Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
-J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Monday, May 19, 2025
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The best guide I know to readerly judgment is our old friend Auden, who graciously summed up a lifetime of thinking about these matters in a single incisive sentence: "For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good, and, though at present I don't like it, I believe with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see this is trash and I don't like it."
-Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 133.
-Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 133.
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Reading with Hope
For if this particular book is not giving me pleasure now, it may give me pleasure later, if I allow it to do so. Maybe it's just starting slowly but will pick up speed; maybe I haven't fully grasped the idiom it's working in but eventually will figure it out; maybe the problem is not with the book but with my own powers of cocentration because I slept fitfully last night. Or maybe, for some reason I don't understand, today is not one of the High Holidays of my spirit.
- Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 42.
- Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 42.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Watching Part 2
The doctor had given him a few books to bring away with him, and lying in his hammock at night, he would try and shut out the den and stench of the lower cockpit and read. He did not take in very much, but every now and then some lovely phrase would shine up at him from the page, as though it were a pin prick in a dark curtain, letting in the light. When vile things happened outside himself, he now always managed to find something to pay attention to besides the vileness–the flash of fine anger in one man's eyes when another was flogged at the gangway, the sudden gleam of moonlight through a rent torn in the clouds by the frenzy of a storm...
-Elizabeth Goudge, Gentian Hill,206.
-Elizabeth Goudge, Gentian Hill,206.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Clown in the Belfy
In the year 1831, it seems, this church was repaired and several new additions were made. One of them was a new steeple with a bell in it, and once it was set in place and painted, apparently, an extraordinary event took place. "When the steeple was added," Howard Mudgett writes in his history, "one agile Lyman Woodard stood on his head in the belfry with his feet toward heaven."
...Let us never forget Lyman Woodard...silhouetted up there against the blue Rupert sky. Let us join him in the belfry with our feet toward Heaven like his because Heaven is where we are heading. That is our faith and what better image of faith could there be? It is a little crazy. It is a little risky. It sets many a level head wagging. And it is also our richest treasure and the source of our deepest joy and highest hope.
-Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry, 115-117.
...Let us never forget Lyman Woodard...silhouetted up there against the blue Rupert sky. Let us join him in the belfry with our feet toward Heaven like his because Heaven is where we are heading. That is our faith and what better image of faith could there be? It is a little crazy. It is a little risky. It sets many a level head wagging. And it is also our richest treasure and the source of our deepest joy and highest hope.
-Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry, 115-117.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Hope to the Last!
"Hope to the last!" said Newman, clapping him on the back. "Always hope; that's a dear boy. Never leave off hoping; it don't answer. Do you mind me, Nick? it don't answer. Don't leave a stone unturned. It's always something, to know you've done the most you could. But, don't leave off hoping, or it's of no use doing anything. Hope, hope, to the last!"
-Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
-Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A Quiet Chamber: Part IV
There, shedding a dim and varied light, was the Christmas tree my father had decorated alone, every single strand of tinsel hanging straight down of its own slim weight, since he hung them individually, patiently, and would not hasten the duty by tossing them in fistfuls (tradition!)—the tree he had hidden three days ago behind a knobless door.
There, in various places about the room, were seven piles of gifts, a pile for each of us.
There, in the midst of them, my mother sat smiling on the floor, her skirts encircling her, her own radiance smiting my eyes, for she verged on laughter. My mother always laughed when she gave presents, however long the day had been before, however crazy she had almost gone. I began to blink rapidly.
But there, unaccountably, was my father, standing center in the room and gazing straight at me. At me. And this is the wonder fixed in my memory: that the man himself was filled with a yearning, painful expectation; but that he, like me, was withholding still his own excitement—on account of me.
Everything else in this room was just as it had been the year before, and the year before that. But this was new. This thing I had never seen before: that my father, too, had passed his day in the hope that risks a violent hurt. My father, too, had had to trust the promises against their disappointments. So said his steady eyes on me. But among the promises to which my father had committed his soul, his hope and his faith, the most important one was this: that his eldest son should soften and be glad.
If I had grown adult in 1954, then lo, how like a child my father had become! The colored lights painted the side of his face. He gazed at me, waiting, waiting for me, waiting for his Christmas to be received by his son and returned to him again.
And I began to cry. O my father!
Silently, merely spilling the tears and staring straight back at him, defenseless because there was no need for defenses, I cried—glad and unashamed. Because what was this room, for so long locked, which I was entering? Why, it was my own heart. And why had I been afraid? Because I thought I’d find it empty, a hard, unfeeling thing.
But there, in the room, was my father.
And there, in my father, was the love that had furnished this room, preparing it for us no differently than he had last year prepared it, yet trusting and yearning, desiring our joy.
And what else could such a love be, but my Jesus drawing near?
Look, then, what I have found in my father’s room, in my heart after all: the dearest Lord Jesus, holy child—
The nativity of our Lord.
I leaned my cheek against the doorjamb and grinned like a grown-up ten years old, and sobbed as if I were two. And my father moved from the middle of the room and walked toward me, still empty-handed; but he spread his hands and gathered me to himself. And I put my arms around his harder body. And so we, both of us, were full.
This is the way that it was in the olden days.
-Walter Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 64-66.
There, in various places about the room, were seven piles of gifts, a pile for each of us.
There, in the midst of them, my mother sat smiling on the floor, her skirts encircling her, her own radiance smiting my eyes, for she verged on laughter. My mother always laughed when she gave presents, however long the day had been before, however crazy she had almost gone. I began to blink rapidly.
But there, unaccountably, was my father, standing center in the room and gazing straight at me. At me. And this is the wonder fixed in my memory: that the man himself was filled with a yearning, painful expectation; but that he, like me, was withholding still his own excitement—on account of me.
Everything else in this room was just as it had been the year before, and the year before that. But this was new. This thing I had never seen before: that my father, too, had passed his day in the hope that risks a violent hurt. My father, too, had had to trust the promises against their disappointments. So said his steady eyes on me. But among the promises to which my father had committed his soul, his hope and his faith, the most important one was this: that his eldest son should soften and be glad.
If I had grown adult in 1954, then lo, how like a child my father had become! The colored lights painted the side of his face. He gazed at me, waiting, waiting for me, waiting for his Christmas to be received by his son and returned to him again.
And I began to cry. O my father!
Silently, merely spilling the tears and staring straight back at him, defenseless because there was no need for defenses, I cried—glad and unashamed. Because what was this room, for so long locked, which I was entering? Why, it was my own heart. And why had I been afraid? Because I thought I’d find it empty, a hard, unfeeling thing.
But there, in the room, was my father.
And there, in my father, was the love that had furnished this room, preparing it for us no differently than he had last year prepared it, yet trusting and yearning, desiring our joy.
And what else could such a love be, but my Jesus drawing near?
Look, then, what I have found in my father’s room, in my heart after all: the dearest Lord Jesus, holy child—
The nativity of our Lord.
I leaned my cheek against the doorjamb and grinned like a grown-up ten years old, and sobbed as if I were two. And my father moved from the middle of the room and walked toward me, still empty-handed; but he spread his hands and gathered me to himself. And I put my arms around his harder body. And so we, both of us, were full.
This is the way that it was in the olden days.
-Walter Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 64-66.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
A Quiet Chamber: Part III
...It was tradition, upon returning home, that we change our church clothes into pajamas, and gather in the kitchen.
Across the hall the door was still closed—but its knob had been replaced. I saw that knob, and my heart kicked inside of me. So I chewed my bottom lip and frowned like thunder: No! It won’t be what it ought to be! It never is.
Adult.
And always, always the hoops of my father’s tradition: we lined up in the kitchen from the youngest to the oldest. I stood last in a line of seven. My littlest sister was clasping her hands and raising her shining, saintly face to my father, who stood before her facing us. Her hair hung down her back to the waist. Blithe child! Her blue eyes burst with trust. I pitied her.
My father prayed a prayer, tormenting me. For the prayer evoked the very images I was refusing: infant Jesus, gift of God, love come down from heaven—all of the things that conspired to make me glad at Christmas. My poor heart bucked and disputed that prayer. No! I would not hope. No! I would not permit excitement. No! No! I would not be set up for a second disappointment.
We were a single minute from entering the room.
And I might have succeeded at severity—
—except that then we sang a song, the same song we always sung, and the singing undid me altogether. Music destroys me. A hymn will reduce me to infancy.
Nine bare voices, unaccompanied in the kitchen, we sang: Ah, dearest Jesus, hold child—and I began to tremble.—Make thee a bed, soft, undefiled—The very sweetness of the melody caused my defenses to fall: I began to hope, and I began to fear, both at once. I began to wish, and wishing made me terrified. I began all over again to believe, but I had never ceased my unbelief. I began to panic.—Within my heart; that it may be—Dreadfully now, I yearned for some good thing to be found in that room, but “dreadfully,” I say, because I was an adult; I’d put away the childish things; I’d been disillusioned and knew no good to be in there. This was a pitiless sham!
—A quiet chamber kept for thee.
My father whispered, “Now.”
He turned to the door.
Little squeals escaped my sister.
He grasped the knob and opened the door upon a muted colored light; and one by one his children crept through the door and into that room.
All of his children save one. I lingered in the doorway, looking, not breathing.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 63-64.
Across the hall the door was still closed—but its knob had been replaced. I saw that knob, and my heart kicked inside of me. So I chewed my bottom lip and frowned like thunder: No! It won’t be what it ought to be! It never is.
Adult.
And always, always the hoops of my father’s tradition: we lined up in the kitchen from the youngest to the oldest. I stood last in a line of seven. My littlest sister was clasping her hands and raising her shining, saintly face to my father, who stood before her facing us. Her hair hung down her back to the waist. Blithe child! Her blue eyes burst with trust. I pitied her.
My father prayed a prayer, tormenting me. For the prayer evoked the very images I was refusing: infant Jesus, gift of God, love come down from heaven—all of the things that conspired to make me glad at Christmas. My poor heart bucked and disputed that prayer. No! I would not hope. No! I would not permit excitement. No! No! I would not be set up for a second disappointment.
We were a single minute from entering the room.
And I might have succeeded at severity—
—except that then we sang a song, the same song we always sung, and the singing undid me altogether. Music destroys me. A hymn will reduce me to infancy.
Nine bare voices, unaccompanied in the kitchen, we sang: Ah, dearest Jesus, hold child—and I began to tremble.—Make thee a bed, soft, undefiled—The very sweetness of the melody caused my defenses to fall: I began to hope, and I began to fear, both at once. I began to wish, and wishing made me terrified. I began all over again to believe, but I had never ceased my unbelief. I began to panic.—Within my heart; that it may be—Dreadfully now, I yearned for some good thing to be found in that room, but “dreadfully,” I say, because I was an adult; I’d put away the childish things; I’d been disillusioned and knew no good to be in there. This was a pitiless sham!
—A quiet chamber kept for thee.
My father whispered, “Now.”
He turned to the door.
Little squeals escaped my sister.
He grasped the knob and opened the door upon a muted colored light; and one by one his children crept through the door and into that room.
All of his children save one. I lingered in the doorway, looking, not breathing.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 63-64.
Friday, December 14, 2007
A Quiet Chamber: Part II
Let me be more specific. We were living in Edmonton, Alberta, then. The year was 1954, and I was ten, the oldest of seven children. I’ve implied that we were all excited on that particular Christmas Eve morning, and so we were; but though my brothers and sisters could manifest their excitement with unbridled delight, I could not mine. I absolutely refused to acknowledge or signal excitement. They loved the sweet contractions in their stomachs. I was afraid of them. For I had that very year become an adult: silent, solemn, watchful, and infinitely cautious.
So my brothers and sisters laughed and clapped the day away. They spilled colored sugar on cookie dough and covered the kitchen table with a sweet mess, all unworried, unafraid. They claimed, by faster stabs of the finger, their individual treasures from Sears catalogs, and so they allowed their dreams to soar, and so they passed the day. I didn’t blame them. They were innocent; they could dare the dangers they didn’t see. These children could rush headlong toward the evening, recklessly. But I could not.
I held myself in a severe restraint. Because—what if you hope, and it doesn’t happen? It’s treacherous to hope. The harder you hope, the more vulnerable you become. And what if you believe a thing, but it isn’t true? Well, the instant you see the deception, you die a little. And it hurts exactly in your soul, where once you had believed. I knew all this. I had learned that excitement is composed of hope and faith together—but of faith and hope in promises yet unkept—and I was not about to let excitement run away with me, or I would certainly crash as I had crashed the year before.
Last Christmas Eve, in the midst of opening his presents, my brother Paul had burst into tears. I didn’t know—and I don’t know—why. But I was shocked to discover that the Christmas time was not inviolate. I was horrified that pain could invade the holy ceremony. And I was angry that my father had not protected my brother from tears. There was a fraud here. The traditions were as thin as a crystal globe and empty. I could do nothing but sob in sympathy with my brother, nothing but grieve to the same degree that I had believed.
But by ten I was an adult; and if Christmas gave me nothing really, and if the traditions could not protect me from assault, then I would protect myself.
No: the more excited I was, the more I was determined not to be, and the more I molded my face into a frown.
I’m speaking with precision now. None of us could stand the season’s excitement. But I was frightened by mine and chose to show it to no one, not to my father, not to my mother, and not to myself.
Adult.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 59-60.
So my brothers and sisters laughed and clapped the day away. They spilled colored sugar on cookie dough and covered the kitchen table with a sweet mess, all unworried, unafraid. They claimed, by faster stabs of the finger, their individual treasures from Sears catalogs, and so they allowed their dreams to soar, and so they passed the day. I didn’t blame them. They were innocent; they could dare the dangers they didn’t see. These children could rush headlong toward the evening, recklessly. But I could not.
I held myself in a severe restraint. Because—what if you hope, and it doesn’t happen? It’s treacherous to hope. The harder you hope, the more vulnerable you become. And what if you believe a thing, but it isn’t true? Well, the instant you see the deception, you die a little. And it hurts exactly in your soul, where once you had believed. I knew all this. I had learned that excitement is composed of hope and faith together—but of faith and hope in promises yet unkept—and I was not about to let excitement run away with me, or I would certainly crash as I had crashed the year before.
Last Christmas Eve, in the midst of opening his presents, my brother Paul had burst into tears. I didn’t know—and I don’t know—why. But I was shocked to discover that the Christmas time was not inviolate. I was horrified that pain could invade the holy ceremony. And I was angry that my father had not protected my brother from tears. There was a fraud here. The traditions were as thin as a crystal globe and empty. I could do nothing but sob in sympathy with my brother, nothing but grieve to the same degree that I had believed.
But by ten I was an adult; and if Christmas gave me nothing really, and if the traditions could not protect me from assault, then I would protect myself.
No: the more excited I was, the more I was determined not to be, and the more I molded my face into a frown.
I’m speaking with precision now. None of us could stand the season’s excitement. But I was frightened by mine and chose to show it to no one, not to my father, not to my mother, and not to myself.
Adult.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 59-60.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A Quiet Chamber: Part I
...But this is the way it was especially on Christmas Eve day:
We spent the major portion of the morning at that upstairs window, giggling, whispering, and waiting for the milkman to come. Tradition. My mother was glad to be shed of us on the day she “ran crazy” with preparations. I think we knew that then. But for our own part, we did truly want to see some evidence of how cold it was outside. It was important that Christmas Eve be cold. And it was the milkman’s mare, you see, who presented us with evidence.
So here came the mare in a slow walk, nodding, drawing the wagon behind her even when her master was rushing up sidewalks, making deliveries. She never stopped. And the mare was blowing plumes of steam from her nostrils. Her chin has grown a beard of hoarfrost. Her back was blanketed. The blanket smoked. The air was cold. The air was very cold, and our stomachs contracted with joy within us, and some of us laughed at the rightness of the weather. So here came the mare, treading a hardened snow. The snow banked six feet high on either side of the street, except at sidewalks and driveways; the snow was castles we would be kings of tomorrow. The snow collected on the mare, whose forelock and eyelashes were white. She shivered the flesh on her flanks, sending off small showers of snow; and so did we—shiver. Ah, cold! The air was a crystal bowl of cold! The day was perfectly right.
And we could scarcely stand the excitement.
Downstairs, directly below us in the house, was a room that had been locked two days ago against our entering in. This was my father’s tradition, which he never varied year to year. Always, he locked the door by removing its knob, transfiguring thereby the very spirit of the room; all we could do was spy at the knob-hole and wonder at the mysteries concealed inside. My brothers and sisters pestered that hole continually, chirping among themselves like snowbirds on a holly tree, puffing their imaginations like feathers all around them.
Tonight, on Christmas Eve itself, we would all line up, and my father would slip the knob back into the door, and one by one we would enter the wondrous room. This much we knew: the Christmas tree was in there.
Therefore, even in the morning at the upstairs window, we could scarcely stand the excitement.
Tonight! And lo: it was very, very cold.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 57-59.
We spent the major portion of the morning at that upstairs window, giggling, whispering, and waiting for the milkman to come. Tradition. My mother was glad to be shed of us on the day she “ran crazy” with preparations. I think we knew that then. But for our own part, we did truly want to see some evidence of how cold it was outside. It was important that Christmas Eve be cold. And it was the milkman’s mare, you see, who presented us with evidence.
So here came the mare in a slow walk, nodding, drawing the wagon behind her even when her master was rushing up sidewalks, making deliveries. She never stopped. And the mare was blowing plumes of steam from her nostrils. Her chin has grown a beard of hoarfrost. Her back was blanketed. The blanket smoked. The air was cold. The air was very cold, and our stomachs contracted with joy within us, and some of us laughed at the rightness of the weather. So here came the mare, treading a hardened snow. The snow banked six feet high on either side of the street, except at sidewalks and driveways; the snow was castles we would be kings of tomorrow. The snow collected on the mare, whose forelock and eyelashes were white. She shivered the flesh on her flanks, sending off small showers of snow; and so did we—shiver. Ah, cold! The air was a crystal bowl of cold! The day was perfectly right.
And we could scarcely stand the excitement.
Downstairs, directly below us in the house, was a room that had been locked two days ago against our entering in. This was my father’s tradition, which he never varied year to year. Always, he locked the door by removing its knob, transfiguring thereby the very spirit of the room; all we could do was spy at the knob-hole and wonder at the mysteries concealed inside. My brothers and sisters pestered that hole continually, chirping among themselves like snowbirds on a holly tree, puffing their imaginations like feathers all around them.
Tonight, on Christmas Eve itself, we would all line up, and my father would slip the knob back into the door, and one by one we would enter the wondrous room. This much we knew: the Christmas tree was in there.
Therefore, even in the morning at the upstairs window, we could scarcely stand the excitement.
Tonight! And lo: it was very, very cold.
-Walt Wangerin, The Manger is Empty, 57-59.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
What is it you do, Mr. Dowd?
Well Harvey and I sit in the bars, and have a drink or two, play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people, they turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fella.”
Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers. Soon we have friends. And they come over and they sit with us, and they drink with us, and they talk to us. They tell about the big, terrible things they’ve done, and the wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar.
And then, I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed.
The same people seldom come back. But that’s envy my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad, isn’t it.
-Mary Chase, Harvey
Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers. Soon we have friends. And they come over and they sit with us, and they drink with us, and they talk to us. They tell about the big, terrible things they’ve done, and the wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar.
And then, I introduce them to Harvey. And he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed.
The same people seldom come back. But that’s envy my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us. That’s too bad, isn’t it.
-Mary Chase, Harvey
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