A Confession: Jane Austen & Joshua the Warrior

I'm gonna be real with you.

In the last week, I've watched five movies that were based on Jane Austen books. In the last month, I've seen two or three more. In the last few months, I've read three Austen books, and I plan to finish her collection in the next few months. This sudden obsession is funny because I have not adored her novels in the past. It's only been recently that I have found great delight in them. And I think it's because I finally understand them.

There is a different character for each mood or fancy I am in. When I am anxious, I find Fanny to be kin; when I am self-confident and proud, I seek out Elizabeth. If I am flighty and romantic, or conversely responsible and sensible, I choose whichever of the sisters Elinor or Marianne that I wish. When I feel meddlesome, I learn a lesson from Emma. When I feel very much the old maid and tire of waiting, I seek comfort with Anne Eliot. And when I find myself too much entranced by books and bored with my own life, I laugh at Catherine's Gothic perspective on life.

I was not mature enough for these women at age 18. Although the characters are about that age, they are at a vastly different point in life than I was. They are looking for husbands when I was looking for a rug for my dorm room. In that era, I would be considered nearing the position of "old maid" at the age of 23. Instead, in my own society, I am quite young to be thinking of marriage, and though most of my friends are doing so already, I find myself in much the same boat as Elizabeth or Elinor or Fanny: waiting to see what happens.

It is satisfying to me that most of these women did not seek out love; no, instead it came to them in the form of a new tenant, or a friend of a friend, or a brother of a neighbor. Or, perhaps it was there all along, as Emma found. Love happened upon them, and they chose to act.

Granted, I understand that real life, especially in this day and age, is much different. We have bars and eHarmony and speed dating. Women are empowered to act boldly and take their lives into their own hands, whether that means family or career or both. But there is something in that Austenian story device: love happened upon these women, and they chose to act. To follow or to say yes or to believe in truth. Sometimes they acted poorly, but they did act.

The sermon last week at church was about Joshua and his desperate plea to the Lord to have the sun stand still. He begged for more time, so that he could finish his battle and save his people. He didn't ask for more time so that he could sit back and wait for God to deliver him, eating bon-bons in his tent outside of Gibeon (wherever that is). He asked for more time so that he could continue to fight, continue doing his part. God did deliver him, with few giant hailstones that did more damage than Joshua and his men could do. That didn't mean they stopped, though.

These things relate somehow. It's an odd analogy, but here it is. We can pray for those things we want, truly desire - spouses, jobs, health. And even if we believe that this burning in our heart for something that we lack is from God, then pray for it, but with the knowledge that it doesn't mean he is just waiting for us to ask before he gives. Sometimes he waits for us to ask and DO.

So, pray and do. Start walking. Start fighting. Go to a ball or two. Meet that new neighbor with 10,000 a year. See what happens. Pray for the sun to stop, and keep fighting.

Image from www.pemberley.com

Harry Potter Guilt

I was huddled near my deluxe three-CD changer in was the corner of my room in the old white South Dakota farmhouse, the contraband in my hands. I had smuggled it in, zipped up inside my backpack. Somehow, I had not let on at the dinner table of my secret, behaving like the kind and dutiful daughter I had been for the last eleven years of my life. It all changed that fateful day. I was disobeying the wishes of my loving parents to do what I wanted.

What I wanted to do was read. But not just any book. I wanted to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. My classmates all raved about it in the way only ten- and eleven-year-olds can, and they didn’t even like reading. I couldn’t bear that there was a book that I had not read that was popular and … GOOD. At that point in my reading life, I was reading Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, anything challenging I could find in the school library. I had seen this Harry Potter book in the store, and I wanted to read it so badly.

But I couldn’t. I don’t remember the actual conversation, but I assume, from knowing my parents, that it went something like this: I mentioned that this new book was out, testing the waters. My mother asked what it was about. Quietly, I said magic. Then my mother likely said in that dismissive tone that hid a wide variety of emotions, “Eh, I don’t think so. You don’t need to be reading that.”

My father was a Baptist minister, my mother a teacher, and while they understood the draw of a good story, they heard – probably from Focus on the Family - of the magic and sorcery contained within these British books. The occult. Spells. Wands. They wanted to protect their daughter from evil. I could have told them about the social evils I was learning from my other books, but I wasn’t old enough to express it. Instead, I just obeyed.

The book showed up in my school library. We rarely got the new books, being a small country school. Somehow, it was there. And like the book possessed me, my hand closed on it and I brought it up to the librarian. I put it in my backpack. It was all done before I could resist.

So I found myself, up in my room, feeling the adrenaline of disobedience. I rarely disobeyed my parents in fear of their faces contorting in disappointment or disapproval. I couldn’t stand those faces, so I was good, timid, shy, and obedient. Then Harry Potter came into the picture, and just like James Dobson probably said, it corrupted me.

I had the book in my hand, my back to the door. My fingers opened it to the first page. I read the first chapter quickly and hungrily, about Privet Drive and a woman who turned into a cat and a big man on a motorcycle, always expecting my father to burst through the door and snatch the book away from me. As it never happened, I reached the end of chapter, a mere 17 pages. It was like tasting forbidden cake, except my parents could never see the evidence. The perfect crime….except for the guilt.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear disobeying and disappointing them. I had the utmost faith in their wisdom. They had never let me down before; they must know better. And though I was eager to begin the next chapter, I could not. I had done enough damage. I closed the book firmly, a heaviness in my heart. The book went back in the bag, back to the library. They never knew.


Months after that incident, we were on our yearly vacation in Florida. Our family was fairly poor, but lucky in that my grandparents had acquired a small villa in a resort in southern Florida back in the ‘70s. My parents took advantage of these free accommodations, wanting their children to see other parts of the country and escape the curse of being underprivileged and uncultured. They wanted us to know the ocean.

So, every summer in May after school got out, Mom and Dad packed up the Suburban and we drove 31 hours from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, down to Southern Florida. My parents would drive through the night while myself and my two younger siblings slept in the back seat. The villa and hot pavement welcomed us in the early afternoon, and we rushed down to the beach, jumping in the waves. We were lucky children, to know the ocean.

I had stayed away from the demonic books, ever since my one lapse in judgment. But somehow, the subject of Harry came up again that summer while we were in Florida. I don’t know if someone we knew had read them and said they were okay. Or did I risk exposing my secret to bring it up again? Was I that brave? How did it happen?

All I know is that somehow I asked, once again, if I could read the books. I rarely asked twice. To be told no once was punishment enough. But I asked again.

We were driving in the brown Suburban. I was behind the driver’s seat. A palm tree waved outside. It was warm; I was wearing shorts. The sun flickered through the palm branches, and all was green and light outside the window.

I remember all of this because my mother said that I could make my own decision.

My eyes were wide as I turned them to her face. I was certainly old enough to be making decisions, but I understood immediately the gravity of her statement, what it meant to them and to me. My parents were letting me grow up. They were admitting they did not know everything, but they were confident in how they raised me and the God-knowledge they had helped me to find. Mom and Dad trusted that I had enough love for them and for God that I would be able to discern good from evil in these books, to read them if I felt at peace and to stop if I felt unrest.

Because I knew what they were asking of me, I did not answer them straightaway. I thought about it, and decided, that yes, I would read the Harry Potter books. The first one anyway. I would see after that.
I never told them that I could skip the first chapter, because I had already read it. But this time, I opened that book with a clear conscience and a proud heart, because my parents trusted me. And I had not betrayed that trust…much.

Eventually, my siblings read the books, and then my father did also. They all agreed that the demonic influence was slight. While she never read them herself, my mother gave me money to buy the seventh and final book the day it was released, as that morning I left my college job to visit their home in Calgary. I bought the book in the airport and read. I saw the hunger I had experienced reading that first chapter ten years earlier, children all around me with their noses buried in the giant tome. I refrained from leaning across the aisle on the plane to ask the eleven-year-old what page he was on. We were all on the journey together.

Tears ran down my cheeks as I turned the final pages. Because to me, Harry Potter is not just a character in an interesting children’s series. He was the impetus to the owning of my spiritual life, to realizing that I could make my own decisions about what I put into my mind and that my parents trusted me to do so. Because of that, he holds a special place in my spiritual journey, one symbolizing redemption, trust, and good magic, the kind only a good story can give.

What I'm Reading - Austen (still), Holmes, and Dystopian novels

Here's the honest truth. I didn't read a stitch of anything until the last week or so of June. Somehow, I found other ways to fill my time. Mostly they were silly things involving a screen of some sort, but sometimes they involved live music, tap-dancing chimney sweeps, or tuxedo-wearing strawberries.

So I cheated a little bit in June. Hey. It's my own resolution/challenge - I can cheat as I see fit! My cheating involves an audiobook...of a book I read in May. Also, a short story. But I am confessing it to you now, so it's all fine.

Well, I made up for it in July. I read three books in a matter of five days. I was on vacation, okay? What else is a girl gonna do? Not sunbathe or shop or hike, that's for sure. Not when there are books to read. Anyway, here are my extended thoughts about a few of them; for my short one-sentence reviews, check the "What I'm Reading" tab.

Persuasion (Jane Austen) : I've decided. This is my favorite Austen novel. It edges out Northanger Abbey simply because I relate to Anne Eliot more than Catherine Moreland. Anne is a mature woman, one who believes she has accepted her lot in life: to care for her silly father and silly sisters with a kind and sensible hand. Of course, a man from her past - that she rejected due to some advice from a trusted mentor - changes all that. Anne takes responsibility for her actions, but she also has hope that those actions could be redeemed. She doesn't feel she deserves the man of her heart, but she never gives up hope, not until he is wed - to her or someone else. I admire her for that. Also, part of this book is set in Bath and I was there!

A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four (A. Conan Doyle) : Sherlock Holmes gets a bad rap. He's not really that terrible. Sure, he struggles socially, but not more so than any of the extremely focused people I've known in my life. He rejects social convention for the sake of his craft. He does not suffer fools, but he is not so unkind as the media makes him to be. Holmes smiles and laughs, and he has a genuine wit and a concern for those he cares about (which is Watson, and pretty much no one else). Brilliance is impressive to me, and so I adore Holmes. I could never love a man who was so prone to upheavals of temperament, but I forgive him his faults, for he is not real. As a side note, for fleshing out Holmes and Watson so well, Doyle relies on some pretty cliched characters as villians and sidekicks. I know it was a different time, but his portrayal of savages and Mormons? Less than politically correct. It makes me cringe and laugh all at the same time.

The Road (Cormac McCarthy) : This book almost broke me. I never wondered if I would finish it - I knew I must - but rather how much would I let it consume my emotions? I read the first part when I was in a vulnerable position emotionally, and I stopped reading right before the necessary shred of hope. So I was left in a place of utter despair along with the characters. But it got better in a few short pages. McCarthy's writing style is brilliant for the setting. His short sentences, his repetition serve as a pacing mechanism that reflects the burned-out, nuclear-ravaged landscape. I'd be interested in reading his other novels and plays to see how his style adapts to different settings. Ultimately, it is a story about love, a strong and sustaining love between a father and his son. They are never named, but they are everyone and no one and what could be but I pray never will. The world around them is horrifying and bleak, but their love colors their world, not so much that they can ignore their situation but so that they can bear it. I'll tell you this: it ends with hope. I won't tell you how or why or where it comes from, but there is hope.

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) : An excellent tale for any sort of adult, young or otherwise. Like The Road, it is a dystopian novel. North America is divided into districts that tried to rebel against the central government, and, after the rebellion is squashed, the children of the districts are forced to enter a lottery for the annual Hunger Games. Basically, it is a fight to the death. Katniss is our girl, and we follow her in her sacrifice, her fear, and her ability to survive by doing the unthinkable: creating emotional bonds with other contestants. It's just an entertaining and quick read, and you root for the heroine while trying to figure out how to root for the others too. Ultimately, we find we need each other. No one can go it alone - even if you're in a fight to the death.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larsson): Another trilogy that I started. I didn't love it, to be frank. I know the world has been raving about it since it was published in Sweden in 2004. Maybe that's part of it - the translation. Maybe the Swedish style isn't to my liking. But the flow of it is odd. The first chapters are excruciatingly boring. I almost gave up, until I realized it was the only thing I had left to read while I was in a cabin in Minnesota. The character exposition is stilted and rote, and there is far too much family history that is unnecessary. The characters are the most intriguing part, and they're enough that I think I'll give the second book a shot. Also, I don't like not finishing trilogies. But by golly, do as many Swedes have flings like Mikel does? I mean, that man has it made, sexually. I'm naive, but I find that a bit ridiculous. Anyway, interesting subject, not a bad mystery, just cut out the extraneous stuff (of which there is plenty) and some of the sex, and I'd put my seal of approval on it. But not 'til then.


So, the question is: what are YOU reading these days?

Traveling and Resting

Last weekend, I returned from my sixth trip since Christmas. In a matter of about six months, I have been:

--in 12 different airports (PDX, YYC, YVR, SAN, MKE, ORD, EWR, EDI, LHR, DEN, MSP, PHX)
--to 3 countries
--in 7 states and 2 provinces
--on 17 airplanes
--on 3 trains
--on 22 buses
--on 18 underground (Tube) trains

In January I wrote, "My 2011 is going to be about stepping out...this year is about being brave." And it has been, in so many different ways.

And to be truthful, I am tired.

I have learned how to say that final good-bye to someone I loved and who knew me once. I have learned how to say hello to people I want to love more. I have learned how to embrace a place I do not understand. I have learned to hold my head high and walk with confidence - even if I'm not sure where I'm going.

I have learned to travel with others. And I have nearly perfected traveling alone.

I am so thankful for a life, a family, a job, and a budget that allowed me to do all of this. Truly I have become more of myself throughout these journeys, and they have been quite the journeys. A book could be written on my life in 2011 thus far, and it is only July. Maybe I'll write that book.

I'm not stopping, just resting. I'm going to be staying for a little while. Not staying, like being stationary, not changing or growing. But staying as in waiting. Looking. Finding other ways to step out -- that do not require me stepping onto a plane. There is plenty I still have to learn about life and love, and I know God will use the rest of this year to teach it to me. But I think I'll do it here. In Oregon. For now.

God knows I have caught the travel bug. But rest is so necessary right now. I'm putting my passport to bed, my frequent flyer number away, and my suitcase in the closet. I am grateful, but I am tired.