Vast — and empty

Lauren Groff has been hailed as one of the most talented young American writers of our age. Last year I decided to check her out, so I read the novels Matrix and The Monsters of Templeton and a short-story collection titled Florida. Most recently I read her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds.

  As I half-expected after scanning a couple of reviews, I found reading it a harrowing experience. It took me several weeks to finish because I could take only a chapter or so at a time. It’s a visceral read about a young woman trying to survive in the wilderness under conditions that are, simply, not conducive to human survival.

  She is known throughout as “the girl,” though she has gone by several other demeaning names in her short life. Now in her late teens, she’s the assumed offspring of a prostitute, possibly mixed race, bound as a servant since the age of four to a family that treats her shabbily most of the time.

  From England she’s hauled off to the wilds of America and the doomed colony at Jamestown, where deprivation, starvation, disease, plague and worse are commonplace. One late winter night she decides she’s had enough, and she slips outside the palisade through a hole so small that only she could slip through.

  Then she runs – and runs and runs. She runs because she fears capture by some fiend sent from the fort to kill her. She runs because she fears the “savage” Powhatan natives who have turned against the arrogant white settlers destroying their land. She runs because she keeps encountering wolves and bears and other dangerous creatures. She runs because she thinks she may find shelter among the French who live somewhere in the north – how far can it be?

  She runs because running is the only way she thinks she can survive. Her only tools are a knife, a hatchet, a pewter cup, a flint – and a fierce determination to stay alive.

  Groff writes with a sensual, poetic, attention to detail and the joys of life in the wild. Squeamish readers may wish for less detail in her descriptions of the horrid things the girl endures, and has endured all her life.

  Mostly unschooled but observant and keenly intelligent, she also has a fine memory; she seems to have absorbed the best of what she’s heard from the pulpit over the years. As she makes her way through the endless forest or huddles against the cold at night, she engages in sophisticated speculation about the nature of God and the universe and comforts herself with memories of the few truly happy moments she’s been allowed to enjoy.

  A sort of epiphany slowly dawns upon her. As the loss of a star does not dim the splendor of constellations, so she would not be missed in this world of grand and indifferent beauty. Still, she had felt the goodness of the sun and the wind against her cheek. Perhaps that was enough.

  Perhaps. But in the end I found such unformed metaphysical speculation to be both vacuous and unsatisfying — and that’s by summation of the book itself.

  The Vaster Wilds is not a happy tale. It’s often grim and hard to take. If you’re up to it, it’s worth the trek. If you have any doubts, best skip it. 

God’s dream lives on

If he had lived, Martin Luther King Jr. would be 95 this year. He was assassinated, in 1968, at age 39. Today he is remembered (and therefore most conveniently ignored) as an American saint.

A few racists still vilify him, of course. May they rot in the personal hell they create for themselves and others around them.

If I were a better follower of Jesus, I might wish for their redemption. But deep down I do believe that some people may be beyond redemption. So although I do pray for my enemies, as Jesus instructed, I do not hold out much hope for them. And, I admit, I also do not do much to help redeem them.

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God planted a dream in King’s heart, and King followed it. Here are some signs that this dream is still alive.

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Roeland Park United Methodist Church was the church that “sponsored” me in ministry. I served as an assistant to Pastor Wally Proctor during seminary. My family and I were supported in every way by every church member along the way.

Alas, the church closed last June – too few members, too many expenses. It was a great smaller church while it lasted. But the Great Plains Annual Conference still sees some potential in the location and the building, and the conference hopes to maintain it for future uses.

Thanks to a push by Resurrection UMC, the building has become a day shelter during our recent cold spell. May this church continue to serve our Lord even after its official demise!

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Michele Norris is a respected longtime journalist who is now a columnist for The Washington Post. Since 2010 she has read thousands of responses to a post-card challenge she made back then:

“Race. Your thoughts. 6 words. Please send.”

In 13 years, her “Race Card Project” has collected 500,000 thoughts, many now in electronic form via a website: https://theracecardproject.com/michele-norris/

She says she finds the responses shocking in both their anger and in their grace. She tells more in a new book, Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity. Sounds like a tough but necessary read. I’m already on the library wait list.

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          Sometimes welcome but hard truth appears in the most unlikely places, such as a review of a TV series. The series is HBO’s anthology series “True Detective.” The reviewer is Nina Metz of the Chicago Tribune.

          Here is part of what she says. Wait for it.

There’s a compelling story buried in here, about the town’s indigenous Iñupiaq women, and how and why they operate on the margins. “True Detective” mostly keeps them on the edges of the story, as well. The finale suggests a more interesting story that could have been front and center.

          But then, “True Detective” isn’t designed to go against the grain. Over its four seasons, we watch as problems are caused (or ignored) by individual cops. But existing structures go unchallenged – the proverbial bad guy is always external, rather than baked into the system itself.

          Did you catch it? She’s talking about the “powers and principalities” that the Apostle Paul warned us about 2,000 years ago. These “bad buys” who are “baked into the system itself” happen to be the system itself.

They are far harder to root out that the individual racists we might encounter, such as those I mentioned earlier, who are so hard to love. If we despair of individuals being redeemed, what hope must we have for redemption of the system that creates and supports such twisted human beings?

Racists are not born, you know. They are created. They are groomed, to use a right-wing bogey-word. The system creates and grooms them. We must fight the system while loving them and working to redeem them.

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Finally, a cheerful note from Stephanie Bai, as associate editor at The Atlantic. This appears in a weekly kind of potpourri column in which an Atlantic writer talks about things that interest them. Bai writes:

I’ve been reading the Bible several times a week since I became a Christian at 19, which means I have read certain Psalms or Gospel stories dozens and dozens of times. And yet, I’m still struck by things I didn’t see on earlier readings.

Just last week, for example, was the Feast of Epiphany, which celebrates the story in Matthew 2 of the wise men coming from far away to visit Jesus. And reading the passage again, I noticed a connection I hadn’t made before: These foreigners worshipping Jesus were the first beneficiaries of the exhortation Jesus would later give his followers to “make disciples of all nations.” Jesus’s “Great Commission” was already being fulfilled when he was just a baby.

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          Great observation! Thanks for sharing it in a secular magazine!

          I noted at the beginning that Martin Luther King Jr. would be 95 this year. As was said of Lincoln, now he belongs to the ages. Now he is eternal, for he lives with Jesus Christ his Lord.

Here, kitty

A recent study discovered that, contrary to expectation, some cats like to play fetch. Well, duh.

          True, a lot of cats don’t like to play fetch. You toss something across the room, and they just look at you. You want it back? Go get it yourself.

          We once lived with a cat named Gretchen. She was part Siamese, one of the breeds the study says is most likely to enjoy playing fetch. Gretchen loved to play fetch – when she was in the mood. But only then.

          Same with dogs, by the way. If they’re not in the mood, they just look at you. If they want to play, they’re all in. Of course, they always want to play when you just want them to go away.

          Before she came to live with us, Gretchen lived in a house with other cats and a dog or two. She probably saw the dogs playing fetch and decided it could be fun. Another dog trait: She begged at the table for food. (House rule: “Never make eye contact with the cat at dinnertime.”)

          Of course, cats are well known for bringing you gifts, such as dead mice or baby rabbits. They bang at the door, you let them in, and they deposit their gift at your feet. You try to look appreciative as you look for a way to dispose of the gift, but it’s hard to feel appreciative about receiving a dead bunny (or one that’s still twitching).

          By the way, I don’t think you can teach a cat to play fetch. I don’t think you can teach a cat most anything. But cats are very observant, and if you model the behavior you want, and they decide it looks like fun, they’ll try it. Not right then. No, no. Only when you’re not looking.

          Why did it take a formal study to discover that some cats play fetch?

          Probably because an awful lot of people are ignorant about cat behavior, even science nerds who supposedly know a lot.

          Many people seem to think that cats are aloof, unloving and unappreciative of the people who care for them. These people have obviously never lived with a cat.

          Having lived with many cats over the years, I can testify that they can be delightful companions. They are affectionate, even caring. You can read to them, and they’ll listen. You can even preach to them (says the retired preacher), and they’ll listen. Who knows what they’re getting out of it? Who knows what anybody in the pews is getting out of what you’re preaching?

          True, cats can be dismissive and even haughty at times. (Hint: So can dogs.) Go away for a few days, and kitty may punish you by ignoring you for a time, or by leaving you a little “gift” outside the litter box. Our cats always knew when we were getting ready to leave for awhile, and they sulked until we left, or occupied they the suitcase until we booted them out.

They liked having us around. Leaving them lots of dry food was not good enough. They wanted us, no substitutes. They were OK living without food for awhile. But they craved relationship with their people.

          Obviously, I could tell you a bajillion cat stories. But I’ll spare you. Point is, cats are people, too. That is, cats have personalities. They’re not just a bundle of instincts wrapped in fur. Like dogs and many other animals, they’re intelligent enough to relate to you in a meaningful way.

          You might even say they have a soul. Actually, the Bible does say that. And that’s another story.

Hot off the press!

This is what nearly 50 copies of a new book look like — nearly 50 copies of my new book, to be precise.

I just got them from the publisher today. They’re for giving away to friends and family, and for showing off and selling (at a huge discount from the cover price) at a launch party.

I got them at an author’s 50% discount, meaning half of the $23 cover price, plus shipping (not unsubstantial). Hardback and Kindle editions may be forthcoming, but even I probably won’t order the pricey hardback.

On the Books page, you can find out how to order a copy from several outlets that I know are carrying it. There may be others, but these are the ones I am aware of.

It’s always exciting to hold a copy of a new book in your hands for the first time. This is what I worked so hard to achieve! Then you page through it, and periodically you think, “Well, that sentence was clunky. What was I thinking?”

The pride of authorship never wears off, though — even when you get a box of 50 copies delivered to your door.

When you see the books all piled up, you realize that your literary baby is now a commodity. It’s not unique at all. It’s something that will be bought and sold, like any other book. Some people will love it. Others will toss it across the room. You can’t control the reaction. You can only hope and pray that what you wrote will connect with the right people and in some small way change the world for the better. That’s why most writers write. It’s sure not for the money! It’s for the connection.

May your new year be as blessed as mine is so far.

Ugly wallpaper & more

We wrap up 2023 with a column of potpourri – a mini-rant about wallpaper and a shout-out to the designer of my new website.

 To begin:

 Some time ago, while I was looking at some old family photos, I was astonished by the ugliness of the wallpaper in the farmhouse of my dad’s parents.

 The pattern resembled large cabbages.

Large, ugly, cabbages.

While rehabbing the rooms of several old houses, my wife and I have stripped lots of wallpaper and paged through many books of replacement rolls, so I am aware that a lot of wallpaper is ugly. Apparently ugliness comes with the territory.

Not just passively ugly but aggressively ugly.

In-your-face ugly.

So, though I was astonished by the ugliness of the wallpaper in my grandparents’ farmhouse, I was certain that they did not have exceptionally bad taste in wallpaper.

They were simply following a fad of the times. They bought what they could get from Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward or wherever.

That impression was reinforced recently when a friend posted some old photos on Facebook – old photos of family members standing or reclining in rooms with seriously ugly wallpaper.

All those photos, too, were taken in the 1950s. Maybe that was the heyday of ugly wallpaper.

At least in this country.

N.T. “Tom” Wright, an eminent New Testament scholar, has been making educational videos for the last couple of years.

Some of these are recorded in what I assume is an Anglican church parlor, most likely in Oxford. Or maybe it’s a room in Tom’s home. Wherever it is, the room has several “Victorian” design elements, including an elaborate fireplace – and fiercely ugly wallpaper.

It’s hard to concentrate on what Tom is saying when in the background you can see – in one degree of focus or another, depending on how the shot is framed – wallpaper that shouts to the world “UGLY!”

OK, maybe in the UK it’s the height of fashion and considered lovely. Sorry, not to me.

I know this is not even near top of the list of world concerns. Still, I must utter a small prayer, “Lord, save us from ugly wallpaper.”

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From the ugly to the … words fail.

Several walls of rooms in the Aloft Hotels chain feature, uh, whimsical wallpaper.

There’s a repeating horizontal pattern of two images: one row of an abandoned gas station and one row of an empty strip mall.

Appearing randomly among them are such entertainingly out-of-place things as a drink-slurping dinosaur, a giraffe and flying saucers.

The quirky wallpaper is part of the hotels’ “different by design” theme. The design is relentlessly hip, a looney triumph of design over function and sense.

And there are no grab bars in the toilet area. How in the world do they get away with that? Apparently by saying it’s not a restroom designed for wheelchair users. Sheesh. Don’t even young hipsters need something to help them up?

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My new website comes from Anna Spencer, proprietor of Anna Spencer Creative Media & Design. She’s easy to work with, knowledgeable and affordable. I highly recommend her to you.

She even taught me how to use a new piece of software – no easy task, for sure.

Check her out at https://www.annaspencercreativemediadesign.com.

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Making resolutions for the new year? Here are a couple to try.

1.     Be kind to yourself.

2.     Be kind to others.

Doing those thing will help make your new year happy.