the stark reality of what to do without religion, for better or worse.

No, no, I haven’t read His Dark Materials. Yes, yes, I’m going to get to it; I am not without natural curiosity. (Exits with dignity.)

Today Johnny started cimbing stairs. Since we don’t have any in the house, that was quite an accomplishment.

I tend to get rather sedentary during the winter and so far Johnny, a very very physical person, has put up with the new boring regime fairly meekly. Today he had enough. His persistence in piling my lap with shoes and outdoor articles of clothers…er, clothing, was amazing. When he wasn’t doing that he was hanging on the doorknob gazing back at me and making noises expressive of unutterable longing.

Finally I gave in. I hardly knew I was doing it. At one moment he had put his red shirt in my hand so many times that it was easier to just put it on him that to keep putting it back in the laundry basket from which he had retrieved it. His jeans and coat followed, and by that time I was resigned. I put on his shoes and coat and we ventured out into the snow with his ball.

He glowered at the neighbor who was shoveling the walk and kissed me possessively (his new stage is jealousy of anyone who looks at Mom; except when Dad is home in which case he is jealous of the attention Mum gets from Dad.) He threw his ball and tried to run into the street, only to be blocked by a pile of plowed snow. He stared at the snow in perplexity until I threw his ball back down the sidewalk toward the house and got him moving again. By the time we were back at the house I was so cold I knew I couldn’t take another minute of it and we went back in the house. Johnny was distraught. I distracted him with food. We had a nap.

He woke up and pretty much was immediately back at it again. Apparently freezing our noses off for three minutes didn’t satisfy his desire to get out of the appartment and play ball (which he pronounces “BAH!” in a very solemn tone.)

I compromised by letting him throw his soft rubber ball in the appartment-building hallway and chase it up and down. There are four sets of stairs - two up and two down - in said hallway and I suppose it was inevitable that he would want to explore them eventually. First he tentatively threw the ball up the stairs. As it bounced down I said “plop, plop, plop” - one plop for each time it hit. He thought that was so funny that we spent probably ten minutes just throwing the ball and saying plop, laughing hysterically, and then fetching the ball to throw it again.

But Johnny is not easily satisfied, as I may have mentioned before. He knelt on the first step. He climbed it. He came down. He went up three steps and down again. Then he went all the way to the top, me walking behind and taking pictures for the “Johnny - the Second Year” scrapbook that will be coming up next September.

Johnny was so delighted (oblivious, of course, to the roiling fears that had sprouted from my innards as I held out my hands ready to catch him all the way.) So naturally, he proceeded to take a comprehensive Tour of the Building’s Stairways. He walked down the upstairs hallway, and descend from the other set of stairs, me holding his hand. Once on the bottom level again, he found a basement stairway and threw his ball down - an excercise in “putting” that meant he got to go down after it. (Living room rule.)

After this, an exhausting bout of going up and down over and over again, couple with erratic ball-throwing, ensued. And yet when I took him inside for his dinner, he still threw himself on the door in anguish and begged for more. Some shaved turkey and grapes and banannas and Ramen Noodles distracted him and now he’s in bed.

But there’s alway tomorrow.

Today my baby displayed his first evidence of shame. He bit my neck and I scolded him, rather mildly. But another woman was present, and little Johnny surprised me by bursting into tears, burying his nose in my neck, and covering his cheeks and eyes with his hands.

Am I proud? No. I think it’s so sad. Already innocence has taken a step toward the door.

I have to teach him right and wrong. But the effects are…well, the law incites sin.  It’s a horrible paradox. I’m so glad that the Orthodox Church offers salvation at an infant level to infants, as well as at an adult level to adults.

Of which saint, I wonder, should I ask prayers for the wellbeing of my precious son’s soul? And will I ever again have the courage to bring into this perilous, sinful, dying world a creature in whom is “the seed of corruption?”

Of Kale Polli, she the long-betrothed
To One All-Loved Man -
I cannot speak in measure.
Her peace is all my pleasure.

Lumed in the final solar span
I saw her last, in countless tiny jewels clothed.
They were the waterdrops she lies amid,
For here, within an earthcloud, that man hid
Her, Kale Polli, his treasure.

I think, and shudder, once a day
(Since the loved man came and went)
Of dragons, and that six-legged Serpent
Who swore ago to shred her roasted flesh.
How her spires tremble, her high-hoven halls hush;
A song outsighs, “Oh Come, You All-Loved Man, and Stay…”

Shelter here, You Milky Lustrous Gem,
I am your Beloved’s land, O Kale Polli, I am true.
My clods are damp and ugly tubers sprout from them,
But every morning I aspire for you:
I breathe aloft a sheltering aerojewel cloud.
If he is yours, you are my reason to be proud.
For your sake, long ago, I was not left to burn.
Untroubled sleep: the All-Loved Man -
Having full unscrolled an Ancient Plan -
Will soon return.

Children come into this world serious beings. I know this is true because I watch Johnny, and once watched younger siblings, in their serious endeavors. Always the very young are seeking to acquire skills and accomplish feats. No one blames them that their goals are meaningless in the wider scheme of things. We know they are trying instinctually to become fully human.

 Now why does this attitude peter out so quickly? Why do teens, for instance, talk unendingly of fun and we young adults complain of the effort it takes to accomplish our little tasks? Why do so many who should be growing into elders grow fat and poor instead? Why are we so life-weary so young?

And does this, by any chance, have something to do with today’s religious, sexual, and artistic incapacitation?

And yet the occasional efforts to fix this moral laziness are so destructive. I really abhor most of these so-called educational toys that parents are often guilted into giving their kids. Johnny wants to practice putting one block on top of the other. How disengenuous would it be for me to sneak in a little pre-school by painting numbers and letters on the side?

So I vow that in our living room culture, “fun” is going to be the dirtiest word. Fun is way too cheap a form of enjoyment to satisfy a merry little soul like Johnny. And the next dirtiest word will be “education.” To aquire true learning he must transcend mere education - and besides, everyone now knows that education (modern word for a modern concept) stresses kids out rather than challenging them.

All I want to do is keep my son from forgetting about the joys of accomplishment, of relationship, and of action. I must not, by pampering, neglecting, or frustrating, rob him of the power to act rather than merely thinking or intending…

This means escalating the challenges, facilitating the goals, and nipping in the bud all those little shoots of laziness and self-protection that come along so quickly. It means having the personal courage to enjoy work as much as he does. It means sustaining the attention needed for praising or blaming fairly. It means having the nerve to leave him alone sometimes so he can internally work through his external experiences. It means nourishing him physically, environmentally, spiritually and emotionally…without pampering or pandering. It means so preparing him for a hard but rewarding life that any other would be distasteful to him. 

In fact, it means creating a whole moral Universe for him to live in instead of the one actually surrounding us. Yes, all that just to let him keep his birthright.

What must I give up, what unnatural efforts must I put forth?

… 

Naked came I to this room
Involuntary
Around me stand the harp and broom
And reliquary

…

Passersby perform the Parting Lie
Around my window
Berries blush their bluest in the shadow
Of the bottle-fly
Iward some daft light I know not darts between
The bulbous glow and foul insectuous sheen
And all that I can say is
This above and this below and this:

…

Why I know not nor to Whom
Naked came I to this room;
Naked fell I to the floor
No one bade me Shut The Door

..